Week Three Driving a Chevy Volt In The Real World

If you follow my blogs, you know that about three weeks ago I picked up a Chevy Volt.  Randy Jackson at SunPoweredEVs has been trying to convince me to go all electric for nearly a year.  On paper, the economics of buying a Volt looked too good to be true so I stopped in at Simpson Chevrolet in Garden Grove where I met Jason and Thomas.  On paper the numbers were just too good to pass up.  Keep in mind I have been driving a 2003 Ford F-150 Supercrew Lariat 4x4 that gets 14 MPG highway, city, off road, or in the snow, it doesn't care, it just gets 14 MPG period.  It is the best truck I have ever owned, and still in perfect condition so I wasn't in the market for a new car.

Looking at any small car looks great economically when you spend $600 a month on gas at 14 MPG.  Electric cars have been pushing the envelope of economics to the point that some people made fun of Elon Musk for "Teslanomics".   Mr. Musk included time at the gas pump.  Personally spending  time to pump $600 worth of gas each month at the pumps, I can't agree more, Musk nailed it my time is worth money.

Plugging in at home is so easy.  If Jerry Brown didn't already have a $4.5 Billion surplus to hide from the taxpayers, I am sure he would be coming after my electrical connection to tax it.  It really is oddly cool to pull up to my house, plug in and walk inside knowing I'll have a full charge in the morning.

Needless to say after meeting Jason and Thomas, I drove a Topaz Blue Volt home.

There are now at least four Volts, three Tesla Model Ss and six Leafs in my neighborhood that I know of.  Two houses with Volts have solar that I can see.  Clearly I am not the only one who likes skipping the pump.

I get the same three questions from everyone I meet when driving the car or when they find out I have it.  They always ask "Is the Volt all that?"  The simple answer is a resounding "YES".  Would I buy another one?  Maybe.  If you have one Volt, clearly the second car should be a Leaf or a Tesla, but that is just my opinion, and that is also my plan after the solar panels go on the roof.  With any luck Nissan or Tesla will send me one to test and write about.

The next question they ask is simply  "Why?".   The answer is very simple.  The Volt fully charges itself every night.   Even though it can't go as far as the Leaf or Tesla on a charge, three days a week I can go all day on the 42 miles I get out of each charge.  One day a week I plug in at my destination and get enough of a charge to make it back.  Once a week or every other week I am not near a charger and need to use a little gas.  That will explain the three gallons listed below.

When I do use gasoline, Chevy says the Volt gets 38MPG when your batteries run out.  The Volt is very well built, has nice seats and has a great technology package.  The voice control in the Volt isn't quite as easy to talk to as the Ford, but it has OnStar if you really get stuck.  The XM radio smokes the system in my wife's Mercedes ML CDI which was very surprising.

I don't know how Bose did it, but the XM is tolerable.  FM still sounds better than XM, but I might actually pay for the XM in the Volt.  I wouldn't pay for it in the Benz because the sound is quality is so bad.  When listening to FM or iPod music the Harmon in the Benz Rocks, and the Bose is 95% as good in the Chevy at half the price.  Overall the car is very well built, quiet and very comfortable to drive.

The final question is, "Ok how much gas and electricity do you really use?"  Until today I didn't have a good answer.  I hadn't seen an electric bill, and how do you describe using one gallon of gas in a week, two gallons in two weeks or three gallons in three weeks instead of $150 of gas each week?

Today I have an answer that is accurate enough to share.  I must say though that we are on "Tier One" electric rates because I have an all LED house with the latest low energy use appliances, gas water heater, gas furnace, gas dryer.  If you are a "Tier 4" or "Tier 5" electric customer, your numbers will be closer to break even on electric v. gasoline costs.  If you are "Tier 4" or higher now,  you should have solar, so get to it.

In my case moving from 14 MPG to 38 MPG would be justification enough to get a new car.  That reduces my driving costs 73% in gas alone.  Learning from the training at the Chevy dealer to use the "hold mode" when cruising the freeways when I don't expect to be able to use battery only for the day and "L" mode when on city streets, I am running "100% efficiency" according the the little video game built into the Volt.

Here is the scoop as of tonight:

589 miles driven, about an equal mix of highway cruising at 65-70, stop and go highway in LA traffic and surface streets aka "city" driving.
3.0 Gallons used for 120 miles, $12.00 for 120 miles = 10 miles per dollar or 40 MPG, beating the EPA estimated 38 MPG by the way.
$34 in electricity for 469 miles = 13.8 miles per dollar (I don't have a way to calculate MPGe so I won't fake it.)

