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In Nebraska USDA stands for U.S. Department of Agriculture. OUr former Governot Mike Johanns is the head of it currently.
Dennis
Wind is going to be a big thing in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Wyoming and the Western Dakotas. Farmers are taking a heckuva beating with low commodity prices and drought. Add to that the issue of high energy costs and talk of ending all the farm programs as we now know them and any farmer with a lick of sense knows that he is going to have to make some changes in his operation.
In NW Kansas, where my families farm is located, the traditional crop has been wheat. The land there is as flat as a floor and it is some of the best hard red/white wheat growing country in the World. With modern farming techniques and new hybrid seed stocks the yields in this area have risen from 30 bu/acre in the 1940's to close to 100bu/acre (in a good year). The main thing that hasn't changed is the price the farmers are getting for their wheat. . . during most of the 1940's wheat was bringing $3.50 or more per bushel; now the range of price per bushel for wheat is $2.75 to $3.50. Corn prices are even worse than wheat. In fact some of the corn farmers I know here in Nebraska are using their corn to heat their homes and outbuildings because corn is a cheaper fuel than Natural Gas or propane! A lot of their soybean & Sunflower crop is being converted to Bio-diesel also. Corn is going to the Ethanol plants and bringing a dime a bushel more than the open market is paying.
The folks on the Left & Right coasts are demanding "Green" energy. These greenies, through the E.P.A, have put restrictions on the Nuclear & Coal powered generators that are so restrictive that it now takes ten to 15 years to plan & build a coal fired plant. Hell will freeze over before Nuclear plants generate anymore power than they do currently. The N.I.M.B.Y syndrome has affected the folks who live in the larger urban areas so badly that they will not tolerate things like a little bit of wind noise so there will be very few of these wind generators put into the urban areas close to the places that need them the most. That means that these new wind generating farms will be needing thousands or hundreds of thousands of miles of new cable to deliver that electricity to the areas that will be using it. One helluva large of that new cable will be ACCC I hope.
I am only involved in the operations of our family farm currently as an advisor however all of us involved in the decision making part of operations are looking for NEW ways of adding to the total income that is produced. We all agree that raising crops basically the same way it has been done for the past 100+ years is going to have to come to an end. If you spend anytime in the coffee shops in small farm communities listen to some of the things that are being discussed at tables around you. The next generation of farmers will be some of the best educated, smartest and hardest working group of people this country has ever seen.
CTC plus ACCC and their new wind towers could become a big player in parts of the farm community. I hope in their designs of wind towers etc. they keep in mind products on a scale that would allow farmers to invest in this infrastructure.
Whew the fingers are tired but the mind is still whirling. Maybe later after the fingers feel better I will add more. LOL.
Dennis
This link gives other links to various maps of areas in the USA and the amount of wind resources available at different times of the year etc. It will give you a good idea of just how much potential there is for wind power is different areas.
Dennis
http://rredc.nrel.gov/wind/pubs/atlas/maps.html
This website explains the pultrusion process. Of course the CTC system may have a few differences. Maybe some of you who have seen the CTC plant can tell us how similar they are.
TIA
Dennis
http://composite.about.com/library/weekly/aa101397.htm?once=true&
Lentinman,
Thanks. I will try that first thing tomorrow.
Dennis
Lentinman. . . maybe you can help me with a problem I am having on iHub. When I opened my iHub FREE account I was using AOL. Since then I dropped AOL and got a new ISP. In the time since then I have forgotten my Password and cannot get into the "edit my profile" feature. Do you know how to get the password?
TIA,
Dennis
Biegledog. . . I remember seeing some information posted either here or on RB that had a link to some SEC forms posted by Cornerstone. IIRC they are incorporated in Illinois. That form mentioned the T. McAuliffe and a transfer agent plus a few other details I forgot. I think the Incorporation date was August of 2005 but I may have that wrong. As far as the 70 years of experience in the field of composites maybe they have had several employees who have worked with composites for several years. Hell I have several years working with "composites" myself. Composite gunstocks, wood products, car parts etc. All in my little corner shop in the basement. However I could add that to my resume and really make it sound great. Throwing BS around has become a fine art in todays information driven society. LOL.
