New and Interesting Things

• Finding the What of Innovation
  Convergence Research, January 1999
  This study reviews the status and efficacy of organizational innovation research in the public and nonprofit sectors. Most of the literature has little bearing on the experience of innovative small to medium organizations. However, several useful venture selection and process criteria can be gleaned from the wreckage of innovation research. More work is needed on building an effective value chain between and among innovative social ventures.
  
  
• Freight Transportation in China
  Convergence Research, November 1998
  
  
• The real cost of power from WPPSS #2, 1986-97
  MicroDesign Northwest, December 1997
  Bonneville Power Administration loses between $60 million and $100 million a year trying to operate one of the worst nuclear plants in the country, on top of the money they have to pay for building the thing in the first place. This year, the Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS) resorted to a baldfaced lie to try and make the plant look better.
  
  The WPPSS press release is deceptive in two ways. First, it reports the "production cost" in a way that excludes administrative and general costs, fuel disposal fees, interest and depreciation and taxes. Second, it "assumes" that the plant worked at 100% capacity factor during the period it was out of service due to economic dispatch, and does not add in the fuel cost, fuel disposal cost, generation tax that would be incurred if the plant had actually operated.
  
  
• Power Scams: How to Pay Extra for Energy and Like It
  Convergence Research, November 1997
  Energy generators everywhere understand that energy efficiency and renewable resources are popular with their customers, and are eager to get on the green bandwagon without lifting a finger to change how they do business. Here are the most popular ways of getting something for nothing, coming soon to an electric utility near you.
  
  
• Estimated Annual Stranded Generation Investment in the Pacific Northwest through 2002
  Convergence Research and MicroDesign Northwest, December 1996
  One of the most interesting short-term questions about electric restructuring is who is going to end up paying for all the dumb moves electric utilities have made in the past. Nationally, utilities are facing at a stranded debt liability for existing electric generation of around a quarter-trillion dollars, about the size of the savings and loan fiasco in the 1980's. The Pacific Northwest is paying around $1.4 billion per year for useless and overpriced generation resources.
  
  
• Economics of the Centralia Target Solution
  MicroDesign Northwest, November 1996
  The Centralia coal plant is the dirtiest power plant in the West, producing 10% of the sulfur emissions in the western US, and as much carbon dioxide as two-thirds of all the cars in Oregon. It's killing Mount Rainier National Park, along with a few dozen people a year. Not only that, it would cost more to fix Centralia than build a new, clean power plant from scratch. What's the obvious solution? A few hundred million dollars in new government subsidies to keep the plant open forever, of course. This is the Environmental Protection Agency report that was suppressed for almost a year in order to close the deal.