If electricity is compared to gas on a straight cost basis, not energy content basis, I am getting 55.2 MPG with electricity on a dollar for dollar basis.  This is about 28% more cost effective than gasoline.  Saving 28% and plugging in at home is a deal and a time saver if you ask me.

My wife and I are very happy with the new Chevy Volt and are now in the process of getting bids on a new roof to go solar and reduce our cost per charge even further, and get ready for a pure electric car.

Got a Volt?  What are your REAL numbers?  Got a TESLA or LEAF?  Let me know how much you spend to charge them and how far you really go.

Even without "Teslanomics" accounting for my time at the pump, the Volt is still basically free when compared to driving my old F-150.  Think about what you are driving, is now the time to switch to electric?

The Price Of Instant Gratification - Letting Your Goals Slip Away

As a business owner and coach, I have heard one saying over and over.  "Anything that doesn't move your towards your goals moves you away from them."

This week I spent some time thinking about that exact phrase and how to use it for my customers.  How can I illustrate this point.  At the end of the day I can't.  The saying over simplifies the truth, and ignores another truth.

Success is simple, doing it is hard.

The saying "Anything that doesn't move your towards your goals moves you away from them" is on the "doing" side of the success formula, not the simple side.

Why am I saying this?  What is the bigger truth?  I am glad you asked.

To expand the thought, I posted this on Facebook:

We spent last night grilling on the beach at Lake Tahoe talking about goals and achievements. I realized that the saying "Anything that doesn't move your towards your goals moves you away from them" isn't quite right.

I think that anything that doesn't move you towards your goals allows one of several things to happen:

1. You lose focus on the goals and lose sight of them, you might forget they ever existed- what happened to your childhood dreams.
2. Another obstacle is placed in the way - you might be trying to get a license and the government adds new rules.
3. Your action really does do something that moves you farther from your goal - You buy a new car when you are trying to buy a house and now you can't get the home loan.

The next day off you have, look at your goals, and how you are achieving them, and then take a real break. Things become more clear when you take a break and let your mind do the heavy lifting.

After posting this on Facebook, I realized that the cost of instant gratification was built right into number three.  When you buy or do something now, you give up or delay the ability to do something bigger later.  Buying that car now might prevent you from getting the house.  If home prices rise faster than your income, the car might be the reason you never get a house.

A Big Secret Of Success

One of the biggest secrets of success I have learned from personal experience and working with a host of very successful people is keeping the big goals in your sights.  That means that you 

Again Success is Simple, Doing It is Hard.

If you want a book to read about the high cost of success, I recommend the book BOYD.  Not because I am a retired military pilot, but because John Boyd chose success, and the book is a well written story of both his success and the cost of it.  For Col John Boyd, doing "it" was just what he did, it was hard on him because of the price he paid.

It is far easier to do the things that "pop up" or "need to get done" than it is to do what is really needed to move towards your goals.  Gary Keller in his new book The ONE Thing,  illustrated the difficulty of achieving team goals, and his trials of success.  At the end he figured out if you just set one goal, it was far easier for the team to achieve the one goal than it was to achieve two or more.

The same is true for you, especially in the beginning.  Set ONE goal for the day, get it done, then do the little things and the pop ups.  Over time you will learn to set a much bigger goal and then do ONE thing for the day that moves you towards the goal.  

Success doesn't require that you are always focused on the goal and doing nothing but moving towards the goal.  While that might help, the price might be too high for most mortals. I agree with Gary Keller if you could just do one big thing every day that moves you towards your one big goal, you will move ahead far faster than you ever imagined.

Doing it is Hard because it means you have to say "no" to a lot of other little things that you might not want to say no too.  That trip to the ice cream shop with your kids, a night at the ball park, the list of things you learn to say no too is never ending.

When you make a decision to reach a goal, look at other people who got there before your, or did something similar.  You will find they are great at saying "no".  When other people describe their early years you will read things like "he was driven" or "she was always working".  

When you are doing your one thing in life, nothing else matters simply because you know what you are doing matters more.  If not, maybe you aren't doing the right thing to begin with.

Find something worth doing and it will be easier to say "no" more often.  Find something worth doing that solves a problem for the world and they will eagerly wait with money in hand.

Sketchers Go Run 2 - A Non Runners Review

I have to start out by saying I hate running, but like everything in life, I run as a trade off.  I do like food, desserts and occasionally good beer, and all of those calories have to go somewhere.   For anyone that understands my "whiteboard sessions", running never made the white board, but I do it every day.  3 miles on the road at home, and 5 miles on a treadmill when I travel.

So Why Do I Run?

