Wind power potential

When will wind power become a more serious source of energy in the United States?
Most likely not any time soon because it may make way too much sense.
Not only is it a possibility for the U.S., but wind power is emerging as a serious alternative in India and China where they need viable and legit energy sources.
There is now a new idea to capture wind energy without having to look at the huge wind mills, and that is a floating offshore turbine.
Not offshore as in you can see them off on the horizon, but hundred of miles offshore.
Paul D. Sclavounos, a MIT professor of mechanical engineering and naval architecture spent decades designing and analyzing large floating structures for deep-sea oil and gas exploration now thinks we can build floating wind turbines and tether them out to sea where the winds are blowing fairly consistently.
In 2004, he and his MIT colleagues teamed with wind-turbine experts from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to integrate a wind turbine with a floater. Their design calls for a tension leg platform, a system in which long steel cables, or tethers, connect the corners of the platform to a concrete-block or other mooring system on the ocean floor. The platform and turbine gain their support from buoyancy.
The floater-mounted turbines could work in water depths ranging from 30 to 200 meters, Sclavounos said. In the Northeast, they could be 50 to 150 kilometers from shore. And the turbine atop each platform could be big, which is an economic advantage in the wind-farm business. The MIT-NREL design assumes a 5.0 megawatt (MW) experimental turbine now under development. (Onshore units are 1.5 MW; conventional offshore units are 3.6 MW.)
No one is saying wind power is the only answer. In fact, wind power may end up being a small part of the whole equation, but wind is clean, renewable and safe.
Seems like a good bet to me.
Talk to me.

Productivity pressure on rise

Feeling stressed at work these days? Need to become more productive? Need to continue to reduce costs? Stress, stress, stress.
If you feel it, you are not alone as InTech’s annual salary survey reports 70% of engineers surveyed feel increased pressure to improve productivity. Meanwhile 27% said that pressure stayed the same. Only 3% feel less pressure to improve productivity.
Managers agree with the engineers as 71% said they feel the pressure to improve productivity, while 26% say it stayed the same and 3% said it has decreased.
When asked about the pressure to reduce costs, 72% of managers said that has increased, while 25% said it remained the same and 3% said it decreased. For engineers, 70% said they feel increased pressure, 27% said it has stayed the same, and 3% said it decreased.
Just looking at pure numbers is obviously only one aspect in the big picture. Understanding why there is increased pressure and having everyone on the same page are also two key elements to the whole scenario.
Let’s face it, if there is a heightened level of pressure because your company is growing and has a product taking off, then heightened pressure may be welcome.
Do you feel heightened pressure? Talk to me.

These little details are just a few interesting items from InTech’s annual salary survey, for more information read the October issue of InTech.

Wireless standard has legs

The ISA-SP100 Wireless Systems for Automation committee meeting completed a third day of proposals Wednedsay for technological solutions to fulfill the committee’s mission to create a wireless manufacturing and control system standard.

There have been 21 proposals as of close of business Wednesday. There are two more presentations coming today, after which panel discussions commence.

ISA-SP100 co-chair Wayne Manges was upbeat about the progress thus far. “I and others are impressed primarily by the unexpected commonality in approaches offered,” he said. “Even the areas of disagreement are sufficiently ‘down in the details’ such that the general direction of the ultimate outcome is fairly easy to project. Since the committee is here to gather material, technologies, and concepts for inclusion in either the SP100.11 or SP100.14 standards, this is a welcome surprise.”

“The quality of the proposals shows tremendous expertise and effort,” added Manges.

As to what is to follow, Manges said, “The SP100 leadership will gather the material together and decide where it makes sense for the organizations who have contributed here to be encouraged to combine efforts and strengthen their offerings. We’ll focus on the areas of disagreement and what details may have been omitted or shortchanged.”

Eventually the standard will apply to and include:

-- Field sensors that work in monitoring, control, alarm, and shutdown and that can vertically integrate from field to business systems
-- Wireless technology whose uses include real-time field-to-business systems (e.g. wireless equipment that interfaces with work order systems, control LAN, business LAN, voice)
-- All industries—fluid processing, material processing, and discrete parts manufacturing environments
Here, briefly, are Wednesday’s proposals:

Certicom Research’s proposal to ISA-SP100 addressed security for ad hoc wireless networks. The company gave the operational definitions of networks as opposed to ad hoc wireless networks, the company’s security model, its security architectural elements, the cryptographic protocols, pre-operational usage, and the IP issues involved.

