Erika Morgan brought this to my attention. It is good material outlining what the solar shift looked like in 2007.

Click the photo to open the PDF

Dial in your driving and see what it really costs. You don,t want to miss this one.-Tim
(Click on picture)

Greenland holds as much water in ice as the gulf of Mexico. It is melting at an alarming rate. When ice on the water melts our oceans do not rise but when ice that is out of the water melts ,like Greenland, we will see our coastlines disappear. Take a moment to learn about what is going on in Greenland. You can not ignore something that will literally come to come of your doorsteps.

Direct Sales Procedure

From trade shows or face to face sales

When you have a blank FRA completed and signed, you do not need to send the customer the three copies and have them sign and send the FRA’s

• Make sure ALL areas of the blank FRA are filled out(if you don’t understand the information that is being asked for, ask your sponsor)

• It must be signed

• Go to your back office web site and enter your FRA under new customer.

• First enter the customer information and submit

• Second scroll down and enter the house information and submit

• Third print the FRA

• Fourth enter the CIDN number from the printed copy in the box at the top of the page of the signed copy

• Sign the same copy that you had the customer sign and enter your IDS number in the box below your signature

• Make sure all the info in section 2 is completed

• Make 2 copies of the signed FRA

• Staple the signed original FRA to the printed corporate copy and send them to the corporate office

• Send a copy of the signed FRA, the customer copy, and the REnU thank you letter to the customer

• Keep a copy of the signed FRA and you associate copy for your records

. I would suggest making copies of the blank FRA with the TBA in the rate box whited out, because you will need to fill in the correct rate.

Greens need to learn how to celebrate their friends and their movement

Posted by David Roberts 02 Dec 2007

I’ve run into a lot of sentiment along the lines of this comment thread — harumphing about how weak and insufficient the impending energy bill is — and it seems crazy and wrongheaded to me.

I urge you to check out this post by Josh Dorner on the post-2000 history of energy bill negotiations. Remember what it’s been like.

Since I started at Grist, I’ve been writing about a Republican president and Congress trying over and over again to pass energy legislation focused on drilling, mining, and doling out subsidies. Their greed and overreach were such that they bungled it again and again, until the 2005 Energy Act, which was a slightly scaled down version of the same old thing.

That act was part and parcel of what energy policy has been in this country more or less since Ronald Reagan walked in the White House: a monomaniacal focus on extraction and supply coupled with generous corporate welfare.

In just over a year, Democrats, with a small majority in the House and a knife-edge margin in the Senate, have pulled together an energy bill that contains:

1. The first CAFE boost since 1975. Even if you don’t think CAFE is crucial energy policy (I don’t), it ain’t nothing, and it is of extraordinary symbolic significance. It’s going to be the headline.
2. A 15% Renewable Energy Standard — a clear statement of support for a new energy direction, echoing and amplifying state-level efforts.
3. Billions in subsidies for clean energy.
4. Boosted energy efficiency and green building standards.
5. Yes, yes, a massive, horrendous boost in biofuels, but even on that front there are environmental safeguards attached that were absent in early negotiations.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

Photo: speaker.gov.

The distance between this bill and where were were a year ago is remarkable. And it is a credit to the leadership.

If you’re determined to think that all politicians are craven simps, go ahead, but it’s hard for me to see what would count of evidence of boldness and commitment on Nancy Pelosi’s part if this doesn’t.

Don’t think she’s been tiptoeing around. Sen. Pete Domenici, the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy Committee, is so pissed off at her he’s pulling out of the energy bill process. He’d gotten the impression that the RES (aka RPS) was off the table, but Pelosi’s pushed it back on. Says the irritated and possibly soon to be steamrolled Domenici:

RPS may not be the only deviation from the negotiated bill text, as the Speaker appears willing to take advantage of the lack of a formal conference committee process and institute other changes in the bill as she sees fit.

You’ll recall that when they were in control, Republican leadership regularly pulled procedural shenanigans that made this look like patty cakes. But still, Pelosi isn’t playing by Queensbury Rules. She’s throwing elbows.

It wasn’t just leading Republicans Pelosi had to outmaneuver. As this NYT story makes clear, she’s also gone head to head with Rep. John Dingell, one of the most powerful committee chairs in recent history, and pulled him in line:

Mr. Dingell said that all sides had compromised to get a good deal on the energy bill, and he took credit for safeguarding the interests of the auto industry. In a telephone interview, he praised Ms. Pelosi and said his disagreements with her had been useful.

…

Outside observers, however, said Mr. Dingell had capitulated after realizing he could not win, especially given high oil prices. “The speaker basically took him on and won,” said Dan Becker, an environmental consultant.