At the beginning of 2012, some readers might recall that I was planning to have knee surgery.  After preparing for the surgery and planning to be out of work for several weeks, the last doctor to look at my knee looks at me and simply says "Your knee doesn't need surgery, it sounds like rice crispies because you are too fat".

With that little slam, he sent me out of the office to go exercise and lose about 30 pounds.  I have since lost the 30 pounds and feel great, and part of the path was walking a lot and then running.

New Balance at the Start

When I started running, I had New Balance because they were the only US made shoes I could find.   As I worked my way up to running two miles, I learned from another Doctor that I was running wrong.   He gave me some pointers on a better technique for my back and knees.  Within days I moved from two miles to three miles with little additional effort, and I shaved a minute off of each mile.

At this point the New Balance shoes weren't cutting it, so I tried a couple of other brands.  The New Balance have since worn out and the new pair are relegated to long walks, biking and skateboarding.  My wife won't let me buy Vans but my niece is working on it.

Sketchers Go Run 2

Shoe shopping with my wife is a regular event for me, and occasionally the mens shoes are close enough I can wander off without the leash choking me to badly.

I came across the Sketchers Go Run 2 and read the box, mostly since it was there.  The Go Run 2 is designed to encourage a mid foot strike and to keep you off of your heels.

Since changing my running style so that I land on the balls of my foot, my shoes had been tearing up my feet.   The light weight and stretch upper material of the Go Run 2 made them quite comfortable when I tried them on.  I didn't walk in them though.

My first outing on the Go Run 2 shoes was a success.  Right away I felt better running in the new style shoes.  I don't know how you run, but I have an iPod with music and the voice of Nike Fit telling me how I am doing.  With the Nike Fit ap set up for 60 minutes, I head off running.

Five minutes into my first run, I was four houses farther towards the beach than I normally would be. I figured the light weight of the shoes was fooling me so I slowed down a bit.  By 10 minutes I was quite a bit farther down the beach than I normally would be and I felt great.  I had found the winning running shoes for me.

My run normally ends as I leave the beach and enter back into my little neighborhood.  From there I walk home to cool down.  Here is the only thing I don't like about the Go Run 2.  You can't "heel walk" at all.  There is a hard section just forward of the heel that makes your feet do funny things when you try and walk using a heel stride.  After 20 years in the military, breaking the heel stride is hard to do.

If you have Sketchers Go Run 2, tell me what you think....

Can A Car Change Your Life?

Many of us need a car to get to work or school, and to get places on the weekends to go play, but is a car really that important to our lives and more importantly to our success?  Isn't a new car just a status symbol to tell other people that you got it because you can?  

After reading The Millionaire Next Door, I have been quite content to drive an F-150.  I am on my second one and have logged over 200,000 worry free miles between the two of them.

The human mind is a funny thing.  Henry Ford is reported to have said "It doesn't matter if you think you can or you can't, either way you are right."  

One of the training methods employed by the military is to take everything from you as a civilian, dress you in clothes that don't fit and tell you that you are garbage.  After a couple of days of this and seeing yourself in the mirror, you start to believe that you are garbage.  It worked very well with me since I didn't even have a high school diploma.

Over time you get in better shape, get your uniforms tailored to fit, and you begin to make it through challenges you were failing just weeks before.  Your self image improves quickly, building your self esteem.  The more you succeed, the more you feel like you can do.  The military depends on this phenomenon to take regular people and create heroes every day.  

When I was going to college, I worked at Macy's in mens suits.  As a broke college kid and enlisted military member, $300 for a sport coat was crazy big money.  Because I felt it was too expensive, I couldn't sell the coats either.  I was wearing a Montgomery Wards polyester coat that I paid $19 for on sale.  Finally my boss set aside a very nice sport coat, and waited until it hit the clearance rack and then he made me buy it.  I felt different.  My sales jumped off the charts. 

That was then, this is now, I know how all of this mind stuff works so it won't work on me.

Last week I picked up a 2013 Chevy Volt.  Initially I got the car because it made great economic sense given my work life and travel requirements.  Chevy was offering a lease deal that was about half of what I was spending in fuel for my F-150.  In a pure monthly cash flow sense the Volt wouldn't cost me a penny.  In fact it might save me money by cutting my overall monthly expenses.  

I did get a little specific with the color and options since I do spend a lot of time in my car.  If you think about it, a 3 year 36000 mile lease says I will be in that car for 36000 miles if I use every mile they give me, and you can bet I plan on it.  Even on a good day in SoCal, if I average 60 miles per hour, that is 600 hours in that seat and I bet the reality will be closer to 1800 or maybe 2400 hours with LA traffic.

