We present an illustrative case of endogenous ocular Nocardia (EON) infection in a man with Hodgkin disease treated by chemotherapy who underwent aggressive vitreoretinal surgery for diagnosis and treatment of a subretinal abscess. Visual acuity recovered from hand movements to 20/25. We review the 38 reported cases of EON published between 1967 and 2007, describe the clinical presentation from a systemic and ocular point of view, examine which ocular procedures were successful in identifying the bacterium, and analyze ocular morbidity and the factors affecting successful treatment.
Posted in Energy Savings, tagged Conserve Energy, Conserve Power, energy, Heat Waves, Peak Hours, servant energy, Summer on June 24, 2012| Leave a Comment »	
There will be high demands made on the grid by the hot weather and there are things everyone can do to help conserve power during peak hours. The following are just a few small steps we can make a difference:
2. When at home, close blinds and drapes that get direct sunlight, set air-conditioning thermostats to 78 degrees or higher and use fans
3. When leaving the home set air condition thermostats to 85 degrees and turn off all fans. Block the sun by closing blinds or drapes with direct sunlight.
4. Do not use dishwasher, laundry equipment, hair dryers, coffee makers, or other home appliances during the peak hours of 3 to 7pm.
We can all do our part to conserve on energy, lessen the demand on power, and insure that the rolling power blackouts we’ve had in the past are a thing of the past. Please email rduron@servantenergy.com if you need power for you facility or need an energy partner for your firm. Here to Serve!
Posted in Energy Questions, Energy Savings, tagged energy, energy audits, Energy Efficiency, energy hogs, saving money, servant energy on December 27, 2011| Leave a Comment »	
People have to do more — at least four energy efficiency improvements — to make a real impact on their utility bills. Unfortunately, Americans aren’t reaching that magic number, even though the government and utilities have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to get them to act.”
Most energy conserving behaviors and home improvement activities dropped significantly from last year” and now are more in line with percentages from 2008 and 2009.
Researchers looked at more than a dozen improvements and behavior changes from simply turning off lights and using less energy during peak periods to having a home energy audit. Activity fell in each category this year with respondents doing a mere 2.6 things on average to reduce energy consumption — which was not enough to lower electricity bills.
Oddly, the drop in energy-saving improvements and activity occurred even though Americans seem to be somewhat more aware that their homes need work and that their energy costs are increasing. This year, 23 percent said their homes were inefficient compared to 14 percent in 2010.
• Denial. “Most Americans continue to live in denial about their energy consumption,” the report said. Despite doing less to save energy, 71 percent of respondents said they believe they are using the same amount or less energy than they did five years ago. Twenty-six percent said they were using more, and 3 percent said they didn’t know.
• A high-tolerance for bill increases. Fifty-eight percent said their utility bill would have to increase by more than $75 a month before they’d consider spending money on energy improvements. On average, respondents said it would take an increase of $112 to spur them to action and those is not a certainty give variables that can affect a bill.
• Costs. The people who most need to make energy efficient improvements are the least able to make them. Those who can better afford to spend money on home improvements were more sensitive to bill increases” and were more likely to make changes that would reduce costs. That is usually the ones that are acting.
• Misplaced priorities. “Consumers continue to prioritize the wrong things as you can see from the lack of home energy audits. Home energy audits continue to be the colonoscopy of energy efficiency. Everyone should get one, but too few actually go through with it. This year, 15 percent said they had an energy audit done on their home, compared to 20 percent last year. Only a third said they think an audit is necessary and of those people close to half said they might get one done.
The federal government should take the hundreds of millions of dollars that’s currently fragmented into best-practices tests, block grants and pilot programs all over the country and pool the money into one big pot. Then design a big national education effort to encourage Americans to take the most important four or five steps necessary to see a real reduction in their utility bills. There needs to be incentive that both creates people to act as well as results that they can look forward to.
Posted in Energy Questions, Energy Savings, tagged ERCOT, power companies, power generations, rising electricity prices, Texas Electricity on October 28, 2011| 1 Comment »	
And don’t expect to get any more reliability for your money. In fact, next year, the lights seem more likely to go out.
The problem is, power companies aren’t building many more generating plants. Some companies are shutting down plants that are old or don’t comply with new pollution rules. At the same time, Texans are using more electricity than ever. In the Texas deregulated market, when supply declines and demand rises, prices go higher. That could put Texas electricity consumers on a free-market roller coaster. “I think there may be some pressure for prices to rise,” said Phil Tonge, president of electricity retailer Spark Energy. “I’m knocking on wood right now. I’m hoping we don’t see another summer like we did this past summer.”
During the past few years, natural gas prices have been low and steady. Since natural gas prices tend to set the price of power in Texas, wholesale power prices have also declined. That’s good for consumers, right? Maybe not for long. Low prices have deterred some power companies from building new plants. Tight electricity supply could soon turn power prices higher.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the state grid, predicts demand for power will increase steadily for the next decade as population increases. The council’s predictions can be conservative. This year, we used much more electricity than expected, thanks largely to February’s freeze and August’s record inferno.
