Doors Open: 8:30 PM
West Dakota (www.myspace.com/westdakotayeah) – 9 PM
Small Black (www.myspace.com/smallblacksounds) – 10 PM
Spinto Band (www.myspace.com/thespintoband) – 11 PM
Location: University Cafe, Stony Brook University
→ No CommentsTags: · Art, concerts
In early September 2009, I was privileged to attend an information session at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) regarding the proposed 32 MegaWatt (MW) solar power plant to be installed on site. The presentation was given my Timothy M. Green, Natural Resource Manager of the Environmental Protection Division and consisted of an overview of the BP (British Petroleum) Solar Project. The plan is to build the largest solar power plant ever in NY on Long Island, and would involve collaboration with the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA), BNL, and BP while following Governor Patterson’s 45 by 15 plan. The Governor’s policy calls for 45% of NY State’s energy to be generated by renewable sources and improved energy efficiency. This is a great shift forward, if in fact it can be implemented.
 |
 |
Patterson’s call to create this solar power plant as part of his 45 by 15 plan is an excellent moderate goal for several reasons, but a poorer long term goal. This is a positive short term goal because the construction of a solar power plant in the tri-state area will serve to demonstrate feasibility of solar power generation on a large scale to New Yorkers, educate consumers about the capabilities of this technology, provide a testing ground for BNL photovoltaic researchers, and raise awareness about solar energy to the general public. Also, it is extremely important to note that this plant will be operated, managed and connected to the grid by LIPA - a non-profit NY State electric utility company. They are currently responsible for distributing electricity to all Long Island residents, though LIPA doet currently own any electric generation assets and outsources distribution and transmission line maintenance to NationalGrid. The construction of this new plant is different from the current model, in which the oil-fired power plants in this region are operated and managed solely by National Grid without a single other power company existing in the region to compete and drive down prices. Therefore, the solar power electric generation facility which will not be owned by national grid represents the first source of competition for electric utilities in this region.
However, the weakness in creating large scale solar power plants for electricity production for individual and commercial usage is that it is unsustainable. In the future, if we were to build enough new solar power production plants to sustain the Long Island region we would require much more land than is available for new development (data forthing). The alternative solution is too construct individual ‘power plants’ at the end user’s location by installing photovoltaic (PV) arrays at the actual site of energy consumption - another words, install solar panels at home or work. This would (1) marginalize the environmental impact and reduce development costs by eliminating the need to tear down trees and build plants on empty land; and (2) increase efficiency and reduce costs by eliminating electricity lost during long-distance transmission from the power plant to the consumer.
In September of ‘09, it was announced that this facility would be producing 50MW. In the last 4 months, the total power output has been reduced roughly 30% to 35MW, which takes a significant amount of benefit out of the proposed advantages of this project. Upon questioning, the representatives of this project stated that one major advantage of this plant over smaller, locally owned PV systems would be savings due to the “economies of scale”. A 30% reduction in power output and probably panel construction lowers this benefit. During the meeting with LIPA and BNL representatives it was states that LIPA wanted “to provide more green energy to [their] customers”. They solicited a proposal for large scale power plant construction and received many offers. The audience at this talk received some information on the technical specifications of this operation as well as alot of ‘greenwashing’. Greenwashing is the act of stating rhetoric in order to improve public image. However, in this case, the greenwashing is being backed by significant action so some rhetoric is in order, such as “we must diversify our energy resources to increase security”. No offense, but adding 32MW to the grid is not going to do much to reduce dependence on foreign oil. It is really just a first step.
The plant will cost $220m and the panels will be manufactured by BP in the USA. BP is seeking a ROI over 20yr, the length of its contract with DOE. The panels will be standard crystalline PV modules and will take up 200 acres. Total acreage of the lab is 5,625 acres. By optimizing space, the laboratory was able to reduce the standard 8-10 acres/MW to 5 acres/MW. This will be achieved by closely packing the panels with 18.5ft of spacing apart to gain maximum efficiency without causing loss due to shadowing. Construction would occur right in the middle of the lab. The arrays would be interdispersed with smaller step-up transformers (converting DC->AC power) sprinkled throughout the plant. A final step-up facility will be used to bring the voltage to 69kV in order to be compatible with voltage already along the grid. The electricity produced would not be for the lab and the Department of Energy will continue to own the land. If approved, construction will begin in Spring 2010 and go online May 2011. While the facility would create jobs by requiring 200 people for construction, it will only require 2 people to manage the plant. There are no moving parts.
