Steve Cotler Steve Cotler

Category: Business/Economics

MBA Oath — “My purpose is to serve the greater good”

— 2:15 pm · View all 3 comments

Within my college circle, a career in business was not an admirable path. When I revealed to my friends that I intended to seek an MBA from Harvard Business School, for the next several meals I became invisible. No one spoke to me. I had died, and they referred to me in the past.

HBS women -- 1963I got my MBA in 1968, and the world was surely different then. In my class of 700, there were only seven women, with not a single one in my section of 100. Fifty women were in the 1970 cohort, and by 2007, the Harvard MBA class was 35% female [source].

One thing hasn’t changed, however: business managers are still viewed as grasping, self-interested, and greedy. Continue reading “MBA Oath — “My purpose is to serve the greater good”” →

Is the Production of Geothermal Energy in The Geysers a “Public Nuisance”?

— 10:21 am · View all 3 comments

On September 15, less than a fortnight after AltaRock Energy halted its geothermal drilling in The Geysers, the Anderson Springs Community Alliance (ASCA), a small but formidable opponent of the AltaRock project, fired another salvo: this time charging the area’s main producer of geothermal energy with a public nuisance.

In a formal complaint and petition addressed to the Board of Supervisors of Lake and Sonoma Counties for “Remedy of Ongoing Public Nuisance from Geothermal Earthquakes Caused by Operations of Calpine Corp./Geysers Power Company, LLC at The Geysers,” ASCA specifically cited a September 5 magnitude 2.8 earthquake as the latest of more than a thousand magnitude 2.0 or higher temblors epicentered within five miles of Anderson Springs since 2000. These, ASCA contends, constitute an ongoing public nuisance. [A link to the complaint will be posted here when it goes online.]

According to the complaint, “Most residents of Anderson Springs were awakened by the jolt and noise of this earthquake; many were Continue reading “Is the Production of Geothermal Energy in The Geysers a “Public Nuisance”?” →

Enhanced Geothermal Energy Project Halted in The Geysers

— 8:37 pm · View all 3 comments

Steam-powered electricity generation in The GeysersLate in 2008, George Bush’s Department of Energy committed $6 million to Sausalito-based AltaRock Energy (as part of a consortium…see addendum below) for energy production using Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS). EGS technology works by by injecting water down a deep well into hot rock, fracturing the rock and creating steam which is piped to the surface where it turns turbines and generates electricity. Yesterday, the project was halted due to drilling problems.

Continue reading “Enhanced Geothermal Energy Project Halted in The Geysers” →

On the Bull’s Back

— 7:16 am · Comments Off on On the Bull’s Back

America, in skin and shorts, sleeps

on Wall Street’s back

the beast

appetite and direction, ignores

flies

It is five a.m. and raining

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Cell phone photo: Anonymous, July 2009. Look closely. A man lies supine upon the statue.

Go Sue Yourself!

— 10:12 am · One comment

Perhaps based upon a well-known, anatomically difficult, consensual act, Wells Fargo has sued itself in a Florida foreclosure case reported by Business Insider earlier this month:

“Wells Fargo holds the first and second mortgages on a condominium….As holder of the first, Wells Fargo is suing all other lien holders, including the holder of the second, which is itself.”

Nice move, Wells Fargo. But I had that self-abusive idea first.

In 1989, while working for Montgomery Securities in San Francisco, I zapped a friend by hacking into our pre-internet business wire and generating this official-looking “news story.”

The hard-to-read original text in the sidebar is:

BROKER SUES SELF FOR CHURNING

San Francisco, Ca, April 5/PRNewswire/ — In an unprecedented legal maneuver, Montgomery Continue reading “Go Sue Yourself!” →

Enhanced Geothermal Energy and Man-Made Earthquakes (Part 2)

— 9:30 am · View all 2 comments

As described in a previous post, Sausalito-based AltaRock Energy is drilling a Lake County test well aimed at producing energy by utilizing a technology called Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS). AltaRock’s project is on federal land leased by the Northern California Power Agency (NCPA) on a ridge just above the community of Anderson Springs, CA. According to an article published July 15 in the Lake County News, however, “concerns about the technology AltaRock is using has caused the Bureau of Land Management [BLM] and the Department of Energy [DOE] to decide to conduct further study before the work moves forward.”

In light of the earthquake activity caused by a similar EGS project in Basel, Switzerland in 2006, the question to be studied is: might EGS engender serious earthquakes here in California?

Continue reading “Enhanced Geothermal Energy and Man-Made Earthquakes (Part 2)” →

Steve with students at an author event

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