Siemens’ scheme for the standard would use meshed networking (TDMA) with high performance capability, frequency agility, using IEEE 802.15.4 on 2.4 GHz Band while coexisting with IEEE 802.11, a wireless backbone based on IEEE 802.11 and IEC 61784-2, CP 3/4 (PROFInet Conformance Class A wireless). There is a plan for security.
Apprion’s proposal covered many aspects of standards development and this standard in particular. The summary slide listed the company’s thoughts as bullets in industrial settings: complicated set of wireless apps with networks of networks, network-centric view of the integrated facility (legacy and new), compliance with DHS activities, wireless field device PHY/MAC definitions, common management framework, gateway-level system interoperability, vendor-neutrality and performance variations across products requires secure tunneling, other features, congestion management, conformance testing - metrics, no single point failures in system architecture, and direct integration with end users.

Crossbow’s version involves its product MoteWorks that includes XMESH & XSERVE, the benefits of which include and relate to: proven, reliable, low power mesh network platform; committed to viable standards for wireless sensor networks; Crossbow leads ZigBee WSN profile group; pleased with scope of SP100 and participating; complete software platform for sensor nodes and gateway devices; efficient network provisioning and management through over-the-air-programming; open and flexible software development kit and APIs; and easy to use graphical user interface for non-programmers.

General Electric Global Research’s two presentations talked about its proposal for the SP100.14 and the SP100.11 architectures and also for its wireless sensor network security.

Nanotran Technologies’ proposal uses IEEE 802.15.4-2006 as amended by 802.15.4a, except that it is to allow 2.4 GHz CSS for ranging.
—Nicholas Sheble

Summit talk: Know your customers

Engineers may not believe this, but there are huge lessons to learn from the folks in the marketing and sales departments. The first and most important lesson is to know who your customer is. Not just who is buying the product, but why are they buying the product and what are their needs.
At the end of the day, you have to know your customer – whether it is the end user buyer or someone within your own company. That was one of the lessons from today’s packed ISA Marketing and Sales Summit held in Austin, Texas.
“Not only do you have to know who your customers are, you have to find out what resonates with them,” said Dan Miklovic, managing vice president at the Gartner Group.
Since quite a few of today’s industry marketers come from the engineering side, they sometimes feel the customers are more knowledgeable about products than they really are.
“We expect our customers to know as much about the products as we do,” said Jane Lansing, vice president of marketing at Emerson Process during her morning keynote address. That, she said, was not the way to go. “When we base the messaging around ourselves, we are not helping our customers.”
Marketers have to gain critical insight from their customer. “You can have all the facts and figures, but (you have to learn) the main thought about the product with the customer,” she said. Figuring that out is the first step. The second step is executing on what the customer needs. She then added, once you figure out the message, you have to do “relentless execution. It’s all about the message and the critical insight,” she said.
“It’s not brain surgery,” Lansing said. “It’s marketing. Go for it.”
Throughout the day, the word “listening” kept cropping up. You have to continuously listen to what your customer needs. You can’t tell them what they need, you have to listen to what they say their pressure points are. You have to find out what keeps them up at night, said Mark Taft, senior vice president of global systems marketing at ABB.
“It’s not a one size fits all thing,” he said. You have to know the customer and know what they want and need in their particular region. What works in the United States may not work in a different region.

OPC is making the connection

At the end of the day it is all about connectivity which means having disparate systems being able to communicate to one another and share data.
That was the message today at the MatrikonOPC user group meeting in Houston.
“Reliability, security and total interoperability has to happen,” said Tom Burke, president and executive director of the OPC Foundation. “We want you to be able to look at information that allows you to work more efficiently.”
“The goal is to provide the transport to move the information from the factory floor to the enterprise,” Burke said.
The main mission for manufacturers these days is to garner as much information from the factory floor as possible. Engineers on the floor cannot live in isolation.
Burke harkened back to the days when the fieldbus wars were gong on. There were at least 8 different protocols in one standard to get devices to talk to one another.
“In 2001, I wanted to do away with the fieldbus wars. I was naive. Now we are much closer to doing that (with OPC).”
OPC continues its growth trend and Sean Leonard, director of OPC at Matrikon said this is a global movement.
“OPC is not limited to just the United States. It is being used around the world. In addition, all different industries are using OPC.”
OPC is a series of standards specifications. The first standard (originally called the OPC Specification and now called the Data Access Specification) resulted from the collaboration of automation suppliers working in cooperation with Microsoft. Originally based on Microsoft's OLE COM (component object model) and DCOM (distributed component object model) technologies, the specification defined a standard set of objects, interfaces and methods for use in process control and manufacturing automation applications to facilitate interoperability. Essentially, the technology allows different systems to talk to one another to provide data.
In today’s legacy environment, where different systems must be able to talk and share information, “OPC allows for multi vendor interconnectivity,” Leonard said.

