Kiger's Notebook

Roch. family cruising along without gasoline

Here's some from the two stories I had today about the Camerons who drive a Honda Civic that runs on compressed natural gas instead of gasoline.

This is a follow-up to Kwik Trip's announcement that it have a CNG pump at its new store on Rochester's 19th Street Northwest.

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At first glance, the Cameron family's 2012 Honda Civic looks the same as any other Civic.

However, this car has never used a single drop of gasoline and is the only one of its kind in Rochester.

A little logo  — "CNG"  — on the trunk tells the story. The car that Karen Cameron drives to work and to take her seventh-grade daughter to school events runs on compressed national gas.

It's the only factory-built model available in the U.S., though a wide selection of large trucks, vans and buses are in made by Ford, General Motors and even McNeilus Trucks in Dodge Center.

Compressed natural gas costs about half of what drivers are paying for a comparable gallon of gasoline. It burns much cleaner, releasing only about a tenth of the carbon emissions into the air that gasoline or diesel does.

CNG is also plentiful in the United States, with a supply that is estimated to last more than 100 years without importing any from other countries.

Those are the aspects that excite Graham Cameron and his son, Ian Cameron, who are both enthusiastic proponents of alternate fuels and technology like geothermal heat pumps and solar power systems.

"But my wife is a different story. She doesn't get into this like Ian and I do," says Graham Cameron. "I'm surprised by how quickly she accepted it. The bottom line is that she loves it."

Karen Cameron acknowledges that buying the car in April wasn't really something she was excited about.

"I was a little bit of a naysayer because of the extra up front costs" — about $6,000 more than a standard Civic plus about $6,000 for the garage fueling system installed by K&S Heating, she says.

Then she started the driving the car. It doesn't feel any different, and it is much quieter than its more plentiful gasoline-burning siblings. It goes 250 miles on a tank of CNG, which the Camerons fill by locking on a nozzle and letting it pump overnight.

Karen Cameron has driven 8,000 to 9,000 miles in the past six months without once filling at gasoline pumps, although she did use a CNG pump in the Twin Cities once.

"It has been great," she says.

New eco-friendly auto repair shop growing fast

It looks like work on the new Joe's Auto Care on Civic Center Drive is really speeding along this week.

In case you don't remember, I wrote about this project a couple of months ago.

Here's some from that column as a refresher:

Look for a new automotive repair center with an eco-friendly focus to sprout up in northwest Rochester.

Joe Peter plans to plant a new 55,000-square-foot repair center at 1420 Civic Center Drive, after the former Valvoline Oil Change building on the site is demolished and cleared away.

Longtime Rochester food fans might remember the history of that spot. Peter says he's been told that's where the legendary Henry's Hamburgers stand was located.

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Peter's plan is to build this second repair shop to complement his nearby Joe's Auto Care that is tucked away at 923 Sixth St. N.W., near the People's Cooperative/Good Food Store grocery.

The pair of repair centers will both be branded as Joe's Auto Care, though the new one will probably have a slightly different name to show its commitment to using products and procedures that are environmentally friendly.

IBM's weather forecasting system gets rained on

Here's some from an interesting piece by William Pentland (who looks a lot like Thomas Dolby) on Forbes.com's Clean Beta energy blog.

Basically, using utility giant Con Edison as his example, the piece calls the effectiveness of IBM's super-duper weather forecasting program called Deep Thunder. (Whoever names stuff at IBM must have a fun job. Heh)

I point this out mainly because a 2010 case study by IBM says at that time, Deep Thunder was running on an IBM System P server at the IBM Data Center in Rochester.

I wonder how KTTC's Randy Brock would fare in a head-to-head weather forecast cage match? I bet he'd do better than those guys did on Jeopardy! against IBM's Watson.

Anyway, here some from Pentland's piece:

Deep Thunder couples high-resolution weather forecasts with business processes to enhance operational planning and facilitate efficient and effective decision making processes. Or, as IBM puts it: “It is not about weather but integrating forecasts into decision making to optimize business processes.”

In 2001, a prototype was pioneered to provide 24-hour forecasts for the New York City area at 1 kilometer resolution twice daily. More recently, IBM has extended the Deep Thunder platform for forecasting local weather conditions in Atlanta, Chicago, Kansas City, Baltimore and Washington D.C. and other metropolitan areas.

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The big question for IBM is whether Deep Thunder delivers on its promise.  At least one high-profile customer, Consolidated Edison of New York, has concluded that it does not.