Dennis
Willy,
Here in Nebraska one of the most sensible group of "tree huggers" are the members of the Audobon Society. Their main interests are the preservation of habitat for birds. They are allied closely here with the Arbor Society which was founded in Nebraska. The Arbor Society plays a large part in the preservation of forests and trees. I think both of these groups do great work and so far they have resisted a takeover by the "radical" tree huggers that seem to be so prevalent in other environmental groups. The real shame in the whole environmental movement is that wackos like P.E.T.A have managed to set the hunting community and legitimate groups that are really concerned about the environment against each other. Hells bells I have hunted & fished all my life and I am sure you have to. As a whole the hunters & fishermen in our society are the ones that do the most to promote the environment. We are the ones spending the most time in the woods & streams.
So in a search for allies to get ACCC adopted I would contact members of both the Audobon Society and the Arbor Society. I will do a bit of research later today and try to post website information on iHub and RB. It may take a while to do it though. I was doing some serious wrenching on a car project of my Nephews over the weekend and my wrists and fingers are stiff & sore. Looks like my mechanicing days are over. LOL.
Dennis
Derx,
Thanks for the links to those sites. I am going to try to contact some of the groups that have been protesting the new power lines that will be going up close to our "Nine Mile Prairie". In a way it is against my nature to deal with these "green" groups because I have found most of them to have an agenda that is based on poor science and emotion rather than reason. However they could be a good ally in the fight to improve the efficiency of the power grid around the USA if they can be convinced of the fact that using ACCC to reconductor some of the already existing lines would slow the building of new ones.
Dennis
I know and I was sort of surprised about that myself Invest. I tried finding powerlines on the Google Earth maps but unless you doing a search in a urban area the resolutions aren't high enough to show power lines and towers; but substations are sometimes visible. I guess we need to make it as difficult for terrorists as we possibly can but I am sure they can get any information they need from other sources easily enough.
Dennis
I have been trying to find a current map of the grid for the state of Nebraska. So far the only one I have found is several years out of date <http://www.neo.state.ne.us/phase1/m4-1.2.jpg > There are several projects under consideration that are generating a lot of public hostility around here. In Lincoln the local power company (LES-Lincoln Electric System) wants to build a new high voltage line that skirts the edge of our "Nine Mile Prairie". This plot of land is one of the last vestiges of prairie still left that is what it was like several hundred years ago. LES wants to build a new line along the perimeter of this patch of prairie. Although the new line will not cross the prairie it will spoil the view of the unobstructed skyline in that area and that fact has a lot of locals concerned.
I called Mr. Carswell and talked to him a bit about some of the things going on here in Nebraska. I gave him a list of names of some of the decision makers here in Nebraska involved in these projects and suggested that he send them samples of the ACCC cable. In an e-mail I got from him later he told me the samples were on their way and appropriate sales staff had been notified. Maybe just maybe one or two of these samples will be placed in the hands of someone who can visualize the whole idea of the ACCC advantage. I have sent information to several of the reporters of the Lincoln Journal Star and the Omaha World Herald about ACCC also. Hopefully one of these reporters will take a peek at www.compositetechcorp.com and follow up with some questions and an article.
If any of you can find web links to maps of the grid in your states I would sure like to see the URL's to them. It would be great if the CPTC website could show maps of possible reconductoring projects that the public could access. Sometimes the committies that oversee and make decisions about power projects aren't concerned about keeping costs under control. If the general public can see information that shows how the regulators can save money pressure can be applied.
Gotta take a break the fingers are wore out.
Dennis
I'm living in Lincoln currently Goldrusher but as soon as CPTC hits $15 I will be headed to either NW Kansas or back to the old homestead in Eastern Colorado. The heck of it is CPTC is adding a lot of gray hairs and if it (or a couple other stocks I own) don't do something within a few months I may be bald to.
Dennis
Thanks Bogey,
I used the address that you provided and sent him some information about possible sales that are coming up here in Nebraska. So far I haven't see it returned as undeliverable so hopefully it made it through. My "Outlook Express" can really be aggravating at times but that is probably because I was spoiled by the simplicity of using AOL for ten years. LOL I called Mr. Carswell and left a message on his voice mail. He returned the call within two hours. I was impressed again. I didn't take want to up any more of his time other than what it took to pass on my information so I don't have anything to add.
Dennis
Does anyone have the E-Mail address of James Carswell? I need to send some information to him and I don't see the address on the webs contact site.
TIA,
Dennis
The mindset of most college trained engineers that I have met always seems to be toward doing things the "safe" way. When I was dabbling around in drag racing in the late 1960's the best of the engineers from GM, Ford and Mopar were usually the ones who had messed around with hot rods when they were kids. The typical "book learners" could tell you 1,000 reasons why something would not work. The engineers that actually had grease under their fingernails were the ones who always seemed to build better and faster cars. Go figure.