ZigBee tackles tough questions at ISA SP-100 meeting

The ISA SP-100 Wireless Systems for Automation committee hosted ZigBee Alliance Vice Chairman Graham Martin, also a wireless manager at Texas Instruments, on Tuesday to discuss ways in which the alliance and the committee could work together. After explaining the alliance’s plans for new products that needed to get to market quickly, Martin faced committee concerns about deadlines that precluded sufficient input and about IEEE802.15.4 features that didn’t meet their needs.

The meeting was in relationship to the SP-100 wireless committee meeting taking place this week in ISA headquareters in Research Triangle Park, NC.

The ZigBee Alliance is an association of companies working together to enable cost effective, reliable, low power wirelessly networked monitoring and control products based on an open global standard. Promoter companies include Siemens, Texas Instruments, BM Group, Honeywell, Freescale, Schneider Electric, Samsung, Mitsubishi, and Ember, among others. ZigBee is a software stack on top of 802.15.4. IEEE 802.15.4, which defines the physical (PHY) and medium access control (MAC) communication layers.

Martin admitted the commercial and industrial segments were not the highest priority of the alliance, but “we’re now putting our efforts into ZigBee ProStack, targeted to industrial and commercial applications,” he said. “This is where SP-100 expertise will be valuable. We’re hoping to form a bridge.” But Martin said there was an urgency to get the new products to market. ZigBee released the initial stack in December 2004 and plans to release a new and improved stack this month. The industrial and commercial product, the more robust ProStack, is planned for first quarter 2007, Martin said. The key features are similar to those of SP100, long battery life, self-healing networks, support of large networks, low-node cost, and low data rate.

Martin proposed ISA-SP100 adopt IEEE 802.15.4 – 06 with the ZigBee (SP100) stack as a platform for monitoring and control applications. But committee members were concerned about the issues historically found in ZigBee with frequency, diversity, and low power consumption. They were also concerned with the deadlines and the lack of time to offer input so the IEEE 802.15.4 platform would meet their needs. “Help us choose the path that doesn’t compromise what we need, and we can still work together,” said one member. One possible committee suggestion was to position the new stack around commercial, not the industrial market, because “they’re very different.” Then perhaps the committee could offer input on future releases, so they “won’t feel jammed into a stack.” The meeting ended with both groups hoping to resolve later how to make the relationship work in the future.

Wireless ideas still stirring

The ISA-SP100 Wireless Systems for Automation committee plowed forward Tuesday at ISA’s headquarters in Research Triangle Park, N.C. It is addressing wireless manufacturing and control systems in the following areas:

-- Environment in which the wireless technology is deployed
-- Technology life cycle for wireless equipment and systems
-- Application of wireless technology

On Tuesay the committee was in its second day of hearing proposals to solve issues associated with the deployment of wireless technology for industrial automation. Presentations included:

Shenyang Institute of Automation’s proposal focused on the wireless networking of field devices. Shenyang is a major Chinese robot-technology research institution. Its proposal covered the DLL/Media Access Layer, Infrastructure Layer, and Device Management Layer that the SP100.11 and SP100.14 RFP define. The performance parameters considered were throughput, reliability, energy consumption, and latency. The organization’s proposal uses the communication services provided by the direct sequence IEEE 802.15.4 radio at 2.4 GHz, and provide end-to-end data transmission services and network management services to the applications of Classes 0-5.

Analog Devices’ proposed network topology emphasized the overall network consists of several co-existing sub-networks. In addition, each sub-network has a star configuration with a scalable number of base stations (BS) at the center talking to a number of endpoints (EPs). While the physical network configuration may be relatively ad-hoc, all nodes must be able to hear the BS but will not necessarily be able to hear one another. For installations where there are dead spots, a powered repeater can add in, resulting in one (and no more than one) extra ‘hop’ to the base station. There is peer-to-peer (EP - EP) communication that gets its support from network but not direct communication (REQ 3.3-12). Further, there is multi-hop routing (REQ 3.3-6) supported through means of main-powered repeater node. Finally, multiple SP100 networks will be able to co-exist in a shared air space by means of orthogonal network codes.

