Google to build off-shore wind energy transmission lines

Google’s foray into promoting the building of off-shore transmission lines for wind energy farms off the US East Coast is a great idea. Googe does this with a 37.5%  stake (alongwith Good Energies and Marubeni Corporation ) in  the Atlantic Wind Connection (AWC)  project of  Trans-Elect .Trans-Elect is the implementing organization for AWC.

[ Note this post is from October 12, 2010 and is updated for formatting on May 19, 2021]

The North-East US is overcrowded like the urban centers elsehere in the world mentioned in the blog post below. There is really no space to put up additional electricity capacity and in fact Northeast Utilities and NSTAR have tied up to build a 1.1 B$ transmission line from Quebec, Canada to New Hampshire to transmit low cost hydro-electric power from Canada.

Although unrelated to it’s search business, the Google thinking really makes sense from a diversification point of view. Once the transmission lines are in place  the wind farms will be out of sight about 10-15 miles off the coast from New Jersey to Virginia. Off-shore wind farms do sound less dangerous  than off shore oil drilling decks. Besides, winds and oceans seem to go together and probably the impact on aquatic life will be minimal and the impact on shipping and ports will be easy to manage. Building the transmission lines will help connect the off-shore wind farms to the transmission hubs of the North Eastern US power grid and change the wind energy scene in much the same way as optic fibre cables changed the telecom and Internet access situation. It should also create jobs in the construction and more economic activity that will be generated by a stronger power grid in the north eastern US.

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Electricity markets:where is the growth ?

If you  get  reliable (99%  of the time)  electricity, you probably live in the developed world where most places have electricity. A quarter of the world’s population (October 2010) – mostly in Africa and South Asia do not have power and the list of countries by electricity consumption is revealing  as is the data across countries by income.

[Note: This post from October 11, 2010 was updated on May 22, 2021 for formatting issues]

In many countries that are middle and low income there is a lack of coverage  in rural areas with electricity. Because there is no electricity, there is slow economic activity and folks leave for towns that become overcrowded. It is these large rural populations that need electricity and don’t have it or don’t have it enough. Consider that many Indians have cell phones but no electricity to recharge them ! Till reliable electricity reaches them companies are trying to come up with “off-grid” solutions like a re-chargable battery from solar or mechanical power  to keep the cell phones charged.

The point is not lost on power companies like Alstom whose Grid President mentioned recently that as electricity’s share of energy markets rise from 16% to 20 %  the growth for smart electricity will be over 3% till 2014 with growth coming from Asia. The focus on innovation in the  “smart power grid”   as is highlighted  in the growth markets of Asia in Qatar at the ongoing GCC (Gulf Co-operation Council)  2010 exhibition and conference.

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Holiday retail sales to increase 2.3% – who will spend first businesses or consumers?

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The National Retail Federation predicts a 2.3% increase in sales over the holiday season and Christmas. Although the growth is less than the 2.5% average of the last ten years – nevertheless it is much better than the 3.9% decline in 2008 and a meagre 0.4% growth in 2009. The prediction of  the surge in retail sales is tempered by the qualifiers surrounding employment. Without jobs people are less likely to buy and in any case everyone will look for bargains. So margins are likely to be squeezed and more volume,better supply chain efficiency, less waste and returns are the focus for the ultimate job engine in the US – consumer spending.

The question is who will spend first – businesses or individual consumers?

If consumers spend, company leaders are willing to invest in new projects and employees – the classic chicken or egg syndrome. The cycle will probably break if the Dow crosses 11,000 and stays there.

Gandhi, Indian Commonwealth Games, Melinda Gates – how will a new democracy like Afghanistan really look like?

The Mahatma had  his 141st birthday without much fanfare on 2nd October 2010 as India was caught up with the 19th Commonwealth games and the Ayodhya controversy. The latter resulted in a ban on text messages lest there be flare-ups between Hindus and Muslims based on “hi-tech” cell phone text based inciting.

Here’s the opening music score of the 19th Commonwealth Games  from AR Rehman of Slumdog Millionaire Oscar award fame.

The very next day, on October 3rd,  Melinda Gates of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation was on US TV addressing a village near Delhi, India trying to tackle infant mortality and malaria. Made me wonder why India seems to be the only country willing to telecast its worst side that China,Latin America  or Africa are able to avoid. It’s probably democracy that the Mahatma was able to get re-started from the mythical times of the Ramayana.

A new democracy (like Afghanistan)  will be much more “group”  or “collectivity”oriented and will resemble an unruly US college frat,  most of the time. When we say group oriented – we mean in the opposite sense of Hofstede’s culture dimension of individualism,

If the world succeeds with democracy  in Afghanistan- hopefully it’ll look a bit like India and the world will be a more tolerant, happier place.

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Southwest Airlines and AirTran Merger : synergy in routes -just need to align “low-cost” culture

Herb Keller got Southwest Airlines going and was much celebrated as a CEO who knew how to get the mission and vision of the company  “owned” by every employee- a feat that most CEO’s  can only dream of doing.

The current  Southwest CEO and Chairman Gary Kelly favors serving larger airports that Southwest earlier avoided due to the congestion and delay in getting in and out. Over the years apart from being “no-frills” with peanuts and soda Southwest has really worked and achieved low cost. They are able to turn a plane around in 25 minutes by fine tuning their working with each airport they serve. This adds to another flight between two destinations compared to competitors every day. Think about turning inventory around quickly!