At the same time, the supply of new power generation isn’t keeping pace with demand growth. Between 2000 and 2002, when natural gas was cheap, power companies built more than 100 natural gas-fired generators within the Texas grid. Then, as natural gas prices rose to record levels, driving wholesale electricity prices higher, power generators built dozens of wind and coal-fired plants. Wind and coal plants are cheaper to run than natural gas plants, and therefore earn a fatter profit margin when natural gas prices push wholesale power prices higher.
Consider how things shaped up for the plants that were scheduled to go online next year. Back in 2007, plant operators had the permits and grid-connection agreements to add 4,221 megawatts of capacity in 2012. The following year, the planned capacity for 2012 rose to 5,987 megawatts. Now, generation companies plan to add 1,940 megawatts of capacity next year, less than half of what they originally intended. Also, the state’s largest power generator, Energy Future Holdings, announced it will stop operating two coal-fired plants in order to comply with stiffer pollution regulations. That would wipe out 1,200 megawatts of capacity on Jan. 1.
Without those power plants during the August electricity emergencies, the lights would have gone out, ERCOT executives have said. ERCOT chief executive Tripp Doggett predicts the loss of power generation due to new Environmental Protection Agency rules could boost customer electric bills by around 10 percent.
In theory, when generating company leaders see higher prices, they build more plants. But some experts say prices aren’t going high enough in Texas to persuade power-generation companies to break ground. So long as natural gas prices are low, investors worry any rise in wholesale power prices is temporary. “Fundamentally, we’re trying to establish the right price signals to get the investment we need when we need it, to keep the lights on,” said Dan Jones, ERCOT’s independent market monitor. He thinks prices should be allowed to go higher.
In the land of electricity deregulation, ratepayers no longer pay a monopoly company to build power plants. Instead, competing power generators build plants on their own dimes and make money by selling the electricity into the market. Each day, power generators bid their electricity into the market. ERCOT tells power plants to fire up to meet demand, calling on the cheapest bids first.
Some old, inefficient natural gas plants cost a lot to operate and may get called on to do so only when demand is tight and market prices jump very high. For those plants to make enough money to stay in business, they need to get called on to operate a few times a year at extremely high prices.
Currently, wholesale prices are capped at $3,000 per megawatt-hour. (The average Texas family uses about one megawatt-hour of power each month.) That cap is far, far higher than the usual market price of around $20 to $50 per megawatt-hour. Jones, the ERCOT market monitor, proposed boosting the cap to $6,000 per megawatt-hour, but only when ERCOT declares a grid emergency.
Higher wholesale prices have a way of trickling down to consumers. Anyone who signed up for a variable-rate plan, in which rates can change each month, probably saw much higher rates after this year’s grid emergencies. Even people on fixed-rate contracts could see higher prices when their contracts come due. That’s because if wholesale prices are higher, it costs retail electric providers more to buy the power. And if wholesale prices are more volatile, retailers have to pay more to protect themselves from price swings.
Retailers often buy electricity ahead of time to keep costs predictable, or they invest in market securities that hedge against price swings. “Almost anyone who’s a retailer in Texas, if they don’t have any generation, is going to have to take significant steps to protect themselves against the high peaks,” said NRG Energy chief executive David Crane. NRG executives have said they expect to spend more money next year to protect their retail companies against price swings, and such costs will surely fall to customers across the industry.
Posted in Energy Savings, tagged consumer energy tips, Energy saving tips, energy tips, Home efficiency, saving on energy on June 13, 2011| Leave a Comment »	
1. Replace old light bulbs with energy saving fluorescent bulbs. They may cost more, but will save you much more in the long run.
2. Turn off all electronic devices that are not in use. Not only turn them off but try to remember to unplug them. You will be surprised how much you will save with this simple step!
3. Air dry your dishes. When washing in a dish washer, the heat generated during the wash cycle is more than enough to dry your dishes.
4. Clean or replace air filters regularly. This can vary depending on the filter you are using. It’s important to follow the instruction found on the packaging. If you no longer have it, here are some basic guidelines:
It is also important that your air filter fits properly and air is moving through it and not around it.
6. Weather strip doors and windows! Weather stripping is an inexpensive alternative to replacing windows and will save you hundreds of dollars!
7. Wash clothes in cold water. Believe it or not cold water does clean, and many laundry soap manufacturers now offer soaps specifically made for washing clothes in cold water.
8. Repair or replace leaky faucets. A leaky faucet waste upwards of 30,000 gallons of water a year. Thats right, imagine what you would be saving with a quick fix!
9. Wash clothes in the morning or evening when its cooler. Sounds silly but the heat generated by the dryer will warm the house and in the summer months your air conditioner will use more energy to cool your home.
10. When shopping for new appliances invest in Energy Star. Energy Star appliances are not by any means cheap, but the upfront cost will pay for it self ten fold in the amount of energy you will be saving over time.
After a very long wait and a futile attempt on my part to learn Italian well enough to read the Italian version, I figured learning Polish would be impossible, I will finally be able to read Cardinal Dziwisz’s book, Life With Karol, in English. Yay! Unfortunately, the book will not be released until March 11, 2008.
For those who are interested, the publisher will be Doubleday, the same company as Pope Benedict used for Jesus of Nazareth.