The Seven Commandments of Mexican ethanol

From Salon.com's How the World Works:

What is the perfect biofuel solution? Or is the very concept hopelessly utopian? Globalization and the Environment highlights an exploration of how one might go about constructing a sustainable ethanol economy that simultaneously serves the interests of social justice, the environment, and renewable energy, in the context of Mexico.

The overriding goal of author Ricardo Cantú in his delightfully titled "Ethanolomics: The Think-About's of the Mexican Ethanol Project" is to devise a strategy for improving the living standards of the rural poor in Mexico via an invigoration of the agricultural economy, without committing the major sin of inducing price hikes in food staples that will hurt the urban poor.

Achieving the desired balance will not be easy. As ground rules, Cantu provides a set of guidelines:

They are:...MORE
(Sorry about the tease, I've got to dash).

First Solar's Day In The Sun

From Forbes:

First Solar, a pricey stock in the pricey world of solar-energy stocks, had a bright session in the stock market on Friday after it announced a new factory and got a pat on the back from a stock analyst.

Phoenix-based First Solar (nasdaq: FSLR - news - people ) rose 7.0%, or $7.71, to $117.76, after it said it was adding a third factory to a complex it is building in Malaysia. The new unit will have a production capacity of 120 megawatts of solar modules per year and will cost about $150 million. It is expected to become operational in 2009.

The rise in First Solar's shares brought the stock within $6 of its record high of $123.21, set July 31.

First Solar currently operates factories in the United States and Germany with an annual production capacity of 210 megawatts. It hopes to raise that to 570 megawatts when the Malaysian project is complete.

The announement comes after First Solar announced in July a slew of new long-term deals in Europe. The European Union is aiming to have 21% of its energy produced by renewable resources by 2010. (See "Making Hay While The Sun Shines").

"Our customers have demonstrated that they are among the best-positioned in the industry to develop meaningful project pipelines for large ground and roof-mounted projects across the European Union," stated Mike Ahearn, chief executive officer of First Solar....MORE

See also: "Climateer Predicts"

Iran - Pakistan - India Gas Pipeline Stuck in Quick Sand

We told you this was going to be tough*.

From Energy Bangla:

They call it peace pipeline. Iran Government embarked on serous efforts to promote higher gas export abroad since the discovery of giant South Pars Gas field in 1988. In 1995 Pakistan and Iran signed a preliminary agreement for construction of a natural gas pipeline linking the gas field in the Persian Gulf with Karachi, Pakistan’s main industrial port located at the Arabian Sea.

Iran later proposed an extension of the pipeline from Pakistan to India. This pipeline if implemented will not only meet India’s growing energy demand to a great extent but also will also benefit Pakistan from Iranian natural gas exports as Pakistan’s territory will be used as transit route. India initially opposed the idea mainly due to the historically traditional tense relations and rivalry. It came up with an alternate idea for development of a deep sea pipeline where no threat to security of resources would exist. From 2000 the three governments met at regular interval and advanced the initiative to a great distance. But not it seems India due to its changed relation with USA has started thinking otherwise.

India skipped a crucial official talk on the $7.4 billion IPI gas pipeline talk just concluded in Teheran. Iran called the meeting of the technical experts and lawyers from three countries to exchange views on the gas supply contract during Sept 24-26.Officials of three countries were expected to discuss the issues arising out of the technical and legal experts meeting on September 27.But due to absence of India major issues remained unresolved.

Earlier a top Iranian Petroleum Ministry official said, “There are crucial bilateral issues that need to be resolved first before we begin discussions on contractual issues on a trilateral platform”. He further said New Delhi and Islamabad had reached understanding on transportation tariff payable for wheeling natural gas through 1035 –Km pipeline segment in that country.

But explaining the reasons of abstaining from the meeting one Indian official said, “We have communicated to Iran’s Petroleum ministry’s special representative H Ghanimi Fard and Pakistan’s Petroleum Secretary Farrakh Qayyum that we will not be attending the trilateral meeting unless the bilateral issues are resolved with Pakistan” Incidentally , a bilateral meeting of officials from India and Pakistan scheduled to be held in Islamabad in August this year was also called off at the last moment as India cancelled appearance citing pressing urgencies at home. Many in India believe India has become a little bit puzzled due to strong US reservation about the pipeline and to some extent Indian government tends to succumb to U.S pressure. Pakistan on the other hand appears to remain committed to the pipeline till now. But it is to be seen how it absorbs U.S pressure eventually. But it’s spokesman said it will initiate bilaterally the multibillion dollar gas pipeline project if India does not agree upon it.

Tasnim Anam further said Pakistan is still committed and sincere to the Iran-Pakistan –India (IPI) gas pipeline project. IPI is very important project as Pakistan needs energy to fulfill its future. Pakistan’s economy is growing while energy requirements are increasing and the country is facing shortage of energy. Pakistan is firm to follow the IPI project even without India. Pakistan will do it with Iran.

India is now in serious dilemma....MORE

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

*Iran, Pakistan, India Agree Gas Price For Transnational Pipeline

Iran, Pakistan and India have agreed on a formula for the price of natural gas to be pumped through a pipeline that will link the three countries, India's Asian Age daily said. The deal has removed the main obstacle to the signing of a three-way agreement on building the 2,300 km Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline with an estimated price tag of $7.5 billion. The first deliveries from gas-rich Iran are expected in 2011.

If you ever thought your negotiations were tough...

Blackout: Enron and the California Power Crisis (Transcript)

From PBS:

NEWSCASTER: California's power supply came up short today, and the lights went out.

ANNOUNCER: For the first time in 65 years, the electric power market is in chaos. Electricity rates are climbing, and not just in California, where the largest utility has gone belly-up.

JEFFREY K. SKILLING, President and CEO, Enron: It is the most volatile commodity in the world.

ANNOUNCER: The plague of blackouts that started on the West Coast could spread to New York by summer. And entire regions of the country are short on power.

Rep. RICHARD GEPHARDT (D-MO), Minority Leader: Guy at rally: This is an American problem! It's not just a California problem!

RICHARD B. CHENEY, Vice President: There's not a lot you can do. You can't manufacture kilowatts in the West Wing of the White House.

ANNOUNCER: Investigators claim that a handful of energy companies siphoned billions from consumers while the lights were out.

RICHARD PRIORY, CEO, Duke Energy: We took the market price. We didn't take any excess price, I can assure you of that.

LORETTA LYNCH, President, California PUC: These folks are going to bleed us to death like leeches unless we stop them.

ANNOUNCER: But the industry charges that regulators and politicians failed to act.

GRAY DAVIS, Governor, California: This is people taking advantage, and sticking it in as deep as they can.

ANNOUNCER: Tonight, in a joint production between FRONTLINE and The New York Times, correspondent Lowell Bergman investigates the energy storm that could soon engulf the nation.

LOWELL BERGMAN, Correspondent: [voice-over] If you want to understand the story of electric power in America today, you have to follow the money. It's a story that takes you here, to Houston, Texas. This is "Energy Alley," home to a new breed of power company run by electric cowboys who've pioneered radical ways of buying and selling energy.

On this downtown block alone stands a phalanx of new energy giants - Dynegy, El Paso, Reliant - and down the street. the biggest of them all, the Enron Corporation.

On this trading floor, young MBAs and Ph.D.'s trade everything from oil, gas and electricity to Internet bandwidth and hedges against the weather itself.

[on-camera] What's going here, hundreds of millions of dollars in-

[voice-over] Twice the size of its nearest competitor, Enron runs the largest e-commerce site in the world. Jeff Skilling is Enron's new CEO.

JEFFREY K. SKILLING: Our gas portfolio, we probably do- oh, probably close to $3 billion, $2.5 billion to $3 billion a day of purchases and sales. So that would be a notional factor. So, yes, big.

LOWELL BERGMAN: Enron's a new kind of company. It's not a big energy producer, but makes money instead as a middleman, buying electricity before it's made, then selling it to customers.

[on-camera] Do the weather guys get punished here if the weather is wrong? I mean, if they predict wrong?

JEFFREY K. SKILLING: No. Do have any whip marks on your back there, Mark?

LOWELL BERGMAN: [voice-over] The company relies on its own team of private weather forecasters to find the most profitable market to sell into. Who needs heating? Who needs cooling? And when?

ENRON FORECASTER: But we're looking for above-normal temperatures on all three coasts - Gulf Coast, East Coast and West Coast.

LOWELL BERGMAN: [on-camera] But it's going to be hot this summer.

ENRON FORECASTER: It looks like it'll be a hot summer, to the tune of about two degrees. That may not sound like a lot, but over a 91-day time period it is a considerable number of cooling-degree days.

LOWELL BERGMAN: This is all in-house, proprietary information.

JEFFREY K. SKILLING: Yes. This is done so that we can help get an understanding of what's going on in the marketplace, our understanding of what's going on in the marketplace-

LOWELL BERGMAN: Or may happen in the marketplace.

JEFFREY K. SKILLING: Or may happen in the marketplace. And that's what makes markets work. That's what makes markets efficient.

LOWELL BERGMAN: [voice-over] Take what happened last summer in California. It was unusually hot weather, and a drought in the Pacific Northwest drastically cut into imports of badly needed hydro-electric power. At the control room for the state's power grid, president Terry Winter normally could draw on his reserves. But now there were days when he found himself scrambling for power and paying whatever it took to keep the lights on.

TERRY WINTER, CEO, California ISO: It was a Monday. We had had a problem with one unit going out at 1:30 in the morning. We immediately then went into our reserves, pulled down our hydro. It became evident that nobody had energy for us. And by 11:00 o'clock, we dropped off around 500 megawatts.

LORETTA LYNCH, President, California PUC: At the end of May - in fact, on May 22nd - there was an unseasonably hot day. Power use went up some in California, but the price of power skyrocketed, much more than the demand for that day. The prices charged for power bore no relationship to the cost of producing that power.

LOWELL BERGMAN: [on-camera] So something funny was going on.

LORETTA LYNCH: I don't think it's actually funny. I think it's pretty appalling that the folks who sell us power can charge whatever they want. And on that day, they did. And then on subsequent days they did, such that last summer the price of power shot up from about 5 cents a kilowatt hour, on average, to about 18 cents a kilowatt hour on average, so more than tripling over last summer.

LOWELL BERGMAN: [voice-over] In spite of those wholesale price spikes, Loretta Lynch, head of the California PUC, refused to raise retail rates. And when she finally did, consumers reacted angrily, and so did industry, accusing Lynch of doing too little, too late. But Lynch believes the current crisis rests with those charging the state its high prices, and she accuses them of price gouging.

LORETTA LYNCH: You and I have to buy electricity every day, and we can't store it. So the people who make electricity know they have a fundamental economic necessity that people will buy at any price, and so they charge any price they want.

LOWELL BERGMAN: Economists call the ability to manipulate prices "market power," and electricity is especially susceptible when power supplies run short. It can take years to bring new plants on line. And in the meantime, prices are at the mercy of a handful of companies....

MORE

How to do Journalism (off-topic)

As you know I get a kick out of Inner City Press. Good coverage of the Great Wall Street Banks (especially as it relates to sustainability and the poor) and day in, day out coverage of the U.N. that is second-to-none.

Here are excerpts from a couple stories about the big shindig going on at First & 46th:

The press conference was scheduled to coincide with the UN's daily noon briefing, thereby excluding most UN correspondents, and its locale was outside the UN, at the Inter-Continental Hotel on 48th Street and Lexington Avenue, seven blocks from UNDP. Nevertheless, Inner City Press ran to the UNDP briefing immediately after the noon briefing. Source

And recognizing the same spirit in a competitor:

Alongside this bleak presentation, "Rwanda has emerged," President Kagame told the two reporters on Thursday night, as an example for all of Africa. The duo thanked him for this time, and he proceeded north along the UN's second floor, with an entourage of six.

This method of interviewing was perfected this week by radio journalist Bessan Vikou of BBC Afrique. Vikou, as he is known, tells Inner City Press that in the first three days of the current General Debate, he has interviewed eight heads of state as they descended from meeting with Ban Ki-moon on the 38th floor. "It would have been nine if I had gotten Kabila," president of the DRC, Vikou said. "They get off on the second floor and there's no where they can go. I tell them 'BBC! BBC!' and they almost always stop. It is even more likely when I am with another journalist, like now." Source

Ya gotta love it

Climateer Predicts

UPDATE below.
We don't do a whole lot of public forecasting at Climateer Investing. Partly this is for the reason stated by Warren Buffett in his 1987 Letter to the Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway:

 In a world in which big investment ideas are both
limited and valuable, we have no interest in telling
potential competitors what we are doing except to the
extent required by law.  We certainly don't expect
others to tell us of their investment ideas.  Nor
would  we expect a media company to disclose news of
acquisitions it was privately pursuing or a journalist
to tell his competitors about stories on which he is
working or sources he is using.

Mostly it is to avoid public shame, humiliation and disgrace.
But we're willing to prognosticate from time to time. Here goes:

1) Recent action on the NYMEX leads us to the view that oil prices will
see $60 before they see $100.
(This comes with the standard Force Majeure provisions*, of course)

And

2) We predict a sudden and dramatic cooling of the Northern
Hemisphere.
This cooling is imminent and could see 100 degree Fahrenheit
temperature declines in some locales.
Mittens and scarves, kids.

*Including the Butterfly flapping it's wings in Borneo thing
(should we need an out).

See: "Buy a stock or two..." (caught about 1150 DJIA points)
and
"UPDATE: Jim Cramer Beats Monkey in Stock Picking Contest"
(left about $22 on the table)

UPDATE: We chickened out of the oil call, still sticking with the temp. Here's the follow-up.

UK Oil Output Up on Six Oilfield Start-Ups

From Dow Jones via Rigzone:

U.K. crude oil production increased 2.8% during the second quarter compared with the same quarter a year ago due to the start-up of six oil fields, including the very large Buzzard field in the U.K. North Sea, the government's latest energy statistics report showed Thursday.

Total indigenous U.K. production of crude oil and natural gas to liquids increased to 19.7 million metric tons as six fields were brought online since the beginning of the year, according to the energy statistics report published by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.

The start-up of the oil fields transformed the U.K. into a net oil exporter during the second quarter of this year, exporting 0.8 million tons more than it imported of oil and oil products. The U.K. was a net oil importer in the second quarter of last year.

Overall, the U.K. consumed 4% less energy in the second quarter than the same period a year ago, broadly in line with a 5.4% drop in energy production to 46.5 million tons of oil equivalent during the second quarter of this year....MORE

HT: Energy Balance

Global Nuclear Energy Partnership a potential nuclear suppliers cartel; IAEA proposals for multilateral fuel supply system may falter on participants’

From Green Markets:

Michael Richardson - a former Asia editor of the International Herald Tribune, and a security specialist at the Institute of South-East Asian Studies in Singapore - wrote in The Canberra Times,, (25/9/2007, p.17), “France had echoed earlier warnings from the United States and Israel that if negotiations with Iran over its controversial nuclear program failed, military action might follow. The United Nations Security Council has called on Iran to suspend uranium enrichment and other sensitive nuclear technologies”.

High anxiety: “This is where the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership and Australia come in. On the same day France issued its warning, the world’s five leading makers of fuel for nuclear reactors - China, France, Japan, Russia and the US - met with other concerned countries to enlarge a cooperative arrangement they formed last year, the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership”....MORE

Ozone Hole Science Revisited

I thought I was confused (see "What Planet is the U.N. living On and How to Make a Buck by Answering Correctly") last week.

Now Ron Baily authors this for Reason:

Scientists are commemorating the discovery 20 years ago that man-made chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) used chiefly in refrigerators and air-conditioners were responsible for creating the "ozone hole" over the Antarctic. The scientists concluded that CFCs would drift into the stratosphere where they would produce chlorine compounds that react with ice particles and sunlight to efficiently destroy ozone molecules that shield the surface from ultraviolet light streaming from the sun. In 1987, the world adopted the Montreal Protocol to eventually eliminate the production of CFCs. Activists often cite the Montreal Protocol as a model for a future treaty addressing man-made global warming by banning the emission of greenhouse gases. A Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded in 1995 to the three scientists who identified the ozone/CFC connection.

This neat story of the scientific identification of a man-made cause for stratospheric ozone depletion followed by a successful international response to the threat is now being challenged by some very recent research. News@nature.com (sub required) is reporting a new analysis by Markus Rex, an atmosphere scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute of Polar and Marine Research in Potsdam, Germany, which finds that the data for the break-down rate of a crucial molecule, dichlorine peroxide (Cl2O2) is almost an order of magnitude lower than the currently accepted rate.

What this could mean according to the Nature news article is that:

"This must have far-reaching consequences," Rex says. "If the measurements are correct we can basically no longer say we understand how ozone holes come into being." What effect the results have on projections of the speed or extent of ozone depletion remains unclear....MORE

Scientists Ask Congress To Fund $50 Billion Science Thing

From Scientific American














Okay it was really the Onion via SA.

The Climate Change Peril That Insurers See

We've had some posts on the insurers:

Warren Buffet on Global Warming
In The Front Line, The Insurance Industry's Response to Climate Change
New capital rules set to benefit big EU insurer
'Solvency II': EU to take global lead in insurance regulation
Climate Change, Hurricanes and Insurance
Polygamous lesbians flee Sharia
Chubb Assembles Team to Focus on Green Energy Insurance Solutions
SEC Pressed on Climate-Change Disclosures and When will Warren Buffett get on Board the Love Train?*

Here's the Washington Post's take:

Montana is burning again. This summer, some of the nation's worst wildfires incinerated homes, barns and fences, killing livestock and forcing families to evacuate. Wildfires have increased fourfold since the 1980s, and they are bigger and harder to contain because of earlier-arriving springs and hotter, bone-dry summers. Last year's fires broke records; this year could be worse. As courageous firefighters beat back the flames, insurance companies continue to pay out billions for wildfire losses across the West.

Meanwhile, Florida is bracing for the duration of the hurricane season even as rebuilding continues from the eight hurricanes that crisscrossed the Sunshine State in 2004 and 2005. Storms grow ever more intense: Since the 1970s, the number intensifying to Category 4 or 5 hurricanes has almost doubled, costing insurers tens of billions of dollars

Montana and Florida are not the only states suffering huge insurance losses from natural disasters. Increasingly destructive weather -- including heat waves, hurricanes, typhoons, tornadoes, floods, wildfires, hailstorms and drought -- accounted for 88 percent of all property losses paid by insurers from 1980 through 2005. Seven of the 10 most expensive catastrophes for the U.S. property and casualty industry happened between 2001 and 2005.

Ten years ago, Peter Levene, chairman of Lloyds of London, was skeptical about global warming theories, but no longer. He believes carbon emissions caused by human activity are warming the Earth and causing severe weather-related events. "At Lloyds, we feel the effects of extreme weather more than most," he said in a March speech. "We don't just live with risk -- we have to pick up the pieces afterwards."...MORE

One tip. Quit building on the coast! Galveston poised to defy geologists

Africa climate change woes aired at Clinton summit

From Reuters:

Africa is unfairly suffering from global warming and must be able to sell carbon credits to grow in a "green fashion," Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told Bill Clinton's philanthropic summit on Thursday.

Climate change took center stage at the third annual Clinton Global Initiative sponsored by the former U.S. president, being held as the world's biggest polluters, including the United States and China, met at the State Department in Washington for talks on global warming.

"Africa contributed nothing to global warming because it failed to develop the way the rest of the world developed," Meles said. "Africa's capacity to cope with climate change is very weak. Therefore climate change could push the fragile economies and societies of Africa beyond the precipice."

Speaking on a panel with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, U.N. climate change envoy Gro Harlem Brundtland and U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Meles said the "only realistic option" for Africa was sustainable growth, but money was needed to achieve that.

"The money has to come from the cap and trade mechanism," Meles said. "We did not pollute. We are being punished because of what you did and we deserve the right to sell carbon credits to you so we can use the money to promote green development in our countries," he said, drawing applause from the audience.

Under the Kyoto Protocol to curb global warming, rich countries can meet their emissions reduction targets by funding green energy development in poor countries in exchange for carbon credits.

$30 BILLION EMISSIONS MARKET

But the overall $30 billion emissions market has failed to help Africa, with China and India benefiting the most. World Bank data shows Africa accounted for 3 percent of the credits sold, compared with China's 61 percent share and India's 12 percent....MORE

Gore calls for ‘global Marshall plan’

Speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative no less.
Have they patched over 2000?

From the Financial Times:
Al Gore, the former US vice-president, on Wednesday called for a “Marshall plan” to make job creation and measures to address climate change compatible and urged President George W. Bush to commit to mandatory cuts in carbon dioxide emissions.

“This is an emergency,” Mr Gore told the opening session of the Clinton Global Initiative. “I think that the key to fighting global poverty is to have the wealthy nations and the developing nations join together to reduce global warming … I think what we need is a global Marshall plan to make the creation of jobs around the reduction of carbon the central principle for how we develop this.”

Mr Gore said Mr Bush should follow the example of former US president Ronald Reagan, who after an initial delay responded to the 1985 discovery of a hole in the ozone layer by supporting a marked reduction in chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs.

“We have to have a binding reduction on carbon,’’ he said.

Robert Zoellick, the head of the World Bank, sounded a sceptical note on the developing world’s ability and desire to reduce carbon emissions, however. Poorer countries are worried aid is going to be “hijacked” by the climate change agenda, Mr Zoellick said.

Countries such as China and India threaten to become the world’s top producers of carbon dioxide, as they ramp up energy use to feed rampant economic growth. The rapid development of poorer countries is considered by many scientists and economists to be one of the chief challenges in tackling climate change.

“There is some sensitivity in the developing world that resources that can be channelled to climate change will come at the expense of other development needs,” Mr Zoellick said. “It needn’t be that way, it shouldn’t be that way… but it is the responsibility of the developed world to reassure the developing world that it doesn’t come at their expense and instead can come in support of their aims of overcoming poverty.”

“Every place I went, people are very worried that developed countries are going to hijack spending,” he added. “We have to explain how it fits their energy and growth needs.”...MORE

Clinton: Carbon market better than carbon tax

From Foreign Policy's Passport blog:

Another reporter asked Clinton if he preferred a carbon tax or a carbon market:

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, first of all, I think that--while we should all be personally impatient to do more on climate change--we should recognize that in the great sweep of history, typically people propose changes that are not embraced right away... People ask me all the time, you know they say, "Well, you failed to get healthcare reform, and you failed to make peace in the Middle East." Well I say, "It's a very good thing to fail in the right cause, because it keeps free people stumbling in the right direction." You know, politics is an inexact Pilgrim's Progress.... You just do these things because you know they have to be done, and sooner or later if you get really fortunate, the circumstances and the attitudes meet....