The perfect examples of the different types of thinking are what you see with N.A.S.A. and privateers like Burt Rutan. If G.W. Bush wants to see a man on the moon again in the next ten years they should offer a ten billion dollar prize to the first company that can send a crew to the moon. If N.A.S.A does it they will probably need $100 billion to do it.
These comments are JMHO and are not meant to offend ALL engineers; just the ones with their head up their rectum.
Dennis
I agree in part with you Suby. I do a lot of bragging about the winners I have picked over the years too but if you go back over my history on the RB site you will find several posts I have made about investments I have lost on also. Two examples of the worst mistakes I have made are New Visual and Engage (NVEI & ENGA if they are still trading).I really got taken for a ride on the NVEI because they had what I thought and still do think is a billion $$$$$ idea, a way of transmitting up 54 megs/sec of data up to 5 miles over copper telephone wire.After investing a couple thousand in NVEI and watching broken promises one after another I gave up on it. I still have the 47 shares I paid over $2,000 for though. Mainly because to sell them I would have to pay money from my pocket for the commission. It will make a great tax write off someday though. ENGA is a great example of a stock tip I got from an old High School buddy. I shoulda known better. This was the same guy I bought a motorcycle from that had a broken frame. So much for High School friendships! Five years from now I hope I am bragging about my investment in CPTC that turned thousand$$ into Million$$$. Whichever way it shakes out I will keep CPTC in my folder.
Dennis
I think there is a lack of enthusiasm about CPTC from most of those who have shares right now. When I first bought in (08/15/2003) I thought CPTC would be the accepted industry standard by now. I thought we would be on the NASDAQ by now. I thought the share price would be over $20 or more by now. I thought China would be hanging wire all over their country in preparation for the 2008 Olympics. I thought a lot of great things would be happening by now. Instead we have seen lawsuit after lawsuit, a Q that we may not be able to shake without some serious dilution, and a total lack of NEW investors.
Anyone who is a first time investor during 2005 has to wonder WHY they are still holding their shares. Those that bought in at the $4 to $6 levels prior to BK have to be really pi**ed about their investment now. If they sold at a loss you can bet your a** that they are telling everyone they know about the "turkey" they bought thinking it was really going to be something. In other words CPTC has a very serious lack of credibility with the typical group of investors that would be buying shares in smaller quantities. Maybe BW can raise money from large investment types but isn't that the reason for all our current BK woes? So far the only millionaires CPTC has made are all lawyers (from both sides). Is the power transmission industry really so stupid that they cannot see the advantage that ACCC offers or is their hesitancy to invest in ACCC doubts that they are dealing with a company that can deliver a finished product and be around to support that product for decades? Convince those customers that not only is ACCC a great product but the management and company can take care of business and sales will happen. When sales start coming the confidence of investors will return also. Sort of a Catch 22 situation.
Sorry if I am sounding negative but I am frustrated and pi**ed off right now. Instead of making progress in 2005 CPTC has been in reverse. It is time to get moving forward instead of backwards.
JMHO,
Dennis
If EMF is an issue with overhead cables I wonder what kind of problems would be caused by EMF's when we go to most of our wires being underground. Are the EMF emissions magnified in the ground or does the soil dissipate them? I suppose some lab rats somewhere are being sacrificed in the search for these answers.
Dennis
The clock is ticking. The way I see it if we don't have at least $5 million in revenues by December 15th we are screwed. The thing that pixxes me off more than anything is the fact that the million$$$$ the company spent on legal fees the past few months could have been spent hiring a top notch sales team. I am a true believer in the CPTC product, ACCC, but I am having some damn serious doubts about whether the current management team has the ability to ever get it accepted. We don't have six months to get this show on the road. . . six weeks is more like it. Damn it I want to see results not excuses.
Dennis
I guess GC had some nice things to say about CPTC on their conference call today. I plan on listening to it later tonight. Whatever they said must have pleased the market because last I looked BGC was up a $1.53. Maybe the positive words about us in that CC will bring in some new investors later this week.
Dennis
I think the amount to be considered an "insider" is only 5% of the outstanding shares but I may be wrong. ACQ will probably have that many when the total 6.5 million shares is in their hands unless they start selling it before they reach a 5% figure. I really think they will hang onto as many shares as they possibly can. If their eventual goal is to take over the CPTC board they have a better chance of that than ever. If BW & BA stick together it would be impossible for a hostile takeover but IF they should have a falling out that could be a real possibility. I would like to see at least a five member BOD composed of qualified people but IMHO the last thing we need to see is a proxy fight for control of the company.
