by The Editors on November 29, 2009
Garry Brown, executive director of Orange County Coastkeeper compares the difference in water cost between a Ground Water Replenishment System operating in Orange County with the cost of water per acre foot from Poseidon Resources‘ proposed Carlsbadistan desalination plant in an editorial for the Daily Pilot.
The total cost of the highly treated [GWRS] drinking water is less than $800 per acre foot. . . We know that ocean desalination is used throughout the world. The costs per acre foot range between $2,000 and $3,000. There is certainly no reason to believe it can be done for less money in Southern California.
He goes on to point out that the only other desalination plant that Poseidon has built went “$40 million over budget, five years late, and has never produced the promised amount of water. In fact, “Poseidon had to be removed from plant operations and replaced by a public agency.” Oddly, the Tampa Bay plant isn’t even listed on the “our experience” page of Poseidon’s website. The only desal plants they list are the as-yet-unbuilt Carlsbad and Huntington Beach facilities.
All of this makes us ask this question: is Poseidon’s real business making drinking water or simply using the promise of water as a means of extracting money from public agencies?
[Link: Daily Pilot]
by The Editors on November 27, 2009
When Carlsbadistan resident Heather Hultgren (pictured right with her family) realized that her parents couldn’t be around every night to read bedtime stories to their grandson, she decided she could fix that problem and launch a web business at the same time according to a Dave Good story on SanDiego.com.
Using technology that Hultgren says wasn’t available two years ago, a CherishedVoices.com subscriber is able to dial a toll free number and record a personal message, tell a story, or read from one of the books in the Cherished Voices library. . . “You have up to an hour to talk,” she asks. “You can share whatever is in your heart.” . . Hultgren then edits the recording into the finished narrative.
Hultgren then puts the recording on a CD and ships it with the book that was read directly to the child for $49.95. Which is much cheaper than a cross-country flight.
[Link: CherishedVoices via SanDiego.com]
by The Editors on November 26, 2009
That’s the question San Francisco Bay Guardian writer Rebecca Bowe asks in one of the best stories we’ve read about Poseidon Resources plans for their desalination plant on the Aqua Hedionda Lagoon.
“Aside from doing nothing about conservation and continuing to require huge amounts of energy for transmission, these plants also have no real community benefit, minimal job creation, and, most importantly, a questionable success and effectiveness,” members of Service Employees International Union Local 721 wrote in a letter to the Metropolitan Water District, Southern California’s water wholesaler. “We believe we can conserve more water by installing waterless urinals across L.A. County than we would obtain from the proposed desalination plant.”
Those who think they know what this desalination plant is all about should click the link to read the rest of this story.
[Link: San Francisco Bay Guardian]
by The Editors on November 20, 2009
Carlsbadistan based electric car maker Aptera’s founder Steve Fambro tells Popular Mechanics that contrary to rumors quoted on Wired’s Autopia blog, he was not ousted “in a boardroom showdown,” he’s simply on vacation until the end of the year.
“I think some people read into this situation a little further than they should have, ” Fambro says. “Some folks were let go, and since they hadn’t seen me around—they put two and two together and made a fairly large and incorrect assumption,” he says. “Since I started Aptera, I’ve had like three or four vacation days. One of them was after receiving a 2008 Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award in NYC. So I need to take some time, and come back in the beginning of the new year.”
Great. We hope Mr. Fambro enjoys his vacation.
[Link: Popular Mechanics]
by The Editors on November 16, 2009
Carlsbadistan’s next wave automobile company Aptera Motors appears to have hit more rough roads this week according to a story on Wired.com’s Autopia blog.
Aptera Motors has ousted founders Steve Fambro and Chris Anthony, sources told Wired, painting a picture of a boardroom confrontation between the original founders and the auto industry veterans the company brought in last fall. . . Rumors that Aptera Motors was letting them go and laying off an unknown number of people began swirling last week on the unofficial online Aptera Forum. The company says it simply elected to slow things down and minimize its burn rate while waiting for the Department of Energy to approve its loan application. It isn’t saying much about what happened to Fambro and Anthony, but claims the company’s relationship with them remains positive.
Sure, we’re guessing Fambro and Anthony are stoked that a bunch of Detroit guys came to California and took over the company, why wouldn’t they be?