I started thinking about the car like a mattress.  Realizing how much time I would be in it, I decided I wouldn't go for the cheap seats.  I ended up getting the fully loaded Chevy Volt to get the good seats.  Lucky for me, it was the last day of the month so the dealer made a great offer, giving me a discount that covered all the extras.  I got the newspaper deal and the loaded car. 

Anyone who has ever bought a new car knows that it isn't as easy as sign here, and go away with your new car.  It took several hours for the bank approvals and all the paperwork to get finished.  Driving home, I was glad the leasing process was over, it was nearly 10 at night and I had to been up since 4 am and yet I felt good driving home.  

My wife pointed out that the Volt is the first new car I have brought home for myself since 2003.  Hers is a 2008 and much nicer than my truck.  My truck was looking good for it's age but it has seen better days.   

From the time that I was 16, I got a different car almost every year.  Sometimes it was because I made a bad purchase decision and the car fell apart, other times because I found something I liked better.  In two cases, I totaled my cars and in one case somebody wanted my car more than me.  Some 30 cars had passed through my garage until 2003, and then for some reason I stopped buying cars.  I don't have kids, I don't know why, I just stopped getting new cars.

I have been driving the same F-150 with an occasional weekend outing in my old Mercedes SL since 2003.  Given the economy, I would think this is normal to keep cars this long, but kbb.com says the average ownership of a new car is at an all time high of 71 months.  I am clearly past that at 123 months for the F-150, so I guess it was time.

Is It OK To Enjoy an Economy Car?

After driving a four door F-150 for over 10 years, the Volt is a funny little electric car with a range extending gasoline engine.  I don't know why it makes me smile.  It just does.  It isn't sexy like my 1966 Mercedes SL is, it won't carry my dogs or paddle board like my truck does, and so far I can only go 48 miles on a full charge of electricity and charging is painfully slow if I don't want to use gas, which I don't.  That is part of the challenge and maybe a little of the fun.  

The smile I had every time I drove my big F-150 in 2003 was now back as I unplugged the Volt in the morning and headed to work.  It was still there when I logged 46 miles on battery when the car started the morning with 38 miles on the range estimator.  The smile was still there when I got home and burned 1.1 gallons of gas driving the 48 miles back home.  Yes I know the Volt only gets 38mpg on gas, but I am just telling you what the car is telling me.

I bought the car for purely practical purposes, and yet I am enjoying it.  According to the other Volt owners I have already talked to, this part is normal.  One traded in a Mercedes C class, another a Chrysler 300, and another a Prius.  

In five days my Volt tells me I have driven 204 miles, and used just 1.4 gallons of gas.  Actually the ap on my iPhone that is talking to the car right now is giving me the information.  The car is in California and I am in Washington D.C.  It also says I still have enough battery to make it back home from the airport without plugging in.

There is something that makes me feel good about it.  I can't put my finger on it, I just know it is there.  Maybe just driving something new and shiny is improving my self image and bolstering my self esteem.    I sure hope my mind isn't that easy, but it really does look that way.

Much like my experience joining the military, already one good thing has lead to another.  My wife pointed out my wardrobe was about the same age as my truck and maybe it was time to upgrade from the three button suits since I have a new car, so I did.  We took the Chevy Volt to the local mens store and she found a salesman to gang up on me and bring my wardrobe up to date.  

One new Chevy Volt, four new suits, and in five days, already I have new work I didn't expect and have met some cool people I might not have met.  This is the kind of change I like - Positive Change.

Picking Up The Chevy Volt At Simpson Chevrolet

Should San Onofre Nuclear Reactors Be Allowed to Restart?

Note:  I realize this issue is very polarizing, and is way outside of my normal writings.  I think it is important enough that we all should think about it at least a little and understand what we are doing in California.

The Pollution of The 1960's and 1970's Isn't Gone, It just Looks Different.

As a kid growing up and surfing the Southern California Coast, I remember coming home and using turpentine to clean the tar and oil off of my feet at the end of each day.  At the same time I learned how to fix up muscle cars and became an admitted gear head.  Tar and oil were just part of the deal.  

This is just one of the many hypocrisy’s that I am trying to work through in my life and one I share with a lot of Californians whether they realize it or not. These days it is much nicer to go surfing on a clean beach and come home with clean feet.  I am not adding to the pollution problems by using turpentine to clean my feet either.

People who lived in Southern California during the 70‘s might remember smog so bad you couldn’t see across the San Fernando Valley or see the Saddle Back Mountains from the beach.  I didn’t even know those mountains existed as a kid.  All I knew was brown air and running burned my lungs.  I believed my parents that smog controls were bad and wouldn’t fix anything, today I am a believer as I look out front door and look at the hills.

