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RacVacyne - Renewable Ammonia Corridor Value Cycling Network Engine
Possible Personal Patron for Carbon Free NH3
Now that I'm in Northeast Indiana... Adam Welch, Planner with Homeland Security, Recommended that I Document Support in the Area
We, the undersigned, believe that the possible future benefits of a local and regional ammonia economy in northeast Indiana deserve to be researched, examined, analyzed, and possibly implemented.
Possible benefits include the following: Energy, Food, and Water Security
Carbon-free, clean burning ammonia fuel for internal combustion engines for light and heavy duty transportation, and possibly for trains, planes, ships, and other engines and turbines
“Hydrogen” storage for fuel cells – either hydrogen or direct ammonia fuel cells
Energy storage, transmission, and distribution for electricity at the utilities and grid scale – either from “stranded” renewable electrical energy or traditional electricity
Energy storage can facilitate local smart microgrids; storage scalable to the large and the small
Combining renewable ammonia fuel and renewable ammonia electricity storage plus smart microgrids could set the foundations for model smart, sustainable cities
Renewable, domestic, reliable, secure, cost competitive and price stable fertilizer supply
Low-grade warm or hot water that could be utilized in greenhouses for specialized agriculture
The same low-grade hot water could help facilitate water desalination in coastal cities
Seeking Partners for Possible Research Project: Ammonia Fuel Infrastructure Network Growth and Development
As such, a contact at the IPFW (Indiana University/Purdue University, Fort Wayne) Information Analytics and Visualization Center expressed interest in my assembling a research proposal for applying network growth and development knowledge to being able to model where ammonia fuel/energy carrier infrastructure commercialization opportunities may emerge with greatest ease on top of and from older infrastructure networks. This could greatly increase the efficiency of future ammonia technology commercialization. But I am seeking additional partners. Would anyone like to help? If you would, please contact me by early January, as we are planning a meeting for early January to discuss this research project.
If interested in this project, please contact me soon through the “Contact” option at my “Model Sustainable Cities” website at http://modelsustainablecities.weebly.com Thank you.
Regards,
Daniel Miller
My Expanding Lexicon
Renewable Ammonia Corridor Picture - Google Earth
Exciting Times in Ammonia
These are exciting times in which we live. And it's fun to have an economic idea to share about progressing toward greater profits and greater sustainability. But for all the new buzz that can be found emerging in the renewable ammonia and liquid ammonia world, I'm left a bit puzzled. I mean, here I've been with a shoestring budget connecting a few dots in a profitable new venture, and yet I'm left wondering why there's not been faster movement toward the new and the profitable. I mean, the Department of Defense has known about ammonia fuel for years, decades. Perhaps a few new technologies are coming online that make more financial sense and ease the economics of the proposition. But energy is so plentiful and ammonia so easy to make... I'm just left with limited information, an active imagination, and a lot of hope for the future. Oh well, I suppose. It'll still be a fun ride as this story plays out over the next few years.
Renewable Ammonia Corridor - A Summary
RacVacye summary: The last post was a lot through which to wade to get to the main points. So, I should describe what a Renewable Ammonia Corridor Value Cycling Engine is in language that is easier to understand. This corridor is a particular geographical diagonal in the Midwest of the USA wherein there could be layered-together a variety of renewable energy technologies. Layering these together could help produce synergy and new emergent properties that could be studied. Imaginative entrepreneurial study would reveal the business opportunities afforded from the layering of technology.
I believe that several renewable energy infrastructure components have already been proposed or suggested for the geographical diagonal that I identify. The diagonal stripe for envisioning RDD&D projects and test markets along this corridor would run from the stranded wind energy corridor in the Dakotas, diagonally across NW, Central, and SE Iowa, and into West-Central Illinois. This diagonal is suggested by Bill Leighty's Iowa positioning of the IRHTDF, the "International Renewable Hydrogen Transmission Demonstration Facility" and also by the southernmost diagonal of ITC Holdings's "Green Power Express" network of high voltage transmission lines. I suggest that there also exist a number of cities and communities both smaller and larger in which there could be installed smart microgrids. These smart microgrids, or even the promise of the future of a smart microgrid in each community, could encourage investment in and development of new business forms for energy management services.
Interestingly, two of the communities along this corridor are Orange City and Pella, Iowa. There is also a Pella Window factory in Macomb, IL - a third city along the corridor. I suggest that the sociological and business connections to the founding parties and the communities of the Amway corporation might help to facilitate a kind of energy service model that might be called "Amway Energy." The idea is that the smart microgrids would allow for a community/city--household, a "household" of sorts. Amway teaches how to cycle dollar value and substance content of consumable products within family households. Similarly, new energy management service business forms could similarly teach, encourage, and develop the practice of cycling the dollar value and substance content of our hydrogen/ammonia energy carriers within our own community/city--households.