[Link: Wired.com]
by The Editors on November 9, 2009
We don’t know much about Gregory T. Lucier. He is CEO of is our favorite Carlsbadistan-based life sciences company, Life Technologies. And under his guidance the company’s stock has gone up nearly $10 a share since we decided to “invest in Carlsbadistan.” And he thinks things are only going to get better for his industry.
I actually think we’re heading into the golden age of drug discovery and development. We’ve reached a point where our grasp and knowledge of these tools is finally allowing the researchers to get answers faster. So I’m hopeful the next 10 years will be different than the last 10 years of this kind of dearth of new products we saw coming out of pharmaceutical companies.
Now, thanks to the The San Diego Union-Tribune’s Thomas Kupper we know much more about the 45-year-old HBS MBA and you will too if you read this interview.
[Link: San Diego Union-Tribune]
by The Editors on November 6, 2009
According to a report releassd on November 4, 2009 by the consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch, the cost of water from Poseidon’s proposed Carlsbadistan desalination plant could cost three times as much as the company has projected.
“Poseidon claims that their Carlsbad desalination water will come at ‘no expense to the region’s taxpayers,’ yet they are counting on Metropolitan Water District ratepayers and taxpayers to underwrite the project,” said Renee Maas, water program organizer for Food & Water Watch. “Policymakers should learn from Poseidon’s failed Tampa Bay facility and only use public funds for effective and responsible projects.”
According to James Fryer, the author of the new report even if things go well costs could still reach $1910 per acre-foot which is twice the $950 claimed by Poseidon.
Cost over-runs and bankruptcy marked Poseidon’s previous foray into the desalination business. The Tampa Bay plant opened over a year behind schedule, and then required immediate rehabilitation. As a result, he project ran 44 percent over projected capital cost and has never produced the 25 MGD originally promised by Poseidon.
Hurray for desal. . . to read the entire report, click here for the PDF.
[Link: Common Dreams]
by The Editors on November 6, 2009
Carlsbadistan’s Carlsbad Aquafarm got some we-deserved play yesterday in a fish farming story on San Diego News Network.
“It’s very much hands-on science,” adds Peterson, who spends countless hours trying to mimic conditions for optimal species growth and spawning, from testing water and its food levels to monitoring weather temperatures. . . And if you ask Peterson’s colleague, Matt Steinke, who works on the engineering side of things, the sustainability factor is huge. “If you’re eating aquacultured shellfish, you are supporting an industry that is so sustainable it will feed your great-grandchildren. Every pound of aquacultured product is a pound that is not coming out of over-burdened and collapsing wild supplies.”
For more on the Agua Hedionda Lagoon business follow the link.
[Link: San Diego News Network]
by The Editors on November 6, 2009
Surprise! The Westfield Plaza Camino Real is losing another tenant this week as Borders Group announced closures of 200 of their retail outlets nationwide, according to a story in the San Diego Daily Transcript. The Carlsbad Borders Express will no longer be with us (not that we ever shopped there).
Through this right-sizing, we will reduce the number of stores with operating losses, reduce our overall rent expense and lease-adjusted leverage and generate cash flow through sales and working capital reductions,” said Borders Group Chief Executive Officer Ron Marshall.
Apparently, the Westfield just can’t win. . . in Carlsbadistan.
[Link: San Diego Daily Transcript]
by The Editors on November 4, 2009
Anthony DeSantis, who’s car washing business Waxx It Automotive Detailing, Inc. has been located to next Hoehn Motors in Car Country Carlsbad for 16 years is “appalled” that the State of California shut him down and fined him $10,000 last week according to a story on San Diego News Network.
Waxx It Automotive Detailing Inc. was among 18 car washes and auto detailing businesses in San Diego County and 103 statewide fined a total of nearly $1 million for failing to register their businesses or other employee labor violations, the California Labor Commissioner’s Office announced Monday. . . Waxx It’s owner, Anthony DeSantis, said he told inspectors he was never notified he had to be registered and was given no chance to remedy the situation. “I’m just appalled right now,” DeSantis said.
With the current economic conditions it would see the State would have more important things to do than go after small businessmen? Then again, the State does need the money. For more of DeSantis’ side of the story click here.
[Link: San Diego News Network, North County Times, and Waxx It Inc.]
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