Little Puzzle Pieces Create A Big Picture.

While adding smog controls to cars wasn’t the only thing that cleaned up the air in Southern California, it was a contributing factor that led to the clear skies I am looking at today.

These days, California needs power.  When summer hits the people living in the Inland Empire and San Joaquin Valley are going to crank those thermostats down and the A/C will be spinning the electric meter like a top.  In a perfect world we would put solar panels on all of those hot roofs and make up a big chunk of the peak power needs.  Even if it could happen, it won’t happen this summer.

The San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant is part of the solution to filling the power needs of California.  Harvey Wasserman doesn’t want the power plant to come back online. Who is Harvery Wasserman?  Harvey Wasserman is the main man behind the move to keep San Onofre offline and the “No Nuke” guy.  You would think he is from California, but he isn’t.  The land of tree huggers isn’t where Mr. Wasserman calls home.  He lives in Columbus Ohio.  Harvey clearly didn’t surf here in the 70’s and most of the surfers he is organizing must not have either.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not a “fan” of nuclear power plants and I am not saying that San Onofre is THE solution.  I realize that part of the tradeoff of cleaner air is the radioactive waste created by nuclear reactors that we really don't know what to do with.  This is just another level to that hypocrisy that I said I am trying to work through.  I really like being able to see the mountains from the beaches of Southern California.  Sadly nuclear power is a part of what lets me see the mountains.  The facts are the reactors at San Onofre are already built, have already been running, and might be able to provide some relief to the electrical needs of California this summer if allowed to restart.

For the short term, California needs to understand the real implications of not letting San Onofre provide power during the peak months.  Brownouts, blackouts and higher power costs are all possible and even probable.  Billionaire Solar City co-founder Elon Musk might sell a few more solar systems and a few less Teslas , and Harvey Wasseraman will count it a victory.  The rest of California will pay the price.  

For the long term Mr. Wasserman is right.  Nuclear power plants create dangerous waste and are a risk to the environment, no question.  San Onofre is shut down right now for inspections, during which abnormal wear has been found in one reactor.  The other is shut down as a precaution after a “minor leak may be been found”.  Personally there isn’t a “minor” leak when it comes to nuclear power, so I am fine with that reactor being down for repairs.

In my perfect world, I would join with Mr. Wasserman and Mr. Musk and put solar panels on every roof and a battery pack on the side of every garage and shut down every nuclear plant that uses current technology.  The reality is our economy needs the power plants to keep moving forward.  Politicians don’t want to hear the complaints when the temperatures are in the triple digits or energy prices double overnight.

Balance is the key to success.

Twenty years ago, California had a major water problem, and will always have a water problem.   Over a ten year period, the population doubled and California didn’t run out of water.  There was rationing for a while, because the solutions take time.  Now we have water saving shower heads, toilets with two buttons, low water usage grass and a host of other technical improvements to use less water to begin with and reuse what we can.

Thirty years ago, California was in the same boat as the rest of the country with the fuel shortage during the OPEC oil limitations in 1973 all the way to the embargo of 1979.  Cars changed forever and our driving habits were changed.  Economy cars became a way of life for the world, and the 55 MPH speed limit was forced upon us.  The 55 limit is gone, but 30 MPG and better economy cars are everywhere.  

On a per capita basis, oil consumption from 1973 to 1983 dropped nearly 22%.  From 1983 to today, it has dropped another 4% with the usage steadily declining

.

Today, electricity poses a similar problem, but will create much more complicated problems for Californians.  With Odd/Even water rationing, you knew which days to water your lawn.  With Odd/Even fuel rationing, you could plan ahead, get in line and fuel up.  Rolling blackouts don’t have a schedule you can keep up with.  One minute your alarm clock is set and your ice cream is comfortably frozen.  The next minute you are late to work and your kids are staring at a mess in the freezer.

California is already considered the lowest per capita user of electricity in the industrialized world with building codes like Title 24 setting the standard.

  

One of the little understood problems with delivering electricity is called “line loss”.  Power plants have to generate a lot more power than people ever get to use.  If you play golf under the big power towers you can literally hear the electricity being converted to sound. That clicking noise is a small percentage of the electricity being lost into thin air.

Small power stations that transform 110kv to 440v and later to 220v electricity, and those grey transformers we used to see on power poles are another place where power is lost.  