Approximately 10 acres of this plant will be dedicated towards a research array which would produce 1-2MW of power for the lab. These panels will be used to study battery storage systems, the effects of local climate on PV modules, and how fluctuations in the grid impact output. The 37MW plant should be capable of producing 40m kWhrs/yr. These panels are projected to last up to 40 years, It will require 500,000 gallons of water/yr just to wash the panels.
Other locations on the BNL site were considered. A dispersed system along roadways was ruled out since it would be difficult and inefficient to connect these panels. The goal is to direct energy from the PV arrays to the LIPA substation - and a disparate chain of panels would require more voltage and pipeline to link the arrays. During peaks hours LIPA will be able to reduce the load of its current grid and avoid 1.2m metric tonnes of carbon dioxide. For reference, 2000 acres of 75 yr old trees sequester 2.2 thousand cubic tonnes of carbin dioxide. I did not realize that trees sequester most of their carbon while growing - a good excuse to plant more!
In summary, this is an inspirational and practical project that I believe will seriously benefit the regional economy and environment. However, I still fail to understand why the 200 acres of PV arrays were not built on rooftops. Considering the average house uses 5,256 Kw-hours/year then this 40million kW plant should be capable of powering ~7,160 homes. If each home takes up 0.5 acres then we would have ~3,600 acres available to build panels. Therefore the 7,160 homes which are being powered by this lone plant could potentially produce much more power combined if they were equipped with their own PV systems. Some further calculations - assuming each home is 0.5 acres, but only has 0.25 acres os usable area for panels then this reduce our total acreage available to 1,800 acres. Assuming BNL’s factor of 5 acres/MW then 7,160 homes could be capable of producing 360 MW. This is 10x the power of the current plant. Therefore, the government should seriously consider investing in PV systems for the individual homeowner, rather than municipal utilities in order to account for increased efficiencies.
Additional Information
How Many Solar Panels Do I Need to Power my House?
New Project Developments
BP Long Island Solar Farm - Environmental Review
enXco Eastern Long Island Solar Project - 17MW of Solar Energy to be constructed on Suffolk county Public Land
→ No CommentsTags: · Alternative Energy, BNL, New York, Solar Power
By now, most of us who use the internet daily have had some interaction with cloud computing. Cloud computing allows users to write documents, create presentations, spreadsheets or store data on a virtual server accessible via the web. The most well known example is Google Docs which allows users to create and collaborate on articles in real time, online. This way, you and I could be working on the same document simultaneously without having to email it back and forth. It allows for many users to be working on the same project at any one instant and automatically backs up the most updated version. It also allows you to store an almost limitless number of documents on the internet for free, thereby allowing one access to files from any computer in the world at any time, without having to lug around the data yourself. This is a tremendous convenience at no cost (for now).
I have been using Google Docs for several years, and it has never inspired me to write a blog post. However, most recently I encountered a new piece of software/service which I found so convenient and useful, that I am rushing to spread the word. I would highly recommend making an account with the service Dropbox which gives you 2GB of webspace for free. So what’s the big deal you say? Dropbox features one of the most user friendly drag-and-drop interfaces I have ever seen. It allows you to toss files directly up onto the cloud from any computer - that has the dropbox application installed. And then download them from any computer. The only drawback of this process is that it requires you to download and install a program on each machine, however it is lightweight, relatively non-intrusive and worth the convenience of being able to store large quantities of files on the fly. What’s really cool, and a great marketing strategy, is that you gain additional storage space when you successfully invite users to sign up for the service.