On the carbon market, we wanted one, and we had hoped to be able to persuade everybody to participate. Now, more and more economists in the U.S. and around the world believe that a carbon tax is a better policy because it is an incentive to individuals to use less carbon-producing substances, whatever they are, and to conserve more. In theory, that is right. Plus, it's hard to develop a carbon market that you can't evade and gain. On the other hand, I still believe that ... the green market, the market for averting the worst consequences of climate change, is underorganized, undercapitalized, with low levels of consumer understanding. Therefore I still favor the carbon market as opposed to the carbon tax. Keep in mind: Al Gore and I passed the carbon tax through one house of the Congress in 1993 and that also got beat; we got a long way on that. But I think the carbon market is better because I think it will energize all these investors and idea people and will create the kind of multifaceted change that will be really necessary to prove that we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and grow the economy at the same time.

Source

Timing is Everything: Water Deals in China

As I was about to post Veolia's news release on their $3.7 Bil. contract, I am informed that the Energy Roundup is pointing us to the NYT's story on water in China:

China’s runaway economic growth is putting many parts of the country at risk of running short of clean water, the New York Times reports. “China is scouring the world for oil, natural gas and minerals to keep its economic machine humming,” the paper writes. “But trade deals cannot solve water problems.”

Here's Veolia:

Veolia Water wins major contract to supply 3 million inhabitants with drinking water in Tianjin, China

Veolia Water has been selected to supply 3 million inhabitants with drinking water in Tianjin, one of China's most rapidly growing and important economic cities. The contract, for a period of 30 years, is worth an estimated cumulated turnover of around 2,65 billion Euros for Veolia Water, and involves a participation of 49% in the Tianjin Shibei Water Company Ltd.

Tianjin, Port of Beijing and key city for China, is where the country's third stock exchange is set to be built. It includes the largest comprehensive seaport in the North and many industries requiring large amounts of water. Several sporting events for the Olympic Games will be hosted by the city.

The contract was signed with the Tianjin Water Works (Group) Company Ltd, that launched, together with the Municipal Department in charge of State Owned Assets, an international tender for the acquisition of 49% of its subsidiary's equity, Tianjin Shibei Water Company Ltd and its conversion into an Equity Joint Venture. The project will cover the district of Shibei, the Northern part of Tianjin, and the Binhai district on the Eastern coast.

It will include managing the Xinkaihe water production plant (1 million m3/day) which uses classic clarification technology, with 1988km of linear network, as well as the Jinbin water production plant under construction, which will provide 500,000m3/day. The Jinbin plant will incorporate clarification, ozonation and activated carbon filters. In addition, the company will develop the water conveyance network to all the industrial areas in the Binhai area, situated along the coast of Bohai Bay.

The project will run alongside a comprehensive development and reconstruction plan by the Central Government along the River Haihe, which will eventually be linked up with China's three other major rivers, the Yangtze, the Yellow and the Huaihe rivers.

Commenting on the contract, Antoine Frérot, Chief Executive Officer of Veolia Water said, "With this project, Veolia Water illustrates its proven and long standing expertise in anticipating and accompanying the development of major cities like Tianjin that are faced with strong economic and demographic expansion. Veolia Water has formed many successful long term partnerships in China, and with the Tianjin contract, we are continuing to develop our presence in China's large cities".

Bankers to lobby developed countries on carbon-trading system

From the International Herald Tribune:

A group representing some of the world's leading banks will urge the United States and other industrial nations this week to move quickly to introduce a lightly regulated system for trading carbon emissions permits.

Permit-trading offers banks a potentially vast new business. For it to grow, leading economies - particularly the United States - will need to set limits on the quantities of greenhouse gases that can be released and to allow companies in other parts of the world to buy emissions permits.

"Where politicians opt to implement carbon constraints, then it should be cap-and-trade," said Imtiaz Ahmad, head of emissions trading at Morgan Stanley in London and vice president of a lobbying group called International Carbon Investors and Services, which is being created to represent the banks.

The banking companies, which include Citigroup, Lehman Brothers Holdings and Morgan Stanley, are giving strong signs that Wall Street wants Washington to open the way to reduced emissions using a trading system based on the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement the United States did not ratify, rather than by enacting carbon taxes.

The group also includes European institutions like BNP Paribas, Barclays Capital and Deutsche Bank, as well as niche investment banks like Climate Change Capital and the law firms of Baker & McKenzie and DLA Piper....MORE

The fair choice for climate change

Old hands in climate policy know "Contraction and Convergence", for those new to the discussion, here's a BBC article from last year:

This week and next, government representatives attend UN talks in Bonn looking for the next step forward on climate change. In The Green Room this week, Aubrey Meyer argues that the effective and fair model they need already exists.

The impact of climate change, it is generally agreed, will land hardest on the poor.

So perhaps it is time to listen to what people from the poorest continent, Africa, are asking for.

At the climate negotiations in Bonn this week, the Africa Group of Nations has called for the adoption of a concept called Contraction and Convergence - C&C, in the jargon.

They first made their call a decade ago. And with 12 million Africans currently facing drought and famine linked to climate, they have good reason to assert that C&C is right, that it is urgently needed, and ask: "For how long must Africa suffer at the hands of others?"

Contraction and Convergence is the only long-term framework for regulating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions which does not make carbon dioxide production a luxury that only rich nations can afford.

It creates the social equity which Africa needs, and the carbon reductions which are in all our interests.

Global shares

Contraction and Convergence is a straightforward model for an international agreement on greenhouse gas emissions.

It sets a safe and stable target for concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and a date by which those concentrations should be achieved, based on the best scientific evidence.

The atmosphere being a "global good", C&C declares that all citizens of the Earth have an equal right in principle to emit, and will actually be given an equal right by this future date, the individual allowance for each citizen being derived from the "safe" global target.

So from the grossly inequitable situation we have now, per capita emissions from each country will "converge" at a far more equitable level in the future; while the global total of emissions will "contract".

That is C&C in a nutshell....MORE

Use nuclear energy

From the Times of Trenton:

BY PATRICK MOORE

With the president's climate change summit less than a week away, the administration is gearing up for a frank, practical discussion with key nations on how to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Attendees should not lose sight of the fact that technologies are up and running in the U.S. today that have been quietly contributing to CO2 emissions reductions for decades. I am referring to the 104 nuclear plants in operation across the country, including the one at Oyster Creek.

Nuclear power generates about 52 percent of the electricity produced in New Jersey and it does so with no carbon-based greenhouse gas, which is thought to cause global warming.

As a co-founder* and former leader of Greenpeace, I was once a strong opponent of nuclear power generation, but times have changed and I have updated my views accordingly. Now I find my self part of a growing number of leading environmentalists around the world who have come to understand that nuclear energy is an in tegral part of any campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

I recently toured the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Ocean County, and found the staff there to be strongly focused on public safety and environmental protection. Based on my more than 35 years in the environmental movement and my understanding of the current energy trends in the state, I think the extension of Oyster Creek's operating license will play a crucial role in Gov. Corzine's important greenhouse gas legislation....MORE

I believe Mr. Moore is right on this issue and I also believe I am obligated to point out something I recently found:

*"In "Greenpeace: How a Group of Ecologists, Journalists, and Visionaries Changed the World," author Rex Weyler writes "Greenpeace was founded by Quakers Dorothy and Irving Stowe, Marie and Jim Bohlen, and journalists Ben Metcalfe, Dorothy Metcalfe, and Bob Hunter. This group organized the first campaign to sail a boat into the U.S. nuclear test zone on Amchitka Island in the Bering Sea.

"Canadian ecologist and carpenter Bill Darnell coined the name "Greenpeace" in February 1970. A year later, Moore wrote to the organization, applying for a crew position on the boat and was accepted."

Moore wrote his letter on March 16, 1971, two years after the group was founded, describing himself as a graduate student "in the field of resource ecology." Clearly, then, Moore was not a founder of Greenpeace. Founders don't write letters applying to join. After the Stowes, Metcalfes and Bob Hunter left the organization, Moore briefly served as president, from 1977 to 1979. Former members recall that his bullyism nearly scuttled Greenpeace. He launched an internal lawsuit against his rivals in other Greenpeace offices, was replaced as president in 1979, and eventually drummed out of the organization as a troublemaker."

Dingell Opens the Door … with a Hybrid Carbon Tax

From the Carbon Tax Center:

With a mighty creak of long-rusted hinges, a door is finally opening in Washington. The present Congress will apparently be asked to consider a carbon tax.

The measure — actually, a hybrid carbon and petroleum tax — will be introduced by the powerful chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Rep. John Dingell (D-Michigan).

Today Dingell posted on his Web site a summary of the bill, which he began drafting in June. The current version would phase in, each year for five years, a charge of $10 per ton of carbon content of coal, oil and natural gas; plus an additional 10 cents/gallon for gasoline and jet fuel (kerosene). By the end of the five-year period the charges would reach $50/ton of carbon plus 50 cents/gallon of gasoline and jet fuel. These equate to 63 cents a gallon of gas and 90 cents for one hundred kilowatt-hours assuming the nationwide average fuel mix.

Dingell is asking the public for comments. Here's ours: we think the bill is terrific. In line with what we said when we founded the Carbon Tax Center, and as Dingell himself wrote last month in the Washington Post, "[S]ome form of carbon emissions fee or tax … would be the most effective way to curb carbon emissions and make alternatives economically viable." Moreover, as we elaborate below, his supplemental tax on gasoline and jet fuel has the look of genius.

How much carbon and petroleum would Dingell's hybrid carbon tax eliminate? A lot, if you change one key parameter; instead of halting the tax after year 5, continue ramping it up. If the tax works and the impacts on families and businesses can be offset through tax-shifting and rebates, why stop?

We examined a 20-year ramp-up — starting Dingell's "10/10" tax in 2008 and continuing through 2027 to a level of $200 per ton of carbon plus $2/gallon on gasoline and jet fuel. Here's where the U.S. would be in the representative year 2025:

• Carbon dioxide emissions would be down by 1.55 billion metric tons from projected levels, a 20% drop — a decrease equivalent to current emissions from England, France and Italy combined.
• Petroleum consumption would be 4.5 million barrels a day less than otherwise, an 18% decrease from projected usage, and more than 10% greater than Iran's current production.

Moreover, these reductions could be supplemented by savings from other targeted policies and programs to reduce use of petroleum, natural gas and coal-fired electricity. (Indeed, a companion section of Dingell's bill will call for phasing out the federal tax deduction on mortgage interest on very large homes, thus ending a subsidy through which middle and working class families subsidize gargantuan sprawl homes for the wealthy.) No other single policy measure — not broader CAFÉ standards, not a national Renewable Energy Standard, not a massive biofuels push, and certainly not a new generation of subsidized nuclear power plants — can produce nearly the carbon and petroleum savings promised by the Dingell hybrid carbon tax, provided it extends beyond the initial five-year period.

The brilliant touch in the Dingell bill is the supplemental tax on gasoline and aviation fuel....MORE

‘This Is Going to Hurt’-Rep. Dingell and the Carbon Tax

From Newsweek:

A defender of the auto industry proposes a carbon tax that will cause everyone pain. Is the country ready for shared sacrifice to combat global warming?

Rep. John D. Dingell is a recent convert on climate change. In more than 50 years in Congress, representing a Michigan district that includes suburban Detroit, he has been a tough-talking defender of the auto industry.

But now Dingell is proposing tough legislation that would impose a sharp carbon tax on American consumers of energy, including a 50-cent surcharge on every gallon of gasoline. Some critics suspect that Dingell is posturing—proposing a far-reaching measure that’s sure to die as a way of obstructing other proposals. NEWSWEEK’s Jeffrey Bartholet spoke to Dingell about his change of heart, and his legislative aims. Excerpts:...MORE

Banker Needs Swedish Nanny for Self

From New York Craigslist:

Single investment banker looking for a Swedish Nanny. I want to be up front and tell you I do not have any kids nor do I plan on any in the near future. You will be taking care of ME.

Please note that you need to be hot. Not hot by investment banking standards where people have been buried in their cubicles for so long they actually think Maria Bartiromo is attractive. But hot by hostess standards at a restaurant in the East Village or some hip club in Chelsea that I could never get into.

Your responsibilities will involve listening to my tirades about my expense reimbursements and encouraging me when I say things like "One of these days I am going to take some time off and write a screenplay" or "I should be dating models, not building them!" You will also need to agree with me when I say things like "If I was running this bank, Wachovia would be #1 in the league tables."

Must be able to clean, cook and do laundry. Must not mind living with me in a studio rental in Murray Hill. No smokers please.

• Location: Manhattan
• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 433871714
HT: Dealbreaker

Commodities boom extends to obscure metals, too

From the Financial Post:

Molybdenum, indium, germanium, cadmium, manganese

If one deal in the mining industry raised eyebrows in recent years, it was molybdenum producer Blue Pearl Mining Co.'s $575-million acquisition of Thompson Creek Metals Co. last October. It raised two questions: How did a molybdenum company raise half-a-billion dollars? And, what the heck is molybdenum?

In fact, the Blue Pearl deal delivered a clear message: that this commodity boom stretches far beyond the "primary" metals. While gold, copper, nickel, coal and zinc get most of the attention, demand for secondary metals such as lead, molybdenum, indium, germanium, cadmium and manganese has been very strong as well.

The most visible of the bunch has been molybdenum, or moly, a silvery-white metal with anti-corrosive properties that has applications in the steel and energy industries. The emergence of pure-play moly companies such as Blue Pearl (now called Thompson Creek Metals) and China Molybdenum Co. Ltd. highlighted the soaring demand for the metal. Even renowned investor Eric Sprott set up a holding company to invest in moly assets....MORE

Emerging markets: an exhilarating, but potentially lethal, ride

From FT Alphaville:

Out of one bubble and right into the next. John Auther earlier this week pondered whether the stampede towards emerging markets following the Fed’s gift to stock markets was just creating another thing to go pop down the line.

Now Jonathan Garner at Morgan Stanley, which has been leading the charge on economic decoupling of emerging markets from the US, has gone a bit cold as well. Holding a tiger — let alone a dragon — by the tail is a recipe for an exhilarating ride, but potentially lethal should it turn and bite, he notes in a report which advises investors to take some profits at this stage.

This is what happens when everyone suddenly agrees with you - the bulls are suddenly feeling nervous now they seem to be occupying consensus ground. The MSCI Emerging Markets index is up 23 per cent since Garner advised investors to pile in back in August, hitting a new all-time high earlier this week....MORE

Playing the organic foods game

By Marshall Loeb at MarketWatch:

Organic food sales in the U.S. reached almost $17 billion in 2006, a gain of more than 22%, says a recent survey by the Organic Trade Association.

But some producers are less interested in good nutrition than in capitalizing on the American consumer's appetite for all things organic. In hopes of tapping into the growing organic market, some of these companies use misleading labels to lure customers.

Here's a crash course in label reading from Consumer Reports:

What to buy

"100% Organic." Translation: By law, a product with this label has to be made entirely of certified organic ingredients, produced in accordance with federal organic standards, and include no synthetics.

Conclusion: You get what you pay for.

"Organic." Translation: Products bearing this label are required to contain no less than 95% certified organic ingredients. The remaining 5%: Non-organic and synthetic ingredients.

Conclusion: Good and (mostly) good for you.

"Made with Organic Ingredients." Translation: These products contain a 70/30 split of organic ingredients and other non-organic products that have been approved by the USDA.

Conclusion: The good stuff, plus a little extra.

What to avoid

"Free-range" or "Free-Roaming." Translation: For many of us, these words evoke images of chickens free to roam the broad expanses at will. Don't be fooled....MORE

Carbon trading the success story in credit crunch

From Reuters:

Going green has paid off in the credit crunch as the embryonic carbon trading market has outperformed against the volatile equity and bond markets.

Carbon credits are tradable schemes which are designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by giving them a monetary value. Individual countries, on the back of approval from the European Commission, give out these credits to companies.

Carbon credit trading is only one of three strategies to have delivered positive returns for hedge funds in August.

For instance, since mid-July the Intercontinental Exchange Commission 10 December Contract benchmark for carbon credit trading is up by around 10 percent. In comparison since July 18 the FTSE All Share is down 6.8 percent.

Vicki Bakhshi, associate director of governance and sustainables at F&C Investments, said the dwindling credit supply has caused carbon credit trading to succeed.

"The supply and demand in the carbon market help insulate the sector from the wider economy," she said....MORE

DOE to Provide Nearly $20 Million to Further Development of Advanced Batteries for Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles

From the U.S. Department of Energy:

U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Assistant Secretary for Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability Kevin M. Kolevar today announced DOE will invest nearly $20 million in plug-in hybrid vehicle (PHEV) research. Five projects have been selected for negotiation of awards under DOE's collaboration with the United States Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC) for $17.2 million in DOE funding for PHEV battery development projects and; DOE will provide nearly $2 million to the University of Michigan (U-M) to spearhead a study exploring the future of PHEVs. DOE funding announced today will help advance President Bush’s Twenty in Ten Plan, which aims to displace twenty percent of gasoline usage by 2017 through greater use of clean, renewable fuels and increased vehicle efficiency. PHEVs have the potential to displace a large amount of gasoline by delivering up to 40 miles of electric range without recharging – a distance that would include most daily roundtrip commutes. “These projects will help provide the perspective and expertise necessary to get plug-in hybrid electric vehicles out of the laboratory and into the showroom, a key part of the President’s plan to reduce our reliance on oil by increasing the use of clean energy technologies,” Assistant Secretary Kolevar said. “The Department remains committed to working with our national labs, universities, industry and automakers to advance the President’s energy agenda and we are eager to continue supporting the widespread of use affordable, emissions-free sources of energy to enhance our Nation’s energy security.” The five projects selected for negotiation of awards of up to $17.2 million from DOE aim to address critical barriers to the commercialization of PHEVs, specifically battery cost and battery life. Combined with cost-share from the United States Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC), these projects will allow up to $38 million in battery research and development. DOE funding is subject to negotiation of final contract terms and Congressional appropriations. Projects are expected to begin this year and continue through 2009; funding will come from DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (fiscal years ’07-’09). USABC will negotiate final contract terms with five lithium ion battery developers. Companies selected for negotiation of awards include: 3M of St. Paul, MN – selected for an award of up to $1.14 million from DOE (total DOE/industry cost share: $ 2.28 million) over two years to screen nickel/manganese/cobalt (NMC) cathode materials through building and testing of small-sized cells; A123Systems of Watertown, MA – selected for an award of up to $6.25 million from DOE (total DOE/industry cost share: $12.5 million) over three years for a project to develop batteries based on nanophase iron-phosphate chemistry for 10- and 40-mile range PHEVs; Compact Power Inc. of Troy, MI – selected for an award of up to $4.45 million from DOE (total DOE/industry cost share: $12.7 million) over three years to develop batteries for 10-mile range PHEVs using high energy and high power Manganese-spinel; EnerDel, Inc. of Indianapolis, IN – selected for an award of up to $1.25 million from DOE (total DOE/industry cost share: $2.5 million) over two years to develop cells for 10- and 40-mile range PHEVs using nano-phase lithium titanate coupled with a high voltage Nickel-Manganese cathode material; Johnson Controls – Saft Advanced Power Solutions of Milwaukee, WI – selected for an award of up to $4.1 million from DOE (total DOE/industry cost-share: $8.2 million) over two years to develop batteries using a nickelate/layered chemistry for 10- and 40-mile range PHEVs. The University of Michigan’s Michigan Memorial Phoenix Energy Institute (MMPEI) will receive nearly $2 million from DOE to coordinate efforts among DOE and its Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and DTE Energy to conduct a two-year study on PHEVs. Specifically, the study will: Evaluate how PHEVs would share the power grid with our Nation’s other energy needs; Monitor the American public’s evolving view of PHEVs and provide the first national-level empirical data on how driving behavior differs with these vehicles compared to conventional gasoline, diesel, and hybrid vehicles; Assess a possible reduction of greenhouse gas emissions with the increased use of PHEVs; Identify how automakers could optimize PHEV design to increase performance while also reducing cost. U-M researchers and auto industry partners will build a simulation model to test different PHEV design concepts. Research for this study will take place over the next two years, and a preliminary report is expected to be released in January of 2008, at the Detroit Auto Show. DOE’s Office of Electricity Delivery & Energy Reliability and Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EERE) will fund this study (fiscal years 2007 and 2008, subject to appropriations from Congress). EERE’s Vehicle Technologies Program leads the Department’s efforts to bring PHEVs to market and works with industry to develop advanced transportation technologies that will reduce the Nation’s use of imported oil. The development of a lower cost, high-energy battery has been identified as a critical pathway toward commercialization of PHEVs. DOE goals include making PHEVs cost-competitive by 2014 and ready for commercialization by 2016. USABC is a consortium of the United States Council for Automotive Research (USCAR), the umbrella organization for collaborative research among the Chrysler LLC, Ford Motor Company and General Motors Corporation. Supported by a cooperative agreement with the DOE, USABC’s mission is to develop electrochemical energy storage technologies that support commercialization of fuel cell, hybrid, and electric vehicles. Assistant Secretary Kolevar made today’s announcement while hosting a press conference with Jon Willinghoff, Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner; Gary S. Was, Director of the Michigan Memorial Phoenix Energy Institute; and Jud Virden, Deputy Associate Laboratory Director for Energy Science and Technology at DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Media contact(s): Julie Ruggiero, (202) 586-4940

News DOE Launches New Online Search Tool for Patents, 1940s to Present IAEA Scientific Forum 2nd Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Ministerial Opening Session

The ‘carbon offset’ child labourers

From the Times of London:

Pumping furiously on a foot treadle in the afternoon heat, six-year-old Sarju Ram is irrigating her impoverished family’s field, improving the crop and – without knowing it – helping environmentally sensitive holiday-makers assuage their guilt over long-haul flights to dream destinations.

But Sarju and her four brothers and sisters working flat out in a clump of trees that provide scant shelter from the sun illustrate a growing argument over claims that British environmentalists’ efforts to curb greenhouse emissions are inadvertently fuelling an increase in child labour.

Sarju’s family is a beneficiary of Climate Care, an organisation that helps some of Britain’s leading public figures and companies to offset their carbon dioxide emissions by funding sustainable energy projects.

The Prince of Wales turned to Climate Care after his environmental adviser, Jonathon Porritt, worked out the prince’s carbon footprint.

Customers of British Airways are among those who have been encouraged to log on to Climate Care’s website and calculate how many tonnes of greenhouse gases their flights will generate, and how much it will cost to neutralise the impact on the atmosphere. A flight to Barbados for a family of four, for example, generates 7.55 tonnes of carbon dioxide, which will cost them £56.64 to offset.

Climate Care uses the money to help persuade families such as Sarju’s to give up labour-saving diesel pumps and buy human-powered treadles instead. It claims that by using the treadle, a family will save money on diesel and hire charges, earn more from increased crops and cut the carbon emissions that would have been produced by the pump.