In summary, I have above described the primary components for developing test markets for renewable ammonia in this corridor and the microgrid/energy magagement service synergy that would make for the "value cycling engine" part. Together, this machine of geographical size that could create new test markets is what I've been calling a "Renewable Ammonia Corridor Value Cycling Engine."
Renewable Ammonia Corridor Value Cycling Engine
Acronym Test: RacVacye
OK, so... my studies have snowballed into the idea that is described in the title of this paragraph. Please see this link for the below text of my comments under username "MachWing." (Note: I might clean up this paragraph later. Just trying to get the information pasted here for now.)
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Holland Sentinel
Our view - It’s entrepreneurs who hold key to economy
The Holland Sentinel Posted Nov 18, 2009 @ 08:40 PM Holland, MI — A century ago, Michigan was at the center of American entrepreneurship. Long before their names were attached to major corporations, Ford and Dow and Kellogg were start-up operators, taking a gamble and founding companies that pioneered new and growing industries. In the early 20th century, it wasn’t just the Big Three making cars in Michigan. Dozens of companies rose and fell manufacturing automobiles, each founder dreaming of success and each contributing his own innovations to the industry. Later in the century, a different set of entrepreneurs made their mark in West Michigan, men named De Pree, Haworth and Prince, putting their own fortunes on the line to build successful and enduring companies.
Somewhere along the line, the entrepreneurial fires cooled in Michigan. We became more risk-averse, maybe because our large companies had become so successful. After all, taking a job with a big manufacturer was a good bet — you could earn a good living and expect to stay with the company until retirement.
That old model obviously doesn’t work anymore. The big employers that once sustained Michigan have shed jobs by the hundreds of thousands. Hitching your career to any employer is increasingly risky now, yet even some of Michigan’s best and brightest are reluctant to set out on their own. And that cultural aversion to risk may be one factor holding back Michigan’s economic recovery.
This is Global Entrepreneurship Week, a good time to reflect on the contributions and challenges of entrepreneurs. The common wisdom is that small businesses account for nearly all net new job creation in the United States, and that’s correct. What’s less commonly known, as The Wall Street Journal reported recently, is that the bulk of those new jobs are formed by companies less than five years old — start-up firms in their rapid ramp-up phase.
Start-ups may create the most jobs and carry the greatest opportunities, but our cultural attitudes in Michigan and the Midwest don’t exactly encourage risk-taking. In states like California, starting and failing in a new business is so broadly accepted, it’s almost a badge of honor. Here, people who fail are too often considered, well, failures, foolhardy souls who were too full of self-confidence. The popular idea of economic development is luring a big company to locate a plant in our town, even though out-of-town corporations are more likely to move jobs elsewhere than home-grown entrepreneurs.
Attitudes are slowly changing. Double-digit unemployment is leading many workers who’ve been laid off or received buyouts to form their own companies. Our local economic development agency, Lakeshore Advantage, offers “incubator” space to new businesses and its own “seed fund.” The state of Michigan offers young companies support through its 21st Century Jobs Fund and InvestMichigan!, a fund capitalized by the state employee pension system. More Michigan-based venture capital funds are forming, but the dollars available locally are just a fraction of what’s being invested on the east and west coasts.
State and local governments can play a role in encouraging entrepreneurs by developing tax policies that encourage job creation, considering start-ups as well as established companies in their economic development plans and ensuring that local codes don’t thwart entrepreneurs working out of their homes. The biggest change Michigan needs is not in policy but in mindset. We have to learn to accept failure as part of the growth process. We need a shared recognition from line workers looking for a job to wealthy citizens with money to invest that our future depends on entrepreneurs, and that their risk-taking should be encouraged, not marginalized. Ninety percent of start-ups may fail, and nine of the 10 survivors may never grow past the “mom and pop” or “niche market” stage, but that last one could be the next Herman Miller or Gentex.
We don’t know what prototype product may be in the works in a garage somewhere in Holland, or what technological breakthrough is being cooked up on a computer in a spare bedroom somewhere in town. We as a community have to be as open and supportive to the innovators among us as to the familiar companies we’ve known for decades.