Another major issue for power generation companies is the inability to store electricity.  It must be generated on demand.  If you had a volt meter on your house, you would see it vary from 105v to 125v.  As the generators kick up the voltage will peak near 125v.  I have recorded up to 131v at my home.  I have also seen peak power drop below 100v, this is technically a brown out.   The lights stay on but your computers and smart appliances freak out.

Smaller Local Power Stations

Local power generation reduces line loss.  Even if we go with the low estimate that “The Grid” only loses 5-7% delivering power to you, that 5-7% is more than all of the 3% of the total electrical supply generated by wind.  All of those big ugly windmills don’t even cover the amount of energy lost in the lines.

Cutting the distance the electricity travels in half by building smaller local power generators could make up for all of the windmills in the US.   Adding solar to more homes instead of building big solar farms will help too.  

Why don’t more homes have solar?  Why don’t developers build small generators when they build neighborhoods? It is a question of power and money.  If utopia happened and every home got enough solar power and storage to go off grid the power companies would be out of work.  Developers build houses, not power companies.  They don’t want that to happen, and the government wants the taxes.

Los Angeles took over water and power years ago.  If you live in LA, you have no choice, so you would think LA would lead the country in alternative energy solutions, and yet it doesn’t look that way.

So what is the answer?

It took rationing to get Californians to think differently about water and gasoline.  Rolling blackouts might change the way we think about electricity or they might damage the already fragile economy.  Water and electricity are very different.  People can wait a few hours to water their lawn.  People won’t feel safe coming home in the dark, and they won’t tolerate the food in the freezer going to waste for too long.

The great thing about life in the United States is that business finds a way to solve problems as long as the government doesn’t get in the way.  The government on the other hand can help by making rules that encourage the new technology and changes in the way we think and live.  Water rationing and fuel rationing worked, but will electric rationing?

Rolling Blackouts are an uncontrolled form of rationing.  With fuel rationing and water rationing, Californian’s had a schedule for getting water and fuel.  With rolling blackouts we don’t have the choice of when we lose power.  Will your alarm clock go off?  Will your food make it?  Rolling Blackouts are a very painful way to encourage people to think differently about electricity.

The truly rich won’t be affected.  High efficiency appliances, generators and solar panels with battery backup systems are all out there and in the homes of the well healed.  The politicians making the decisions for you about electricity won’t suffer and neither will their big backers.

It is everyone else in California who should be concerned.  San Onofre getting a permit to restart a reactor will help California keep the rolling blackouts to a minimum but at what long term cost?

Over the horizon there is technology that might provide a solution.  On one end, there are multiple small solutions which combined can make a big difference.  Solar Panels can fill a small percentage.  Bloom Fuel Cell Generators a little more. Conservation through smarter technology in lighting, heating and cooling will help.  All combined though, it still isn’t enough.  At least not yet.

There is one solution on the horizon that looks promising.  TerraPower.  TerraPower has caught the interest of Bill Gates, yes Microsoft Founder and Billionaire Bill Gates.  

Will TerraPower be ready in time?  If the government stops trying to make change and lets change happen, TerraPower or some other cleaner, safer electric solution will happen.  It is the American way to find a solution to a problem just when we think we need it most.

Opportunity is what makes this country great.  Most industries undergo a radical change leaving old companies in the dust while new companies rise from the ashes.  The tech industry is famous for destroying it’s own in order for the entire industry to move forward.  Remember Tandem Computers?  Probably not.

Oil, Gas and Coal companies are big and powerful, and will use everything they have to stay in business.  Without intending too, Harvey Wasserman might just be helping their case.  Keeping San Onofre offline will make it harder to charge electric cars, increasing demand for energy generated by fossil fuels.

Is using hydraulic fracking to get more oil and gas out of the ground a better deal than creating nuclear waste?  Quite frankly I am not a fan of either.  So how do we move forward?

California’s energy problems won’t be solved by more offshore drilling or fracking more oil and gas out of the ground.   We need bigger solutions that are above basic politics and simple ideology.  Those solutions take time and patience.  

Ten years ago I was opposed to electric cars.  Today I am thinking about buying one.  Most people don’t know it was Cadillac that killed the electric car when they created the electric starter.  When Cadillac’s parent tried to create an electric car the EV-1 hit the road.  I never saw one in real life.  The economies of scale and the improvement in batteries will only happen when more people buy and want electric cars.

After the EV-1 failed, the government stepped up and now there are so many hybrid cars, you can’t tell for sure unless you read the little nameplate.  Toyota is well known for the Prius even though they offer close to a dozen hybrids when you include the Lexus line.  Nissan took a different route and created the Leaf, a pure electric car. 