Pelosi’s been fighting hard and smart, and she’s done so out of what everyone who knows her describes as a genuine passion for renewable energy.

Please explain to me why the first reaction to this should be grumbling about how it’s not enough. What kind of political message does that send? What incentive does that give anyone to follow Pelosi out onto this limb?

You know what nobody likes? Nobody likes people who do nothing but judge and condemn and enforce in-group purity and piss on everyone’s shoes, including their friends’ shoes. Nobody wants to make any effort to please those people. Nobody even wants to get stuck in an elevator with them.

Of course this bill is not enough. Nothing will ever be enough, I guarantee you. But it’s a victory, and you know what people do like? People like winning. They like being on the winning team. They like winners. They want to hang around the winners, and act like them, and date them, and name drop them.

So please, take a moment for some strutting. Take strength from this victory, and give strength. Hand out some props for a job well done. Make politicians feel like there’s social and political capital to be gained by going green — if you do that, they’ll be back for more.

The arc of history is bending in our direction. Celebrate it.

Tell everyone you know about it. Tell them about this

How to REALLY explain the value of a Citizenre System
by Scott Burton

Sometimes we all face a customer who dismisses your best Citizenre pitch with a waive of the hand and the statement, “I’d rather own the system myself so I could get the electricity for free.” At first you may be a bit concerned how you are going to quickly tackle the challenge of convincing this person that it’s better to pay the equivalent of, say, 10 cents a kilowatt hour for Citizenre’s fixed price plan than to pay ZERO for electricity that comes off panels that a homeowner owns outright. The good news is, like all things Citizenre, this is easy. I just say:

“That’s an interesting point, and I’ve talked to a lot of customers about the trade offs of owning a system vs. signing up for Citizenre’s solar service. But it turns out that you are financially better off signing up for Citizenre than buying a solar power system yourself. Here’s why: The average solar power system for a home costs at least $30,000 (1). But even people with $30,000 ready to invest rarely choose to buy solar panels with it because of the very low return on investment of traditional solar installations. Depending on the cost of electricity that you are comparing it to, residential solar installations will break even only after a number of years well into the teens, something like 14 years. That means it takes 14 years just to get you back to zero…it’s not until your 15^th and 16^th years that you actually start to get the RETURN part of the investment. This is why you don’t see solar panels on a lot of houses yet, because it’s got a high upfront cost with a very slow return on investment. What you could do instead is put that $30,000 into a mutual fund for 14 years and you’d expect to do a lot better than just break even. In fact, that is what you should do instead buying your own system: sign up for Citizenre solar power system, pay the security deposit, and then put $30,000 in a mutual fund for the next 14 years. You’ll have solar power in you home and you’ll be much better off financially.”

There may be this follow up question: “We’ll how can you afford to offer this then?”

My answer is this: “Because Citizenre is building the world’s largest solar panel factory to support this business, and because we are taking all of the pieces of the solar power value chain in-house that are currently done by different suppliers…from the manufacturing, to the warehousing, distribution, wholesaling, retailing, installation, maintenance, and billing, even the sales that you and I are doing right now…all of those profit margins for all of those different players are brought under one roof, then with the volume and consolidation efficiency, Citizenre is going to be able to put a solar power system on your property for a fraction of  the cost of what you could do if for. So in our earlier example if you’re not interested in investing in a solar power project for your home that has a 14 year break even, we can do the same thing for about a 7 year break even, and we’ve found investors that are willing to fund a 7 year break even contract if we lock your rate for 25 years, because they are still going to have 18 years left on the contract after its paid for. But you don’t mind because you are happily enjoying a fixed price solar rental system we maintain to provide your energy at a non-increasing price. The investors are happy because they get to make money on the back end of the contract. And the environment benefits because another house was taken away from polluting power to clean, renewable energy. It’s a true win, win, win.

By Rebecca Smith

http://online.wsj.com

U.S. electricity demand is growing at twice the pace new supplies are being added, an imbalance that, if it persists, could lead to supply problems in a couple of years, an electric-industry group said.

In its latest 10-year forecast, the North American Electric Reliability Corp., or NERC, found supplies thinning fastest in California, the Rocky Mountain region, New England, Texas, the Midwest and the Southwest.

NERC, which oversees the reliability of bulk power systems in the U.S. and parts of Canada, said peak demand is expected to increase 18%, or about 135,000 megawatts, for the U.S. during the next decade.