Last week Indian experts criticised the scheme, saying it was promoting child labour and forcing poor farmers to work harder so that wealthy air travellers could enjoy exotic holidays without worrying about the environment....MORE

Storing Solar Power Efficiently

From MIT's Technology Review:

Solar proponents love to boast that just a few hundred square kilometers' worth of photovoltaic solar panels installed in Southwestern deserts could power the United States. Their schemes come with a caveat, of course: without backup power plants or expensive investments in giant batteries, flywheels, or other energy-storage systems, this solar-power supply would fluctuate wildly with each passing cloud (not to mention with the sun's daily rise and fall and seasonal ebbs and flows). Solar-power startup Ausra, based in Palo Alto, thinks it has the solution: solar-thermal-power plants that turn sunlight into steam and efficiently store heat for cloudy days.

"Fossil-fuel proponents often say that solar can't do the job, that solar can't run at night, solar can't run the economy," says David Mills, Ausra's founder and chairman. "That's true if you don't have storage." He says that solar-thermal plants are the solution because storing heat is much easier than storing electricity. Mills estimates that, thanks to that advantage, solar-thermal plants capable of storing 16 hours' worth of heat could provide more than 90 percent of current U.S. power demand at prices competitive with coal and natural gas. "There's almost no limit to how much you can put into the grid," he says.

Major utilities are buying the idea....MORE

Clinton promises solar sunrise, will Ausra deliver? and "Making Carbon Markets Work"

This is a mini link-dump of stuff I was reading at Scientific American.

Good old Bill Clinton has done it again. Perhaps inspired by David Mills' speculation on the capacity of solar thermal power plants to deliver emissions-free electricity in this country, his confab going on in NYC presently has united said visionary's solar thermal company Ausra with utility giants Florida Power and Light (FPL) and Pacfic Gas and Electric (PG&E)....MORE

Making Carbon Markets Work (10 pages)
As Congress debates how to cut climate-warming emissions, insights drawn from the European carbon market can help. (Because of the timeliness of this issue, the editors of Scientific American decided to publish this article online in advance of its publication in the December issue.)
A Global Approach
Clean Development Mechanism
Making Agreements Stick
Evaluating Climate Policy
Start-up Difficulties
Property From Thin Air
Growing Markets Worldwide
Wooing the Reluctant
Gaming the System
A Better Way
A Four-Step Plan
Energy R&D Investment
More To Explore
FIGURE 1: Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Fossil Fuel and the Kyoto Challenge
FIGURE 2: Carbon Markets, Prices and Volume

Frightening new maps of U.S. coastal areas to be inundated by global warming
Hysterical about hysteria
How to Be Your Own Phone Company
Don't Forget: Drink a Beer—Or Two—a Day!

Commentary: Global Warming And Berkeley

As I've said to the folks in the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, Okay.
You First.

From the Berkeley Daily Planet:

...the time for bolder self-sacrifice has arrived. The only real, long term hope for the eco-sphere is a massive human population collapse, hopefully leading to the voluntary extinction of the human race. Already, a new urgency and groundswell of support is building for the idea that humans are a type of super toxin which the planet cannot sustain or support in the longterm. Cogent support for the voluntary extinction of the human race is well-articulated in all its ramifications and implications here : www.vhemt.org.

The city and residents of Berkeley should be on the leading vanguard of the voluntary extinction of the human race. First of all, if China can implement a very sensible one child policy in urban centers, Berkeley voters should approve an advisory No Child policy for residents of our city. It could be our answer to the Bush regime’s No Child Left Behind Act!...

...Imagine if Berkeley has the honor of becoming the first human ghost town on earth to revert to a primal state of nature! The oaks old and new will flourish along the streams in which trout and salmon teem! Mountain lions will boldly roam the plains and not confine themselves to Wildcat Road in Tilden Park any longer. Perhaps bears from other regions of the state will finally return to what we call “Grizzly Peak Blvd.” The grasslands will return to the slopes of the hills after forest fires clear them off and the air will blow pure and sweet over the bubbling creeks just as it once did when the ancestors of Running Wolf roamed the Bayshore in peace and harmony with all nature.



Edna Spector is a Berkeley resident.
Here's the VHEM.

James Lovelock's plan to pump ocean water to stop climate change and "Start Ice Ages in Your Spare Time"

From The Telegraph:

A plan to save our world from extreme climate change by pumping cold water from the depths of the oceans is outlined today by James Lovelock, the scientist who inspired the greens.

James Lovelock is best known for his ideas that portray Earth as a living thing, a super-organism - named Gaia, after the ancient Earth goddess - in which creatures, rocks, air and water interact in subtle ways to ensure the environment remains stable.

Today Lovelock, of Green College, Oxford University, outlines an emergency way to stimulate the Earth to cure itself with Chris Rapley, former head of the British Antarctic Survey who is now the director of the Science Museum, London.

They believe the answer lies in the oceans, which transport much more heat than the atmosphere and, covering more than 70 per cent of the Earth's surface.

They propose that vertical pipes some 10 metres across be placed in the ocean, such that wave motion would pump up cool water from 100-200 metres depth to the surface, moving nutrient-rich waters in the depths to mix with the relatively barren warm waters at the ocean surface.

This would fertilise algae in the surface waters and encourage them to bloom, absorbing carbon dioxide greenhouse gas while also releasing a chemical called dimethyl sulphide that is know to seed sunlight reflecting clouds.....MORE

Just as a side note, Russ George of Planktos is a panelist at the Woods Hole Iron Fertilization Symposium.

More interesting to me is the idea of focusing on the sulphur cycle; again using iron, but not to hustle the carbon market.

Rather, a billion dollars worth of iron sulphate dumped over a large enough area should be enough to trigger a new ice age:

Full-scale iron fertilization of the Southern Ocean must be ruled out simply because major cooling of the region by increased DMS would result in a temperature drop of perhaps 10 degrees Celsius or more," Wingenter says.

And, from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:
Changing concentrations of CO, CH4, C5H8, CH3Br, CH3I, and dimethyl sulfide during the Southern Ocean Iron Enrichment Experiments

James Woolsey and Electric Cars

I believe this is the first time CI has linked to a story from National Review Online.
If you've followed Mr. Woolsey's career you know he's tough to pigeon-hole*.

From NRO:

A determined pack has begun to race its engines and to try to shoulder us off the road toward energy independence. It’s time for those determined to stay on the track to drive aggressively.

The energy-independence question is really about oil — the rest of U.S. energy use presents important issues, but not the danger of our being subject to the control of nations that “do not particularly like us,” as the president put it. Some of the engine racers have an economic interest in keeping our transportation system 97-percent oil-dependent. Less understandable are the authors of a recent Council on Foreign Relations report accusing those working for such independence of “doing the nation a disservice.”

The authors of that report and their followers define “independence,” contrary to both Webster’s and common sense, as essentially “autarky” — i.e. complete self-sufficiency, or not importing oil even though we remain dependent on it. Such a Pickwickian definition captures none of the thinking of serious advocates of reducing our oil dependence: The point of independence is not to be an economic hermit, but rather to be a free actor.

It is true that some who promote oil independence spice their remarks by implying that we might substitute oil from domestic sources or from our near neighbors for cheap Middle Eastern imports, and somehow manage to insulate ourselves from the world oil market.

But speechwriters’ tropes shouldn’t be taken as serious policy proposals. Geology will not cooperate in any such fantasy. There is no reasonable way that we can leave oil in place as the near-exclusive fuel for the world’s transportation systems and simultaneously wall ourselves off from the world oil market.

If we want to end dependence on the whims of OPEC’s despots, the substantial instabilities of the Middle East, and the indignity of paying for both sides in the War on Terror, we must define oil “independence” sensibly — as doing whatever is necessary to avoid oil’s being the instrument of despotic leverage and foreign chaos.

Those who won our independence as a nation didn’t just fling imported tea into Boston harbor — they did whatever was necessary to wrest themselves from British control. We need not call out the Minutemen, but to avoid the consequences of dependence we must become independent — not just of imported oil, but of oil itself.

Does this mean that we cannot use oil or import any? Of course not. Oil is a useful commodity that can readily transport energy long distances. It already has competition from natural gas in industry and from gas and electricity for heating. But in transportation it brooks no competition — it is thus not just a commodity but a strategic commodity.

Oil’s monopoly on transportation gives intolerable power to OPEC and the nations that dominate oil ownership and production. This monopoly must be broken. To tell us that in following this path we are doing a “disservice to the nation” and should resign ourselves to oil dependence is like telling us we should not urge an alcoholic to stop drinking, but should rather impress upon him the health advantages of red wine.

Not long ago, technology broke the power of another strategic commodity. Until around the end of the nineteenth century salt had such a position because it was the only means of preserving meat. Odd as it seems today, salt mines conferred national power and wars were even fought over control of them....MORE (He gets to electric vehicles, an idea he's been promoting in a serious way, at very high levels)

Here he is at the WSJ's OpinionJournal:
Gentlemen, Start Your Plug-Ins
How does 500 miles a gallon sound to you?

An oil and security task force of the Council on Foreign Relations recently opined that "the voices that espouse 'energy independence' are doing the nation a disservice by focusing on a goal that is unachievable over the foreseeable future." Others have also said, essentially, that other nations will control our transportation fuel--get used to it. Yet House Democrats have announced a push for "energy independence in 10 years," and in November General Motors joined Toyota and perhaps other auto makers in a race to produce plug-in hybrid vehicles, hugely reducing the demand for oil. Who's right--those who drive toward independence or those who shrug?

Bet on major progress toward independence, spurred by market forces and a portfolio of rapidly developing oil-replacing technologies.....MORE

*R. James Woolsey joined FDD in August, 2002, as a Distinguished Advisor. Previously Mr. Woolsey was a partner at the law firm of Shea & Gardner in Washington, D.C., where he practiced for twenty-two years, on four occasions, beginning in1973; his practice was in the fields of civil litigation, alternative dispute resolution, and corporate transactions.

During the twelve years he has served in the U.S. Government Mr. Woolsey has held Presidential appointments in two Democratic and two Republican administrations. He was Director of Central Intelligence in 1993-95. He also served as: Ambassador to the Negotiation on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), Vienna, 1989-1991; Under Secretary of the Navy, 1977-1979; and General Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, 1970-73. He was appointed by the President as Delegate at Large to the U.S.-Soviet Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) and Nuclear and Space Arms Talks (NST), and served in that capacity on a part-time basis in Geneva, 1983-1986. As an officer in the U.S. Army he was an adviser on the U.S. Delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I), Helsinki and Vienna, 1969-1970.

Mr. Woolsey has been a Director or Trustee of numerous civic organizations, including The Smithsonian Institution, where he was Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Board of Regents, Stanford University, The Goldwater Scholarship Foundation, and The Aerospace Corporation. He has been a member of: The National Commission on Terrorism, 1999-2000; The Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the U.S. (Rumsfeld Commission), 1998; The President's Commission on Federal Ethics Law Reform, 1989; The President's Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management (Packard Commission), 1985-1986; and The President's Commission on Strategic Forces (Scowcroft Commission), 1983. He is currently a Trustee of The Center for Strategic & International Studies; Chairman of the Advisory Committee of the Clean Fuels Foundation; and Vice Chairman of the Advisory Board of Global Options LLC.

Mr. Woolsey is presently a member of the Board of Directors or Board of Managers of: Information Systems Laboratories, Inc. (ISL); Linsang Partners, LLC; Fibersense Technology Corporation; Invicta Networks, Inc.; DIANA, LLC; and Agorics, Inc. He has served in the past as a member of the Boards of Directors of: BC International Corporation; Sun HealthCare Group, Inc.; USF&G; Yurie Systems, Inc.; Martin Marietta; British Aerospace, Inc.; Fairchild Industries; Titan Corporation; and DynCorp, and as a member of the Board of Governors of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange.

Mr. Woolsey was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1941. He is married to Suzanne Haley Woolsey, the Chief Communications Officer of the National Academies (Science, Engineering, and Medicine) and they have three sons: Robert, Daniel, and Benjamin. Mr. Woolsey attended Tulsa public schools, graduating from Tulsa Central High School in 1959. He received his B.A. Degree in 1963 from Stanford University (With Great Distinction, Phi Beta Kappa), an M.A. from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar 1963-65, and an LL.B from Yale Law School in 1968, where he was Managing Editor of the Yale Law Journal.

Mr. Woolsey is Vice President of the Global Strategic Security Division at Booz, Allen, & Hamilton. He is a frequent contributor to major publications, and from time to time gives public speeches, on the subjects of foreign affairs, defense, energy, and intelligence

Source: FDD

Here's his comment on his relationship with President Clinton:

Remember the guy who in 1994 crashed his plane onto the White House lawn? That was me trying to get an appointment to see President Clinton.

Climateer "Line of the Day" and Day Trading Hot Chinese Alt-Energy (What could possibly go wrong?)

Speaking of the WSJ's Blog Empire (see below), Tim Annett posting at MarketBeat was yesterday's winner with a walk-off home run*:

Like a gang of clowns in a pie shop, Wall Street brokerages had a merry old time slapping one another with various downgrades, earnings-estimate parings and price-target reductions in the lead-up to their recent earnings announcements.

*From Wikipedia:

In baseball, a walk-off home run is a home run which ends the game. It must be a home run that gives the home team the lead in the bottom of the final inning of the game — either the ninth inning, or any extra inning, or any other regularly scheduled final inning. It is called a "walk-off" home run because the teams walk off the field immediately afterward.

Also at MarketBeat (Pre-market this time) David Gaffen had this:

The most actively traded stock in premarket action — and one that’s fast becoming a favorite of day-traders — was China BAK Battery, which was up 24%, yet without any real news at all. Monday, the stock was added to Nasdaq’s “Clean Edge” index, which highlights companies that use clean energy methods, but it’s hard to see how that warrants today’s gain (and yesterday’s 40% increase).

Alright you Mo-mo Mama's, belly up to the keyboard.

Fortis group buys carbon rights

As a follow-up to
"A Pre-packaged Hedge or Climateer has Wind and Gas"
(HT:WSJ's Energy Roundup)

and specifically
"From Those Wonderful Folks who Brought You Food-for-Oil".
(again HT: Energy Roundup, what would I do without em?)
We see what Fortis has been up to.

From the BBC:
A bank from the Netherlands has emerged as the winning bidder in an auction which marks a new phase in the global "carbon market".

Fortis Bank has paid more than 13m euros ($18m) for the rights to emit 800,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, in the first such auction to be held in a regulated exchange, the Brazilian Mercantile and Futures Exchange (BM&F).

The credits were made available through the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol.

The mechanism aims to attract investment for climate-friendly projects in poor countries from companies in the industrialised world with compulsory limits on their greenhouse gas emissions.

In this case, the credits were held by the city government of Sao Paulo, in recognition of a project to prevent methane escaping into the atmosphere from a massive rubbish tip in the city, the largest landfill site in Latin America.

The Bandeirantes landfill, at the Northern edge of the city, had grown to a 30-million-tonne mountain of rubbish, 100m high, by the time it filled up last year.

Gas preference

In order to prevent the emission of vast quantities of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, a private contractor was brought in to collect it and generate electricity....MUCH MORE

Climate change in the media: Greening the message, but not the medium

From Ethical Corporation:
UK broadcasters offer impressive programmes encouraging us all to be green. But when it comes to addressing their own carbon footprints, they could learn a few lessons from their shows, argues Andrew Greener.
(talk about an occuponymous name)

The global TV industry is uniquely placed to influence public opinion on the environment. As such, it has a duty and a responsibility to raise awareness of climate change, to inform, and to promote debate.

Fortunately, the industry is rising to the challenge, and 2007 has seen the largest yet amount of ‘green’ programming across the networks.

The most dedicated channel is Green TV, a broadband TV channel streaming environmental films from around the world that includes partners like the United Nations Environment Programme, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace....

...Studio setbacks

But, ironically, these laudable efforts to bring green issues to our screens are undermined by the point of delivery, or TV sets themselves.

Whereas in the 50’s and 60’s a television set was the single electrical appliance, this is now likely to be augmented by the set top box, DVD player, and the 5:1 surround sound system. Then there is the environmental cost of producing programmes and films....MORE

Ethanol Boom, Rising Corn Prices Divide US Farm Lobbyists

I have a mental soundtrack that imposes itself, unbidden, at the oddest times.
The story of the competing farm lobbyists triggered this version of Dueling Banjos. I can usually understand the triggers; in this case it's all the pork at the beginning of the two minute vid.

Here's the story from Cattle Network:

As a chief advocate for U.S. corn farmers, Rob Litterer will be working the halls of the U.S. Congress this fall to push for increased ethanol production. But he is facing stiff opposition from what on the surface seems an unlikely source - the farm lobby.

The burgeoning ethanol industry is creating a wave of prosperity for rural towns throughout the U.S. Midwest, but the energy bonanza is also pitting farming groups on separate sides of the fence. Corn farmers are pushing for more ethanol production as the industry creates an enormous new market for their crop, giving corn prices the kind of lift they have not seen in years.

But the corn farmer's win is the hog farmer's loss. Meat, dairy, and other food producers are pushing back against the ethanol boom as higher grain prices cut into their already slim profit margins.

So as Litterer, incoming president of the National Corn Growers Association, visits with members of the U.S. Congress in coming months, he knows that meat and dairy lobbyists will be close behind, delivering the opposite message. "There is no question they have a policy that they are opposed to an increase," Litterer said.

"But I don't think their opposition carries any water." The tension between grain producers and food producers is roiling agricultural markets around the world as high oil prices spur governments to subsidize food-based fuels like ethanol and biodiesel.

The Mexican government this week put a cap on tortilla prices after prices shot up between 20% and 30% over uncertainty that there would be enough U.S. corn available for export. Brazil will ask the World Trade Organization to formally investigate U.S. farm subsidy programs - including payments for ethanol production....

...One story outlines an ominous increase in pizza prices....MORE

Alt-Energy/Cleantech vs. Big Carbon: An Oil Man's Thoughts

Open Choke is the nom de plume of an anonymous oil and gas industry executive. Open Choke's ideas and opinions do not necessarily represent the ideas or opinions of Drillinginfo.com, its owners, or employees.

September 07, 2007

Mo' Comparisons...

ANWR's 4 billion, perhaps mythical, barrels shouldn't be drilled because it represents less than a year of gross domestic oil consumption.

How many times have you heard that? It is a famous example of statistical misdirection applied by the Haters... of us lovable puppy dog-like oil and gas folk. Using similiar logic, perhaps we shouldn't plant any crops this year because it only represents a years worth of food. Let them eat... Yellow Cake.

In any case, I want to share some real stats with you... the kind that are a little harder to "misdirect".

Fun Fact 1) Gasoline contains 116,000 BTU's/gal, and takes around 22,000 BTU's/gal to find, drill, transport, and refine. NET POSITIVE BTU? 94,000 BTU's or a little bit short of 5:1 leverage, or, put another way Return on BTU Investment.

Corn based ethanol contains 76,000 BTU's/gal, and takes 98,000 BTU's/gal to plant, grow, harvest, and refine. NET POSITIVE BTU? Uhhh. None. -22,000 actually. Less than payback. Kinda like saying "we lose money on every deal but we make it up in volume". I implored the oil and gas lobbying organizations to NOT attack ethanol subsidies by pointing out this physical limitation to lawmakers, because farmers get knee jerk defensive when you try to rip their snouts away from their Pork Trough, an item so important that it nearly is equivalent to a breathing tube... they cannot exist wihtout it anymore... and hell, the negative BTUs are gonna come from hydrocarbons anyway, heh heh.

To be fair, I think human ingenuity in the processing realm will eventually make corn-based ethanol a BTU break even or slightly positive energy contributor across the board given time. But chemistry dictates that it will never be as good as oil... and not even Congress can change chemistry, although I am certain they think they can.

The REALLY sad fact is that corn-based ethanol approaches the same efficiency of some of the drilling deals I have been involved with lately... and nearly all the MLP's I see right now! I wonder what Enervest's John Walker would say about that? He stood up last week in front of hundreds of I-bankers in Dallas and slammed the current MLP craze. A brave man, Walker. a real Texas Ranger.

So, Fun Fact #2) Getting back to ANWR, I thought it might be fun to calculate how many windmills would be needed to make up ANWR. Probably not the kinda fun YOU have, but it suffices for my puny existence....MORE

Cost of dealing with climate change: 2% of GDP

From the Times of India:

NEW DELHI: The development projects India is undertaking to reduce impacts of climate change is already cutting into its GDP. In 2006-07, India used 2.17% of its GDP on projects that will help communities adapt to climate change and reduce their vulnerability to climate change.

This was disclosed on Thursday by Jayant M Mau-skar, joint secretary in the environment ministry, at a conference on climate change organised at the Vatavaran Film Festival here. Mauskar said, "In 2000-01, India was spending 0.63% of its GDP on climate change adaptation and mitigation which has now risen to 2.17%. So we can say that Nicholas Stern's argument (that climate change action does not hurt economy much) is perhaps not true."

Stern, in his report on climate change for the UK, he had stated that taking action to reduce climate change would not hurt the growing economies of countries like India. The official, in a way, has showcased the argument that India could be taking to the negotiating table at the UN meeting on climate change when developed countries ask it to undertake cap on greenhouse gas emissions....MORE

Solar Opportunities Excite Turner

That Atlanta-Journal-Constitution headline just seems nasty.
I don't want to think of Ted excited. Nor Jane.
Here's the solar story:

Ted Turner made a fortune on his way to becoming one of the world's best-known tycoons. But the biggest opportunity he has ever known, Turner said Tuesday, is his newest one —- the solar business.

"I really believe ... this is the greatest business opportunity in the history of humanity," Turner said in a characteristically salty speech to an industry conference here. "The entire world is going to have to redo its energy regime, and solar's going to be a very big part of it."

Last year, Turner invested several million dollars in DT Solar, a New Jersey company that has its southwestern headquarters in Austin, Texas. He also created a holding company, Turner Renewable Energy, and said Tuesday that he's looking to expand his holdings.

In addition to increasing his investments in solar, Turner said he plans to start lobbying lawmakers in Washington to do more to promote solar power and otherwise address global warming....MORE

Talking Dung at the WSJ's Energy Roundup

Mark Gongloff, posting at the ER, thinks he has a handle on the subject. Ha!
Ha!
He don't know dung!
Ha!
I've been saving this post from Mental Floss for just such an opportunity!

Six Unexpected Uses For Animal Dung
1. Crocs and Birth Control
2. Elephants and Paper Products
3. Llamas to Fight Pollution
4. Bats to Fight Wars
5. Moose Droppings for Tourists
6. Flying Squirrel Cures

With links to:

Previously on mental_floss:

• Quiz: Match The Drug To Its Creepy Side Effect
• Five Disorders That Make For Scary Slumbering
• Strange Gravestones
• Five Great Prison Escapes
• A Surprisingly Long List Of People Who’ve Attempted Suicide
• Five Ballpark Promotions That Went Wrong

Investments by Canada's New Government to Help Canola Products Yield Greater International Profits

This may be forshadowing a "We told you so" moment.