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MachWing2 weeks agoReport AbuseFree Business Plan for Holland/Western Michigan: Apply the Amway business model and pedagogy to the installation of distributed energy generation and consumption technologies. They've taught us to cycle the dollar value and the substance content of our consumable products within our own pocketbooks and households. Now, cycle the dollar value and substance content of our energy carriers (hydrogen/ammonia/electricity/hydricity) within our own communities using locally-sourced supplies. If this is confusing -- ask the people at Hope College. There are more synergistic parts to this business plan that can also connect RCA and CRC communities more generally, too. Now, if this is a good idea, somebody run with it, and let's have a little fun, OK?
torpid2 weeks agoReport AbuseMachWing, that's a great idea, but alternative energy is a liberal concept, so no matter how hard you try, conservatives won't accept it. Especially if it involves paying for something.
tbtr62 weeks agoReport Abusealternative energy in many cases is a farce...like ethanol from corn...sugar cane viable ...corn is no but we throw billions of tax payer dollars at it, subsidize it and it and it is inefficient, corrosive and is not economical. I would like to know what solar panels do for the so call global warming...now termed climate change a Liberal Concept... are you telling me reflecting heat into the atmosphere is good? Anwhat are the PETA peopl going to say when there animals are impacted by windmills...the noise ...vibrations...flingin ice chnks in the winter, birds flying into the blades?
Anyway if you want business and entrepreneurs in Michigan get rid of the taxes!
NDU19782 weeks agoReport AbuseWhat is the most adundant resource Michigan has.....WATER. Michigan needs to lead the country in hydro technology, desalinization, etc. With water becoming scarce in some parts of this country and world, this could be an emerging growth engine for Michigan.
larrylake2 weeks agoReport AbuseOne major hurdle to starting a small business is the risk. Once upon a time people were willing to take that risk because of potential rewards. (work hard, long hours and reap results). In today's political arean where sucess is demononized as greed, takes the incentive away.
Small business' are the backbone of American and create the lion's share of jobs. Why is this group penalized by Federal and State governments, burdened with regulations and made to be the scapegoat of government problems. Michigan is a pennisular state blocking exodus on three sides. The only way to prevent the flight of business and population from here is to build a wall along the Indiana border.
There is a 'message to employees' story cirulating about a business called Carrington Enerprizes. It has been ridiculed by those who oppose the message as being a fake company. Getting past the fact it might be a fake name, the story holds perfectly true. It is about a businessman who has taken risks, suffered many bleak years and worked hard to be sucessfull. As the story goes, he brings all employees to a meeting and shares his tax return.
He tells his employees that while his 'income' may look significant, most of that money goes back into the business to help it grow and be sucessfull. He also says that the income level places him squarely in the target of the administration as being 'rich' and expected to pay more taxes.
With the very real prospect of more taxes, his employees, that 'stuff' does indeed flow down hill. If the business profits are to be taxed further it will come not out of his pocket but the pockets of employees who will not get raises, bonuses nor will he invest in expansion to create more jobs. Perhaps this way his employees will indeed learn that elections have consequences.
NDU19782 weeks agoReport AbuseWell said, LarryLake....we cannot handcuff the small business owner.
MachWing2 weeks agoReport AbuseCan anybody write me an algorithym to track and monitor the spread of this new value-collecting cultural meme that is beginning to cascade through your networks?
Terry F Madden2 weeks agoReport AbuseI think the idea that government is the main inhibitor to innovation is way to simplistic and panders to the worst fears in our country right now. How about this for a solution? Lets start actually making things in ths country again. What are we supposed to innovate when we have allowed our manufacturing to shrivel up and die? We have become a service based economy and innovation isn't high on the priority list. I would also put out the idea that innovation is alive and well in the financial arena. The problem is innovation may not be a good thing in that segment of the economy. Some of the financial vehicles being sold are amazingly innovative and complex (WAY over my head). I am not sure they help anyone but they are innovative.
MachWing2 weeks agoReport AbuseEureka! I believe I may have 'struck oil' or 'hit pay dirt' by discovering a component piece to some social software that will help us ease and accelerate the transition toward renewable ammonia for agriculture and for energy/transportation infrastructure. Now... about marketing this... what's next?