Here's what Con Ed said in 2008:

[Con Edison] has initiated a project with IBM to apply IBM’s Deep Thunder technology to the problem of forecasting weather-caused damage at a micro-geographic level. The goal . . . is to develop and integrate more precise weather forecasting capability into our emergency response management utilizing finer resolution forecasting models. The training of key operations and planning personnel commenced on June 1, 2008 and continues as the application is modified. The Deep Thunder forecasting model is being included as appropriate in operational decisions to continue to test against real time weather data for accuracy and refinement. We are now developing the specifications and implementation for specific customizations of the current Deep Thunder capability to enable the Company to evaluate “predicted” overhead system damage based on Deep Thunder enhanced weather forecasts.

Then this is a follow up report more than two years later:

“[i]nvestigation into integrating the Deep Thunder micro-weather modeling system with the STAR system determined that it is not feasible with the current software . . The [Deep Thunder] predictive model has proved to be no more accurate than the existing static matrix currently in use. The model’s usefulness is limited and no further modifications are anticipated.”

Changes @ Kardia and BioBiz Center

Here's some from a piece I wrote about Kardia Health Systems' restructuring and what it means for the Minnesota BioBusiness Center where the company leases 7,435 square feet.The full article is posted here.

Kardia licenses technology from Mayo Clinic.

Rochester Developer Gus Chafoulias is at the helm of Kardia.

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A Rochester medical imaging firm based on Mayo Clinic research is reinventing itself and that means it needs to change its lease in the Minnesota Biobusiness Center.

The Rochester City Council OK'd changes to Kardia Health Systems'  five-year lease it signed in 2008 for 7,435 square feet of space on third floor on the Biobusiness Center, 221 First Ave. S.W.

That lease started at $14.75 per square foot for the first year and increased by 4 percent each year, culminating at $17.25 in 2013. The company also received a a $75,000 interest-free loan from the city to cover finishing costs to prepare the space for use.

Now changes mean Kardia no longer needs the space.

"Kardia has undergone internal restructuring and has become a virtual company with its principal employees located in Minneapolis and Denver," according to a request submitted to the city council.

It markets Internet-based software services used primarily by cardiologists to study data from echocardiogram tests. Kardia licenses technology from Mayo Clinic, which also owns equity in the company.

While the medical imaging services firm will not need the Biobusiness Center, another related company — Strategic Medical Innovation Partners — is interested in taking over some of the office space. Strategic Medical, formerly known as Healthcare IPP Partners, is owned by many of Kardia's lead investors.

Kardia is asking that the Rochester-based Titan Development Group, led by local business developers Gus and Andy Chafoulias, be allowed to sub-lease any space that Strategic Medical does not use.

Gus Chafoulias is an investor in Kardia as well as serving as the chairman of its board of directors.

"Parts of Kardia will still be here and parts will be virtual," says Chafoulias, who has an office in that part of of the building.

Chafoulias says the Titan Development staff is moving from their current offices by the Rochester International Airport into the Kardia space.

Cascade Meadows photos, request for more construction pics

Remember last week when I posted a crude construction update snapshot of the Cascade Meadow Wetlands and Environmental Science Center off of Rochester's 19th Street Northwest?

 Well, long-time Kiger's Notebook contributor Josh Banks sent me some real photos of the project as well as one of the dirt moving at the Lourdes High School construction site.

Way to show me up, Josh. Heh.

Josh has always snapped great shots around the area for this blog.

It looks like he is stepping that up with Banks Photography.

I thought I'd share the pics he sent me and open up the invitation to everyone else to help me document construction and demolition projects in the area.

I'd love to see any pics you feel like sharing. If I use any photo for the blog, Facebook, print or elsewhere, I will attribute the photo to whoever took it and shared it with me.

Wetlands center growing like a weed

It looks like the new Cascade Meadow Wetlands and Environmental Science Center is growing like a weed in the field near the Rochester Athletic Club off of Rochester's 19th Street Northwest.

As I was out and about today, I snapped a pic from the backside of the complex that is shaping up fast

Mike Benike is the project manager for the project. It is being built by Rochester general contractor, Alvin E. Benike Inc.

Here's how Mike Benike described the building in an interview for the Post-Bulletin's Green Space column in January.