In Biofuels could increase global warming with laughing gas, says Nobel prize-winning chemist

we said
*Rapeseed biofuel ‘produces more greenhouse gas than oil or petrol’

* The Canadians thought the name presented a marketing challenge, so they changed it to Canola. Now I 'spose they'll have to go with "Happy, Joy, Joy" or some such.

Now we have this press release via Market Wire:

The Honourable Gerry Ritz, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and Minister for the Canadian Wheat Board, today announced $1.47 million to the Canola Council of Canada in support of creating new global marketing opportunities for Canada's canola exporters.

"Canola is Canada's second most valuable crop, after wheat, and looking ahead it will become an even more vital product for our producers and for our economy," said Minister Ritz. "For these reasons, Canada's New Government is proud to make this investment and help our Canadian canola producers yield greater profits by tapping into international opportunities....MORE

ARM Resets: Updated

Calculated Risk guides us to an updated BofA chart on the reset schedule. We've got plenty of time for my channeling the Post headline "Paper Scissored, Rocked".

From CR:
Click on graph for larger image.

See Mathew's blog for more discussion and a comparison to the previous chart.

Some readers have noted that the BofA numbers are higher than the Credit Suisse and UBS reset numbers. CS and UBS are apparently only looking at securitized loans, and BofA includes unsecuritized loans....MORE

REVEALED AT LAST ! The Evolutionary Basis Of Climate Change:

.In the beginning, the Lord said

"Let there be Carbon Sequestration, "

....................................And it was pretty weird.

This is from Russell Seitz's ADAMANT weblog.
It's standalone funny.
It's hysterical when you put it in the context found here:

Recent Publications
SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS

Xenomict energy in cold solids in space
Naturwissenschaften............................................. February , 2006
Vol. 92 #3 pp. 88-91; online 12-19-2005
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00114-005-0067-9

Crystal : Ever evolving and expanding in scope
Nature..........................................................................June 26,2003
Nuclear, inorganic, and organic diffractive materials

High-pressure,metasomatic rocks along the Motagua Fault Zone
with George E. Harlow et al
Ofioliti.............................................................................March 2003
Revising the tectonic history of the North American Plate

Olmec Blue and Formative Jade Sources
with G.E.Harlow,V.R. Sissons & K.A.Taube
Antiquity..................................................................December 2001
Rediscovery of ancient jade mines in Guatemala

POLICY ARTICLES, OP-EDS & INTERVIEWS...

Hurricane Watch for Early October

From Jeff Masters WunderBlog:

...More action off the coast of Africa
An area of disturbed weather has moved off the coast of Africa, and is located a few hundred miles south of the Cape Verdes Islands. This tropical wave is under about 10 knots of wind shear, and has some potential for development over the next few days. Most of the computer models forecast that a tropical depression will form off the coast of Africa in the next 2-5 days.

Investors Reap Returns on Clean Energy

I have not seen the report and don't know the methodology.
The 55% annualized return caught my eye because I had used that figure (during a mis-spent youth) to calculate whether I would live long enough to own the world.

It works out to an 80-fold increase per decade. All I had to do was maintain the rate, have an eighty year working life, never have a down year and et voila $1,600 Trillions. For a buck.

A few years later,
I knew quite a bit about reversion-to-the-mean.

Some day I'll quote the old traders,
"Don't mistake a bull market for brains".
Sing with me kids: Alpha; Beta; Gamma...

Here's the story from Red Herring with a hat tip to AltEnergyStocks:

Venture backers of European clean energy startups reaped a 55 percent annualized return on their investments from 1998 to 2007, the London-based research group New Energy Finance said Tuesday.

The analysis, which was commissioned by the European Energy Venture Fair to take place this weekend in Zurich, looked at returns earned by 37 venture capital and private equity investors in 129 early stage companies dealing in low-carbon technologies such as renewable energy, fuel cells, power storage since 1998.

Of the 129 Europe-based portfolio companies that participated in the overall analysis, 15 IPO’d and 10 were sold to trade buyers, the research group said. Twenty-one companies raised more money with subsequent funding rounds.

At the same time, nearly an equal number of companies, 19, had been “written down” or raised smaller, subsequent funding rounds.

Over the same 10-year period, the 37 investors plowed €283.6 million ($396.1 million) into the portfolio companies and earned exit returns of 1.4-times funds invested. For non-exit companies, returns were 1.2-times total funds invested, according to New Energy Finance.

Weak Dollar Central to Oil Price Boom

From CNBC:

The weak dollar's leading role in oil's ascent to record highs is partly due to a tide of financial flows into commodity investments but also reflects a shift in the greenback's relationship with crude.

The dollar has traditionally influenced the price of oil and other commodities, including gold and base metals, which are mostly priced in the currency and usually move to compensate for changes in the its value.

So the steep fall in the dollar to record lows against the euro, for example, has helped drive oil to a record of $83.90 a barrel, reached on Sept. 20.

"I'm certainly in the camp of dollar weakness driving crude strength," said Anatol Feygin, head of global commodity strategy at Bank of America.

"With growing OECD inventories, revised lower demand, increased OPEC production and a relatively mild hurricane season, the dollar seems to be much more the issue."

That, analysts say, is because one aspect of its longstanding relationship with oil is changing.

In the past, dollars earned by oil producers flowed into U.S. dollar assets or investments.

The Gulf countries are thought to hold around $3.5 trillion in total dollar reserves, according to Lehman Brothers research....MORE

That's a lot of money. Let's depreciate it.
See how scummy it sounds when you actually say it?

Swissy's Knifed-Secuitized Products not Secure

Only tangential connection to AGW profit-making.
I'm working on jazzing up my headlines.

Here's how the Post put it:
CREDIT SUISSE'S A BOND VICTIM

Credit Suisse yesterday became the latest Wall Street firm to trim jobs as a result of the bond market collapse, with sources telling The Post that around 150 people have received pink slips.

The job cuts are in Credit Suisse's securitized product group, which has suffered a sharp decline in revenue in the wake of the collapse of the mortgage-backed security trading and origination market over the past two months....

The shame of smelly banks

I became a fan of Robert Peston while looking for good reporting on Northern Rock. He's the BBC's business editor. From his blog:

That no bank put in a bid for the three-month loans on offer from the Bank of England was wholly predictable. As I said in my note yesterday, if someone is charging you £6 for five-pound notes, but you can have them at £5.50 in the market down the road, what are you going to do?

The Bank was charging £6, in effect. And the only takers would have been those barred from the market.

So does the total absence of anyone wanting the Bank’s readies mean that the banking crisis is over, that it’s business as usual, that there are no residual liquidity problems for any small banks?

No, no and no....MORE

An International Court to Try Ecological Crimes?

From InterPressService:

As the United Nations takes an increasingly dominant role in guiding the climate change debate, there is renewed interest in a longstanding proposal for the creation of an international court to try environmental crimes.

But some diplomats and environmentalists are sceptical whether such a court will have the political support of the overwhelming majority of the U.N.'s 192 member states for it to be a reality.

"It took ages for the creation of an international war crimes tribunal," says one Third World diplomat, "and a world court for environmental crimes can take generations."

Satish Kumar, an avowed environmentalist and editor of the London-based environmental magazine Resurgence, is a strong advocate of such a court.

"We have no right to make waste," he argues. "And if I dump my waste on your house, it's a crime. You can take me to court."

"But if we put our waste on nature, nature can't take us to court? Nature should have a right to take us to court. And the United Nations should establish a nature court," Kumar told IPS.

He pointed out that environmental crimes -- from the dumping of toxic wastes to the military destruction of natural resources -- should be deemed "crimes against nature"....MORE

Carbon price is poor weapon against climate change

Again, from Reuters:

The battle to beat climate change has come down to one weapon -- the price of carbon. And analysts say it is not working.

Much lip service has been paid to cutting climate warming carbon emissions through measures such as improved energy efficiency, technological innovation, reduced demand, higher standards and carbon output restrictions.

But in most cases the vital incentive is supposed to be provided by achieving a high price for carbon, from which all else would follow. Neither has happened and time is running out.

"The policy instrument of choice pretty well everywhere is a price for carbon, and it is not going to work," said Tom Burke of environment lobby group E3G.

"To stop climate change moving from a bad problem getting worse to a worse problem becoming catastrophic, you have to make the global energy system carbon neutral by 2050 -- and that will not happen just using carbon pricing."

Burke said what was urgently needed were strict technical standards and investment incentives to achieve the transition.

"You have got to drive the carbon out of the energy system and then keep it out forever," he said. "In the first part of that you are making serious step changes. They are not going to be accomplished by marginal changes in price."

The European Union's carbon emissions trading scheme got off to a shaky start due to over-allocation of permits, but has now established a price of about 20 euros a tonne of carbon dioxide.

There is also the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol on cutting global carbon emissions, under which developing nations effectively get paid for emissions foregone.

VERY POOR WEAPON

Together, these two have generated a global carbon trade worth billions of dollars and handed vast profits to some key players, but had little measurable effect on carbon emissions.

"Governments are relying way too much on the price of carbon to deliver everything," said Jim Watson of Sussex University's Energy Group.

"It is a prerequisite but not a panacea. It has to go hand in hand with regulations and technological developments, and they are sadly lacking," he said.

"If you rely too much on the carbon price you give people the option of buying their way out of it. It is a very poor weapon in what is supposed to be a war to save humanity....MORE

Rhodia S.Korea plant leads world in carbon credits

Reuters has been on a roll recently in their coverage of the business of climate.

A South Korean chemical plant that cleaned up its act has received the most United Nations carbon credits to date and its French owner Rhodia is raking in profit as a result.

The adipic acid plant in Onsan, South Korea has received nearly 10 million carbon credits, or certified emissions reductions (CERs), from the U.N. under the Kyoto Protocol for reductions made in the past year. All of these have been resold by chemical company Rhodia at a hefty markup.

According a United Nations Website (http://cdm.unfccc.int), the Onsan plant's closest rival project, a hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) plant in India, has received just 8.7 million CERs to date for reductions between 2004 and 2007.

CERs, each equal to the reduction of one tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e), are issued by the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) and are traded worldwide.

"I can confirm that we've sold all CERs expected to be received in the second half of 2007 for an average price of 14.40 euros," Rita Hillig, Head of Media Relations for Rhodia, said.

She added that the credits received in the first half were sold for slightly more, at 14.50 euros.

"I can also confirm that we've sold forward five million 2008 CERs at an average price of 15 euros."

Philippe Rosier, President of Rhodia Energy Services, told Reuters in October 2006 these credits cost just 60 euro cents each....MORE

China, India could face CO2 tax on goods -U.S. envoy

From Reuters:

Retaliatory steps that comply with world trade rules could be found against China and India if they fail to help international efforts to cut emissions of carbon dioxide, a senior U.S. diplomat said on Tuesday.

Speaking before a meeting on climate change in Washington to be attended by the world's 16 biggest greenhouse gas emitters, U.S. ambassador to the European Union C. Boyden Gray said steps could include a tax on carbon emitted by manufacturers.

Gray said it was vital to get China and India on board in reducing emissions.

"We just can't do without them," he told a news briefing.

"I think there are mechanisms that could be retaliatory ... that could be utilised if China and India don't engage.

"You could probably find a WTO-compliant way -- for example you could require goods to have to pay a fee related to the carbon expended in manufacture," he said.

"There are ways you could do this and our Congress is certainly looking at it, but I think it would be better to have an agreement ... and that's what this is all about -- trying to get China and India to engage."

Gray said he believed that up to one-third of California's pollution blew across the Pacific Ocean from China....MORE

How to become a MacArthur genius.

From Slate (Warning. Spoilers Ahead):

The MacArthur Foundation anointed 24 new geniuses Tuesday. They granted $500,000 fellowships to artists, engineers, and a host of other creative types. The foundation dispenses no-strings-attached awards every year to people who display "creativity, originality, and potential to make important contributions in the future." In 2000, David Plotz told aspiring geniuses the seven rules to live by to win the hearts and minds of the MacArthur Foundation. The article is reprinted below.

When Peter Hayes learned that he had won a $500,000 MacArthur genius grant last month, he was stunned: It's "like being hit by a Mack truck. … It's a little disorienting," he told the San Francisco Chronicle. Hayes shouldn't have been too disoriented. It would have been surprising if he hadn't collected a MacArthur. He helps North Korea develop windmills as an alternative to nuclear power. He takes underprivileged kids sailing in San Francisco Bay during his free time. And he lives in Berkeley, Calif., where you can't buy a latte without meeting a MacArthur-stamped brainiac.

Since 1981, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has awarded 588 "fellowships" worth nearly $200 million to Americans "who show exceptional merit and promise for continued and enhanced creative work."
(The foundation detests the word "genius" because it "because it connotes a singular characteristic of intellectual prowess.")

The fellowship is a no-strings-attached grant: Each 2000 winner will get $100,000 a year for five years. MacArthur calls the cash a gift of time, because it frees winners from financial constraints on their art, science, or activism. (The $4 billion foundation is the estate of John D. MacArthur, a skinflint who became the second-richest American by selling cut-rate insurance through the mail. His son Rod grabbed control of the trust after John's 1978 death and pushed the genius project.)...MORE

Warning: Spoilers

Rule No. 1: Live in New York or San Francisco.
Rule No. 2: Be a professor.
Rule No. 3: If you don't want to teach college, make art.
Rule No. 4: Do not, under any circumstances, work for the government or the private sector.
Rule No. 5: Upset conventional wisdom.
Rule No. 6: Be left wing.
Rule No. 7: Be slightly, but not dangerously, quirky.

John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Goes On Wild Endowment Binge

CHICAGO—The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation went on a wild endowment binge last weekend, recklessly giving away more than $170 million in grants and fellowships in a 48-hour span.

"We got pretty out of control there with the endowing," said foundation president Jonathon Fanton, icing down his check-writing hand while recovering Monday. "It started Friday afternoon, when [Vice President and Chief Financial Officer] Lyn [Hutton] suggested we give a grant to the Foundation for Urban Renewal for their tireless efforts to rebuild America's struggling inner cities.

Then, [Treasurer] Marc [Yanchura] said Save Our Cities was doing even better work, so we threw them on the pile, too. Things kind of snowballed from there, and by 4 a.m., we'd given $81 million in grants to 16 different groups. I think we even gave a few million to [rival philanthropic organization] Pew Charitable Trusts."

Source

From Russia With Cash: Seeding a Hedge Fund

From the HeraldTribune (FL):
Russian multimillionaire, well-connected energy magnate and nascent hedge fund manager — smiles broadly in a Manhattan restaurant as a lawyer, a lobbyist, an economist and a former congressman praise him over shots of vodka and a lavish spread of lamb, salmon and beef tenderloin.

They toast Mr. Vavilov, 46, as an architect of Russia’s fledgling market economy and a maverick financier whose philanthropic contributions to universities in the United States and abroad have produced important financial research.

“Congratulations on your newest venture, this hedge fund of yours,” says Thomas B. Evans Jr., a former Republican representative from Delaware. “I mean, I don’t know much about it, but I am sure it will be a big success.”

If Mr. Evans is hoping to learn more about Mr. Vavilov’s new fund, the IFS Hedge Fund, he may have a long wait. Throughout his career, Mr. Vavilov’s bookishness — he is fond of wire-rimmed glasses and a buzz cut — has belied his reputation as a shrewd back-room operator whose business and political relationships have followed a circuitous and largely silent path from Moscow to London to New York.

Even by the standards of hedge fund managers, whose activities are often shrouded in secrecy, Mr. Vavilov occupies uniquely murky territory — at the intersection of shadowy Russian oil riches and fast money on Wall Street....MORE

Subprime Panic Freezes $40 Billion of Canadian Commercial Paper

From Bloomberg:

On Baffin Island in the Arctic Circle, Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. almost missed its window to ship provisions to workers before winter arrives. The delay came not from the weather, but from a sudden freeze in the market for short-term debt 2,000 miles south in Toronto.

Baffinland ran short of funds to pay for food, fuel and drilling equipment after investing in commercial paper that borrowers couldn't repay. Without the money, the company had to arrange an emergency line of credit before shipping lanes froze over.

``We have 200 people to keep alive,'' Chief Executive Officer Gordon McCreary said in an interview in Toronto. ``Our lifeline to getting critical materials to the north'' was the C$43.8 million ($43.8 million) invested in commercial paper, he said....MORE

When it goes wrong...(Mortgage Securitization)

From The Economist:
A generation has prospered from the wholesale transfer of risk through securitisation. Now it is paying the price

“THE medium-term outlook for the company is very positive,” declared Northern Rock's chief executive, Adam Applegarth, unveiling its first-half results in July. He spoke of a credit book that was “robust”. Who would have guessed that less than two months later Britain's fifth-largest mortgage lender would be fighting for its life, its branches besieged by customers demanding their savings back?

The run on Northern Rock is the most dramatic symptom of the contagion gripping the financial markets. Here was a bank that had grown rich from the innovations of recent years, using abundantly stocked wholesale markets to fund its lively growth, using those same markets to offload bits of its loan book as and when they became unattractive.

But the very innovations on which Northern Rock thrived have savaged its business. The company does no lending to speak of overseas. Nevertheless, its fate was determined by the distant turmoil in America's mortgage market. When that spilled over into the securities markets, the money markets that Northern Rock had depended on for years dried up in a single day at the start of August.

The brave new world that enabled banks like Northern Rock to grow so fast is founded on “securitisation”—the process that transforms mortgages, credit-card receivables and other financial assets into marketable securities—and the innovation it spawned in “structured” products. This was a revolution that brought huge gains. But across the financial world investors and regulators are asking themselves whether it also brought costs that are only now becoming clear....MORE

Warren Buffett Letters to Partners 1959 - 1969

Nothing I say could compare. This is my gift to you.

2/11/1959 The General Stock Market in 1958
2/20/1960	The General Stock Market in 1959
1/30/1961	The General Stock Market in 1960
7/22/1961	To My Partners
1/24/1962	Our Performance in 1961
7/06/1962	A reminder
12/24/1962	To all Partners
1/18/1963	The Ground rules
7/10/1963	First Half Performance
11/06/1963	To all Partners
12/26/1963	To all Partners
1/18/1964	Our Performance in 1963
7/08/1964	First Half Performance
1/18/1965	Our Performance in 1964
7/9/1965	First half Performance
11/01/1965	To My Partners of 1966
1/20/1966	Our Performance in 1966
7/12/1966	First half Performance
11/01/1966	To My Partners of 1967
1/25/1967	The First Decade
7/12/1967	First half Performance
10/9/1967	To My Partners
11/01/1967	To My Partners
1/24/1968	Our Performance in 1967
7/11/1968	First half Performance
11/1/1968	To My Partners
1/22/1969	Our Performance in 1968
5/22/1969	To My Partners

Thanks to RB & C LLC.

At the UN, the Waves of Bush and Sarko at Mr. Ban's Stakeout, Of Blogs and Carbon Offsetting

This will be the last bit from ICP for at least twelve hours, I promise.

...While President Bush dined with Ban Ki-moon, Han Duk-soo of South Korea, Lula, Merkel, Mbeki, Prodi and Sarkozi, a half dozen reporters took up positions in the Delegates' Entrance stakeout. Soon they were ushered out so that dogs could smell their equipment --- camera equipment, just to be clear.

...Also announced on Monday at the noon briefing -- better late than never -- was that

The UN will substantially offset the carbon emissions caused by today's High-Level Event on Climate Change, which is estimated at about 500 tons of carbon dioxide. These carbon emissions are primarily from the energy use for the meeting, the travel of UN staff involved in the organization of the meeting, special invitees and speakers, and Heads of State and Government and ministers who have come to New York only for the High-Level Event. The carbon emissions from the Event will be offset by a small-scale hydroelectric project located in Intibuca, Honduras, near the city of La Esperanza. In addition to providing power stability to the electric grid in the area, this high quality renewable energy project provides significant local social and environmental benefits, such as rural electrification and reduced dependency on fuel wood, increased employment of local people, and improvement of the watershed through reforestation. The effort to offset the carbon footprint of today’s Event, which will cost $15,800, is supported by the UN Foundation.

And for a taste of ICP in the South Bronx:

September 10, 2007

This year's Ferragosto on Arthur Avenue had less freebies than usual.
Calandra's Cheese, for example, which previously had a stand making and giving samples of mozzarella (even if they did glare at you if you came back too many times) this year had no stand outside, at least not at the 4:30 p.m. peak when "The Streets of the Bronx" launched laboriously into their rendition of "Good Love" and on Hughes and 186 Italian folk musicians played mandolin for an older crowd.

There were the masked clowns and the roasting pig, sure, and the new restaurant on the block, Dolce Amaro, had a half dozen oversized motorcycles in front, including a three-wheeled named "Boss Hog." The police barricades were up on Hoffman and Belmont, 188 to 186. Mount Carmel Church had its stand and the library sold bags of book for two dollars, made to look like two hundred (200) on the sign in front. All in all a groovy time, as summer comes to a close...

In potentially less positive New York news, the New York State Banking Department has named as its new first deputy superintendent of banks hired Patricia Meadow, who has held positions at HSBC Holdings PLC and Citigroup -- both of which have settled governmental charges of predatory lending...

More from Inner City Press-"UN's Global Warming Summit May Yet Offset Emissions, "Coal Is Here to Stay," UN's de Boer Says"

UNITED NATIONS, September 22 -- Two days before the UN's summit on global warming, a plan to offset the carbon emissions of the summit is still being "explored," according to Yvo De Boer of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, who also added that "oil and coal are here to stay." Inner City Press asked de Boer and Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change to address reports that a single coal-fired plant will negate the impact, for example, of California's plan to require new cars to reduce emissions by 25% in 2009.

"Combating climate change is not a war on oil, and is not a war on coal," said Mr. de Boer. He spoke of China and India both having coal and "economic growth goals" that means that coal is here to stay. Dr. Pachauri said one shouldn't "minimize the importance of behavioral changes," and that these don't mean "going back to the Stone Age." As an example, he mentioned shifting to public transportation....MORE

At UN, Sarkozy Excludes Reporters Without French Passports, Tries African Photo-Op

That's just one of the U.N. stories from Inner City Press,
Investigative Reporting since 1987,
From the Inner City to Wall Street to the United Nations
Ya gotta love ICP; when the traveling roadshow is not in town, at many pressers they are the only representatives of the fourth estate in attendance.
Here's the Sarko story.

And:
At the UN's Climate Change Event, "False Dichotomy" on Coal, Bush Presented as Supportive

Attempts to ask the first question to President George W. Bush himself proved fruitless: Bush attended a dinner with Ban and others, but then rushed past the press afterwards. Inner City Press managed later to ask Mr. Ban about Bush, video here:

Inner City Press: Did you get any sense, Mr. Secretary-General, from President Bush, of how he viewed the outcome of today, or what will take place in his meeting in D.C. with the major emitting countries?