<More…>

Geek to Live

Rock Your Presentation with the Right Tools and Apps

At some point in your career as a student or professional, you’re going to have to give a presentation—and when you do, you want to be prepared with the right content and applications. Whether your demo’ing software or explicating Melville, a computer hooked up to a projector can either give an audience a great audio/visual experience, or a bullet-studded snoozer. Whether you’re using a Mac or Windows, PowerPoint or Keynote, or simply presenting straight from your web browser, there are a few power tips, apps, and tools that can make your slideshow or demonstration smooth, entertaining and memorable. Photo by jurvetson.

Ditch the Bullet Points

If you’re doing a straight PowerPoint or Keynote slideshow, do your audience a favor: forget bullet points. While they’re easy to write and easy to read off your screen, they’re hard on your audience. Pick up a copy of Clif Atkinson’s Beyond Bullet Points and make yourself fill in the template he offers for download, to structure your presentation into an engaging story, not a lifeless collection of bulleted lists. See our original review of Beyond Bullet Points.

Pre-program Typing with Text Substitution

If you’re showing off software or doing any sort of interactive demonstration that involves typing, don’t waste your audience’s time watching you fumble with the keys because you’re nervous under the pressure of your their collective gaze. Pre-script any text entry you have to do using text substitution, with free software like Texter on Windows, TextExpander on the Mac or Snippits on Linux. Not only will your audience be impressed with your efficiency (and lightning-fast typing), they’ll love you for being prepared and keeping things moving along with ease.

Zoom and Call Out Sections of Your Screen

Want to show off a detail in an image, enlarge a small video or draw on screen like a football coach choreographing a play? There are a few ways you can zoom into and freehand draw right onto areas on screen while you present.

• See closeups of screen areas with ZoomIt (Windows)—free software with configurable keyboard shortcuts zooms in on areas on screen and draws on it with different-colored pens.
• Zoom into any area of your Mac’s screen—using an accessibility option built into OS X, zoom into an area of the screen, no additional software required.
• Call out anything on your screen with Highlight (Mac)—draw on your Mac’s screen.

Tip: consider screencasting these types of show and tell techniques to ensure no operator error during the live presentation.

Dim the Background Clutter

Want your audience to focus on the foreground application, dialog box or maybe just the video playing in the middle of the screen? Both the Clutter Cloak for Windows and Doodim for Mac are free apps that can darken everything on-screen except what’s important.

Increase a Web Page’s Font Size

If you’re presenting a web page with text on it, assume it’ll be illegible to your audience unless it’s enlarged. In Firefox, a simple Ctrl++ can increase font size after a page is loaded; even better, preset your presentation pages to more legible sizes using the excellent NoSquint Firefox extension.

Before You Leave the House: The Hardware Checklist

This should go without saying, but I showed up at my last public speaking gig without my Mac’s DVI to VGA adapter. So before you head out to your presentation, make sure you’ve got:

• An extra ethernet cable (as lengthy as possible)
• A DVI to VGA adapter to hook up your laptop to the projector (if necessary)
• A thumb drive with your presentation file stored on it

More Presentation Power Tips

A few more tips for making your presentation great:

• Split the screen and use your computer as a giant clock or to simply display the notes view of your slide show
• Get your PowerPoint keyboard shortcuts straight
• Publish and share your slides with SlideShare
• While you should be prepared for your venue having faulty or no internet connectivity at all, you can host and give your presentation on the web with Google Documents (now with Presentations), Zoho Show or Preezo
• Check out Merlin Mann’s roundup of tools he used to perfect his recent Inbox Zero presentation

What are your favorite presentation tricks and tips? Let us know in the comments.

Article Summary

What you listen for in your conversations with others determines what you will get out of them. All too often, we listen to others in a casual or unfocused way. As a result, we come away with little from the conversation. In fact, we typically find ourselves listening to our own thoughts and internal chatter instead of to the other person. Here are some tips on how to listen more effectively.

Listening Your Way to Greatness

By Joe Rubino

What you listen for in your conversations with others determines what you will get out of them. All too often, we listen to others in a casual or unfocused way. As a result, we come away with little from the conversation. In fact, we typically find ourselves listening to our own thoughts and internal chatter instead of to the other person.

Let’s examine a few ways you can get more by listening for more.
*Listening for the greatness in others.

