Container Air Energy Storage coming Q4 2013

GigaOm's Katie Fehrenbacher has a post on LightSail Air Energy Storage.

Peter Thiel, Khosla, Bill Gates back air energy storage startup LightSail

• BY Katie Fehrenbacher
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Peter Thiel is leading a large investment into an air energy storage startup called LightSail Energy. Thiel joins Bill Gates and Khosla Ventures as investors. Compressed air energy storage tech pumps air into tanks and releases it on demand to create a sort of air battery.

A startup that makes compressed air energy storage technology called LightSail Energy, has raised a whopping $37.3 million series D round led by Peter Thiel, and also including existing investors Bill Gates and Khosla Ventures. LightSail Energy, based in Berkeley, Calif., has been in stealth for awhile, but the company makes a next-generation technology that compresses air in a tank and efficiently releases it on command, creating a sort of air-based battery for the power grid.

I took a look at the technology section of LightSail and the first versions are 1MW containers.  What came to mind is whether LightSail could be used in a UPS scenario replacing batteries.  If you had a choice between hundreds of lead-acid batteries or a compressed air storage unit, what would you pick?

Instagram's CEO thinks Cell Phone Data Plans is an obstacle

Watching Kevin Systrom - Co-Founder and CEO, Instagram.

800,000 photos were tagged Sandy over the past week.  What was interesting is Kevin's comment that cell phone data plans are an obstacle for sharing more.  Imagine how many more photos would have been shared if the cell coverage wasn't damaged as well.

Kevin thinks Mobile is just starting given it has only existed for a couple of years for many.

Latency is another issue that Kevin touches on for mobile networks.

You can watch Kevin's talk on the GigaOm stream.

http://new.livestream.com/accounts/74987/events/1625459/videos/5782565 

Microsoft launches China Cloud Services

Microsoft and 21Vianet have partnered to provide Microsoft Cloud services in China.

Microsoft Partners With 21Vianet to Offer China-Based Cloud Services

By Paul Mozur

BEIJING--Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) said it is partnering with Chinese data center services provider 21Vianet Group Inc. (VNET) to offer cloud services based on data centers within China.

In a post on its website Thursday, Microsoft said it licensed its cloud-based Office 365 and Windows Azure software to Nasdaq-listed 21Vianet, which will allow clients in China to store data in Chinese data centers.

Microsoft added that it would offer clients in China the option to choose between hosting their data within or outside China. The decision about where to host data for a company can be highly sensitive as it is effectively outsourcing the storage of often critical data to a third party. Chinese storage centers are also subject to Chinese laws, which analysts say can at times provide less protection.

GigaOm's Barb Darrow points to the original Microsoft blog post that announces the new services.

Microsoft takes Azure to China

• BY Barb Darrow
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Chasing a potentially huge market, Microsoft has inked a pact with the municipality of Shanghai and with ISP 21Vianet to offer Windows Azure services in China. The deal could be huge but also problematic, given problems Google and other U.S. companies have had in China.

Here is the Microsoft post.

Cloud OS is coming to China

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Doug Hauger 

1 Nov 2012 2:00 AM

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Today, I’m pleased to announce that Microsoft is bringing our premier public cloud platform Windows Azure to China.  Following our recent launch of Windows Server 2012, this represents the next step in delivering our Cloud OS vision to China by delivering multi-tenant public and private cloud services to millions of businesses in China.

We believe customers should have a choice in how and when they move to the cloud, and Windows Server 2012 and Windows Azure give customers the ability to choose the right cloud solutions for them. Whether it is on premise in their own datacenter or using the public cloud capabilities of Windows Azure, we are committed to giving our customers and partners the best solutions to meet their business needs.

Today, we signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the municipality of Shanghai; and we have signed a landmark agreement to license Microsoft technologies to 21Vianet, who will offer Windows Azure services in China from local datacenters. This will meet the demands of customers in China.  

We’re excited to soon be able to satisfy the enormous appetite in China for a public cloud platform with the security and reliability features that customers demand from Microsoft.  A recent Forrester Research report on cloud computing (Forrester Research, Sizing The Cloud Markets In Asia Pacific, Feb. 3, 2012) found that the public cloud market in China will grow from $297 million in 2011 to $3.8 billion in 2020. With today’s announcement, Windows Azure is well positioned to have a strong presence in China and to serve local businesses seeking to take advantage of the cloud on their terms.

- Doug Hauger, General Manager, Microsoft Server and Tools Division

Squarespace has retired the diesel bucket brigade, but the fuel filter needs to be changed, adding downtime

This blog is hosted by Squarespace at Peer 1's facility in lower Manhattan.  The media has covered their bucket brigade carrying diesel fuel to the 17th floor.  

And, now they have finally got a fuel pump working to pump the fuel to the fuel tanks.

Update [6:25pm ET]

We have confirmed that the fuel pump is now working. We can now operate off of fuel indefinitely and there are continuous deliveries scheduled.

But, now they are facing a fuel filter change.

Additional issues remain, the largest of which being that our generator will need to be taken offline at some point to clean the fuel filter. We can avoid that downtime if Peer1 can provide a street level generator. If this generator failure does occur, we expect the level of downtime to be on the order of an hour, instead of the multi-day outage we were facing at the onset of this crisis. We remain in a difficult situation, but the most difficult challenge we were presented with is now behind us. As of this writing, Squarespace has miraculously avoided all downtime related to Sandy, but we still have many challenges ahead with respect to getting back to anything normal.

With all these diesel generators running, maintenance events are coming up and standby generators are not meant for continuous operation for days at a time.  

Increased Diesel Tanker shipping rates shows the increase in demand

It is simple economics to know the price increases when there is a shortage of a resource.

NJ.com (Bloomberg) has an article on the increases in diesel shipping costs on the East Coast.

Phillips 66 and Hess Corp’s New Jersey refineries remained shut today, three days after Atlantic superstorm Sandy struck the East Coast. Earnings for tankers shipping diesel to Europe from the U.S Gulf increased by more than fourfold to $12,349 a day, data from the London-based Baltic Exchange showed today.

“So many ships are stuck in New York and running late, and the pipelines are closed, so everything is being sourced ex-U.S. Gulf,” Martin said by e-mail. “It has made a massive impact on this market.”

It would seem like diesel fuel is a scarce resource and someone is going to run out of diesel.