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon: He also mentioned that, while he explained how technological innovation can help in addressing these issues, and he explained what he wants to discuss and wants to achieve. In forthcoming meetings, he has invited all these industrialized countries. He made it quite clear that what he is going to do was to help the United Nations influence, and the United Nations so that the United Nations can work to address these global warming issues, and I appreciate it for his firm commitment and support for that.

Inner City Press: Was there any discussion of just capping emissions...MORE

What We Can Learn From The Lunatic Fringe?

From WorldChanging:

We've all heard claims of green inventions that are too good to be true: the zero-point energy generator, the water-powered car, the device for talking with dolphins to achieve world peace.

Sometimes they amuse us; sometimes they confuse us, as we try to determine whether they're legitimate or not; and sometimes they just annoy us. But can they ever help us?

Yes: by keeping our imaginations open, and by honing our evaluation skills -- skills which are useful both when deciding between existing technologies, and when thinking about technologies on the horizon.

Some high-quality nutball vaporware that has crossed my desk in the last year or two includes:

• The guy selling kits and manuals for "how to run your car on zero-point energy". (Zero point energy is always a favorite with the perpetual motion crowd.)
• The water-powered car (or at least water-powered welding) was a huge media hit, even getting onto mainstream papers and TV stations.
• The Beck Mickle Hydro waterwheel supposedly generates 1-2 KW of power from just a 20cm drop in a stream; many smart people I know were excited about it, but someone on PES Wiki ran the numbers and calculated that there isn't 1 or 2 kW in streams that small to begin with.
• Steorn's Orbo has a classy, professional website, but with zero content, and a planned demonstration was called off at the eleventh hour.
• The "gear turbine" engine is such a mess I don't even know what to say about it.
• And of course, there's everybody's favorite, cold fusion.

(By the way, if anyone wants to share particularly fun lunatic fringe inventions in the comments, go for it!)

Most of these inventors have notoriously poor spelling and grammar...MORE (plus some funny comments)

World's greatest market: China or U.S.?

From MarketWatch:
Jim Rogers loves Asia, while Dick Morris rages against America

Odd couple? Yes, but while there's no conspiracy between them, their contrasting spirits shine a bright light on the coming global recession, on who'll get hurt most. Let's look.

First, the savvy and always entertaining Jim Rogers has a new book coming in December, "A Bull in China: Investing Profitably in the World's Greatest Market." This time Jim's putting his money where his mouth is.

He's not only writing another fascinating book about his global adventures, he's sending a powerful signal. This time Jim's even selling his home in New York, leaving America and relocating to Singapore, a signal as ominous as Halliburton relocating in Dubai and others abandoning ship for ports outside the realm of the sinking dollar. ...MORE

Arctic Becomes Tourism Hot Spot,

Yesterday, Mark Gongloff, posting at the WSJ's Energy Roundup, pointed us to a trend that seems, simply, ridiculous (in the sense that it should be the subject of ridicule).

Interest in Global Warming
Is Now a Selling Point;
Seeing Glaciers 'Calve'

DISKO BAY, Greenland -- James Brusslan is an environmental lawyer with climate change on his mind. He cycles to the office and works at a Chicago law firm that offsets its carbon emissions. He plasters friends' SUVs with stickers that say: "I'm changing the climate! Ask me how!"

To get a first-hand glimpse of such changes, Mr. Brusslan, 50 years old, recently spent $2,800 on a week's camping trip here, about 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle. "I wanted to see what was happening," he said, as he gazed at an ice fiord where a glacier was splintering into icebergs. "In 10 years, it probably will be gone." He next plans to see the melting glaciers of Sichuan, China.

Global warming has given rise to a new niche in the booming eco-tourism business: climate tourists. These visitors seek out places where a long-term warming trend -- subject of a global summit hosted by the United Nations this week -- is starting to have a discernible impact. Yet some say there's a big irony in this kind of travel: Any trip by train, plane or cruise ship pumps carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and potentially contributes to the warming of the planet....MORE

Here's one of the sillier headlines I recall. From May 16
Arctic islands invite tourists to see climate woes

I've got 30 or 40 press releases in the link-vault that struck me as incongruous:

Senator McCain:
U.S. SENATORS VISIT GREENLAND, TURKEY, GEORGIA, MONTENEGRO, AND ITALY

Senator Cardin:
SENATOR CARDIN VISITS GREENLAND TO WITNESS EFFECTS OF GLOBAL WARMING

Angela Merkel:
Germany's Merkel heads to Greenland for talks on global warming

Represenative McNerney:
Bipartisan Science Committee trip to Greenland

Senator Sanders:
Trip to Greenland and the Sanders/Boxer Bill

Jose Manuel Barroso:
EU president calls for action against climate change during visit to Greenland

From President Barosso's visit:

View of the ice floe

José Manuel Barroso, on the right, and his wife, Margarida Sousa Uva

Chancellor Angela Merkel calls for global carbon market

As opposed to George (Implement a global carbon tax now) Soros.

From Expatica:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday called for a global carbon-trading system to tackle the growing costs of global warming and prevent "dramatic damage" in the future.

Speaking at a major UN climate conference in New York, Merkel said it was up to industrial nations to give developing countries, which have only recently begun to impact global carbon levels, a reason to act.

From the Houston Chronicle's SciGuy, Sept. 10, 2006:

I know George Soros is persona non grata to some of you. But he's also recently become a climate change crusader, so when Soros, one of the world's greatest financial speculators, met with the Chronicle's editorial board last Thursday I sat in.

Naturally he had a financial solution to the problem, namely, taxing the emissions of carbon dioxide:

Ideally you would have, let's say, a global carbon tax. That would re-orient investments to carbon-free forms of energy. I think it would have to be introduced over a period of time, but it would effect investment decisions being made today. If you knew that 15 years from now that you would have a heavy carbon tax, you would then make investments today that would factor in alternative sources. Each country would have to do it. You also need some fund that would be used to facilitate investments in new technology. You could make the carbon tax the basis for financing social security instead of payroll tax over a period of 15 years. You could replace the payroll tax with a carbon tax. It would be revenue neutral, but it would re-orient the spending.

That seems like a reasonable solution: energy companies pass along their higher costs for alternative energies to consumers, who pay those higher costs by seeing a reduction in their social security taxes. Concessions would have to be made for those on fixed incomes.

Soros also said his greatest immediate concern is the new construction of coal-fired power plants, and called for an even more aggressive implementation of the FutureGen project, which seeks to sequester the carbon before it is emitted.

I don't think you will ever wean yourself away from hydrocarbons, but you've got to reduce the carbon emissions. And the single-most important breakthrough is taking carbon out of coal. Unless you deal with that problem, the other measures you do can't possibly be sufficient because the number of coal-fired power stations being built. There are 600 of them in China, and about the same number in the rest of the world. And if they're all built they will add up to two-thirds of the pollution that's already being put into the air. It increases it by two-thirds.

The problem is that a lot of these plants, including 16 in Texas, will probably be built long before FutureGen comes online. It would be nice to at least build them so they could be retrofitted to capture carbon dioxide before it's emitted.

One of these days I'll get around to Soros and his pal Maurice Strong.

Russian official says prolongation of Kyoto Protocol ineffective

From RIA Novosti:

The prolongation of the Kyoto Protocol on the reduction of carbon emissions, which expires in 2012, will be ineffective, the head of the Russian hydrometeorology service said.

Speaking at the United Nations headquarters in New York, which hosted a one-day summit on climate change Monday, Alexander Bedritsky said: "Samples prove that the Kyoto Protocol is imperfect, and its prolongation in its existing form for the coming periods of cooperation will be ineffective."

The Kyoto Protocol obliges the 35 industrial states that have ratified the document to cut emissions by 5% below 1990 levels by 2008-2012. The United States, a major polluter, has pulled out from the protocol, saying this could damage its economy. Developed and developing countries have been locked in a dispute over who should bear the main burden of carbon emission restrictions....MORE

Women Turn Up Gender-Equity Heat at Climate Talks

In a warm-up meeting ahead of a major global-warming gathering in Bali in December, advocates pressed negotiators to include more women in the process and pay more attention to women's special expertise and exposure to climate change.

Women's perspectives and experiences must be included in international negotiations over climate change if efforts to curb global warming are to succeed, participants said at a roundtable last week on the effects of climate change on women.

Sixty government, United Nations and civil society representatives attended the meeting on Sept. 21, which aimed to influence discussions during Monday's gathering on climate change at the U.N. headquarters as part of the annual meeting of the general assembly.

"Climate change will increase existing inequalities," said Irene Dankelman, vice-chair of the Women's Environment and Development Organization, in her opening remarks at the roundtable. "Not only are women adversely impacted by climate change, they also contribute differently from men to its causes and its solutions."

The group highlighted women's disproportionate vulnerability to the types of natural disasters that climate change is expected to cause as well as women's often overlooked capacity to join mitigation efforts.

..."Women depend on natural resources for their livelihoods," said the roundtable's keynote speaker, Gro Harlem Brundtland, the former prime minister of Norway and one of the three U.N. special envoys on climate change....

From Women's eNews

Opportunity out of thin air=The Carbon Trade

From The Daily Report

(The Daily Report, often referred to as the Fulton County Daily Report, is Fulton County's official legal newspaper and Georgia's leading source for legal news and information. The newspaper was established in 1890.)

ATLANTA ATTORNEY John R. Varholy went to London six years ago for the primary purpose of helping clients trade an invisible, intangible—and at that point, worthless—commodity on a market that didn’t exist.

Speculative? You bet. But thanks to a Gordian knot of international, European Union and nation-specific regulations that, quite literally, created a multibillion-dollar market out of absolutely nothing, Varholy, now the managing partner of Troutman Sanders’ London office, and the three other lawyers there now focus their practices on various aspects of the market for trading carbon emission allowances—essentially, the right to pollute.

The market, which in 2006 was valued at $30 billion, now spans Europe, where some 12,000 factories and power plants must comply with limits on how much carbon dioxide they can produce. It has tentacles in developing countries such as China, India and Pakistan, where speculators can earn and sell credits for, among other things, installing technology to reduce pollution.

To be sure, the market has its problems. So far, it hasn’t reduced emissions as hoped. An over allocation of allowances caused carbon prices to plummet, and some related investment products have proven vulnerable to fraud. Electricity rates are on the rise—a 2007 report by Britain’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs estimates that prices will rise 10 percent for consumers and 20 percent for industry over the next few years, depending upon carbon prices.

Still, this nascent monetization of the right to emit greenhouse gases is turning out to be big business in Europe, particularly for lawyers, and deserves some serious analysis by attorneys on this side of the pond. That’s because it may one day serve as a model for what could happen here, where at least nine bills contemplating a domestic cap-and-trade market in CO2 and other greenhouse gases are now before Congress, and the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources already has held a roundtable with European officials and executives to discuss how the United States could adapt Europe’s system—without suffering some of the same ills.

Varholy is the rare American energy-trading attorney with European experience who understands how it all works. He went to London to assist a client interested in the market—which hadn’t even launched yet—and ended up staying to help open the firm’s office there. He’d already spent years working to deregulate U.S. utilities; because deregulation is the first step toward a wholesale trading market, his experience was both valuable and uncommon in the European Union back in 2001, when few member states had liberalized their power sectors and few lawyers had any idea how to prepare their clients for what was coming.

This meant many countries went into the market without any experience for trading energy commodities. The mandatory nature of the market, however, prompted some companies and trade groups to begin exploring the issue with their lawyers early on.

“It was very analogous to the state of the U.S. right now, in the sense that there was a lot of talk, a lot of speculation,” says Varholy. “I think it’s fair to say there was a whole lot of perceived uncertainty.”

Though the potential for a carbon market was little more than a gleam in the European Commission’s collective eye, Varholy says he knew something was likely to happen. The question was what, exactly.

A potential structural precursor to a market was in place, because the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change—the international agreement that sparked the whole idea of a carbon-trading market—had been adopted in 1997. But European Union member states, which as industrialized nations would be required by Kyoto to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, wouldn’t even ratify it until 2002—the year after Varholy got to London. And the agreement itself wouldn’t come into force for another three years.

Even then, the Kyoto Protocol was just a structural framework; no actual monetized market existed. Varholy says people didn’t understand the complex technology needed to set up such a market—creating carbon registries, launching computer systems for each country and the European Union that would interconnect and facilitate trading. There were also political issues related to how many emissions allowances each country would get.

“There were just so many questions as to how it would actually hold together, whether it would work, how the allocations at the country level would work, whether it would get bogged down in politics,” Varholy says now.

But after substantial political wrangling, in January 2005, just one month before the Kyoto Protocol went into force, the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme was born.

Operating under the theory that who emits CO2 is less important than the total amount emitted, the European Union’s plan caps emissions by allocating a set number of free allowances—each equaling the right to produce one metric ton of CO2 per year—to each participating member state. The member states then may apportion those allowances among companies in select, heavily polluting industries, including the power, oil refining, steel, cement, pulp and paper sectors.....MORE

Oil-Rig owners leave gulf for longer-term deals

From the Dallas Morning News:

... Rig owners who operate in the shallow gulf say that the equipment moving out is not coming back soon.

...But Steve Lawrence, chief executive of Clarksons Offshore in Houston, a company that brokers deals between offshore drilling companies, said the reason the gulf is being abandoned is because the reserves are drying up.

He said the Gulf of Mexico is a mature field, one which has been harvested for a long time, and one which has steep decline curves. That means that a new well may have strong production immediately after it comes online, but that will peter out sooner than it would in a younger oil or natural gas field....MORE

Mammoth dung, prehistoric goo may speed warming

From Reuters:

Sergei Zimov bends down, picks up a handful of treacly mud and holds it up to his nose. It smells like a cow pat, but he knows better.

"It smells like mammoth dung," he says.

This is more than just another symptom of global warming.

For millennia, layers of animal waste and other organic matter left behind by the creatures that used to roam the Arctic tundra have been sealed inside the frozen permafrost. Now climate change is thawing the permafrost and lifting this prehistoric ooze from suspended animation.

But Zimov, a scientist who for almost 30 years has studied climate change in Russia's Arctic, believes that as this organic matter becomes exposed to the air it will accelerate global warming faster than even some of the most pessimistic forecasts.

"This will lead to a type of global warming which will be impossible to stop," he said.

When the organic matter left behind by mammoths and other wildlife is exposed to the air by the thawing permafrost, his theory runs, microbes that have been dormant for thousands of years spring back into action.

As a by-product they emit carbon dioxide and -- even more damaging in terms of its impact on the climate -- methane gas....MORE

Fantasy land-Zimbabwe's economy is likely to shrink by 12% this year

Zimbabwe is the Chair of the U.N.'s Commission on Sustainable Development.

From the Economist:

Devaluing the Zimbabwe dollar isn't going to solve the economic crisis: GDP is likely to shrink 12% this year, the largest decline since the onset of the crisis in 1999.

Massive devaluation, higher taxes and the admission that the country can only afford 15% of government spending belies the best efforts of Zimbabwe’s finance minister, Samuel Mumbengegwi, to paint a picture of economic recovery. Making sense of the figures unveiled in Mr Mumbengegwi's supplementary budget on September 6th is an art form in itself: not only are there serious discrepancies between the new numbers and those published in the annual budget in December 2006 but the minister said nothing about the government’s quasi-fiscal spending, and made no attempt to explain how interest charges of some Z$13.5trn (US$450m) will be funded.

Mr Mumbengegwi’s main measure was the 99%-plus devaluation of the Zimbabwe dollar from Z$250:US$1 to Z$30,000:US$1. Both the official rate of Z$250:US$1 and the incentive “drought stabilisation rate” for exporters that was introduced in April have been abolished. All taxes and customs duties will now be levied at the new rate, which will boost tax income that has been hard hit by the price controls imposed in June, as a result of which profit tax and VAT revenues have collapsed....MORE

Mugabe leaves Harare for UN meeting
From AFP

From May 2007:

ZIMBABWE may have left 700,000 of its citizens without accommodation by bulldozing their homes, caused millions more to starve after violent land seizures that destroyed farming and so mismanaged its own economy that it has the world¿s highest inflation. But it has been chosen to head a United Nations body charged with promoting economic progress and environmental protection.

Western countries and human rights organisations were outraged yesterday by the choice of Zimbabwe to chair the UN commission on sustainable development. The British government condemned Zimbabwe’s election as “wholly inconsistent” with the body’s aims.

The chair traditionally rotates among regions of the world. It was Africa’s turn this year and the continent chose Zimbabwe as its candidate. “We really think it calls into question the credibility of this organisation to have a representative from a country that has decimated its agriculture, that used to be the breadbasket of Africa and can’t now feed itself,” said Daniel Reif-snyder, the US deputy assistant secretary for environment.

“For Zimbabwe to lead any UN body is preposterous,” said Jennifer Windsor, executive director of Freedom House, an independent nongovernmental organisation....

More at The Australian

The Greening of Hype

How solar panels generate more free publicity than clean electricity for businesses.

Westport Wash & Wax proudly bills itself as the only solar-powered carwash in the state of Connecticut. The proprietors, brothers Craig and Scott Tiefenthaler, have just covered the roof of their business with 18 panels. The total cost: $21,000, with the state's taxpayers footing 60 percent of the bill.

This sort of behavior drives economists and global-warming skeptics to distraction. Even with the massive government subsidy, it'll take seven years for the owners to recoup their investment. And on sunny days, the panels provide only enough juice to run the shop's refrigerators and lights.

"To run my main motors, I'd need a city block of solar panels," says Craig.At first blush, the carwash has all the hallmarks of a greenwash: a feel-good gesture that detracts attention from painful efforts that could really influence energy use. People who are serious about using less energy could skip the carwash altogether and bathe their vehicles with a hose and cold water. And if they're truly freaked out about global warming, perhaps they should drive their Porsche Cayenne SUVs less frequently.

But the Tiefenthalers, who have no advertising budget, have clearly made an economically rational choice. Within two weeks of installing the panels in August, the carwash was featured in the two local newspapers, a Web site covering Westport, and the cable-news channel that covers Fairfield County. The New York Times has called, too. "We regard it as an effective form of advertising because of the image we're trying to maintain and create," Craig says.

For companies large and small, going green is now a surefire way to cut through the clutter. A recent issue of the New York Times travel section included a brief article—complete with Web address—describing in loving detail the features of the Proximity Hotel, a green inn in Greensboro, N.C. Some hot hotels feature roofs with happening pool scenes. The Proximity's roof features solar panels and a vegetable garden....

More, from Slate

Attention Inventors and Scientists-$10,000,000 prize (off-topic)

Barrick is offering $10,000,000.

Barrick’s Unlock the Value program is a unique opportunity for scientific problem solvers. We invite proposals for an economically viable way to recover silver from silica-encapsulated ore. For proposals judged to have merit, Barrick will:

• Fund your research
• Pay you a consulting fee
• Provide resources and expertise
• Help you develop and test your idea

  For a method or technology that is successfully implemented, Barrick will pay a performance bonus of $10,000,000.

  
  

  Barrick Gold Corporation is a pre-eminent gold mining company with 27 operating mines and 20,000 employees worldwide. Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, Barrick's vision is to be the world's best gold company by finding, acquiring, developing and producing quality reserves in a safe, profitable and socially responsible manner....MORE

The Climate For Investing, Or Vice Versa

Could global warming burn your portfolio?
From the Wall Street Journal Online

As climate change emerges as a hot topic in corporate boardrooms and on the political stage, investors are scrambling to figure out how the reams of newly available data about companies'"carbon footprints" and other environmental risks should influence their investment decisions.

Several tools may help investors sort out the future winners from the losers. On Monday, former President Bill Clinton will release the results of the 2007 Carbon Disclosure Project, a survey requesting data from 2,400 public companies on how they manage climate-change risk.

The report -- accompanied by online materials cataloging hundreds of companies' self-reported carbon emissions and energy costs -- was conducted for more than 300 institutional investors, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Calpers, the California pension fund....MORE

Biofuels could increase global warming with laughing gas, says Nobel prize-winning chemist

Growing and burning many biofuel crops may actually raise, rather than lower, greenhouse gas emissions. That’s the conclusion of a new study led by Nobel prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen, best known for his work on the ozone layer.

He and his colleagues have calculated that growing some of the most commonly used biofuel crops releases around twice the amount of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N₂O, also known as ‘laughing gas’) than previously thought – wiping out any benefits from not using fossil fuels and, worse, probably contributing to global warming.

That's how PhysOrg put it. Here's the Times of London:

*Rapeseed biofuel ‘produces more greenhouse gas than oil or petrol’

* The Canadians thought the name presented a marketing challenge, so they changed it to Canola. Now I 'spose they'll have to go with "Happy, Joy, Joy" or some such.

A renewable energy source designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is contributing more to global warming than fossil fuels, a study suggests.

Measurements of emissions from the burning of biofuels derived from rapeseed and maize have been found to produce more greenhouse gas emissions than they save.

Other biofuels, especially those likely to see greater use over the next decade, performed better than fossil fuels but the study raises serious questions about some of the most commonly produced varieties.

Rapeseed and maize biodiesels were calculated to produce up to 70 per cent and 50 per cent more greenhouse gases respectively than fossil fuels. The concerns were raised over the levels of emissions of nitrous oxide, which is 296 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Scientists found that the use of biofuels released twice as much as nitrous oxide as previously realised. The research team found that 3 to 5 per cent of the nitrogen in fertiliser was converted and emitted. In contrast, the figure used by the International Panel on Climate Change, which assesses the extent and impact of man-made global warming, was 2 per cent. The findings illustrated the importance, the researchers said, of ensuring that measures designed to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions are assessed thoroughly before being hailed as a solution.

“One wants rational decisions rather than simply jumping on the bandwagon because superficially something appears to reduce emissions,” said Keith Smith, a professor at the University of Edinburgh and one of the researchers

....MORE

Here's the Crutzen, Smith, Winiwarter & Mosier paper (15 page PDF)

Canada Is Giddy About the Loonie

From the Wall Street Journal Online:

With the Canadian dollar surging against the U.S. greenback, Robert Katzman is dealing with situations they don't teach in Economics 101.

The owner of five strip clubs in Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, says American dancers are heading to Canada to earn the strengthened Canadian currency, and Canadian customers are heading to Detroit because their dollars go further there. He's fighting back by advertising more in the U.S. and offering free limo service to get Detroit men to visit his Windsor clubs.

But like most Canadians, Mr. Katzman is brimming with national pride. "We're feeling for the first time like we've caught up to our big brother," says Mr. Katzman.

After 31 years of playing second fiddle, the Canadian loonie, so-called because of the bird on the dollar coin, overtook the U.S. greenback this week. A nation that has long been the butt of jokes from its neighbor to the south puffed out its chest and grinned.

At the start of the year, one U.S. dollar bought 1.166 Canadian dollars. Late Friday in New York, it bought just 1.0008 -- a slide of 14%. On Thursday, the two currencies hit parity for the first time since 1976. In January of 2002, the U.S. currency touched its recent high against the loonie, with one dollar buying 1.6143 Canadian dollars....MORE

How Deteriorating Crediworthiness Can Make You Millions...