MachWing2 weeks agoReport AbuseHere's what I need for a renewable ammonia corridor connecting the RCA/CRC cities of Orange City and Pella, Iowa and into Fairfield, Iowa and Macomb, IL. I need the southernmost diagonal of ITC Holdings's 'Green Power Express' to map the flow of the green energy. I need the Iowa positioning of the IRHTDF - The International Renewable Hydrogen Transmission Demonstration Facility - extending as a synergizing corridor of hydrogen/ammonia technologies. I need a smart microgrid in each of Orange City, Pella, and Fairfield, Iowa, and in Macomb, IL. And I need the value-cycling business pattern of Amway to form communities of business partners who can encourage each other on to better performance for the benefit of the whole value-cycling-organization. These methods will be facilitated by the business opportunities afforded from the smart microgrids. There will be a letter in next week's Anchor from Hope College, too. But if I can 'burn' some excellerant along this string of cities using the dynamics of this social-software-like value-collecting cultural meme, then there might be more value created more quickly than just from me trying to sell this idea by myself. They know me over at Hope College - so, if you're curious where this is coming from, please inquire there. This project would require more coordination that I can manage by myself.
Announcement: Sustainable City Conference Call
January 2009
Whereas I admit that I have not updated this website very frequently, I have been networking with possibly interested parties who would like to help evaluate the feasibility Macomb, IL as a model sustainable city. We are putting together a conference call for sometime in January. Details will be forthcoming. For another announcement location at the Macomb Journal message board, click here and select the thread entitled "Sustainable City Conference Call".
Update:
I'll take it as a sign of progress that interested or curious parties desire to have a meeting with high quality content and communication. This would require more preparation than would be possible by January and more preparation than would a meet and greet type of round table discussion. So, there will be no meeting here in January. We may yet see what develops in the future.
International Renewable Hydrogen Transmission Demonstration Facility and Smart Grid Sustainable City - Macomb, IL
Here is a preliminary schematic of the overall system that the interested parties are hoping to discuss. We're still working on finalizing the details of the netmeeting. It does look better to have a netmeeting than a conference call.
Welcome
Welcome to Model Sustainable Cities. I hope that this site will become a meeting point, a networking hub for people interested in developing model sustainable cities. Topics will include but not be limited to sustainability, city planning, the hydrogen economy, and renewable resources such as wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal energies.
Macomb, Illinois: An Ideal Location to Develop a Model Sustainable City
Below is a map showing the location of Macomb, IL. You may zoom using the + and - signs in the upper left corner. Below that is the text of a letter to the editor that I published in Macomb, Illinois's local newspapers: the Macomb Eagle and the Macomb Journal. It describes characteristics of Macomb that I believe make it an ideal place to develop a model hydrogen economy, a model sustainable city.
Macomb's economic potential
November 2007
To the Editor:
A few months ago, William Bailey, chairman of the department of agriculture at Western, wrote in a local column about Beardstown’s economic potential. I believe that a similar line of reasoning could display more of Macomb’s economic potential. The following quote can be found online at the Illinois Farm Bureau’s FarmWeek archive of “Perspective” columns. See July 25, 2007 “Perspective -- Ports of Beardstown, Los Angeles, Singapore share traits”
It is a bit more of a stretch to think of Beardstown as an international port through which containers of agricultural products could move to anyplace in the world.
But that is certainly possible and is well within the grasp of a number of businesses who are attempting to make Beardstown into an international port.
Now, I propose that Macomb would be an ideal location to develop a model sustainable city. Perhaps this is also a stretch. But let me build the beginnings of my case.
What does such a city look like? Let me briefly describe a few techniques that could be integrated into a sustainable city. Buildings could be built or retrofitted to become hyper-efficient, using energy from their surroundings for heating and cooling and sometimes even lighting and electricity. Buildings so designed often return energy to the electrical grid. Hydrogen could serve as the premier energy carrier. It could be used as a fuel for transportation in fuel cells or hydrogen internal combustion engines (H2ICE’s). Hydrogen might also heat homes by combustion or by fuel cells producing electricity for heating and other household applications. The hydrogen will be produced from renewable resources such as biomass conversion or from the electrolysis of water using wind or solar energy. Before all our fossil fuels are consumed, they can be reformed to produce hydrogen as a steppingstone toward fully renewable sources of hydrogen.
Why would Macomb be a good place to accelerate our transition? First, other cities are already pursuing the goal of becoming sustainable. For instance, Columbia, SC is seeking to become “Hydrogen City.” A smaller city of 14,000 in Lolland, Denmark is also hoping to become the world’s first hydrogen city, H2PIA. So, there is precedent for bodies politic on the municipal level to spearhead this kind of economic development. Second, leaders in the state of Illinois are already pursuing other projects in sustainability. Most of us are keenly aware of the importance of Illinois ethanol as a step toward sustainability. Similarly as in other states, northern Illinois is developing a hydrogen highway. This is in accord with the vision for the eventual national transition to a hydrogen-based economy. Third, any time one wants to build a large, complex machine, one starts by building a smaller model, a prototype. If cities are large, complex machines, smaller cities could be developed that model the vision for the future development of the larger cities.