Al Gore had one thing right.  Simply increasing the taxes on gasoline will change how people use it.  While the plan never went into action, other forces raised the price of gasoline and peoples driving habits changed.  

That same plan can and will work with electricity too.  When electricity gets expensive enough, people will spend the money on LED lights, solar panels, energy star appliances, high effeciency air conditioners and smart technology like the Nest.  When electricity gets too expensive and the alternative sources are cheap enough people will begin to change.  The key is to find the right incentives go create change.

The question is how do you create the carrots so they aren’t abused?  How do you use the sticks so they are effective?  

If Mr. Wasserman loses, and San Onofre is allowed to come online, Californians get more power for the summer peak and have less suffering and inconvenience.  Less motivation to change how they use power.

If Mr. Wasserman wins and the San Onofre Power Plant is not allowed to restart and come online, Californians are more likely to experience rolling blackouts and demand change.  Those that bought electric cars will experience problems charging cars to get to work.  Those that stocked up the freezer will lose a lot of money in frozen foods.  The California economy will suffer for it, the question is how bad?

Will a real solution appear in time?

TerraPower may still be ten or fifteen years away.  What do we do in the interim?  Either way, expect power prices to rise, power outages to increase and start thinking about better ways to use the electricity you do get.  Capitalism doesn’t provide solutions until the problems make our lives miserable and we are willing to pay for the solution or accept the tradeoffs whatever they may be.

At first people didn’t want economy cars, but today hybrids that get 40 miles per gallon or better dot the Southern California landscape like ants at picnic.  In 1973 my Dad’s Cadillac got 11 MPG.  Today, a BMW 5 series can get up to 30.  You can drive nearly 50% more and use 50% less fuel and still drive a luxury car. 

My dad was livid when our grass turned brown, and I was mad because there wasn’t any water to play in.  Californian’s didn’t want to save water and give up our lush green lawns so someone invented grasses that use less water like Zoysia, and neighborhoods give out awards for “Water Wise” yards.

Humans are infinitely adaptable and very capable to change when change is needed. When the electric problem gets big enough, a solution will emerge.  It might be TerraPower or it might be something else.  When billionaires are in the game, there is a chance that the technology might survive and be profitable if the politicians don’t cave to the pressure from the existing industries.  Only time will tell.  

For now, do we keep San Onofre off line and suffer through the rolling black outs to encourage more support for alternative sources?  

What Do We Do?

My opinion, and please feel free to disagree?  More Wind Farms? No.  More Solar On Rooftops? Yes.  More Drilling and Fracking? No.  Restart San Onofre?  Yes, One reactor at a time for 5 years to be replaced by TerraPower or other similar system would be a reasonable tradeoff.  The question is can it be done.  The idea is to limit the risks of a failure while minimizing the economic and lifestyle impacts of rolling blackouts.

Mr. Wasserman is only fighting the reactor with his No Nuke program.  Although he has been a proponent of renewable energy sources, but hasn’t presented a real solution Californians  and the world can live with.  Nuclear power is used all over the world.  It isn’t time to fight one reactor at a time, instead it is time for disruptive technology to change the game.   I hope Bill Gates has a better shot that Mr. Wasserman. 

California’s energy problems will be solved.  The solution will set at new standard for the rest of the country and in turn the rest of the world, it is only a question of time.

What Do You Really Desire?

As a writer, I also read a lot.  In fact I read about a book a week.  The iPad has made that much easier since I can take that thing just about anywhere.

Many of the books I read are in the self help or self improvement areas.  Others are classified as literary and a few even as religion.  One of the underlying principles of just about every one of these books is the requirement that you know what you want.  After all, the chances of getting somewhere without knowing where you are going are pretty slim.

There really is a whole lot more, and in simple terms it looks more like this.  First you must define success for you.  You must know what a "successful" life is.  When cornered with this question, most people can't answer it.  I would venture a guess those are the same 85% of the workforce that aren't happy at work.

If you can't define success you can't achieve it.

The next step is to know what parts of that definition of success are important to you.  If you define success as "being a billionaire" and then only want to be a "millionaire", chances are you will do neither.

The most important aspect of living a fulfilled and "successful" life stems from desire.  Simple "needs" and "wants" won't get you there.  Most of us would say we want a Rolls Royce when standing in front of one, but how many desire it enough to get one?

There is a big difference between wants and desires.  Desire is that deep down drive that keeps you up writing at 2 am.  It is that deep down drive that lets you ride the bus to work to save enough for a downpayment on your first house.  It is that drive that gets you up at 4 am or keeps you working all night to make it to the next step.  Desire keeps you moving towards your own success.  Unless you let people tell you that you won't make it and you believe them.  If you let that happen, you bury your desire so deep you forget it even existed.