Dennis
I tried posting again just a few seconds ago and it isn't letting ME do it. Maybe I have ticked off the RB management.
Dennis
RagingBull is screwing up again today and not letting me post anything so I will post this query here knowing that some of you who read this board are pretty knowledgeable:
With the 6-1/2 million shares AQ won yesterday added to what they already held before ( I am assuming they held quite a few shares) wouldn't that make them an "insider" and require their filing the appropriate forms with the SEC when buying or selling shares of CPTC? If AQ was a legal entity such as a partnership, corporation or limited partnership I would think the SEC rules would apply. If it was just a group of individuals who hired an attorney to represent them in a lawsuit maybe the SEC rules do not apply. Do any of you with legal knowledge have any idea about this? So far I haven't found any forms about insider selling of CPTC but my luck finding insider info on EDGAR hasn't been too hot.
BTW I bought more today. So far I don't know whether to thank the seller or cuss him out.
Dennis
biegledog that T& D event that was scheduled for New Orleans has been moved to sometime in 2006. One of the posters on RB had a link to an article referring to it.
Dennis
The last two paragraphs are the key to how quickly new lines will be replaced by powerlines using ACCC.
"The new U.S. energy bill, signed by President Bush on Aug. 8, is evidence of this, he and others say. The bill will make reliability rules mandatory, strengthen the power of Federal Energy Regulation Commission to oversee and regulate, create incentives for investment, and give government more say in establishing new power sites, despite local resistance.
Yet regardless of better technology and increased generation, there will always be a delicate balance between supply and demand and the prospect of blackout, say analysts. "It's the hurricane Katrina problem," says Peter Doren, who analyzes the electric industry for the Cato Institute. "There are an infinite number of projects where we could exhaust the gross national product to make sure we are protected from any and all disaster. At some point, the cost to the consumer will rein in what can and is done."
When transmission companies realize they can deliver almost twice the amount of electricity without investing in new support structures by using ACCC and still keep the rates for electricity about the same with more of that being profit. . . then CPTC will become the industry standard. I hope the PT companies figure this out soon.
Dennis
It is too bad that it wasn't ACCC cable that was used in this project. It coulda shoulda been.
Dennis
I thought the big power blackout in L.A. Monday afternoon might be the shot in the arm that CPTC needed. I wonder how big the outage would have been if the temperatures in Los Angeles that day were in the 100+ range rather than the mid80's? That could have caused something about like the NorthEast blackout of 08/14/2003. Oh well I just hope revenues start coming in or we are in deep shi*t.
Dennis
No power is needed Doubloon. A small one pound propane bottle is enough for several days use in the small units I have seen. For short time use metal bucket and a cupful of gas should render any fecal matter safe. With all the stranded vehicles gasoline for uses like this should be abundant.
I don't know if F.E.M.A has any mobile toilets available for disasters like this. I do know there are a lot of companies that provide Portable Johns for construction sites etc. "Here Comes Johnny" is one of the local providers in this area.
Do any of you know of a company that makes portable toilets that are capable of burning human waste? If there is such a company I would think it would be ideal for disasters like the aftermath of Katrina. I know there are toilets like this available for use in high end boats. F.E.M.A should have a few hundred thousand units like that in inventory to be taken to didaster sites. In our civilized day to day existence we take things like TP and flush toilets for granted. Imagine how much disease the Katrina stricken area is going to suffer because of improper toilet facilities.
JMHO,
Dennis
I hope the 3M product doesn't have any problems. Right now new customers see both 3M and CPTC products as "composite". If something negative were to happen to the 3M product in these early stages that would probably hinder the acceptance of CPTC's ACCC product to. So I wish 3M well. There is enough business out there for both 3M & CPTC.
JMHO,
Dennis
Imag. . . I have been a Nebraska resident for quite a few years. I have lived in areas of Nebraska served by the Nebraska Public Power District, Omaha Public Power District and currently reside in the area served by Lincoln Electric System. The electric service in the areas I have lived has been not only cheap but reliable. We have two aging Nuclear Power plants in the Eastern part of Nebraska and I am afraid we will be paying some large rate increases when they are decommissioned in a few years. But hey that may be a few years away. Because of our often times violent weather here I suppose our maintainence costs are high compared to other states but knock on wood service interuptions are usually fixed quickly. Here in Lincoln the last serious power outage was in October 1997 when we had up to 24 inches of wet and heavy snow and ice. We lost power for up to two weeks in some areas. That one was a real bitch. My electric bill during the heat wave of July was just over $100 for an older 1800 sq/foot house with three window air units and loads of computers and TV's etc. I have friends in the Oklahoma City area that have newer and smaller homes than mine that say their electric bills in the summer can be over $150. So just from my limited experience with Public Power I would say it works out pretty good.