A characteristic that powerful people possess is the ability to empower others to greatness. This is the ability to see things in others that they do not yet clearly see in themselves… while creating the space for them to recognize it and rise to the challenge. It’s about seeing others as great without any need on your part that they live up to your expectations.
In contrast, we typically listen from the perspective of our opinions and judgments. Listening this way filters out what is actually said and impacts what we are able to hear. How we see other people—as powerful or ineffective, intelligent or slow whited, insightful or with little to contribute —has everything to do with what we get out of our conversations with them. When we hold others as great, that’s what our listening for them empowers them to become. Getting the most out of others - our spouses, families, friends, co-workers, employees etc. - is made more likely if we consider them to have the potential to be greater than they see themselves.
We call this the Pygmalion effect. Through it, we get from others those positive qualities we expect to see in them. As we listen to others in such a way that we champion them to be all that they can be, we support them to see possibilities in themselves that they did not previously see. Listening to others routinely in this way will enable them to gain in confidence and strength until they see themselves as powerful and capable of producing whatever effect they desire.

The key to empowering others to their greatness is to never offer the kind of help that makes them small, weak or dependent. It is about championing people by already considering them as great. This means listening for the possibility others are, for what is missing that if put into place would have them step into their power. It’s about listening for what others need and want - not what you want. What you want is usually of little value when compared with what they are ready to receive.

Take the interpretation that you have the gift to empower everyone who comes into your life. And, likewise everyone has the same gift to contribute to you. Interact with others with the expectation that they have come to receive a gift from you. Your job is simply to discover what that gift is that you have to contribute to them. By listening for how you can contribute your gift to others, they will have been able to contribute the greatest gift possible to you - the gift of you becoming the person you have chosen to become on purpose.

*Listening for what others might contribute to you.

If you enter into each conversation you have with another person expecting to hear something of value that you can utilize, you will likely come away with that very thing. While generating this listening is easy with someone you consider to be powerful or insightful, it will require your returning yourself to your commitment to listen to the person with a positive expectation when his or her speaking does not reflect this power.

Generating a listening for value can be especially rewarding when you find yourself in a conversation with a person you would ordinarily dismiss as someone who has little to contribute to you. You will be amazed at the insights you can come away with from most any conversation when you listen with the intent of learning something new.

For example if you typically listen to others in an impatient way- hurry up and get to the point- you will need to remind yourself of your commitment to stay present in a conversation with a slow and deliberate speaker. Remember, someone’s style of speaking may have little to do with what you can garner from your conversation with him.

*Listening for what is important to others and for what they are committed to.
By putting yourself in the other person’s world and developing an appreciation for their values and concerns, it is much easier to gain an understanding as to why they think, speak and act the way they do. What might have otherwise led to a confrontation or lack of affinity with the other person might instead produce an empathy that would allow for a conversation to explore common ground. When you can hear the commitments of others, you can act out of the compassion that comes with having an interest in what it’s like for them to be who they are.

*Listening with something at stake

What we get from a conversation with another person is often a function of what we have at stake in the conversation. To get a better sense about this, contrast how you typically listen to the pre-flight safety instructions given by the flight attendant before your flight takes off. If you are like the rest of us, you are only half listening or paying attention to what is being said. You are probably either reading something else or distracted in some way, figuring that the chances of the plane crashing are slim and none. And besides, you’ve heard it all so many times before.

How would this compare with a situation where half way through your flight, the attendant announces that the engines have failed and the plane IS going down? With your life at stake, you are likely to listen to the instructions in this case like you have never listened before.

Your listening is directly related to what you are listening for. In order to gain the maximum amount from every conversation you have, try listening from the point of view that everyone has something to share with you that is of great value. And, your intent is to get it regardless of who the person is, how powerful you consider him to be and no matter what his style of speaking. Listening for value in EVERY conversation will provide you with an unending succession of insights that you would not get from listening with less at stake.

*Listening for the good intentions of others

Another valuable listening to adopt might be to listen from the perspective that everyone operates from what they consider to be good intentions. I am NOT saying that this is necessarily true. And, it is an empowering interpretation that could support you in your relationships with others. This can be particularly valuable when the evidence appears to strongly suggest the contrary. When you step into another person’s world and attempt to see things as they do, it is possible to imagine that they have acted from what they perceived to be good intentions.

Listening to others in this way allows for you to come up with an interpretation that supports the possibility of your relationship with the person. This perspective may support you at times and perhaps not at other times. It is entirely up to you to use as just another tool in your toolbox to maximize your effectiveness with others.

Listening For The Greatness In Others

1) For the next 30 days, practice any or all of the following listenings:

-to empower others to realize their greatness
-to hear how they might contribute something of value to you
-to appreciate their commitments and concerns and what it’s like to be them
-with something significant at stake (perhaps your relationship with the other person)
-to hear the good intentions of the other person

2) Note in your journal any insights or possibilities that were created as a result of listening to others in these ways.

For more information on Dr. Rubino’s coaching programs, books, tapes, CDs and courses, visit http://www.CenterForPersonalReinvention.com,  e-mail to: drjrubino@email.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/