Sadly, most people have buried their desire so deep, they probably won't remember them during their adult life.  Remember the Monster.com commercial with kids saying things like "I want to get lost in a middle management job"?  That commercial rang true with a lot of people and for good reason.  Most people forgot what they wanted to do when they grow up so they never did it either.

As a child I remember that I wanted to "be rich" and "fly jets".  Well I have definitely done the latter.  I was lucky in that I could  define "fly jets" to the point that I made it into and graduated from Air Force Pilot Training, and was blessed with a great 20 year run in the Air Force, Air Force Reserves and Air National Guard.  My desire was only to "fly jets".  It wasn't a specific jet or even type of jet, and the outcome of my military life showed exactly that desire.  I flew jets, lots of jets, and still do.

If I had wanted to "fly fighters", or better yet "fly an F-16", my military career might have been very different.  Instead I only made the sacrifice and efforts required to "fly jets".  In pilot training it was easy to see who "wanted to fly jets" and who had a "desire to fly jets".   Luckily I had desire so I made it through.  The guys and gals I knew that didn't, had the brains and the skills, they simply lacked desire.

On the "get rich" front, I did even worse.  I didn't define "rich" as a "billionaire" or even a "millionaire".  I defined "rich" as having enough money to drive a new car and eat out as much as I wanted.

Since that was how I defined it,  that was exactly how I lived.  This system eventually failed though because I was running up all kinds of debt.  There is nothing worse than getting called into the commanders office because you spent more than you made so you could "be rich".   The Air Force gave me some financial counseling which was all the more embarrassing since I had a business degree.  I still wasn't "rich" I just stopped being "young and fabulous" as Suze Orman might call it.

The truth is I was having so much fun flying jets, in my world, I was rich, just not in the traditional financial sense of the rest of the world  Because of how much fun I was having,  I had no desire to make more money.  The problem was I couldn't deposit fun into the bank to cover dinner.  I got lucky here and there, but the overall truth is my efforts weren't sustainable by any means.

When my wife was diagnosed with cancer (she is healthy and cancer free now), my outlook changed dramatically.  I finally started to get a clear picture of how desire works.  That was exactly the problem I was having financially, I didn't have a clear picture.

If you ever find yourself wondering about doing something, look deep at your desires.  Does whatever you want to do help you achieve your desires or not.  If not, don't do it.  Eventually one of two things will happen.  You will decide you really just wanted something and it wasn't really a desire, so you'll give up on it.  Or you will achieve it because you really did desire it more than you wanted something else and you didn't let anything get in your way.

Dig deep for your desires, get a clear picture of them and go get them.  Don't let anything hold you back, you only live this life one time, make it the best you can.

Are You Reaching Local Customers?

Local Customers might be sitting right around the corner and not even know you are there.  Why?  because there are now at least 40 major local search engines and aps that people turn too for advice, and those sites are waiting for you to tell them about your business.

Much like using social media, a Local Reach marketing program has to address so many different issues it might not be cost effective for the owner or an employee to handle it.  What do I mean that Local Reach marketing might not be cost effective?  We know that local businesses must have local customers right?

What I mean is that an effective Local Reach Marketing campaign, that is a campaign designed only to touch potential new customers, and past customers within a small area, like one to five miles from your business.  According to a friend of mine who has a UPS store, he needs to have 50,000 people in his local area to reach out and get 400 to 500 regular customers.  As we all know in business, reaching 1% of any market and getting them to become a customer can be tough.

Local and Mobile marketing campaigns can help, but if not executed well, they can be a time killer.  Let's take the UPS store as a "for instance".  If the owner knows that a lot of people send easter baskets and he wants to run a 25% off easter basket packing special, will it be worth his time to log into 40 websites or more in order to run that special?  Probably not.

The time spent posting the special to all those sites, just isn't worth it 80% of the time.  The problem is of course you can't ignore those sites either.  I've posted about studies on the effects of Yelp! alone. A business that doesn't pay attention to Yelp! doesn't do as well as a business that does.

So what is an owner to do?  Well here is my plug.  The Bourquin Group now offers  a local listing service with a single interface to update nearly 50 different websites and aps.  On top of that, we'll review everything you post and let you know if there are things that should be changed.  We'll even build the foundation of your local and mobile presence for you.

Business success comes from spending your time and your money right.  If you aren't sure if this service is for you, send me an email and I'll run a free report on your business.  We are also offering a special deal on a trial version of our Local Reach Marketing program.