Milk and Money December 2, 2008March 12, 2017 MICRO FINANCE Give a guy a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and he starves to death. Ah, but loan him the money to buy his first fishing rod and not only do you set him and his family on the road to prosperity, you get your loan repaid. Which you can then re-loan, if you choose, perhaps to a woman who needs to buy a sewing machine. Or seeds. One of my best investments yields just 2.5% interest (taxable, no less), but allows Shared Interest to catalyze hundreds of micro-loans to poor South African women. Another group Charles and I support is FINCA, ‘providing financial services to the world’s lowest-income entrepreneurs.’ Already working with 700,000 of them in 21 countries, it seeks your help to do more. Click here. And don’t miss its donation calculator. See the astounding impact $50, let alone $5,000, can have. (Gather the kids around to work through the numbers with you.) And here’s another great one, backed by eBay: Microplace. You can choose to back a micro credit effort anywhere in the world (even the U.S.). You’ll see ‘examples’ of the kinds of borrowers your investment will go to fund, but not be at risk on any specific micro-loan. What fun! I just funded a bunch of loans like this one (charcoal) and this one (baking) in Ghana and this one (pig s—) in Costa Rica. In 21 months (in the case of the Costa Rican investment, some are longer-term, many shorter), I’m even quite likely to get my money back with 1.5% interest. But if the interest seems silly, another way of looking at it is by comparison with charitable giving, where you not only get no return on your money, you get no return of your money. Mike Hanlon: ‘Yet one other good place for microloans is Kiva.org. They allow you to choose to whom you will lend and you get updates on how the people are doing. Be sure to check out their press page – the group is endorsed by Bill Clinton and has some wonderful videos (follow CNBC’s John Larson as he goes to Africa and meets some of the people who receive his loans). We decided to join as a family – my wife, two sons, and I chose two or three recipients each. So far, by rolling over repayments, we’ve made 24 loans. I also oversee a campaign at work: Our building collected used ink cartridges, traded them in for cash and used the cash to set up a Kiva account. We’ve helped seven entrepreneurs, from Cambodia to Afghanistan to Nicaragua and thanks to repayments, we’ll help more.’ MACRO FINANCE Paul Krugman writing in The New York Review of Books. Well worth your time. MILK This is even more self-indulgent than usual, but I had to share this profile of my pal Howard, who made his screen debut this week – after more than 30 years in the business – opposite Sean Penn in ‘Milk.’ What a kick. CBS Sunday Morning showed footage of the real Harvey Milk . . . and his fellow San Francisco City Supervisor (now Senator) Diane Feinstein 30 years ago announcing to a shocked crowd that Milk – and Mayor Moscone – had been assassinated by yet another of the five city supervisors, Dan White (who would get just five years for the double murder because a jury chose to buy his attorney’s ‘Twinkie defense‘). I couldn’t find the clip on-line, but did find this transcript. And in looking for the video, found this. Can you believe that Fox reviewed ‘Milk’ without ever mentioning that he was gay? How about a profile of Michael Phelps never mentioning he’s a swimmer? Or Amelia Earhart without ever mentioning she flew airplanes?
Vivace December 1, 2008January 3, 2017 ABUNDANT, CLEAN, CHEAP ENERGY You’ve probably already seen this, but it’s too important not to share. From the Telegraph: Ocean currents can power the world, say scientists A revolutionary device that can harness energy from slow-moving rivers and ocean currents could provide enough power for the entire world, scientists claim. By Jasper Copping Last Updated: 2:39PM GMT 29 Nov 2008 The technology can generate electricity in water flowing at a rate of less than one knot – about one mile an hour – meaning it could operate on most waterways and sea beds around the globe. Existing technologies which use water power, relying on the action of waves, tides or faster currents created by dams, are far more limited in where they can be used, and also cause greater obstructions when they are built in rivers or the sea. Turbines and water mills need an average current of five or six knots to operate efficiently, while most of the earth’s currents are slower than three knots. The new device, which has been inspired by the way fish swim, consists of a system of cylinders positioned horizontal to the water flow and attached to springs. As water flows past, the cylinder creates vortices, which push and pull the cylinder up and down. The mechanical energy in the vibrations is then converted into electricity. Cylinders arranged over a cubic metre of the sea or river bed in a flow of three knots can produce 51 watts. This is more efficient than similar-sized turbines or wave generators, and the amount of power produced can increase sharply if the flow is faster or if more cylinders are added. A “field” of cylinders built on the sea bed over a 1km by 1.5km area, and the height of a two-storey house, with a flow of just three knots, could generate enough power for around 100,000 homes. Just a few of the cylinders, stacked in a short ladder, could power an anchored ship or a lighthouse. Systems could be sited on river beds or suspended in the ocean. The scientists behind the technology, which has been developed in research funded by the US government, say that generating power in this way would potentially cost only around 3.5p per kilowatt hour, compared to about 4.5p for wind energy and between 10p and 31p for solar power. They say the technology would require up to 50 times less ocean acreage than wave power generation. The system, conceived by scientists at the University of Michigan, is called Vivace, or “vortex-induced vibrations for aquatic clean energy”. Michael Bernitsas, a professor of naval architecture at the university, said it was based on the changes in water speed that are caused when a current flows past an obstruction. Eddies or vortices, formed in the water flow, can move objects up and down or left and right. “This is a totally new method of extracting energy from water flow,” said Mr. Bernitsas. “Fish curve their bodies to glide between the vortices shed by the bodies of the fish in front of them. Their muscle power alone could not propel them through the water at the speed they go, so they ride in each other’s wake.” Such vibrations, which were first observed 500 years ago by Leonardo DaVinci in the form of “Aeolian Tones”, can cause damage to structures built in water, like docks and oil rigs. But Mr. Bernitsas added: “We enhance the vibrations and harness this powerful and destructive force in nature. “If we could harness 0.1 per cent of the energy in the ocean, we could support the energy needs of 15 billion people. In the English Channel, for example, there is a very strong current, so you produce a lot of power.” Because the parts only oscillate slowly, the technology is likely to be less harmful to aquatic wildlife than dams or water turbines. And as the installations can be positioned far below the surface of the sea, there would be less interference with shipping, recreational boat users, fishing and tourism. The engineers are now deploying a prototype device in the Detroit River, which has a flow of less than two knots. Their work, funded by the US Department of Energy and the US Office of Naval Research, is published in the current issue of the quarterly Journal of Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering. ☞ My point being: the sun will come out tomorrow, even if ‘tomorrow’ takes some years to get here. Kurzweil tells us the technological progress of these next 50 years will be 32 times that of the last 50. Hang in there, kids. Television, invented in 1926, took more than 20 years to come into practical use, but the dream was realized. There was a will; we found a way. A manned mission to the moon took a decade to achieve, but the dream was realized. There was a will; we found a way. Whatever success the Vivace technology has, the dream of cheap, clean, renewable energy will be realized. Our bigger challenge, at the end of the day, may not be finding technological solutions to technical problems, but, rather, finding a way to get along with each other. One way to help with that (as prosperous people tend not to want to kill each other): microplace.com. More on that tomorrow.