Cap-and-Trade Quote of the Day

...The economic theory of regulation asks us to consider the political arena as a marketplace where favors are bought and sold. Interest groups that have the most to gain or lose will bid the highest prices for favors.

Politicians dedicated to preserving their jobs, and needing large amounts of campaign funds, auction off the favors. Under this theory, if carbon emissions are to be controlled, the politician will seek the group with the largest economic stake in the outcome (and therefore presumably the most generous with campaign funds) and favor that group.

Competing groups will attempt to outbid the winner. Usually, the smaller the group, the more each member can gain by crafting regulatory rules. The larger the group, the less likely that each individual member will have a strong reward or heavy burden as a result of the rules. So small special-interest groups usually are the most actively involved in the negotiations.
Bruce Yandle; 2001
Source

Yandle is interim dean of Clemson University's College of Business & Behavioral Science and professor of economics emeritus at Clemson. He is also a faculty member with George Mason University's Capitol Hill Campus. He has served as executive director of the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D.C. He was a visiting professor at the Montpellier University Law School in France and has lectured in Germany and Italy. PERC.org
Bio at Clemson University

Anxiety over environment brings weird crimes and a new industry

...Psychologists say eco-terrorism might be an extreme display of “eco-anxiety,” the new buzz word in mental health: An increasing number of people are literally worrying themselves sick over desperate scenarios of environmental catastrophe in their mind.

“It was things like, I read an article about the whales and I can't stop crying, and I can't figure out why,” New Mexico therapist Melissa Pickett speaks of a typical symptom eco-anxious patients would describe.

...Treating the problem is becoming a booming business, with eco-therapists like Pickett charging up to $250 an hour for the service.

From MSNBC

Water war heats up

Central Nevada farmers like Roderick McKenzie fear booming Las Vegas is going to suck them dry. They're fighting a plan to pump billions of gallons of water south across the desert, saying it would eat up groundwater supplies and could spell the end for ranchers and farmers in rural valleys.

With one ruling in hand for billions of gallons of rural Nevada water, the water supplier for sprawling southern Nevada is pressing for billions of additional gallons a year -- in a move that pits farmers and ranchers against developers eager to keep the gambling mecca booming.

..."SNWA could turn this vast area into a national sacrifice zone for the sake of unchecked growth in Las Vegas," Fulkerson said.

...Critics have likened the water authority's proposal to a Los Angeles water grab that parched California's once-fertile Owens Valley, while the water authority contends there's no way a repeat of that early-1900s water grab could occur.

The events surrounding the Owens Valley, about 250 miles north of Los Angeles, go back to 1913, when an aqueduct was built to bring water to Los Angeles' fast-growing San Fernando Valley. The events were fictionalized in the 1974 movie "Chinatown."

From the Jackson Hole Star Tribune

China posts 11.9 percent growth rate

...The latest quarterly figure showed the fastest expansion since the last quarter of 1995, when the economy grew by 12.5 percent.

...Another concern arose Thursday when the government announced that inflation had reached its highest level in years, with the Chinese consumer price index jumping at a 4.4 percent rate in June, almost entirely because of rising food prices.

The prices of eggs and pork have risen more than 20 percent in the past year largely because of tighter grain supplies and the outbreak of blue-ear pig disease, the government said.

From the IHT

First Solar (FSLR) Files to Sell 9,650,000 Shares including 5,650,000 From Selling Shareholders

Officers and Directors selling 950,000 shares.
Goldman Sachs lightening up by a mil.

Here is the S-1 preliminary prospectus.

First Solar CEO sells 250,000 shares of stock

The chief executive officer of First Solar Inc. has sold 250,000 shares of common stock under a prearranged trading plan, according to a new U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Michael Ahearn reported he sold the shares last week for $110.95 apiece, or $27.7 million. He still owns 4.74 million shares of the firm which is based in Phoenix but began in Toledo and has its only North American solar-panel manufacturing plant in Perrysburg.

From the Toledo Blade
Here's the Form 4

Australian Dollar Blown Up by Greenhouse Gas

A very insightful commentary by Terry McCrann writing for The Australian:

...The somewhat more complex question is why demand for the Aussie has been so strong. Every other time we've had big deficits we've had a weak currency.

They were beginning to look endemic -- hence those less than flattering terms in the opening paragraph.

The answer is, of course, China, with again a little bit of help from the RBA. Not in the currency market but in setting official interest rates in Australia, and hence the bank borrowing rates which have been the principal means of bringing that foreign money into Australia.

...Enter the paradox. The core driver of our rising dollar -- and pretty much everything else in and around our economy -- is the explosive growth in China's demand for, and consumption of, commodities.

Principally, so far as we are concerned, iron ore to make steel and coal to generate power. Along with pretty much everything else -- globally importantly, oil and copper.

In short, not to put too fine a point on it: our dollar is pivoting on a truly momentous eruption of greenhouse gases. Yet we and the world are -- at least hypothetically -- committed to not just capping that eruption, but reversing it.

More

Iowa's near record corn crop growing fast, rain needed

It might be time for ethanol stockholders to watch the weather in Iowa.

Monday's U.S. Department of Agriculture Crops and Weather Report says rain is needed to replenish soil moisture supplies as the critical corn pollination period nears, which helps determine future yields. Due to little rainfall statewide in recent weeks, the report said crops are beginning to show stress from drought.

"We don't need another week without rain," McGregor said. "The corn, especially on lighter ground, will start rolling soon to protect itself. We're not overly blessed (with moisture)."