Texas Instruments intends to leverage available technology. The physical layer (PHY) is IEEE 802.15.4 2.4GHz. Media Access Control (MAC) is IEEE 802.15.4-2006 (also referred to as IEEE 802.15.4b) with simplifications, and the upper layers rest on Zigbee with feature adjustments.

Advance Industrial Network’s proposal for ISA-SP100.11 and ISA-SP100.14 emphasizes practical implementation of potential solutions based on modifications and additions to existing standards on the PHY and MAC layers. Its scheme pays special attention to the coexistence and interoperability of radio signals.

Within ISA-SP100, there is a group comprising the Wireless Network for Secure Industrial Applications (WNSIA). Yokogawa presented with reference to this group’s concerns. In the group are 3eTI, Adaptive Instruments, Endress+Hauser, Flowserve, Honeywell, Omnex Controls, and Yokogawa Electric Corporation. On Monday, Honeywell presented an overview of the group’s proposal. Yokogawa explained the features and advantages of the WNSIA-group proposal from an application point of view.
Sensicast’s proposed solution sits on IEEE 802.15.4, with extensions. It operates at its best between gateway and field devices. It aims to leverage an IP backbone when that backbone is available. It is a self-configuring network with no single point of failure. It embraces a hybrid of TDMA/CSMA.
In conjunction with and as extension to Sensicast’s proposal, STG (Software Technologies Group) laid out the top points of the two companies’ combined: a) Based on IEEE 802.15.4, with extensions; b) Optimized for communication between gateway and field devices; c) Seamlessly leverages IP backbone where available; d) Self-configuring network without a single point of failure; e) CSMA/TDMA hybrid, decentralized; and f) Security strategy for moving forward.

Wireless group goes over use cases

To get a standard fully operational, committee members need to see applications in action. That scenario is now firmly in place with the ISA SP-100 committee as it is organizing 32 completed uses cases and is planning on 43 more, Paul Sereiko, president of KAPM Strategic Wireless and member of the SP-100 committee, said today.
This week, the ISA-SP100 committee is meeting to look at proposals to solve critical issues associated with the deployment of wireless technology for industrial automation. The committee is meeting all week at ISA’s international headquarters in Research Triangle Park, N.C. Over 20 companies from around the world will present their ideas, cases, and solutions to the committee.
“A wide range of users have contributed case uses,” Sereiko said. They have quite a few case uses from the oil industry, but they are looking for more from the pharmaceutical and the metals manufacturing industries.
Some of the things he has learned so far from his database of cases is the wireless site areas are large. “The smallest is a GM plant that is 10s of acres and the largest is a wind farm in the ocean someplace that is 12 by 11 square miles,” Sereiko said. He did say, however, the wireless networks usually cover small areas of the facility.
He also found the data exchange rates cover three areas, the millisecond range; applications that need results in a second, and where an application needs results in around a minute. That is how often the variable the user is measuring changes.
He also found out about the user expectation for the battery life of a wireless device.
The user expects, he said, the battery life to be about 1-5 years.

Wireless standards committee fires up

Wireless is white hot in the industry these days. When you hear any news about the topic or any study on the subject, it always points out wireless is just growing by leaps and bounds.
At the ISA-SP100 wireless standard committee meeting here at ISA headquarters, you can sense the energy in a packed meeting room.
In a dispatch filed by InTech Senior Technical Editor, Nicholas Sheble, he reports, the wireless committee is working toward establishing standards, recommended practices, technical reports, and related information that will define procedures for implementing wireless systems in the automation and control environment.
This specific meeting is looking at proposals to solve critical issues associated with the deployment of wireless technology for industrial automation. The meeting will be in session through Friday, 15 September. Over 20 companies from around the world will present their ideas, cases, and solutions to the committee.
The number and variety of responses, with proposals coming from the United States, Canada, Japan, China, Germany, and others, suggests the standard is likely to meet the needs of the user community.
The committee intends to publish a standard that reflects technical solutions that will be practical, according to SP100 co-chairs Wayne Manges and Richard Sanders.
“It is not the committee’s intent to publish a standard that reflects a theoretical basis for wireless applications in industrial environments,” said Manges speaking for he and Sanders.
“We will publish a standard that will stand the test of time by not only reflecting near-term solutions for wireless technology in industrial environments but one that also allows for future growth and enhancements.
“We will consider wireless solutions that will be available within 12 to 18 months rather than only what is available today. In other words, we will write a standard that reflects practical solutions that will be accessible when the standard comes out late 2007 or early 2008.
“The proposals this week should consider this time frame for addressing what will be a practical solution and clearly state when the technology will be available for deployment.”