When I discovered the service, I was curious as to how they make money. What is their business model? How does a company which provides services for free make any profit? I believe this is a common catch-22 on the web. Everyone wants information, services, and conveniences for free and we are so used to this almost no one is willing to pay for web content or storage space. Dropbox offers additional storage options beyond the 2GB for a fee - 50GB for $9.99/mo or 100GB for $19.99/mo. I questioned why anyone would pay for this or keep that much data on the web? The answer I got from a friend, was that once customers become accustomed to the conveniences of keeping their files on the web, they may eventually reached their storage limit and decide to splurge for an upgraded their account. I am curious how many paying vs. non-paying custiomers Dropbox has and how they plan to increase their paying user base.
→ 1 CommentTags: · Google, internet
On November 17, 2009 I was privileged to play first trumpet with the Stony Brook University Wind Ensemble, under the direction of Maestro Bruce Engel. I actually had a small solo in Phantom of the Opera, by Andrew Lloyd Webber - since it was the last piece of the program I was nearly exhausted by then. You can see the advertisement we distributed above, which came out beautifully. We are very lucky to have some dedicated community members who give their time to design and print these flyers for us. During the performance on the Staller Center Main Stage, the musicians (myself included!) get to wear a tuxedo on stage with bow ties while we are playing. I’ve been in this ensemble for over a decade now, and I always love it. Below I am putting a few videos taken of our performance, including one from ‘Harlem by Night’ by David Bennett with a terrific trumpet solo, and other of Phantom of the Opera. Enjoy!
→ No CommentsTags: · concerts
On Oct. 25, 2009 the Fundamentals of the Bioscience Program Alumni Organization launched its official alumni website: fobip.org/alumni. The Fundamentals of the Bioscience Industry Program is a semester long collaborative course covering information critical for students to prevail in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and business worlds. Graduate students are able to hear and watch seasoned professionals from both start-up and established companies describe their career paths and discuss their business models. The program has an excellent reputation for producing bright, motivated students who have been extremely successful in their careers.
The target audience for the alumni website is professionals working in the biotech and pharma industries. I wanted to create a resource that would feature useful articles from alumni and guest authors with experience relevant to program graduates. One of my goals was to put a spotlight on the alumni and draw attention to the high caliber of its course instructors, graduates, and applicants. We hope to feature articles covering the the financial industry, venture capital, intellectual property, technology transfer, recruiting, and academia in relation to biotechnology. We want to provide information that will be useful to the start-up entrepreneur, industry veteran, and job seeker. Without any advertising we have had already 1,000’s of page views and hundreds of unique visitors. I am hoping that the content we generate will be a useful resource and we are aiming to add interviews and new articles approximately every 2 weeks.
I dreamed up this concept in early Summer 2009 and discussed it with Kate Posnanski, Manager of Programs at the Center for Biotechnology. With the help of many program alumni such as Jenne Relucio and Banke Fagbemi, we were able to bring the project to fruition and launch the website this Fall. I decided to use my experience creating websites use Wordpress to generate the blog format with some additional features. We have an alumni page we are trying to build on every day featuring over a dozen of our graduates.
On the techie side, I used Wordpress as my publishing platform with the Red Evo News Blue theme from Red Evolution installed. This theme evens offers a modest support forum which was able to answer some of my questions about theme customizations about controlling the length of the except. The except is the text displayed on the homepage describing the content of an article in brief. Also, I took advantage of using custom fields for the first time. Before creating this site, custom fields were a complete mystery to me. I found this video tutorial EXTREMELY helpful, and now I use the custom field to display images on the homepage for each post. There are both thumbnail and featured image custom fields available, built into the Red Evo News Blue theme. This was also the first time I embedded a Google Calendar into a website. That part was extremely simple, and if you want to know how to do that check here.
In summary, I hope to continue building this special website, which I hold dear to my heart and hope it will bring alot of benefit to the Fundamentals Program and its graduates. Cheers!