There are a couple things I don't like about our Public system though. One example. . . in the early 1980's I had more money than sense and a couple partners that had extra cash also. We wanted to start up some catfish farms. Catfish require water temperatures of between 70 & 85 degrees for optimum growth. Some of our winters in Nebraska can be downright chilly with temperatures less than 30 below at times. We had scouted out a few locations to build that were close to unlimited water and close to power plants. Our thinking was that we could cut a deal with some of the power plants to use their heated water from cooling their plants to moderate the water temperatures in our fish farm and then we would return it to the river. We also had plans for raising tomatoes and other high value greenhouse veggies with the heat from the water. We consulted with one of our local attorneys who had served on the P.U.C for a few years and he advised us that our plan would require new laws because the Public Power entities could not sell any services or products other than what the law specifically allowed them. He advised us that it would take a major rewrite of the laws and even if the laws were changed it would take several years to do it. My partners and I thought about going for it anyway but the banker that we had shown our business plan to died and his heirs and their B.O.D weren't interested. I still think we had a damned good idea but as far as I know current laws would still prevent someone from doing what we intended. Maybe someone will do it someday. I sure do hope so because I doooooo love farm raised catfish.
Dennis
biegledog. . . Power Pole beat me to it. It would be worth your time to read all of the 47 or so test results posted. There are a lot of technical terms posted there that I don't have any idea what they mean but it sounds good.
Dennis
Biegledog. . . just about any questions you have about the ACCC cable was recently provided by a link on the company website:
compositetechcorp.com website
If you can't find it let me know and I will post it after lunch.
Dennis
Anything right now is a good entry point IMHO. Buy it and forget about it for a year and you won't get ulcers.It may be $3.00 today and $2.25 by next week with no more positive news by then but by July 15th of 2006 it will be worth $3.00 multiplied several times. Watching this thing 24/7 is for manic depressives! That must be why I like it so much. LOL.
Dennis
I am not an E.E. but my guess is that the 28% more Aluminum conductor is by weight.Since the actual surface area of that Aluminum conductor is probably doubled or more by the 28% increase that is probably why the current carrying capacity is doubled.
The product American Superconductor makes will be used for special situations. You won't see it hanging in the air across the country side. You may see some in large cities where you have commercial users that require vast amounts of electricity and are close to a generating plant. If you read the fine print you should have noticed the bit about being cooled by liquid nitrogen. A system like that is going to require a lot of inspection and maintenence unlike the ACCC product that you hang and forget about for years at a time. We are in a completely different market area so it is no worry.
Dennis
It sounds more like the MOU announced many moons ago with China. Good news yes. . . but still just a maybe.
Dennis
Oh I don't know Phil(Bullrider). . . if you look back at some of your posts over the past few months you have made some even more idiotic posts.
Don't think I'm not upset a bit too Lentinman. . . but if I remember correctly you and I had the same strategy pretty much. When the prices doubled I sold half of my shares and reinvested in more when the prices went down? So essentially I am holding FREE shares. I thought you said you used basically the same strategy.
Sure it hurts to lose a ton of money on paper like we have since 2004 but looking back to 08/15/2003, the day I first bought into CPTC I am still ahead of the game by 200% even at less than a buck ( gotta luv them IRA's). I'll bet even Warren Buffet would be satisfied with a gain like that. I do feel very sorry for some of the folks who bought CPTC and lost monaey.
I have heard from three of my friends who bought into CPTC a year or so ago when I suggested they buy CPTC. Two of those three bought in last year and doubled their money and moved on to greener pastures. The other friend is still holding on to 3,000 shares he bought at $1.80 but since I steered him into EFJI three years ago when it was dirt cheap he told me he could forgive me for some bad advice.
In the spring of 2006 that invitation to my buffalo/jack rabbit BBQ at the new homestead in NW Kansas still stands. If the menu is BBQ Buffalo it will be served in the new formal dining room in my dream home. If it is BBQ'd Jack Rabbit we will be eating off of Willow sticks in my slightly used Amana refigerator packing box. Let's pray for BBQ Buffalo. LOL.
Dennis
Crapsguy. . . most of this badmouthing is from bottom feeders trying to pick up cheap shares.
Dennis