Gas prices down; alternative fuels up

Driving to work today, it was abundantly clear that gas prices were going down. They were at $2.69 a gallon a few days ago and now they are at $2.55 or so. My question is what happened? Did some major development occur and I didn’t hear about it?
Oil companies last year said Hurricane Katrina and the devastation she wrought was the cause for the upward spike of gas prices, but I am still confused why they continued to hover around $3 a gallon for a year.
But now gas prices are going down. Why? This is not a complaint, mind you. Just curious as to why now is the time to reduce prices when there doesn’t seem to be a real cause.
I sometimes get the feeling we are the marionette and the oil companies are controlling all the (purse) strings.
This country really has to stay on task and find quality alternative fuels that can power vehicles that will also keep the environment clean and safe.
I wrote back in April about some alternatives some organizations or people are working on.
Coal could become a source for hydrogen in the near term that could power a fuel cell-based vehicle. Experiments continue in an effort to optimize the combustion of coal to produce the most energy and the least possible pollution.
Or look down on the farm as more companies are looking at biodiesel.
One major petroleum refiner, Motiva Enterprises LLC, is allowing the blending of the soy-based alternative with traditional motor fuel at its Dallas terminal.
Biodiesel is a biodegradable and nontoxic soybean derivative that a refiner can blend at any level with petroleum diesel.
In addition, corn fields could soon become a huge profit center as ethanol production is starting to increase.
While all of these alternatives may not be the answer right now, they are a beginning. We just need to stay on top of it and not let any distractions get in the way.
Talk to me.

Fuel discovery or discover fuel?

The good news is Chevron Corp. and partners Devon Energy Corp. and Statoil ASA are on the verge of discovering in the Gulf of Mexico the largest oil deposit this side of Alaska’s North Slope. This is incredibly great news, no doubt.

Those companies will rush to get as much oil out of the ground as possible and their competitors will likely use the same type of new technology to test other areas that may have more reserves.

The only problem that may come out of this is the fear oil companies will in effect put the kibosh on continuing the effort to find alternative fuels. There is no doubt about it, the U.S. needs this new oil discovery. But the U.S. also needs alternative fuels to keep one step ahead of becoming too reliant on foreign producers.

This discovery is the first successful oil production from the region, a 300-mile-wide swath of the Gulf that lies below miles of water and deep within the lower tertiary.

The company said the well sustained a flow rate of more than 6,000 barrels of crude oil a day during the production test.

The test paves the way for the development of the three partners’ Jack field, located 270 miles southwest of New Orleans, and ultimately for dozens of comparable discoveries under federal lease to companies that include Anadarko Petroleum Corp., Petróleo Brasileiro SA, Exxon Mobil Corp., BP PLC, and Royal Dutch Shell PLC.

Chevron and Devon officials estimate the discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico’s lower-tertiary formations hold more than three billion barrels’ and perhaps as much as 15 billion barrels’ worth of oil and gas reserves.

If the industry succeeds in finding 15 billion barrels of oil, it would boost the nation’s current reserves of 29.3 billion barrels by 50%.

This is all good news, but let’s not take our eye off the ball. We need to find a workable plan for alternative fuels for down the road.

Talk to me.

Ford’s new idea

It is always a glorious day when you realize someone has an amazingly strong grasp on the obvious and today is one of those days.
In a memo published in the Saturday Detroit News, Ford Chairman Bill Ford shared such outlandish and insightful thoughts like: ``The business model that sustained us for decades is no longer sufficient to sustain profitability.”
And, ``We must change to a new business model that requires greater bottom-line contributions from cars and crossovers, continued leadership in pickups in North America, healthier profits from all other business units, growth in Asia, greater integration of our global operations and an evaluation of strategic alliances.''
No wonder why Bill Ford went out of the industry today to name a new chief executive, Alan Mulally, executive vice president at Boeing. While Mulally will bring in an outsider’s view at the auto maker, with Bill Ford remaining as chairman, how many new ideas will be implemented.
It remains baffling to understand why Bill Ford remains blind to the trends in the industry. While it is easy to pass judgment from the cheap seats and Bill Ford remains mired in the middle of the action, but come on, the business model is no longer sufficient? It hasn’t been sufficient for years.
I wonder if he is thinking of bringing back the Pinto?
Talk to me.