At 16,000 square feet, the building will be compact. It will have solar panels on the ground, solar hot water tanks outside to show how they would work in a commercial or residential building and a man-made lake for geothermal heating and cooling, Benike said.

The building will use 50 percent less energy compared to a standard building and more than 7 percent of its energy will come from renewable sources on site.

Enviro-friendly building designer heats things up

Here's some from an article I have on Christian Milaster and his Be!Cause Group. The full piece is posted here.

The puzzle of building an environmentally friendly home that is economically reasonable and still comfortable is a challenge.

"We looked around quite a bit," says Shalise Keating. "We're concerned about the environment and we want to do our piece."

In the end, Keating and her partner, Jill Kelly, turned to local engineer Christian Milaster and his Be!Cause Group to create a plan for their Fillmore County home.

"I think he does a better job of putting all of the pieces of together than anyone else we've found," Keating says as their 4,200-square-foot, three-story house is being built in Fillmore County.

It will be heated by the sun, and all of its water will be provided from a 20,000-gallon cistern.

Creating such plans was not something Milaster ever imagined he'd be doing when he moved to the United States from Germany in 1998.

However, looking back, he says it's not surprising that as an engineer he "stumbled" into the field.

After visiting Dream Acreas, an organic farm in Wykoff, Milaster was fascinated by the completely sustainable, off-the-grid lifestyle.

"The idea of sustainable living appealed to my engineer mind," he says.

After two years of research, he built his own sustainable home in rural Lanesboro that he playfully named Project Licht 'n Stein.

"I wanted to create the smallest energy footprint possible without losing any comfort. I like living a completely modern lifestyle with wireless Internet and hot water," he says.

After moving into his solar-heated house, with its $100 a year utility bills, Milaster started hosting open houses to share what he had learned building his rural homestead with a home theater and whole-house stereo system.

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Open house
Christian Milaster is hosting another open house for his Project Licht 'n Stein home in rural Lanesboro from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday.
The house at 100 Hidden Valley Drive is about 45 minutes from Rochester.

For more information and directions, visit his website.

New company moves into Elgin Industrial Park

A new company - Nationwide DI Water Solutions - is charging up in Elgin's Industrial Park.

Owner Bruce Iverson opened the specialty service business in a new 9,000-square-foot building on June 1.

To jump-start the start-up, the City of Elgin gave him a low-interest loan of $20,000 and People's Cooperative Services, the rural power company, made another loan of $30,500.

The Rochester-based People's owns the industrial park in Elgin.

Iverson describes his operation as a regeneration facility. Nationwide DI re-charges the deionization resin used in electrical discharge machining used in  the manufacture of appliances, medical devices, aerospace materials and automotive parts.

"It is a niche service that only four or five companies in the country provide," Iverson says. "It is a kind of a green business allowing companies to re-use materials when the charge is gone rather than buying new."

Iverson says he has already brought two jobs to Elgin and he expects to add two to four more in the near future.

Is Green tech key to Minn.'s economic future?

Can Minnesota become the Silicon Valley of green technology?

A think tank report released this week says that could happen, if government and business leaders show strong support for the industry.

"Minnesota is in a great position," said Salman Mitha, a business owner and engineer. Working for Minnesota 2020, a nonprofit think tank, Mitha spent about a year writing a report called "Jump Starting Minnesota's Green Economy."

During a stop in Rochester Tuesday to discuss the report, he cited seven environmentally friendly business opportunities that could boost the state's economy.

"The technology is there. These are not long-term things in the research pipeline," Mitha said. "We need to push things out now."

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The Be!cause Group is another local business built on environmental concepts. Started by Christian Milaster, the start-up firm analyzes homes and prescribes green, energy-efficient changes that can be paid for by energy savings.

While he believes in green as an ideal as well as a good business model, "it has become one of those buzz words. People are trying to jump on green band wagon," said Milaster.

Having built his own Lanesboro home totally off the grid — it costs him only $100 in utilities a year — he sees the benefits of an economy that embraces environmentally friendly concepts.

The technologies included in the Minnesota 2020 report — biodigesters, solar roofs, mass transit and smart grids — are already in use in Europe, Milaster said.

Minnesota gets an average of 4.6 hours of sunshine a day, while Germany gets 3.5 hours.

What will it take for Minnesota to be a successful green economy?

"It is the wallet. It is the pocketbook that will drive people," he said.

And "people have to get behind the green economy," Mitha said.

The backing of more governmental and business leaders is needed before that can happen, he says.