Procure IQ

And I’m still not talking about volcanic eruptions — which could bury or clog your production facilities with ash, a terrorist attack — which could blow up a pipeline, or plain old management incompetence — which could result in a poorly maintained drilling station blowing up, but suicidal Sciurus Carolinensis, who, over the past few months, has knocked out substations in Ohio and Florida. Now it seems that these organized little critters have figured out that they can’t always do it themselves and have recruited procyon lotor to help with those “well-protected” substations …

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… that the most often overlooked risk in your energy supply chain is suicidal Sciurus Carolinensis? It started with FirstEnergy customers in North Royalton (Ohio) when a squirrel found its way into a circuit breaker in a substation and knocked out power to 9,000 homes. Then another squirrel went on the offensive and caused a power outage for thousands of home and business Gulf Power customers in Central and West Destin (Florida). Now another squirrel has managed to infiltrate yet another substation and knock out power to 17,000 Georgia Power customers …

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It’s not volcanic eruptions, which could bury or clog your production facilities with ash, as these generally only occur every few years to every few hundred years. It’s not an unpredictable terrorist act that could blow up a pipeline in North America. No, it’s suicidal Sciurus Carolinensis. Last December, when I first told you about the most often overlooked risk in your energy supply chain, I told you how one little squirrel in one little circuit breaker …

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The Call for Papers for IEEE Canada’s Annual Electrical Power and Energy Conference, the premier conference on Energy Generation, Distribution, and Markets held north of the 49th parallel, which is being held in beautiful and historic Halifax, Nova Scotia, from August 25 to August 27 at the Halifax Marriott Harbourfront Hotel, has been extended until April 15th. The topics being solicited for this year’s conference include: …

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This year, IEEE Canada’s Annual Electrical Power and Energy Conference, the premier conference on Energy Generation, Distribution, and Markets held north of the 49th parallel, is in beautiful and historic Halifax, Nova Scotia from August 25 to August 27 at the Halifax Marriott Harbourfront Hotel. The Call for Papers has been released and the topics up for consideration include: Computational Intelligence Systems Electricity Markets …

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The November 9th print edition of Canadian Business had an Opinion piece by Stewart Hall, titled “The Age of ‘Water Wealth’ Has Arrived in Canada”, that quoted a very scary statistic from the Water Footprint Network. The virtual water footprint of a full breakfast including juice, newspaper, milk, coffee, toast, two eggs and bacon weights in at a hefty 2,800 litres!While one’s virtual water foot print is largely related to choice of diet, even a survival diet alone leaves a footprint of 1,000 litres per day. A vegetarian diet needs 2,600 litres and a high protein North American …

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The November 9th print edition of Canadian Business had an article by Heather Li on “Charging Cars for Pennies …” that had an amazing calculation that, if it were more widely known, could totally change the way we look at smart cars. By using wasted power, smart grids can charge electric cars for 42 cents a night!Let’s see … in a fuel efficient car with gas prices at about $3 a gallon in the US and over $4 a gallon in Canada, you’re paying at least $30 in the US and at least $40 in Canada for a tank …

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Is it the grid and the possibility of another great blackout (due to a lack of breakers)? Is it the unpredictable terrorist act that could blow up a pipeline in North America (which includes friendly Canada)? No, it’s Sciurus Carolinensis! One little squirrel in one little circuit-breaker in one little substation can knock out power to 9,000 homes with a single nibble, as FirstEnergy customers in North Royalton found out on Tuesday. …

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Editor’s Note: Today’s post is from Dick Locke, Sourcing Innovation’s resident expert on International Sourcing and Procurement. (His previous guest posts are still archived.) The October 1 New York Times has an interesting article on a tariff increase on solar panels. While the panels came from China, that’s not the interesting part of the story. The interesting part is that CBP (The US Customs and Border Protection department — successor to the US Customs Service) announced the tariff increase eight months ago and nearly the entire solar panel industry missed it.To summarize, one US company asked CBP for …

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Share This on Linked In Since every business uses energy, every business stands to save if they can reduce their energy usage … and this savings will be considerably more in the long run than what you can get through energy sourcing alone if you can noticeably reduce your energy footprint. [...]

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