Are there any cities in Illinois aiming to become fully sustainable? Are there any locations in Illinois where there could be built a locally functioning, model hydrogen economy? Let me be specific about Macomb’s characteristics that I believe make it an ideal place to build one such model economy. Macomb is both large enough and small enough to qualify as a model city. Macomb can be described as “micropolitan.” It has mechanics, movement patterns, and other qualities similar to a metropolitan area, except on a smaller scale. For instance, the satellite towns in McDonough County are to Macomb as Chicago’s suburbs are to the larger Chicago. Next, Macomb is a city of learning. WIU is a primary economic engine. Much of Macomb’s core population is in the education industry. An excellent teaching opportunity exists for a community to develop itself as a model for sustainability. It would be like a giant field exercise or scientific experiment in research and development. Third, Macomb’s rural setting with low population density is an advantage. Our agribusiness people understand the cyclic nature of agricultural production patterns. These patterns are very similar to sustainable energy production and consumption patterns. Also, our low population density will make it easier for the older technologies to be upgraded or replaced by the newer technologies. Think of it like the difference between the traffic jams around construction in metropolitan areas versus the only slightly more congested traffic around construction in smaller cities and towns. Fourth, the use of economic cooperatives such as the electric and telephone cooperatives show that our people have a history of working together to bring to us goods and services difficult to procure by other methods. This is a kind of cooperation similar to the lifestyles that will eventually be necessary for life among the future’s sustainable energy infrastructure. Finally, we are already connected to or near enough to companies who would likely be interested in cooperating in this project. For instance, large equipment manufacturers John Deere and Caterpillar are each only two hours away. These are only a couple possibilities of which I have personal knowledge.
How do we get started? I would suggest an expanded feasibility study. I have tried to show above some of the factors that make the project feasible. But there are professionals, such as Teska Associates, who could work together to develop a more comprehensive plan. Consider Macomb’s Comprehensive Plan, p. 65, Figure D – Action Plan Table, Line Four: “Action Step: Promote the use of green technology and clean energy. Purpose: To become a sustainable City and to reduce green-house gas emissions.” http://www.teskaassociates.com/client/Macomb/Downloads/Implementation%20Plan.pdf
With a little vision, we could tell a grand story, invite the investment of cutting edge technology, and develop an already great city into a model city. People will flock to Macomb to see how we did it. Students will live the future at WIU. And people will learn from our model in order to improve their own cities.
Sincerely,
Daniel Miller
Local Discussion - Macomb Journal Message Board
For one lively discussion of the above opinion piece click here.
Peak Oil
Below is a letter to the editor I wrote in August 2005. It describes my first awareness of the magnitude of the challenge facing us because of Peak Oil.
August 2005
To the Editor:
I am concerned about the future of modern civilization. Anyone who loves their children, family and friends, likes to eat, expects to live to a ripe old age in this coming century, and who may be complaining about the high gas prices may want to heavily weigh the issues I have personally only recently realized.
As a nation and as a world, we are and will be facing a phenomenon known as Peak Oil. The earth only had a certain amount of fossil fuels; mainly oil, natural gas, and coal. Today, the world, especially the United States, you and I, continue to consume these fuels at an alarming rate. This is not just an environmentalist’s concern. Our modern civilization has been built using materials and energy derived from fossil fuels BY technologies that themselves use these same fossil materials and energies. Even the food on our tables only arrives there because of oil: chemical fertilizers, shipping, refrigeration, and other oil-powered and constructed infrastructure. Our water supply is also similarly powered by oil. A human can only live about a week without water and only about 3 or so weeks without food. And toward the end of these weeks, it is not a very comfortable existence.
We are much more dependent on oil than is safe for our national and personal existence. Whereas a total analysis cannot fit in a letter to the editor, significant economic analysts are scared that modern, western financial and economic collapse may be imminent. What does that mean for you and me? Well, if the system that brings our food to us collapses, there is only so much food in the grocery stores and local supplies to go around. Hungry people may become violent. Even if governmental bodies can keep enough of the infrastructure moving so as to deliver the food, there will at least be a serious, immediate decrease in our quality of life.
I hope we have a few cooperative realists among us. I hope our society can find common ground in taking action in resolving the tough challenges we will, sooner or later, face because of peak oil. Our future literally depends on it.
What's on your mind?
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