→ No CommentsTags: · biotech, internet, jobs
By Mathew A. Engel
The 2009 Life Science Summit took place from September 23 to 24, 2009 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Happauge, NY. There were hundreds of attendees representing the biotech industry and academia from all over the state. The industry attendees showed a diverse segmentation with strong representation from university technology transfer offices, law firms, venture capital firms, medicine, privately held biotech companies, mid and large-cap pharmaceutical companies. As a graduate student and alumni of the Fundamentals of the Bioscience Industry Program, I spent most of my time talking with accomplished professionals from successful companies who had experience commercializing technology, raising capital, or evaluating new ventures. Below I will summarize my findings from the most interesting sessions throughout the first day of the summit. Hopefully, in the near future I will publish a follow-up covering day 2.
The opening plenary session was a great way to spark the crowd’s interest and attention. In the back of my mind, I am always thinking about starting a biotechnology company and therefore always eager to hear advice from seasoned industry veterans. These individuals, especially those who volunteer as panelists or speakers are often willing to share their knowledge and offer some deep insight to beginners. In this session the speakers focused on how to raise capital. Those who are evaluating your proposal will be thinking “where is the technology” and “where is the project”. It is suggested that you network and these connections will lead you to investors who can also guide you into small collaborations. Their role is to keep these smaller companies on track. Currently, most of the demand is for products in late stage clinical trials, in this space demand remains high. Pharma is limiting their investment to certain therapeutic areas. The days of massive deal for a new platform technology are behind us. The huge investment in genomics with no products to show for it was cited. Most deals come about because someone knew someone. It’s not just writing a business plan and patents (though that is still required!). Venture capital (VC) will only stay in for a very short time. Pharma will only jump in Phase II. VC largely invests in people they know. Mailing the best business plan in the world to VCs will get you nothing. You have to meet people some way that might invest. For example, some of the people on the panels today are Angel investors. Remember to “pick your partners”. The entrepreneur better be prepared to invest. Are there other options besides start-up? Many of the panelists, knowing what they do now, would not have chosen to start their own company. “Got to be ignorant to go do it”. Today, businesses are focusing on staying extremely lean - infrastructure is reduced. Reducing the amount of money necessary to operate. However, a company can only “be so lean” and achieve their business goals. VC is not going to be the “sugar baby” that’s going to take the company all the way through. There are drug discovery and medical chemistry labs on campus. The university should have a funding pool designated for small companies coming out of academia. One of the panelists spent time describing the experience of his friend who was trying to raise capital. His friend took no as just another opportunity to go back to him. However, it’s good to get someone with more experience and put together a team of people. “Build a culture and your company”. Medical devices is a great area to get into now. Diagnostics tools is a “neat area to be going into”. Get management in - VC looks at management team. Get help and advice from VC. Donald L. Drakeman, Venture Partner at Advent Ventures had previously ran a company and was now a VC. His motto is “management, management, management”. What makes great management? Management that will step aside.
Mary C. Tanner, Managing Director at Peter J. Solomon & Co. and Maggie Flanagan LeFlore, Managing Director at MedImmune Venture Inc. were two of the most outspoken panelists during this business workshop. The panel delivered an overview of the VC industry covering current trends in their investment strategies. VC’s are adaptable and clever. They are in the business of building private companies to be sold. Their goal is to reach a deal with your company, in which payments are made as milestones are met. LeFlore covered 18 deals in the last year. Private companies are easier to sell. Fewer and fewer big pharma are in the market for these investments. Their has been a fundamentals shift in exit strategy. Survival has followed those most adaptable to change. There are many exit strategies. How to get the VCs interest? Early stage risk is notorious, your goal should be to find little pockets of money to move things forward. Your faculty members better be well known (i.e. published in Nature, Science, Cell..). One of the panelists, E. Jonathan Soderstrom, Managing Director of the Office of Cooperative Research at Yale University had brought a compound to the attention of Lily. They asked for a proof of concept in humans! He did not even have that in animals. The message is that you cannot expect Lily or Genetech to fund your development costs when the product is highly experimental.
→ No CommentsTags: · biotech, Stony Brook