Not one or two, but THREE petitions for MARTA expansion

There is growing, strong citizen interest for the most talked-about MARTA expansion plan since the transit agency was created.

(Photo: LWV)

Last Thursday, Sen. Brandon Beach's bill flexing a 0.5% sales tax to MARTA (known as SB330) passed the GA Senate Transportation Committee 8-3. The bill still has to be voted by the full GA legislature.

Citizens must continue to push officials until the MARTA referendum is held and passed by residents. If passed, $4 billion could be raised and matched to build and operate the proposed MARTA extensions. Citizens have now at least THREE related petitions they can sign:

1. "Support MARTA Expansion in Metro Atlanta" by Advance Atlanta. On the concepts outlined in the proposed map and the general legislative process.
2. "Support The Red Line to North Fulton – It’s About Time" by M. Hadden. Focused on Roswell and North Fulton areas and the general legislative process.
3. "Put MARTA rail expansion in north Fulton County on the November 2016 ballot" by B. Smith. This one is geared to county commissioners, who are responsible for holding the MARTA referendum if SB330 passes the GA legislature.
4. John's Creek wants MARTA - Facebook page that provides the facts and benefits of the proposed expansion in John's Creek.

Start by picking your petition! Then you can contact the individuals and organizations behind the petitions and learn how you can help make the MARTA expansion happen. 

IEEE PES Atlanta: Space Solar Power

This week at the IEEE PES Atlanta lunch event, the topic was on space solar power (SSP) . The presenter was Space Solar Power Institute President Derel Preble. Here are my notes from his presentation.

NASA started research on SSP in the 1980s. The principle is relatively simple: harvest photovoltaic (PV) energy from solar rays in the space before they get attenuated by the Earth's atmosphere, then transmit that energy to the ground using a low density microwave beam. Such beam would not be attenuated by the atmosphere. The energy from the beam would be collected using antennas rectifiers ("rectennas"). Each geo-orbit satellite could provide 1 GW of power. Northrop Grumman has committed $17 million for SSP research at Caltech to further advance the field.

There are big advantages to this concept, shown in the photo above:

• Maximized PV energy collection,
• Reduced transmission losses to the ground,
• 24-hour availability without weather sensitivity,
• Dispatchability (can modulate output anytime),
• Reduced land use, with dual-use of land for farming.

The major drawbacks are the high financial and engineering risks:

• Prohibitive cost to build/launch satellites (sweet spot at $150/lb with reusable rockets),
• Challenges harvesting/capturing the energy transmitted from the satellites,
• Maintenance of the equipment in space (by robots),
• Effective, large scale storage (compressed air seems most cost effective).

Space solar power should be transmitted on a reserved microwave frequency, such as 5.8 GHz, to avoid interference with other equipment. Microwave ovens operate at 2.5 GHz. The Georgia Tech students in Prof. Durgin's lab presented their work on building a cost-effective rectenna to harvest 5.8 GHz microwaves using off-the-shelf products (e.g. a regular printer). They are able to use the energy from an emitter one meter away to power a diode!

Derel Preble noted important aspects of offsetting fossil fuels and carbon emissions:

• There are no actions in place to mitigate rising CO2 levels (EPA hearing Atlanta Nov. 2015).
• High CO2 levels decreases the nitrogen nutrients absorbed by plants, negatively affecting cattle quality in turn.
• While high fuel prices tend to lead to recessions, the economy doesn't improve with low fuel prices after a recession as consumers struggle to recover.
• Energy ROI (EROI) must be considered when designing renewable energy production and storage. "Buffered" EROI is half when including storage (energy buffers) because of the energy involved to build the storage technology. Derel Preble mentions that it is not worth the EROI trying to store PV and wind output.

In conclusion, I am excited to learn about space solar power because it is an opportunity to make the most of our Sun. What is still unknown is whether launching costs will be favorable, and whether the technology to harvest energy beams is feasible.

Retrospective: Delta Gold Medallion Status

As you might know, I had Gold Medallion status with Delta for the last two years, and that was a lot of fun. Before that, I was Silver Medallion for a year. I will hold no status for 2016 until I requalify. You need to fly 25,000 miles a year for Silver, 50,000 miles for Gold, and meet minimum spend. Here is a quick recap of what I got to enjoy.

• Extra baggage allowance.
• Sky Priority for you and your luggage on all SkyTeam airlines worldwide.
• Random TSA PreCheck access once in a while. (UPDATE: happens even without elite status)
• Additional bonus miles per trip.
• Premium phone line for customer service with amazing reps.
• You get called by name when interacting with agents.
• Free same-day confirmed or standby, with priority.
• Drink tickets and luggage tags. (UPDATE: Gold Medallions don't get luggage tags anymore)
• Free access to preferred seats (exit row on the A330!) and Delta Comfort+ seats when available.
• Complimentary upgrades to First Class and medium-haul Business Class on Delta
• 40% of the time on short and medium haul flights.
• 1 involuntary upgrade to Premium Economy on a partner airline.
• Free lounge access on international itineraries
• Delta Sky Club: 6x
• Salons Air France: 7x
• KLM Crown Lounge: 3x
• And a few more!

There are only 2 perks that I have not used:

• Guaranteed reservations on long-haul, oversold international flights. This one is scary, you need to buy a full-fare ticket 24 hours in advance for that.
• Medallion parking lot at Turner Field (the Braves Stadium). Better access the ball park by transit!

Overall, status comes with some nice tokens of appreciation, especially when you travel often. The biggest perks are lounge access and Sky Priority access, especially with international travel, which makes 2/3 of my trips. I will miss these perks, but hey why bother if I don't spend too much time in the air anymore?

Twitter good for short posts

I have been experimenting with Twitter recently. My handle is @bdenergytransit. You may see my tweets and retweets on the right sidebar of this page.

Going forward, most of the content will come from Twitter because of how easy it is to post and tag using mobile devices. I tried with the Blogger app, but there are too many shortcomings that are not worth fighting. Plus, Twitter makes it very easy to find and to follow and grab content from others you don't necessarily know.

At times I think I still need to elaborate, and the longer posts will continue to appear on this blog. So far so good, I don't have to spend too much time publishing AND formatting the posts. Let's see how that goes in the future.