...(If You're a Bank).

From Portfolio.com's Market Movers:

It's not quite as laughable as it might seem at first glance that the latest tranche of investment-bank earnings reports showed hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from the fact that those banks' bonds had fallen in value. Morgan Stanley alone booked $390 million, or about 26% of its third-quarter profit, from the fact that its bonds are now worth substantially less than they were when they were issued.

That kind of profit might not, as Moody's says, constitute "high-quality, core earnings". But it's not entirely an accounting fiction, either. After all, a bank can make money on the asset side of its balance sheet if it buys assets at a low price and then they rise in value: it's called mark-to-market accounting. So the same bank sells bonds at a high price and then they fall in value, there's a mark-to-market profit there, as well....MORE

Climate Exchange, Deutsche Bank to launch trading in catastrophe futures

From Deutsche Bank:

NEW YORK & LONDON, September 12, 2007 – Insurance Futures Exchange Services Ltd (IFEX), a member of the Climate Exchange Plc group of companies, and Deutsche Bank AG today announced the planned launch of trading in catastrophe event-linked futures (“ELF”) on the Chicago Climate Futures Exchange (CCFE) later this month, pending CCFE’s self-certification of the futures product with the U.S. Commodities Trading Commission.

ELF contracts are standardized exchange-traded futures derivatives contracts, also know as “contracts for difference”, providing a binary payment based on natural catastrophe events which result in industry-wide insured losses, similar to the Industry Loss Warranty (ILW) features found in some insurance agreements.

ELF contracts will offer investors the ability to trade natural catastrophe loss risk outside the framework of conventional insurance and reinsurance contracts, as well as provide hedging contracting capability for property/catastrophe insurance-linked exposure.

“Deutsche Bank has been a market leader in developing a liquid trading regime for exposures linked to property and casualty insurance though its over-the-counter Event Loss Swap contracts,” said Elad Shraga, Managing Director in Deutsche Bank’s Global Principal Finance group. “Deutsche Bank is excited to work with visionaries of the caliber of Richard Sandor and Climate Exchange, and continue the evolution of trading opportunities for this asset class.”

Richard Sandor, Chairman of Climate Exchange Plc, said: “We are delighted to announce the launch of IFEX and our joint venture with Deutsche Bank which will ensure the continuing convergence of insurance and capital markets.”
Source

A Green Fund for Global-Warming Skeptics

From TheStreet.com:

Not everyone is sold on environmentalism, but it's hard to argue with the returns of some mutual funds that invest in "green" companies. The recent performance of the Allianz RCM Global EcoTrends Fund (AECOX) should convert skeptics faster than a code-red air-quality alert.

The $131 million fund has appeared in the top 10% of stock funds for several months this year. It advanced 28.13% in the six months through August, smartly outperforming the 5.71% total return of the S&P 500 over the same period.

Even more impressive, the fund turned in a very respectable 4.26% return for the three months ended Aug. 31, compared with a 3.28% decline in the S&P 500.

Since inception in January of this year, it is up 19.3%.

Global EcoTrends isn't the only "green" fund generating attractive returns, but it is more diversified than most of its cohorts...MORE

Carbon Credits in China and Auctioning Carbon Permits in the USA

I had promised, in the post "What Planet is the U.N. Living On" , to tie together the carbon racket called the CDM, as practiced in China.

I didn't get around to it. Instead, I'll let the pros at the New York Times give you some background as I sort through the link-vault.

I strongly urge you to think through the winners and losers if a U.S. Cap-and-Trade system is a) implemented and b) auctions the permits as proposed by a pretty large coalition.

From the NYT:

Outsize Profits, and Questions, in Effort to Cut Warming Gases

QUZHOU, China — Foreign businesses have embraced an obscure United Nations-backed program as a favored approach to limiting global warming. But the early efforts have revealed some hidden problems.

Under the program, businesses in wealthier nations of Europe and in Japan help pay to reduce pollution in poorer ones as a way of staying within government limits for emitting climate-changing gases like carbon dioxide, as part of the Kyoto Protocol.

Among their targets is a large rusting chemical factory here in southeastern China. Its emissions of just one waste gas contribute as much to global warming each year as the emissions from a million American cars, each driven 12,000 miles.

Cleaning up this factory will require an incinerator that costs $5 million — far less than the cost of cleaning up so many cars, or other sources of pollution in Europe and Japan.

Yet the foreign companies will pay roughly $500 million for the incinerator — 100 times what it cost. The high price is set in a European-based market in carbon dioxide emissions. Because the waste gas has a far more powerful effect on global warming than carbon dioxide emissions, the foreign businesses must pay a premium far beyond the cost of the actual cleanup.

The huge profits from that will be divided by the chemical factory’s owners, a Chinese government energy fund, and the consultants and bankers who put together the deal from a mansion in the wealthy Mayfair district of London....MORE

Yikes, the D.T.'s: Brazil Ethanol Sector Fears 'Delirious' Growth

From Reuters via the Forest Conservation Portal:

Low sugar and ethanol prices have been fueling the debate in Brazil on how this will affect investments and the forthcoming growth in the industry, which intends to lead the world's rush for biofuels.

Projected investments in new mills are seen around 17 billion reais, but the market suffers from poor regulatory structure and a lack of long-term planning, officials said.

"The industry is growing faster than a sustainable rate. That is why prices are falling so much," said Plinio Nastari, president of Datagro consultancy.

With expected demand for 720 million tonnes of cane by 2013/14, the sector should not grow more than 7.3 percent per year to avoid worsening the current oversupply, Nastari said late Monday after a sugar and ethanol seminar.

But Brazil's cane crop has risen an average of 9.9 percent each year since 2000, boosted by increasing ethanol demand.

Datagro projected demand for cane is currently higher the one expected by the consultancy a few years ago, but investments in new mills have surpassed what was forecast, and are at an exceedingly high level, Nastari said.

There are 138 projects of new mills. The building of 79 of them are highly probable, while 30 are moderately probable and 29 will not likely advance out of planning, he added.

"I think there is still not any (international ethanol) market. We're all working irrationally. There is not any strategy either from the private sector or from the government,"...

U.S. PIRG: 100% Auction For All Cap and Trade

From the Press Release:
Report, below (37 page PDF)

Statement of Support For Auctioning All Allowances In Any Global Warming Cap-And-Trade Program

...Auctioning Allowances in Cap-and-Trade: A Clean, Fair, and Smart Solution to Global Warming

There are many paths America can take to reducing global warming emissions. Among them are “cap-and-trade” programs that couple a cap on emissions with a mechanism that allows businesses to buy, sell and trade “allowances” to pollute.

It is critical that any cap-and-trade program require the auctioning of pollution allowances, rather than giving those allowances away for free to polluters.

By auctioning pollution allowances, we affirm that no one has a “right” to pollute. Instead, we claim the atmosphere as a common resource, to be managed for the benefit of the public, which no polluter may foul without due compensation.

By auctioning pollution allowances, we reduce the societal cost of achieving emission reductions, enabling America to achieve its climate protection goals with less disruption to our economy and the lives of individual Americans.

And by auctioning pollution allowances, we prevent the accumulation of billions of dollars in windfall profits by polluters, and instead put those revenues to work on behalf of the public. Allowance revenues can support efforts to transform America into a clean energy economy and to provide a regular dividend or rebate to American consumers.

We call on state and federal lawmakers to limit global warming emissions to the levels demanded by the science and to auction all pollution allowances in any cap-and-trade program.

Carl Pope
Executive Director
Sierra Club
San Francisco, California

Mark Cooper
Research Director
Consumer Federation of America
Washington, DC

Chad Dobson
Director of Government Affairs
Oxfam America
Boston, Massachusetts

Roger Hickey and Robert Borosage
Co-Directors
Campaign for America's Future
Washington, DC

Margie Alt
Executive Director
U.S.PIRG: Federation of State PIRGs
Boston, MA

Ilyse Hogue
Campaign Director
MoveOn.org

Lynn Thorp
National Campaigns Coordinator
Clean Water Action
Washington, DC

Howard A. Learner
Executive Director
Environmental Law & Policy Center
Chicago, Illinois

Michael Brune
Executive Director
Rainforest Action Network
San Francisco, California

Erich Pica
Director, Domestic Campaigns
Friends of the Earth
Washington, DC

Gary D. Bass
Executive Director
OMB Watch
Washington, D.C.

John Passacantando
Executive Director
Greenpeace
Washington, DC

David Morris
Vice President
Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Washington, DC

Rev. Sally Bingham
President
The Regeneration Project / Interfaith Power & Light
San Francisco, California

Van Jones, J.D.
President & Founder
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
Oakland, California

Tyson Slocum
Director, Energy Program
Public Citizen
Washington, DC

Bill McKibben
Step It Up 2007
Burlington, Vermont

Stephen A. Smith
Executive Director
Southern Alliance for Clean Energy
Knoxville, Tennessee

Seth Kaplan
Senior Attorney
Conservation Law Foundation

Rachel McMahon
Director of Regulatory Affairs
Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies
Sacramento, California

Ralph M. Martire
Executive Director
Center for Tax and Budget Accountability
Chicago, Illinois

Frank O’Donnell
President
Clean Air Watch
Washington, DC

V. John White
Executive Director
Clean Power Campaign
Sacramento, California

Tam Hunt
Energy Program Director / Attorney
Community Environmental Council
Santa Barbara, California

Kristen A. Sheeran, PhD
Director
E3 Network: Economics for Equity and the Environment

Tom Athanasiou
Executive Director
EcoEquity

Jason Barbose
Global Warming Advocate
Environment California
Sacramento, California

Bill LaBorde
Program Director
Environment Washington
Seattle, Washington

David Gahl
Air and Energy Program Director
Environmental Advocates of New York
Albany, New York

Jeremiah Bauman
Environmental Advocate
Environment Oregon
Portland, Oregon

Eban Goodstein
Project Director
Focus the Nation
Lake Oswego, Oregon

Michael Noble
Executive Director
Fresh Energy
St. Paul, Minnesota

Matt Baker
Executive Director
Environment Colorado
Denver, Colorado

K.C. Golden
Policy Director
Climate Solutions
Seattle, Washington

Diane Brown
Director
Arizona PIRG
Phoenix, Arizona

Edward (Ned) W. Stowe III
Senior Legislative Secretary
Friends Committee on National Legislation
Washington, DC

Charlie Higley, Executive Director
Citizens Utility Board of Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin

Erik Magnuson
Environmental Associate
Environment Arizona
Phoenix, Arizona

Fred Schlicher
Acting Executive Director
Massachusetts Climate Action Network
Boston, Massachusetts

Lauren Ketcham
Advocate
Environment New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico

David R. Celebrezze
Director of Air & Water Special Projects
Ohio Environmental Council
Columbus, Ohio

Rex Wilmouth
Director
CoPIRG
Denver, Colorado

Luke Metzger
Environment Texas
Austin, Texas

Gary Patton
Executive Director
Planning and Conservation League
Sacramento, California

Emily Rusch
Advocate
CALPIRG
Sacramento, California

Becky Stanfield
Director
Environment Illinois
Chicago, Illinois

Dan Kohler
Director
Wisconsin Environment
Madison, Wisconsin

Erin Bowser
Director
Environment Ohio
Columbus, Ohio

Alex Matthiessen
President
Riverkeeper, Inc.
Tarrytown, New York

Dena Mottola
Executive Director
Environment New Jersey
Trenton, New Jersey

Ken Bossong
Executive Director
SUN DAY Campaign
Takoma Park, Maryland

Mark Ferrulo
Director
Environment Florida
Tallahassee, Florida

Matt Auten
Advocate
Environment Rhode Island
Providence, Rhode Island

Carrie La Seur, Ph.D., J.D.
Plains Justice
Mount Vernon, Iowa

John Blair
President
Valley Watch
Evansville, Indiana

Brad Heavner
Director
Environment Maryland
Baltimore, Maryland

Chris Phelps
Advocate
Environment Connecticut
Hartford, Connecticut

Marian Riggs Gelb
Executive Director
Iowa Environmental Council
Des Moines, Iowa

Jennette Gayer
Advocate
Environment Georgia
Atlanta, Georgia

Erika Staaf
Advocate
Environment New Hampshire
Concord, New Hampshire

Paul Burns
Executive Director
VPIRG (Vermont Public Interest Research Group)
Montpelier, Vermont

Elizabeth Ouzts
Director
Environment North Carolina
Raleigh, North Carolina

Frank Gorke
Executive Director
Environment Massachusetts
Boston, Massachusetts

Betsy Taylor
Founder
Center for a New American Dream
Takoma Park, Maryland

Steve Kirsch
Chairman
Steven and Michele Kirsch Foundation
San Jose, California

Harriet Barlow
Director
HKH Foundation
New York, New York

Ann Hancock
Executive Director
Climate Protection Campaign
Graton, California

Casey Ehrlich
Blanket the Globe
Salem, Massachusetts

Cleaner, Cheaper, Smarter
The Case for Auctioning Pollution Allowances
in a Global Warming Cap-and-Trade Program

Ex-Enron boss seeks $210m for ethanol plantations

I know I've pointed out some of the Enron tie-ins to climate change, there are so many and they seem to keep on coming: big business rent-seeking by pushing certain laws; agreeing to a 1990 baseline in return for carbon trading in the Kyoto negotiations; G.E. buying Enron's wind biz; the "dash for gas" and J-block & Teeside; USCAP founder, The Pew Center on Global Climate Change greenwashing Enron and Ken Lay*.

In so many cases it's just greed. Gussied up in green.

From the New Zealand Herald:

A former Enron executive is tapping investors for US$150 million ($210 million) to help Brazil to produce enough biofuels to power the world's cars.

Vehicles running on ethanol made from Brazilian sugarcane emit up to 95 per cent less in carbon emissions compared with conventional petrol. But United States and European corn-based ethanol, which is heavily subsidised, cuts emissions by as little as 5 per cent and is much less energy efficient.

Last week, a report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) criticised the distorting effect of subsidies in promoting the least-efficient biofuels. It also warned that government targets on biofuel use were hastening deforestation and pushing up food prices....

*Here's one example:

...the Pew Center on Global Climate Change also is publishing a special supplement on climate change in tomorrow's Washington Post. Significantly, the piece includes statements by 13 Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of some of the world's leading companies, all members of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change's Business Environmental Leadership Council (BELC), acknowledging that climate change is a real problem that demands action by the public and private sector.

Among these statements are:

"Enron supports market-based initiatives that create efficient, cost-effective and environmentally sound energy systems," says Dr. Kenneth L. Lay, Chairman and CEO, ENRON. "As a company, we are taking steps to provide the world with clean energy solutions and implementing systems to manage greenhouse gas emissions. Our belief in the synergies between state of the art energy management practices and sound environmental policies have translated into effective pre-construction measures for our new headquarters building, which we expect will save $10 million and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 34,000,000 lbs (or 17,000 tons) per year."

Feelin’ groovy: Charles, the movie. Prince will do an Al Gore with ‘harmony’ film

From the Times of London:

The Prince of Wales is in “advanced negotiations” with Hollywood film producers to make a movie in which he will tell us how to lead our lives.

The prince, once an object of fun for talking to his plants, is being wooed to make a documentary film similar to Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.

The former US vice-president’s plea to save the planet was a surprise box-office success, making the idea of a royal “follow-up” a realistic proposition.

It invites the intriguing possibility of Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall attending parties alongside the likes of Robert Redford and Scarlett Johansson at the Sundance film festival in America.

Insiders at Clarence House insist the idea for the film, which has a working title of The Harmony Project in palace circles, came from Charles himself.

Those who consider him a meddler for his campaigns against genetically modified food, modern architecture, carbon-copy high streets and the British education system may propose the alternative title of The Inconvenient Prince....MORE

Porsche's carbon tire-print and Eco-Mansions

CNN Money goes all Robb Report on a couple stories
(I like the sub-head on the first story, see below for an answer to the question posed):

The luxury sports car maker's 911 comes in red, black and yellow.
But does it come in green?

... Porsche is worried that its status as a preeminent sports car maker could be regulated out of existence.

...Current fuel economy rules now being considered don't make exceptions for high-performance cars or for companies that sell nothing but those vehicles.

Tighter Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) rules in the U.S. would be a hurdle for an auto maker like General Motors, but a company of GM's size and breadth has options.

GM could try to improve the fuel economy of all its cars.It's boosted the fuel economy of its large SUVs, but it could also work to sell more small, inherently fuel-efficient cars, like the Chevrolet Aveo, to offset sales of vehicles like the Chevrolet Corvette and GMC Yukon and boost its average.

Porsche, on the other hand, has no economy cars in its fleet to compensate. Nor will it, because cars like that just aren't what Porsche is about and never will be...MORE

And
Live the good life in a green mansion
As demand grows, multi-million mansions that are both indulgent and eco-friendly emerge.

After 20 years of building multi-million-dollar mega-mansions, real estate developer Frank McKinney is betting $29 million that what luxury home buyers want now are environmentally friendly estates.

His speculative 15,000 square foot mansion in Manalapan, Fla., will be the first home of its size to be certified green by the U.S. Green Building Council and the Florida Green Building Council.

In addition to eight bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, two elevators, two laundry rooms, two wine cellars (one for red, one white), a movie theater and guesthouse, the house will also have a state-of-the-art air purification system and eco-friendly light fixtures that will reduce energy consumption by 90 percent.

Making this mansion green, probably tacked on additional costs of between 7 and 10 percent for McKinney and, ultimately, his buyer. It also required him to explore using different materials than he normally might.

For instance, instead of using a rare Brazilian cherry for the home's hardwood floors, he's using reclaimed teak -- thus sparing 7.5 acres of Brazilian rain forest, he said.

The house will also have a massive solar panel system (price tag: $120,000), a water system that uses "gray water" from the showers and sinks to irrigate the lawn and gardens, as well as a series of pools, reflecting ponds and water gardens to cool down the 1.5 acre property by 2 to 3 degrees

....MORE

The answer to the green cars question?
I know it's not eco-verde but my first thought is BRG:

1967 Jaguar Mk2 in British Racing green with Chrome wire wheels and spinners. This car has pale green leather upholstory. A really lovely looking (and sounding car!)

Trooping the Colors

G'day Mate: Mr. Gore Jets Off to Australia for Some Big Money and Thomas Jefferson on a Free Press in a Democracy

From The Age.com (Australia):
Paying dearly to hear Gore's climate story

AL GORE has a story he wants to tell the world. But it will cost you a thousand dollars to hear it.

In a passionate attack on the climate policies of Prime Minister John Howard and US President George Bush, the former US vice-president, addressing a very expensive lunch in Sydney yesterday, called Australia and the US "the Bonnie and Clyde" outlaws of the global environment for their failure to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

...Mr Gore made his comments after reporters were asked to leave the lunch venue. Despite the cost, lunch in the 700-seat room at the Sydney Convention Centre was a sell-out, as is tomorrow's event in Melbourne. VIP packages, which included a spot close to Mr Gore and a meet-and-greet with him, cost $25,000....MORE

I've got to say, I don't much like the idea of reporters being told to leave the room; Thomas Jefferson might have had similar feelings:

"The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787. ME 6:57

"The press [is] the only tocsin of a nation. [When it] is completely silenced... all means of a general effort [are] taken away." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, Nov 29, 1802. (*) ME 10:341

"The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure." --Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823. ME 15:491

"The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves, nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe." --Thomas Jefferson to Charles Yancey, 1816. ME 14:384

"The light which has been shed on mankind by the art of printing has eminently changed the condition of the world... And while printing is preserved, it can no more recede than the sun return on his course." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1823. ME 15:465

"Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that be limited without danger of losing it." --Thomas Jefferson to John Jay, 1786.

"[This is] a country which is afraid to read nothing, and which may be trusted with anything, so long as its reason remains unfettered by law." --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Milligan, 1816. ME 14:463

"The art of printing secures us against the retrogradation of reason and information." --Thomas Jefferson to Pierre Paganel, 1811. ME 13:37

Much, much more on the importance of a free press in a Democracy and Mr. Jefferson's thoughts thereon from the University of Virginia.

Mr.Jefferson on The University of Virginia:

1820 Dec. 26. "This institution of my native state, the hobby of my old age, will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind, to explore and to expose every subject susceptible of it's contemplation." (to Destutt de Tracy, Ford.12.181)

Making Money by Being Smart

"You know that really hard test, the SAT?"

"I took it"
paraphrase of Joey Tribbiani on Friends

The WSJ's MarketBeat blog has a smart post on the interconnectedness of markets and vehicles:
Turning Petrodollars Into Real Assets
Which has this quote:

“It’s not far-fetched to compare China’s shift from U.S. financial assets to hard assets to that of what the Gulf countries are doing, which is reconsidering their obligations with U.S. dollars into buying hotels and real estate,” says Ashraf Laidi, chief currency analyst at CMC Markets. “You could have a better return on real assets from the inflow that comes from hotels and real estate, rather than just in a currency which is falling.”

On a similar (and earlier) note, the Energy Roundup pointed us to the same story from a slightly different angle:
What $80 Oil Buys You

The "Connections" thing is probably the most important lesson you can learn from the scientific (as opposed to the hippy-dippy) study of ecology. Or finance. As David Lloyd-Jones put it in a comment at Brad DeLong's blog last month:

(My one-time lover, Elizabeth Rubin -- yes, the very one who factors five digit numbers by looking at them, and rarely scores under 350 in four-handed Scrabble, you saw her breast-feeding on stage in the Met's Ring Cycle -- once explained shtetl economics to me. "Ya just gotta know how the price of apples relates to the price of rutabagas when the price of cattle drops against pigs.")

A point we've made but without the breast-feeding.

What Planet is the U.N. Living On? and How to Make a Buck by Answering Correctly

How the heck do you square these stories?

From Reuters, 13Aug07
Kyoto projects harm ozone layer: U.N. official

From the UN via Scoop, 18Sep07
The Montreal Protocol and the Kyoto Protocol mutually supportive say top UN officials

From the UN 13Sep07
Battle to repair ozone layer ‘one of the great success stories’ In international cooperation, says Secretary-General on international Day

From the Gibson (NZ) Herald 19Sep07
Warmer than average and ozone hole yawning

From the BBC 17Sep07
More progress urged on ozone hole

From the New York Times 18Sep07
From Ozone Success, a Potential Climate Model

From AFP via IOL 13Sep07
Ozone hole has decreased since 2006... but should remain just below the record size it reached last year

From AFP 19Sep07
Faster ozone-depleting chemicals ban hits funding speed bump

And finally from IPS 20Sep07 this quote from the NRDC:
"There is a powerful lobby group of strawberry and vegetable growers in Washington"

Confused? How about me. I'm the one who has to explain to you how this year's near record ozone hole ties in to the price of a refrigerator in China. And the money to be made by knowing this stuff.

I'll do so tomorrow. In the meantime, if you wish to do some pre-study read these articles or do a Google search using the keywords: CDM HFC23. Or look at the pretty pictures of the developing ozone hole, from NASA.

