Daily Score Blog

From the Six Degrees of Separation Department:

Former Sightline Director Jane Lubchenco, a marine biologist from Oregon State University, will be the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Stephen Chu is the new secretary of energy. It's a stretch, but his cousin was once on Sightline's payroll (editorial director Ellen Chu).

Oh, and Sightline's executive director, Alan Durning, went jogging about a year ago with Lisa Brown of the American Constitution Society (not the Senate majority leader from Spokane, WA). She will be President-elect Obama's White House staff secretary.

Update 3/13/2009: Friends of Sightline Ron Sims and Gary Locke have also been selected for the new administration (Assistance Secretary at HUD and Secretary of Commerce, respectively).

Update 3/17/2009: We're also excited to see Van Jones appointed to Obama's Council on Environmental Quality, focusing on green jobs, innovation, and enterprise. He's a Sightline friend in the sense that we're some of his biggest fans -- and we applaud and share his unflagging commitment to green collar jobs and fairness in energy policy.

Here's your economic stimulus idea for today: condensing flue gas waste heat recovery.

With a name like that, it has to be good. And it is. It's precisely the sort of off-the-shelf technology that's ripe for stimulus investment. The investments could yield near-term jobs, as well as savings that would begin immediately and compound into the future.

But what is it? Good question. The folks at Sidel Systems are in the waste heat recovery business, and they've peppered me with fun facts. So while I don't fully understand the technology -- and I don't really know anything about engineering -- I'm going to write about it anyway!

(That means, for the rest of this post, caveat lector.)

Here's the low-down. It's not uncommon for large institutions -- universities, hospitals, schools, prisons, hotels, and certain manufacturers -- to use big and fairly inefficient natural gas-fired boilers. These are boilers that are rated at maybe 80 percent efficiency, but that probably don't hit even that modest mark on most days. And these are boilers that are consuming a huge amount of fuel.

The result of inefficiency is that these huge boilers are expelling hot exhaust tbetween 300 and 700 degrees, a gigantic waste of energy. Now back in the day, when natural gas was cheap and climate change was just a twinkle in Roger Revelle's eye, no one really cared much. But now that gas can be expensive, money is tight, and emissions matter, it's starting to seem like a pretty stupid idea to vent off 700 degree waste heat.

That's where the condensing flue business comes in.

Sightline has a rare opening on its management team: development director.

The development director plays a central role in Sightline’s success. The position is described in detail here, but the life of Sightline’s development director is perhaps best understood by the relationships s/he manages. Sightline is largely funded by a a stable of about two dozen private foundations in the Northwest and beyond, a community of major donors that includes about 100 families and individuals who make gifts in the four- or five-figure range each year, and several hundred additional donors who make smaller gifts. The development director, working closely with the executive director, his/her development staffers, and Sightline’s directors and trustees, strengthens the organization’s relationships with these honored people and institutions.

The full announcement, with requirements and compensation, is here. A detailed job description is here.