While some reports suggest that AirTran employees are also highly motivated – it would be interesting to see how much of the Southwest culture is quickly spread to the AirTran sections. There is little duplication of routes and a big advantage of the merger will be covering Atlanta which was not served by Southwest earlier to the Air Tran proposed deal. The merger needs to infuse the combined entity with “THE low cost airline” ethos that has made Southwest so successful.

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“Outsourced” at NBC is so yesterday

It seems that the new “Outsourced” series on NBC is a TV version of the movie Outsourced (2006). At such a difficult economic time in the US  – hackneyed stereotypes of Americans and Indians do not foster global understanding and are certainly not funny if the US viewer is unemployed. Just see the comments on the WSJ Blog.

On the production front ,the LA sets of the series is pretty  unconvincing, including the Holstein type cow  because everyone has seen “Slumdog Millionaire(2008).”

But I guess the American viewer can live with stereotypes,uninspiring sets so long as there is some element of hope and opportunity in global outsourcing  that  becomes apparent in future episodes. Instead of trying to show mindless (made in China) novelties as the product being sold (to Americans) wonder if there were some other “funny” options that could have mass appeal. “Outsourced prayers” is one that I remember from some years ago… but I am unsure how funny that would be today.

Perhaps more imaginative comedy storylines of outsourced research,  tutoring, publishing, software and other higher end tasks  might give ideas for innovation to American enterprise, particularly in the small sector that is the engine of jobs in the US. Call centers for novelty products is so yesterday….

Employees First -Customers Second – the enabling CEO and Gen Y

Vineet Nayar ‘s ideas are quite remarkable and yet simple. He says that its really important to be able to motivate employees through transparency ,empowerment and enabling. The employee should truly feel that this is her/his company, cause and customer and s/he is the “owner”.

Also Nayar  is one of  the first large company CEO’s I have read about, who seems to not only understand  Generation Y  but celebrate what  they mean for a  reincarnate CEO.

He suggests that when Gen Y is involved- they already know the good and bad going on in the company because of their more trusting,open and collaborative nature. There is just no point in trying to stay with the old “command and control” style of leadership. Instead,leaders should try to become co-workers who enable and empower the frontlines. Because it is at the interface of the employee and customer that value is really created in most service situations.

If employees, particularly frontline employees are disengaged, uninformed and of lukewarm motivation – there is no getting out of the recession and certainly no innovation and change that is about to happen. Powerful ideas and more here.

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Recession is over,stockmarket is up – when will jobs and housing turn around?

Apparently,the recession is over since June of 2009 – it was announced today, stocks went up in the US and em pathetically-worldwide. But this does not go well with lots of Americans.

As President Obama mentioned today, all talk of the recession ending is useless  if you do not have a job. And currently the number of unemployed that I heard is 7 Million plus. The 9.6% unemployment figure will jump up to double digits, according to some observers, because people who had given up on job search will again start looking and will be added to the jobless percentage and the unemployment rate is based on those "looking" for work.

Today you go to a restaurant and ask to split a meal and you get an understanding look  from the waiteress in contrast to the "get out of here" glare of the boom days. You leave a bigger tip and hope the lower calories will keep you healthier longer. But all this frugal eating out is- if you have a job !

On the positive side, companies have profits and reserves but are feeling nervous to invest and hire. Although today's estimates by experts are putting  the return to low  unemployment at about 2014 – I am more optimistic and guess that by early 2012 this should be much better.

So the sequence of events should be:

Companies start investing—-> Start Hiring—-> Unemployment reduces to 4-6%——> Housing market starts to recover… middle 2012?

Let's hope so!

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Re-thinking Medical Insurance Business as an Electricity Business- executing healthcare reform

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What's similar between the utility and electricity business and the healthcare insurance business after health reform?

  • Both are necessities for every American and medical insurance  will become available to everyone by 2014.
  • There seems to be some kind of price justification required by Health Insurance companies as the Electricity industry going by Kathleen Sebelius's letter to the association of Health Insurance plans and the furore it has unleashed.

But what are the differences between the utilty business ands health insurance business ? Here are two:

  • Being  older than health insurance and a global industry there are better global  benchmarks and processes for the electricity industry for generation,distribution,distribution losses, billing,remote billing,fraud and theft etc.
  • In contrast, for the US healthcare insurance industry, there is much variability between patients,doctors,processes, treatrment outcomes  and the calculation of risk in all of these myriad possibilities.

The Government needs to have a razor sharp focus on jobs at the current time as General Colin Powell mentioned today.

Perhaps some jobs can be created if funding is made available to clarify the good execution of healthcare reform ?

Poverty report – the mobility of skills and IBM’s Project Match

That one in seven Americans or 44 million are living below the poverty( as of September 2010) line is somber news. Of this number I guess at least 20% were added during the 2007-8 recession corresponding to households of the 4 million who lost jobs. Those who lost jobs obviously had skills that were not in demand locally and low home prices did not allow a quick “sell and move” to parts of the country or overseas where those skills would be well regarded. 

IBM tried Project Match which this blog had some reservations about but in hindsight it was not such a bad thing. Moving is hard   but it  does open up great new opportunities. Here organizations can help with career transition  and outplacement services to overseas supplying organizations and subsidiaries.

Similarly public policy should actively encourage moves to wherever work is, by covering moving and relocation costs and setting off the public expense  of trying to support the skilled person at a location where the skill may take time to deploy. Depending on economic recovery,  or may never get a chance to flourish again.

Thus,focussing on folks that have skills but simply need re-location could be an idea to consider.

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