Go Green. Get Rich.

I was rooting around the link-vault, looking for a story on the ozone hole when I found this. What it was doing with the CFC-23, Chinese CDM links I can't figure out. I like the headline.
From CNN Money:

Think humanity's problems are too big to be tackled by business? Think again. Here are nine companies showing how we can make millions saving us from ourselves.

By Chris Taylor, Business 2.0 Magazine senior editor

March 6 2007: 12:56 PM EST

(Business 2.0 Magazine) -- If you've read the news lately, you know the scale of the problem. Catastrophes that once seemed far away are creeping uncomfortably close to our lifetimes. The permanent polar ice cap will disappear by 2040. The seas could be practically devoid of fish by 2048. Manhattan and Miami will be flooded by 2050. Add in widespread disease and famine, and you have a script for the apocalypse.

But before you get too depressed, consider that business - until now part of the problem - is scrambling for answers. Clean-technology investments soared by more than 50 percent in the first three quarters of 2006. And venture capital giant Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has announced a doubling of its renewable-energy fund to $200 million. Kleiner partner Ray Lane told the Wall Street Journal that clean tech will be "bigger than the Internet, by an order of magnitude."

For the following stories, we identified the most intractable problems facing the human race. Beyond climate change, there are the pollution troubles: mountains of trash, haze-choked skies, and dirty water. Disease includes not just viral epidemics but also new strains of ultraresistant bacteria. And our global food problem isn't just about Third World famine; it's also about conditions that could wipe out the $158 billion fishing industry.

It made for a disquieting list - until we found companies developing workable, scalable solutions. For each, we teased out not just the size of the potential windfall but also entrepreneurial insights from the pioneers. Finally, we offer a look at technologies too new to be commercialized but that could emerge in just a few years. Our most disastrous century yet? Maybe. It could also be our finest hour....MORE

The biggest problems

1. Global warming

China’s carbon market: a trader’s view

From ChinaDialogue:

So, what do you do?

That inevitable question.

PR; investment banking; consulting; journalism; IT: my friends’ answers usually get a pleasant smile and a nod.

My answer, “carbon trading,” rarely gets that reaction. I always wince a little before I throw it out there. Most people ask me what on earth carbon trading means. Others are horrified that I am paying Chinese companies to pollute. Once, a particularly pugnacious (and intoxicated) compatriot threw a fist at me. It’s not often that I hear, “Wow, carbon trading, that’s great.”

In a carbon market, an entity sets or is given a limit on how much greenhouse gas it can emit. If it isn’t able to meet this target in-house, it can buy emissions reduction credits from somewhere else. Carbon trading is the buying and selling of those reduction credits, known as carbon credits. Here in China, we develop emissions-reducing projects that generate carbon credits used to offset emissions elsewhere.

Most of the time, I dig myself in deeper with that follow up. Buying and selling emissions reductions? Outsourcing to China? It just doesn’t go over well. Still, I have learned that most of the upset surrounding the carbon market is based on common misconceptions that can easily be talked through....MORE

Leigh Fitzgerald is senior specialist at Arreon Carbon UK, a firm that develops carbon credits in China then trades them on the international market.

Homepage photo by sheilaz413

See the other articles in chinadialogue’s carbon trading series:

Briefing: carbon trading

Mr Wang’s chemical factory

Carbon Trading: the limits of free-market logic

From the Transnational Institute:

Carbon trading, its backers claim, brings emissions reductions and supports sustainable development in the global south. But, argues Kevin Smith, it may do neither, and is harming efforts to create a low-carbon economy.

If, as their proponents claim, carbon markets are wonderful tools for bringing about emissions reductions and provide economic support for clean technologies in the global south, then we should ask one question: why have they been met with a mounting chorus of criticism from civil-society organisations, social movements and journalists around the world?

Plans are being made, through processes like the G8+5 Climate Dialogue for countries like China (ie countries currently without commitments under the Kyoto Protocol) to adopt carbon trading as part of their climate policy, and there needs to be an assessment of whether such schemes really work in reducing atmospheric carbon – or if they are simply a means for polluting industries to profitably avoid the issue of making emissions cuts.

Cap and trade

The free-market logic behind the scheme looks simple on paper. Countries taking part in “cap and trade” schemes like the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU-ETS) have a limit set on the amount of carbon they can emit in a given time period (the “cap”). This allotted amount of carbon is carved up and allocated between different industrial locations in the country. If, for example, a cement factory goes over its allocated portion of carbon emissions, it has to purchase spare emissions from another market participant, for example, a power station that has emitted less than its allocation, and can therefore sell profitably sell them on (the “trade”).

The problem lies in the fact that carbon trading is designed with the express purpose of providing an opportunity for rich countries to delay making costly, structural changes towards low-carbon technologies. This isn’t a malfunction of the market or an unexpected by-product: this is what the market was designed to do.

The economist John Kay wrote in the Financial Times: “when a market is created through political action rather than emerging spontaneously from the needs of buyers and sellers, business will seek to influence market design for commercial advantage.” ...MORE

Berkshire Hathaway Cuts Petrochina Stake Again

As a tangential follow up to yesterday's post on Mr. Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway and Corporate Social Responsibility here are a couple snips from today's WSJ Online story:

...Berkshire Hathaway reduced its stake to 8.93% from 9.07%, according to a filing by the U.S. company to the Hong Kong stock exchange Thursday. It was the third time the Omaha company has publicly disclosed a sale of PetroChina shares over the past two months.

...In all three transactions, Berkshire Hathaway sent the share-sale disclosures by regular mail, which didn't arrive in Hong Kong until nearly two weeks after the sale took place. That arrangement is acceptable under Hong Kong's securities law, though the Securities and Futures Commission said after Berkshire Hathaway's second disclosure last week that it would review the rules and consider making electronic disclosure compulsory.

...Some activist shareholders have demanded that Berkshire divest itself of the PetroChina stock to protest its parent company's dealings in Sudan, where ethnic fighting has displaced millions in the Darfur region. Mr. Buffett rejected the request earlier this year.

I am amused by the snail-mail notification bit. I don't think I'd win playing poker or bridge with Mr. Buffett, whether table-stakes or no-limit.
(well especially no-limit)

Chicago Climate Futures Exchange™ to Hold First Auction of Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) on September 24

Press Release:
Chicago Climate Futures Exchange™ (CCFE™), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chicago Climate Exchange® Inc. (CCX®) announced today it will host an auction of Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) on Monday, September 24, 2007.

The Auction makes available CER allowances representing 163,784 metric tons CO2 that have been issued by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to a wind energy farm in India. Interested bidders must
register with CCX in advance to take part in the auction. The event marks the first time in the world that an auction of CERs is done on an organized exchange....

Sunny Outlook: Can Sunshine Provide All U.S. Electricity?

On Topic! (finally).
Large amounts of solar-thermal electric supply may become a reality if steam storage technology works—and new transmission infrastructure is built.

In the often cloudless American Southwest, the sun pours more than eight kilowatts per square meter of its energy onto the landscape. Vast parabolic mirrors in the heart of California's Mojave Desert concentrate this solar energy to heat special oil to around 750 degrees Fahrenheit (400 degrees Celsius). This hot oil transfers its heat to water, vaporizing it, and then that steam turns a turbine to produce electricity. All told, nine such mirror fields, known as concentrating solar power plants, supply 350 megawatts of electricity yearly.

In the face of mounting concern about climate change, alternatives to coal and natural gas combustion such as these never seemed more attractive. And with the bounty of the sun waiting to be captured near fast-growing major centers of electricity consumption—Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Phoenix, among others—interest in such solar thermal technology is on the rise. The first such plant to be built in decades started providing 64 megawatts of electricity to the neon lights of Vegas this summer.

But physicist David Mills, chief scientific officer and founder of Palo Alto, Calif.–based solar-thermal company Ausra, has bigger ideas: concentrating the sun's power to provide all of the electricity needs of the U.S., including a switch to electric cars feeding off the grid. "Within 18 months, with storage, we will not only reduce [the] cost of [solar-thermal] electricity but also satisfy the requirements for a modern society," Mills claims. "Supplying [electricity] 24 hours a day and effectively replacing the function of coal or gas."...

A three-pager from Scientific American
And from CNN Money a three minute news video on
Nevada Solar One.

A Dirty, Dirty Hedge

Regular readers know I take childish pleasure from the incongruous behavior of hypocrites.
The humor comes at the interstices of words and deeds and a lack of integration (integrity) between the two.

When I saw David Gaffen ask the question "Is there such a thing as a “buy Goldman Sachs, sell Bear Stearns” trade?" at the WSJ's MarketBeat blog, I thought "That's a dirty, dirty hedge".

Which of course made me think of Senator Larry Craig.
Here he is on Meet the Press with the classic line:
"...nasty, bad, naughty boy".

I now promise you two things.
1) I will get serious.
2) I won't use the word "interstices" or the variant "interstitial" for, at minimum, 30 days.

Financial Engineering is Dead; Long Live Growth Equity!

That was the headline at the WSJ's Deal Journal yesterday, posted by Dana Cimilluca whom I am beginning to suspect is either:
a) A former deal guy
b) Channeling a former deal guy

I have a test I use to determine if someone is a refugee from the business:
"Hey, you ever snort a line off a hooker's ass?" An affirmative will narrow down prior employment to 80's M&A or aging rock star.

Either way, that headline nailed the zeitgeist and made my day (after I picked myself up off the floor and set the chair upright).

Double-digit home price drops coming

Well. That would certainly wipe out the equity of a
zero down I/O mortgage.

From CNNMoney:

Three quarters of housing markets - many in crashing Sun Belt areas - face price declines over next few years.

Over the next few years, more than three-quarters of the nation's housing markets will suffer some decline in home prices. Many will experience double-digit hits in a forecast that has worsened considerably in recent months.

According to an analysis conducted by Moody's Economy.com, declines will exceed 10 percent in 86 of the 379 largest housing markets. And 290 of the cities will experience price drops of 1 percent or more....MORE (including chart of top 100 markets)

Climateer "Quote of the Day"

Back to John Tierney at the NYT, where we began this day, from the comments on Lomborg and Scientific American, Sept. 14, 2007:

Nobody had thought about Global Warming from early machines invention because Time is needed always for micro processes to express a change;I think Dr Lomborg had count on the plastic ability of the Tampon System of the Nature to neutralize many Intruders who try to perturbate the System ,but it’s very clear today that every tampon system had limits, once exceeded a great unpredictable phenomenon will occur especially when hundreds of parameters interact together ,and today we see a small amount of this New Expression.

If we have the opportunity to go back in time at the age where Earth was Virgin and we ask scientists which kind of lifestyle we should install ,the answer will be certainly a Stroumf or Robin Hood like lifestyle!!
For the sake of the environment as well as the human health.

— Posted by Dr Fayad H.Mehawej

Source

Yield Curves and Carry Trades

I was thinking about the "We protect against all losses through hedging" guys after seeing the yield curve chart at the WSJ's MarketBeat blog "The Yield Curve’s Downside" and figured there should be a VH1 vid called "Carry Trade". Alas, no. This came up:

yen carry trade Mariah Carey Jim Carrey Drew Harry Caray John Kerry Cary Grant Carrie Fisher Karrie Webb

which if you recall, is very close to a M*A*S*H bit:

"I will not carry a gun, Frank. When I got thrown into this war I had a clear understanding with the Pentagon: no guns. I'll carry your books, I'll carry a torch, I'll carry a tune, I'll carry on, carry over, carry forward, Cary Grant, cash and carry, carry me back to Old Virginia, I'll even 'hari-kari' if you show me how, but I will not carry a gun."

Anyway, back to the hedge against all risks, guys (Haar's) if you remember I was amused: "Then they gear it up 2.7 times and are showing their investors 12% risk free. At that point in the story I started laughing so hard my eyes were watering."

I wonder how they're doing.
So far the Yen went against them, fast.
Then came back, some.
The treasury head-faked higher and is now getting hammered.
There was an earthquake in Japan.
Lenders stopped lending to little carry-trade shops.
There's probably an asteroid on the way.
I'll check in with the "financial journalist", "author of 20 books", who wrote them up and ask if he spotted the word "drawdown" in their Q3 report to investors.

Cash In On Rising Food Prices

How's this for a come-on?: Four Futures Contracts in One!

From Investopedia Community:

...This brings us to my investment idea, the PowerShares DB Agriculture ETF (AMEX:DBA). This ETF is designed to reflect the performance of the agricultural sector by investing equally in four futures contracts: corn, soy beans, sugar and wheat.

...The biggest issue for investors considering purchasing DBA is the lackluster performance of the underlying index. According to PowerShares, the returns of the S&P 500 have been more than double that of the DB Agriculture Index since 1997. Maybe the tides are turning and the agriculture commodities will begin to give investors the returns they are searching for....

Should lawyers be allowed to advertise? (Totally, completely off-topic)

...These days, lawyers are famous for being among the loudest of local
advertisers, and our airwaves and billboards are flooded with ads that make my skin crawl a bit — in particular, the price wars on who can offer the cheapest divorce (the example above caused an uproar and was ripped down by the city of Chicago after just a week) inspire in me a momentary pessimism about human nature....
From Mental Floss

Solar-Powered Laser; Environmentally Friendly Fridges; A Robotic Polar Aircraft and More!

From MIT's Technology Review:

A new laser could convert magnesium into energy.

A new kind of efficient, solar-powered laser has been developed by researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, in Japan. They hope to use the laser to help them realize their goal of developing a magnesium combustion engine. The researchers described the new laser in a recent issue of Applied Physics Letters.

The idea, says Takashi Yabe, a professor of mechanical engineering and science at the Tokyo Institute, is to make a powerful laser capable of combusting the magnesium content of seawater. In the process, large amounts of heat and hydrogen are given off....

A new magnetic-cooling system could lead to more-energy-efficient refrigerators.

Modern coolers and fridges may not cause holes in the ozone layer like their pre-1994 counterparts, but they still use greenhouse gases that are warming the planet. Their compressors also consume a lot of energy: air conditioners and refrigerators used about 340 billion kilowatt hours in 2005--nearly 30 percent of the total energy used in U.S. homes.

Researchers at the Risoe National Laboratory, in Roskilde, Denmark, are now one step closer to building a magnetic-cooling system that promises energy-efficient, environmentally friendly, and completely silent fridges. Temperatures in conventional fridges swing between −20 and 20 ºC. Achieving this 40 ºC temperature span is one of the most significant challenges with magnetic refrigeration. The Danish researchers have built a refrigerator that can vary temperature by almost 9 ºC....

To gain a better understanding of ice-sheet disintegration, Kansas researchers are building an unmanned plane with cutting-edge radar for better mapping.

Seeing beneath the vast Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets--and, in particular, seeing whether any water sits between ice and ground--is critical to understanding how fast ice might slide into the sea in the future. But many areas are still uncharted territory. Now, engineers at the University of Kansas, in Lawrence, are in the final stages of constructing, from scratch, an unmanned aircraft that will carry ground-penetrating radar and other sensors....

Technologies being developed to make massive multiplayer games handle more people could be beneficial to the financial industry.

As more and more players sign up for online games, companies are employing increasingly sophisticated server architecture to support them. A new trend of keeping lots of players within a single world is pushing the envelope even farther.

While some massive multiplayer online games (MMOs) already involve a lot of people--Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft recently passed the nine-million-player mark--players usually aren't truly together, inside one world. Instead, a game company makes many copies, called shards, of the world, each of which holds several thousand players. These worlds exist in parallel, and players can't move seamlessly from one shard to another. Dave Laux, global executive for games and interactive entertainment at IBM, says that sharding is popular in part because it's easy to add more shards to accommodate new players as a game grows in popularity, and because it can prevent overcrowding in small virtual worlds....

SEC Pressed on Climate-Change Disclosures and When will Warren Buffett get on Board the Love Train?*

From the Wall Street Journal Online with observations by Climateer.

Nearly two dozen state officials, big investors and others plan to prod the Securities and Exchange Commission to require more rigorous analysis and disclosure of the risks posed by climate change.

The group, which says it manages more than $1.5 trillion in assets, says it plans to file a petition with the SEC today that says disclosure is "inconsistent and inadequate" across industries and needs to be improved.

The petitioners, including the New York attorney general, finance officials from California and Florida, environmental groups and the California Public Employees' Retirement System, the nation's biggest public pension fund, assert that climate change poses a threat whose "material adverse" effect must be disclosed to satisfy SEC reporting rules....MORE

What the heck are we going to do with Warren Buffett?

Nowhere in the Berkshire Hathaway annual report is there any discussion of how global warming will affect See's Candies!

Sure, the man, through Berkshire Hathaway runs some insurance stuff** and some other businesses*** but certain high-quality analysts go straight to the See's results (ho-hum) or the stores (Ho-Ho-Ho) and care more about Ghanaian cocoa than winding down some silly-assed derivatives book you didn't want in the first place.

If you search the BRK 2006 annual report, you won't find the term "global warming". Nor do you find "climate change". Using the keyword "climate" gets you:

In 2007, our results from the bread-and-butter lines of insurance will deteriorate, though I think they will remain satisfactory. The big unknown is super-cat insurance.

Were the terrible hurricane seasons of 2004-05 aberrations? Or were they our planet’s first warning that the climate of the 21st Century will differ materially from what we’ve seen in the past? If the answer to the second question is yes, 2006 will soon be perceived as a misleading period of calm preceding a series of devastating storms. These could rock the insurance industry.

It’s naïve to think of Katrina as anything close to a worst-case event. Neither Ajit Jain, who manages our super-cat operation, nor I know what lies ahead. We do know that it would be a huge mistake to bet that evolving atmospheric changes are benign in their implications for insurers.

Don’t think, however, that we have lost our taste for risk. We remain prepared to lose $6 billion in a single event, if we have been paid appropriately for assuming that risk. We are not willing, though, to take on even very small exposures at prices that don’t reflect our evaluation of loss probabilities. Appropriate prices don’t guarantee profits in any given year, but inappropriate prices most certainly guarantee eventual losses.

Rates have recently fallen because a flood of capital has entered the super-cat field. We have therefore sharply reduced our wind exposures. Our behavior here parallels that which we employ in financial markets: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.

The only other reference is a throwaway line:

All that said, a confession about our 2006 gain is in order. Our most important business, insurance, benefited from a large dose of luck: Mother Nature, bless her heart, went on vacation. After hammering us with hurricanes in 2004 and 2005 – storms that caused us to lose a bundle on super-cat insurance – she just vanished. Last year, the red ink from this activity turned black – very black.

One of the signatories on the petition sent to the SEC is Calpers, the inconceivably large retirement fund/medium-sized country. They own 6,983 of Berkshire's "A" shares.****
I'm sure they want to know: "What's Buffet hiding, re: Global Warming risk to See's?"
(besides melting and/or bloom):

Question: What About See's Chocolate?

* Love Train, The O'Jays:

...Start a love train (love ride), love train
The next stop that we make will be soon
Tell all the folks in Russia, and China, too
Don't you know that it's time to get on board...

**GEICO, one of the four largest auto insurers in the United States and two of the largest reinsurers in the world, General Re and the Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance Group. Other subsidiaries that underwrite property and casualty insurance include National Indemnity Company, Medical Protective Company, Applied Underwriters, U.S. Liability Insurance Company, Central States Indemnity Company, Kansas Bankers Surety, Cypress Insurance Company and several other subsidiaries referred to as the “Homestate Companies.” p.2

***73 business at year-end 2006 including the Manufacturing, Service and Retailing grouping, which would be See's home on the organizational charts, if Mr. Buffet kept such things. He describes it as:
"This motley group, which sells products ranging from lollipops to motor homes, earned a pleasing 25% on average tangible net worth last year."

****Worth $831,675,370 as of 11:15 am EDT. I get a kick out of the last print $119100.01.

Economists vs. Ecologists

From John Tierney's NYT blog, TierneyLab:

Last week’s column about Bjorn Lomborg’s ideas for combatting global warming generated lots of angry comments, including the suggestion that Dr. Lomborg and I be fed to polar bears.

• 67.
  September 11th,
  2007
  11:49 am

  Feed Lomborg and Tierney to the polar bears!

  Oh, but that will only postpone the bear’s extinction by a day or two.

  — Posted by Patrick Furtado

I'm looking forward to the WSJ's Weekend Journal
reviewing my new restaurant; Der Eisbär.
"An eclectic menu, featuring seal and a delicious smoked Danish economist but strangely lacking croissants..."

POLAR BEAR TOLD TO STOP SNACKING
Fatty Knut Put on Strict Diet

Knut, the world's most famous polar bear, is off the scales after eating too many snacks and has been put on a diet. The Berlin Zoo said Knut's handlers have been told to stop feeding him extra rations of croissant, fish and meat.

DPA

Looking more like a furry Sumo wrestler each day.

Former polar bear superstar Knut, whose celebrity has waned since he stopped being a cute cub, has been put on a diet because he is getting too fat, the Berlin Zoo announced on Tuesday.

"Knut has become noticeably round," zoo vet Andreas Ochs said. "So we shall be feeding him restrictively."

That means no more croissants and extra portions of fish and meat for the shaggy youngster, who turns eight months on August 5.

He is now believed to weigh around 60 kilograms but the zoo can't be sure exactly because its scales only go to 50 kilos... From Der Spiegel

r

Bernanke-New Sheriff in Town?

Lifted from the Capital Chronicle.



...it might just blow heads clean off shoulders.

Posted by RJH Adams

Source

HT: Econbrowser

"Avast, there!" Pirates and Global Warming

"There! That's what I think of ye. Before an hour's out, I'll stove in your old block house like a rum puncheon. Laugh, by thunder, laugh! Before an hour's out, ye'll laugh upon the other side. Them that die'll be the lucky ones."

"Bring me one noggin of rum, now, won't you, matey."

"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest -- Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"

"if I'm not to have my rum now I'm a poor old hulk on a lee shore, my blood'll be on you, Jim..."

A pattern seems to be emerging-ethanol.

Also a market.
Without need for a $0.51/gal. blender credit; $0.20 state producer credit; punitive Smoot-Hawley style fees on imports or mandated use by the populace.

*September 19 is Talk-like-a-pirate day. And the climate change tie-in?:

Showing once again: Correlation does not equal causation.
Thanks be to the Pastafarians of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
And Wikipedia for pulling it together.

U.S. Banks Brace for Storm Surge as Dollar and Credit System Reel

From counterpunch!:

By now, you’ve probably seen the photos of the angry customers queued up outside of Northern Rock Bank waiting to withdraw their money. This is the first big run on a British bank in over a century. It’s lost an eighth of its deposits in three days. The pictures are headline news in the U.K. but have been stuck on the back pages of U.S. newspapers. The reason for this is obvious. The same Force 5 economic-hurricane that just touched ground in Great Britain is headed for America and gaining strength on the way.

On Monday night, desperately trying to stave off a wider panic, the British government issued an emergency pledge to Northern Rock savers that their money was safe. The government is trying to find a buyer for Northern Rock.

This is what a good old fashioned bank run looks like. And, as in 1929, the bank owners and the government are frantically trying to calm down their customers by reassuring them that their money is safe. But human nature being what it is, people are not so easily pacified when they think their savings are at risk. The bottom line is this: The people want their money, not excuses....MORE

Hurricane Watch

...Most of the computer models predict that a tropical or subtropical depression will form from 93L once it crosses into the Gulf of Mexico. The path such a storm might take is uncertain. A strong ridge of high pressure is setting up over the eastern half of the U.S., and is expected to remain anchored in place for at least ten days.

This is the type of steering pattern we experienced during the Hurricane Season of 2005, and favors westward-moving storms. However, this steering pattern will be complicated by the presence of the upper-level low pressure system moving southwest over the Gulf of Mexico. This upper-level low will gradually weaken. Depending on the strength and movement of this low, the counterclockwise flow around the low could steer 93L on a northwesterly path towards Louisiana. This is the solution of the latest (12Z) runs of the UKMET, GFS, and GFDL models. The intensity such a storm may reach is also highly uncertain.

The storm is starting off without a warm core, which will hamper intensification. Dry air to the west will also cause it problems. The SHIPS intensity model brings 93L to Category 1 hurricane strength by Saturday, and the GFDL predicts 93L will hit New Orleans as a strong tropical storm Friday night. The NOGAPS model predicts 93L will eventually dissipate over the southwestern Gulf, and the HWRF model does not develop 93L, and takes the disturbance to the central Louisiana coast on Saturday afternoon....

From Jeff Masters Wunderblog

Emerging Markets' Fast Growth Triggers Electric Utility Boom

From IBD via CNNMoney:
Some developing countries are waking up to a big problem: Power shortages could short-circuit their economic growth.

In Latin America and elsewhere, governments have been restructuring utilities to spur private and foreign investment. Heavy-handed regulatory policies are being replaced by market-based systems that give utilities higher returns on investment.

Hiking electricity rates is a tough political step for governments in countries where much of the population still lives in poverty. But, emerging markets need to build more power plants and modernize infrastructure.

"In most developing countries, power demand grows more quickly than the economies," said Jed Bailey, managing director of the Asia and Latin America groups at Cambridge Energy (OOTC:CNGG) Research Associates. "To get investment in place, there's a sense that regulatory structures will evolve and prices on average will go up."

But after running up for much of the year, shares in Latin American utilities traded on the New York Stock Exchange have retreated along with stocks worldwide...Much More

Rogers, Faber Say Fed Rate Cuts Will Spur a Recession

How's that for a headline? It's from Bloomberg.

Interest rate cuts by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke will spur inflation, cause the U.S. dollar to collapse and push the world's largest economy into recession, investors Jim Rogers and Marc Faber said.

``Every time the Fed turns around to save its friends on Wall Street, it makes the situation worse,'' Rogers said in an interview from Shanghai. ``If Bernanke starts running those printing presses even faster than he's doing already, yes we are going to have a serious recession. The dollar's going to collapse, the bond market's going to collapse. There's going to be a lot of problems in the U.S.''...MORE

Quote of the Day and Inflation around the World

David Gaffen at the WSJ's MarketBeat blog brings it home with this quote regarding the Fed's half-point move today:

“It’s not unlike an ill person begging for more morphine and they just got a double dose from the doctor — the problem of course with getting a double dose of morphine is, you’re very sick,” says Richard Weiss, chief investment officer at City National Bank.

With both gold and oil priced in dollars (for now, see post from earlier) inflation appears to be in the driver's seat. You've got to wonder though, just how sick the patient is, the junk paper problem is so opaque. Stagflation anyone?

Here's a story I meant to get to earlier.
The Economist does a "On the One Hand":
Food-price fears in China

Update:Real Time Economics directs us to James Grant's review of Allen Greenspan's book:

...At one point during his long interview on "60 Minutes" Sunday evening, Alan Greenspan could be seen autographing dollar bills for his smiling fans. Meanwhile, off camera, unautographed greenbacks continue to depreciate against a variety of metals and foreign currencies. A century ago the pound sterling anticipated the dollar's role today as the pre-eminent global monetary brand. But the pound was exchangeable into gold at the bearer's demand. Not since 1971 has the dollar been collateralized by gold or exchangeable at the U.S. Treasury into anything except nickels, dimes and quarters.

Sooner or later, the dollar will lose its luster and finally its value, as paper currencies always do. Striving to understand why people trusted it in the first place, historians will naturally reach for the memoirs of the foremost central banker of his day. But Mr. Greenspan's "The Age of Turbulence" will leave them just as confused as they ever were.

Can states pass laws regulating auto emissions?

That's the Question the WSJ.com's Law Blog asks.

But can states pass laws regulating auto emissions? That’s a different question than the one addressed by Judge Jenkins, and one that is very much in play. The automakers are suing California challenging a 2002 California law that would limit vehicle greenhouse gas emissions.

The LB also has backround on the recent Vermont decision.

The WSJ's Energy Roundup had been following VT since April by directing us to more extensive coverage in the print edition of the paper, capping with this post, last week:

One Lousy Day for Auto Makers
All in one day on Wednesday, oil prices reached a new record and a federal judge in Vermont endorsed for the first time new state rules that would reduce emissions — and, by extension, increase fuel efficiency — in cars on American roads....MORE

Greenspan says euro could replace U.S. dollar as reserve currency of choice

Folks, this is a big deal. From the International Herald Tribune:

Former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan said it is possible that the euro could replace the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency of choice.

According to an advance copy of an interview to be published in Thursday's edition of the German magazine Stern, Greenspan said that the dollar is still slightly ahead in its use as a reserve currency, but added that "it doesn't have all that much of an advantage" anymore.

The euro has been soaring against the U.S. currency in recent weeks, hitting all-time high of US$1.3927 last week as the dollar has fallen on turbulent market conditions stemming from the ongoing U.S. subprime crisis. The Fed meets this week and is expected to lower its benchmark interest rate from the current 5.25 percent.

Greenspan said that at the end of 2006, some 25 percent of all currency reserves held by central banks were held in euros, compared to 66 percent for the U.S. dollar.

In terms of being used as a payment for cross-border transactions, the euro is trailing the dollar only slightly with 39 percent to 43 percent....MORE

Remember these headlines?

Iran to replace dollar with euro
From Al Jazeera

Iran moves to ditch U.S. dollar
From UPI

Iran Asks Japan to Pay Yen for Oil, Start Immediately
From Bloomberg

If you missed it:

International Conference on Gold Dinar Economy
A Blueprint for the Ummah

...Since the gold dinar represents a paradigm shift from the current monetary system, as expected, it has been taking root slowly but firmly. The vulnerability of the current fiat monetary system has prompted even Nobel Laureate Robert Alexander Mundell to say that gold will again return as the international monetary standard in the 21st century. Islamic scholars, on the other hand, have come to remark that the maqasid al-Shariah cannot be attained in a fiat monetary system....

For the Grassy Knoll, Queen of England, Tri-Lateral crowd (and please note the Council on Foreign Relations article below this):

Petrodollar Warfare
The phrase petrodollar warfare refers to a hypothesis that a hidden, driving force of United States foreign policy over recent decades has been the status of the United States dollar as the world's dominant reserve currency and as the currency in which oil is priced. The term was coined by William R. Clark, who has written a book with the same title. The phrase oil currency wars is sometimes used with the same meaning....More at Wikipedia

And out of the link-vault, a slightly different
(okay, very different) approach to currency:

The End of National Currency

Summary: Global financial instability has sparked a surge in "monetary nationalism" -- the idea that countries must make and control their own currencies. But globalization and monetary nationalism are a dangerous combination, a cause of financial crises and geopolitical tension. The world needs to abandon unwanted currencies, replacing them with dollars, euros, and multinational currencies as yet unborn.

Benn Steil is Director of International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations and a co-author of Financial Statecraft.

,,,Antiglobalization economists have turned the problem on its head by absolving governments (except the one in Washington) and instead blaming crises on markets and their institutional supporters, such as the IMF -- "dictatorships of international finance," in the words of the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz. "Countries are effectively told that if they don't follow certain conditions, the capital markets or the IMF will refuse to lend them money," writes Stiglitz. "They are basically forced to give up part of their sovereignty."...More at Foreign Affairs

Serious indeed.

Carbon Tax vs. Cap-and-Trade in 19 Words

John Whitehead, posting at Environmental Economics achieves the heretofore professorially impossible:

...in rank order:

1. carbon tax
2. cap-and-trade with auctions
3. cap-and-trade with giveaways
4. command and control
5. nothing

Clear, cogent, concise.
(Good beat, easy to dance to; I give it a 93)

Australia Cuts Grain Crop Estimate 31% on Dry Weather

From Bloomberg:

Australia cut its forecast for barley, wheat and canola crops 31 percent on dry weather, adding pressure to shrinking world supplies that have driven up prices.

Total grain output may be 25.6 million metric tons in the harvest starting October, the Canberra-based Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics said today in a statement. That compares to its June estimate of 37 million tons and last year's drought-ravaged crop of 15.7 million tons.

Wheat futures rose to within 13.25 cents of last week's record as demand outpaces supply and inventories head for a 26- year low. Australia, vying with Canada to be the world's second- largest exporter of the grain, may harvest 15.5 million tons, the bureau said, down 31 percent from its June estimate....MORE

We're on record, using all our rhetorical powers;
Making Ethanol from Wheat is Stupid.

California v. Automakers Lawsuit Tossed and the Petition to the SEC on Climate Risk Disclosure

The Wall Street Journal's Morning Brief had this to say:

..."Our bottom-line point is that global warming presents exceedingly complex policy issues that must be addressed at the national and international levels by Congress and the president, not through lawsuits seeking damages in the federal courts," Ted Boutrous, lead attorney for the auto companies, tells the Times.

Judge Jenkins essentially agreed that California's complaint was "non-justiciable." But while the result may seem to conflict with recent decisions backing government regulation of greenhouse gases, Judge Jenkins suggested his court was simply the wrong venue for the state.

In April, the Supreme Court chastised the Bush administration over the Environmental Protection Agency's refusal to regulate tailpipe exhaust and other emissions blamed in part for global warming, a decision California tried to muster in its argument against dismissal. Judge Jenkins wasn't convinced.

"While the Supreme Court did not expressly address the issue of justiciability, it certainly did not sanction the justiciability of the interstate global warming damages tort claim now before this court," he wrote. "Rather, the Supreme Court's analysis on the issue of standing counsels with convincing force to the contrary. As noted above, a state has standing to pursue its 'procedural right' through administrative channels."

Last week, the auto makers lost in a different federal district court but in a different way. The judge in that case backed Vermont's regulation of tailpipe emissions, as the New York Times notes, in a decision widely read as encouraging for California. The Vermont precedent may now offer California lawmakers a path to accomplish what the state's lawyers couldn't do in court. In the meantime, former California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, who began the suit against auto makers last year, is now tackling global warming in his role as state treasurer. Mr. Lockyer, as the L.A. Times reports, plans to submit a petition to the Securities and Exchange Commission asking the agency to ensure that investors "get more information from oil companies, insurers and other publicly traded companies about how global warming might affect their bottom lines."

We'll have more on both stories. I was looking for legal commentary but unfortunately Climateer's favorite counsel seems more interested in heading off to St. Tropez next week than in explaining justiciability.

Freight and carbon credits help hedge funds

Only three strategies adopted by hedge funds appear to have survived unscathed the rout of the sector last month, as the ‘absolute return’ industry again mostly failed to protect investors against market turmoil.

The nascent freight and property derivative sectors and carbon credit trading proved resilient to the wild swings in equity markets in August with the small funds specialising in the areas coming through well.

However, the poor performance of the rest of the industry – in which more than two-thirds of all funds lost money – has left many investors wondering what happened to the hedge fund aim of not moving in line with other assets or each other.

“Hedge funds didn’t do what they say on the tin,” said one senior hedge fund manager last week. Much the same happened in May last year when hedge fund systems designed to avoid their being hit by plummeting markets did not work.

The problem, according to prime brokers and analysts, is caused by the hedge funds themselves. “There’s one thing that comes out of all these shocks and it is really part of the increasing power of hedge funds,” said the head of European prime broking at one Wall Street bank. “When they are going through a challenging return environment, a lot of their assets are more correlated than you might have expected.”...MORE

From the Financial Times

That would be a bingo. And points up the silliness of the comment from Goldman Sachs CFO:

“We were seeing things that were 25-standard deviation moves, several days in a row,” said David Viniar, Goldman’s chief financial officer. “There have been issues in some of the other quantitative spaces. But nothing like what we saw last week.”

I haven't posted on Viniar's "25 SD moves" yet, I haven't figured out if he was B.S.ing himself, his investors or the world at large. B.S. it was, however.

Hog Castration in Norway

Tainted love

Learning to grin and boar it

THESE are tough times for the pig-fixers of Norway. In 2002 the parliament passed a law requiring vets to anaesthetise pigs before castrating them. Now Norway’s lawmakers have gone a step further and banned porcine castration outright. From 2009 onwards the he-pigs of the fjords will be free to wallow without fearing for their boarhood, which must be kept safely entire or intact, as the delicate industry jargon has it.

That sounds like a straightforward gesture of compassion for animals akin to mandating bigger pens or more humane conditions for the transport of livestock, as the European Union has done in recent years.

But in this instance, the trade-off is not merely one of extra costs for farmers versus extra comforts for their charges. For one thing, some researchers argue that allowing male pigs to achieve full masculinity when there is no outlet for their swinish urges might be more cruel than giving them the snip. They point out that full-blooded (and full bodied) males can be very aggressive, and often fight or mount one another when kept in confined spaces....MORE

From the Economist
Here's Soft Cell: Tainted Love
Non-Stop Erotic Caberet

Planktos: What on Earth...?

We were linked, by Ecoshock News, to a post that describes one of the oddest stories of the year.

...Last week we ran a full-length interview with the chief visionary and CEO, Russell George. If you haven't heard it - go ahead and download last week's Show, from our website at ecoshock.org.

Russ is an inspiring speaker about reforestation on land, and restoring phytoplankton at sea.It all hinges on the company's ship, the Weatherbird II, currently docked in Florida.Will it sail to dump 100 tons of iron dust into the far Pacific? Will a combination of environmental groups and government agencies act to stop it?

In a press release, and in our last interview, Russell George claimed that he had some support from Greenpeace. We go now to Dr. David Santillo, at the Greenpeace Lab, in Exeter UK - to discuss the science behind this Planktos seeding business.

[SANTILLO INTERVIEW Dr. David Santillo of the Greenpeace International Science Unit, in Exeter UK, explains why Greenpeace opposes the plan by Planktos Corp to develop algae growth as a way to make carbon credits, as a commercial venture.
He says there are so many scientific unknowns, and no way to measure whether the carbon captured will actually stay in the ocean, or for how long.]

[ALEX SMITH]We've looked at the science, but now, my friends, it is time to get down to business. Don't run away from these tedious facts, because they reveal a fascinating cast of characters, I promise.According to corporate filings, the current Planktos Corp. began life on December 10th, 1998 as eWorld Travel Corp. In 2002, it was renamed GYK Ventures, Inc, in July 2005, to Diatom Corporation. In 2007, Diatom was renamed Planktos Corp.

...While company names, and large blocks of stock, were thrashing this year, Russell George popped up in a string of media photo-ops, and promotions, while courting environmental groups.Despite all the good publicity, in newspapers and network TV, Planktos stockholders watched their value plummet.

From a high of $2.56 a share, by September 7th, the stock was worth 84 cents a share, at most, sometimes as low as 50 cents.On their website, Business Week says:"The goals of PLKT [Planktos] insiders are closely aligned with those of shareholders, because insiders own a greater percentage of this company, than at any other company in the Commercial Services and Supplies industry.
"[Source:http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/ownership/ownership.asp?symbol=PLKT.OB]That's quite record! Insiders own more of this company, than any other in these listings, out of countless companies.

[THE PANAMA CONNECTION]And then we have the Panama connection....MORE

Now it starts to get weird.

For the record, the Illuminati post below is satire. Thes Poof is not some gay Brit. actor, it's The Spoof. Yet somehow it seems less convoluted than Planktos.

It's Not Easy Being Green

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

The high-profile eco-friendly company Easy Being Green, which made a crusade out of installing energy-saving light bulbs, will fold up business in NSW today, laying off 150 staff and about 100 contractors following the crash in the NSW carbon market.

The company's charismatic head, former Greenpeace activist Paul Gilding, held a last rally at Erskineville Oval yesterday, which he called "a final bid" to save the jobs and the company's role in visiting almost 3000 households a week to advise on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

But late in the day Mr Gilding conceded there was no hopeand while the company would stay afloat, its business would cease. He said he would be discussing the company's financial position with its creditors but he believed the talks would be "amicable" and there was no consideration at this stage of going into receivership.

Calls for the Iemma Government to intervene in the state carbon market and save the jobs of his staff and hundreds of others in environmental businesses had failed, Mr Gilding said. "The NSW Government informed Easy Being Green that it will not take any action to save its collapsing Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme and about 1000 jobs."...MORE

Illuminati Hoarding Gold Prior to 9/11; Ron Paul Commemoratives Still Available

From Thes Poof:

14 Sep 07, EVANSVILLE, IN, USNA-- Someone has been buying almost all the gold in the world in the past ten days, reports monetary architect Bernard von NutHaus of Liberty Services, suggesting that the next world crisis is imminent.

Oddly, in the midst of such buying frenzy, he notes that demand for the Ron Paul presidential commemorative gold piece, produced by Liberty Services, remains flat.Gold prices increased from $600 to $750 per ounce in the week prior to 9/11.

One would think that the sudden demand would hold across the board, but purchasers of the Ron Paul presidential commemoratives are holding steady and are the same boring group of spammers as always, von NutHaus said. An example of spamming so frequent as to be routine involves ten purchases of a single ounce of gold at a time by the same buyer, instead of one purchase of ten ounces of gold.

Such activity gives rise to the speculation that buyers of Ron Paul gold simply want to drive up the number of sales artificially.Gold spikes generally indicate that the Council on Foreign Relations or other Illuminati are prepared to unleash another world crisis such as the "6/66" terrorist attacks of June 66, 2001. (If the USNA government does not approve its fiscal-year budget by the end of June in any year, it simply extends June until it reaches such approval. The terrorist attacks occurred on the 36th business day after June 30, which corresponds to September 11, 2001, on the Papist calendar.)

In 2001, the free market predicted the 6/66 attacks more reliably than the CIA. Banker's Trust placed unheard-of "put options" on American Airlines, United Airlines, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch in the weeks prior to 6/66, which paid off immeasurably for the Deutsche-Bank-owned firm after all four stocks promptly fell by 40% within the crucial window. Any market analyst could have predicted doom for the two airlines and the two prominent World Trade Centre evictees.

The CIA, however, failed to predict the 6/66 incidents, because they had nothing more reliable to go on than one terrorist in custody, Zacarias Moussaoui, raving about maniacs flying planes into skyscrapers....MORE

Just FYI, there really is a "They"; and they know.

One Answer to Global Warming: A New Tax

From the New York Times:

IN the debate over global climate change, there is a yawning gap that needs to be bridged. The gap is not between environmentalists and industrialists, or between Democrats and Republicans. It is between policy wonks and political consultants.

Among policy wonks like me, there is a broad consensus. The scientists tell us that world temperatures are rising because humans are emitting carbon into the atmosphere. Basic economics tells us that when you tax something, you normally get less of it. So if we want to reduce global emissions of carbon, we need a global carbon tax. Q.E.D.

The idea of using taxes to fix problems, rather than merely raise government revenue, has a long history. The British economist Arthur Pigou advocated such corrective taxes to deal with pollution in the early 20th century. In his honor, economics textbooks now call them “Pigovian taxes.”

Using a Pigovian tax to address global warming is also an old idea. It was proposed as far back as 1992 by Martin S. Feldstein on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. Once chief economist to Ronald Reagan, Mr. Feldstein has devoted much of his career to studying how high tax rates distort incentives and impede economic growth. But like most other policy wonks, he appreciates that some taxes align private incentives with social costs and move us toward better outcomes....MORE

HT: Catallaxy
Professor Mankiw's blog

What's a Rock Worth? Lon: NRK; This Could be Awkward

or
Welcome to Rock & Sole Plaice, would you like extra chips with that?

From the Financial Times September 16 2007 20:31:
Northern Rock chiefs push for fresh sale
...If no buyers come forward, it seems likely Northern Rock’s business will be gradually wound down, effectively leaving it with a shrinking mortgage book as loans are repaid. Its advisers are thought to have calculated that, in this situation, it would be worth about 180p a share. On Friday they closed at 438p.

From the Telegraph 1:35am BST 16/09/2007:
Northern Rock appeals for white knight as run on bank continues
...Merrill Lynch, Northern Rock's adviser, is believed to have been locked in talks with the board on a potential break up over the weekend.

From FT Alphaville September 14th, 2007 at 8:34:
Rock slide? Not in Merrill’s view

We like a ballsy call, here on FT Alphaville, but what’s this? A “buy” note on Northern Rock, no less, from Merrill Lynch.

The stock is trading at 1.1x 2008e tangible book value for an expected RoE of 18%. Moreover, unlike US mortgage players where there remain doubts as to the book value from mark to market hits from revaluation of the sub-prime portfolios, Northern Rock is a prime lender with negligible intangible assets. If we were to consider Northern Rock as a closed book in run-off with a half-life of three years on its mortgage book/asset portfolio, this would suggest a fair present value of 872p on the stock, a 27% premium to the current share price. Our Price Objective is 913p, based on a target multiple of 9x 2008E.

The risks to our Price Objective are a more prolonged credit market closure than expected, and a macro downturn in the UK which would lead to higher provisions.

The risks to the author of this call, John-Paul Crutchley, have yet to crystallise.

As we say in America, Yikes!

"Rock can't be sold"

The BBC's Business Editor has been turning up facts I've seen nowhere else.

For all the talk – including by me (see my earlier comment, "Rock or Crock”) – about how Northern Rock must surely soon find itself under new ownership, I have learned that it cannot be taken over by another bank in the absence of a major policy shift by the Bank of England.

Here is why.

Bankers tell me that Northern Rock spent a good deal of the summer exploring whether any big bank was prepared to acquire it lock, stock and online accounts. It had appointed the leading investment bank, Merrill Lynch, to sound out possible buyers.

There was, I am told, interest in a possible deal from substantial international banks.

But – and here’s the important point – the seizing up of interbank markets proved an insuperable obstacle....

More from Robert Peston

The Times had these numbers in:
Northern Rock Q&A

...What about my savings?

All savings should be secure at the moment. But if the bank went bust, only savers with less than £2,000 would get a full refund of their savings from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). The FSCS will refund 90 per cent of the next £33,000