Leaves curl or roll to conserve moisture and protect plants. The less area of a leaf exposed to the sun, the less water will evaporate. However, that also means crop development is reduced, which impacts yields.

From the Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier

Coal stocks and the Citigroup Downgrade

First, if you didn't see it, C's John Hill did an across-the-board downgrade of the coal stocks.

Here's MarketWatch's report from a few days ago:

According to a note from Citigroup analyst John Hill, the industry has missed a critical window in its business cycle, unexpectedly losing market share to natural gas in the power-generation business - by far its biggest market.

Hill also said the industry's profits have been hurt over the past three months by the struggle to squeeze higher prices out of well-supplied utilities and by weather-related delivery problems, especially in the Midwest.

"Our sense is that coal has missed a critical time window, which potentially throws any recovery out-of-phase, with implications that could last for a year or more," Hill said.

Hill has a pretty good grasp of the industry and his timing ain't bad either. Here's the ten day chart for the biggest coal miner, Peabody Energy.

In mid-April he recommended purchase of the group:
"Citigroup advises to buy coal equities as U.S. coal markets gradually tighten" (from Mineweb)
and caught a ten-percent move in a boring group.

Not afraid to change his opinion when the situation changes. Maybe someone to listen to

Green Business Opportunity

As I sifted through the link-vault last night, I had an "Ah-ha" (and ah-choo) moment while reading this headline: "Two years to change EU light bulbs" from the March 9 Scotsman.

The article goes on to say:

The 490 million citizens of the 27 member states will be expected to switch to energy-efficient bulbs after a summit of EU leaders yesterday told the European Commission to "rapidly submit proposals" to that effect.

There's no way I can compete with the bulb manufacturers but fixtures, that's another story altogether. At least half those bulbs will need new fixtures, for a few reasons (look it up).

Climateer's Fixture King
(made in stinky old Chinese factories of course. A little rehab and I get CDM credits at 25 euros per on top of it, what a great time to be alive!)

Pacific Hydro to sell carbon credits from Chile plant

...Pacific Hydro, which is owned by the pension funds manager Industry Funds Management, and a partner registered the 155-megawatt La Higuera project with a Dutch authority, allowing the sale of credits in the EU once production starts by the end of 2008, the Melbourne-based company said Monday.

...The project is expected to generate about 430,000 carbon credits, or certified emission reductions, each year for sale, which may be sold either through individual contracts or through Pacific Hydro's portfolio of credits, said Andrew Richards, a company spokesman.

At $30 per CER that's a nifty $12.9 million, cash money. Per year.

From the IHT

PacificHydro's press release is candid:
$1 billion investment in Chile driven by carbon trading

Fast Cars, Faster Keyboard

Ross Gelbspan at Desmogblog gets the line of the day award:

Talking about climate change at a Formula One race might at first glance seem like praising celibacy in a brothel".

I wonder if he's ever heard "Saay, this is pretty good, you could be a writer"

Sasol eyes "significant income" from carbon credits

Sasol, the world's biggest maker of fuel from coal, will earn "significant income" by selling carbon credits by converting a greenhouse gas into nitrogen and oxygen, the company said on Monday.

Now let me see if I've got this right. Sasol, using technology resurrected to help the apartheid regime resist sanctions, makes a filthy synthetic vehicle fuel (CNN: Crunch Time for Hitler's Fuel) and now says "If you pay us we'll slow down our rate of pollution growth".

Alrighty then.

From Reuters

GE and the Media

They own it. Now move along, there's no story here.
Or maybe there is.

From Variety:

NBC Universal going green
Enviro themes will be scripted into storylines

The programming dial turns green for NBC Universal in November as environmental themes will be scripted into programming as part of a week-long "Green is Universal" initiative.

Bravo Media president Lauren Zalaznick, head of NBC U's Green Council, said that all NBC U networks would participate including broadcast, the cable networks, news, sports, daytime and latenight.

HT: treehugger

I would be a bit more enthusiastic if:

a) NBC wasn't the fourth rated network

b) Jay Leno looked better in green.

Pollution Credits Stoke Trader Hiring Wave at Banks

This is no longer news, June 28 dateline, but it has some interesting numbers.

..."Investment today could earn a 200 percent to 300 percent return over the next six years if politicians put into place the necessary legislation,'' said Guy Turner, director of London- based New Carbon Finance, which tracks emissions investment. The federal U.S. market will probably start after 2011 and could be valued at $50 billion by 2015, New Carbon Finance estimated today.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Barclays Plc and other firms are backing a $26 million development to reduce greenhouse gases from an SRF Ltd. factory in India that makes air-conditioning chemicals. The UN is awarding the project an estimated 311 million euros in permits over five years. Banks are buying them for less than 8 euros apiece, according to World Bank data, about a third of the price in Europe in June.

From Bloomberg

California's attack of the jumbo squid

Ferocious, pack-feeding jumbo squid have invaded waters off California's central coast and are devouring local fish populations. Researchers say global warming and overfishing are likely to blame.

Humboldt or jumbo squid (Dosidicus gigas) first appeared off Monterey, California during an El Niño event which warmed waters in 1997. Since 2002 they have taken up permanent residence.

The findings offer a striking look at how multiple human-induced environmental changes are affecting ocean ecosystems.

"I think we're seeing the combined results of climate change and overfishing," says Bruce Robison of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California, US. "There has been a big change in the cast of characters out there that may be very significant commercially as well as ecologically."

From NewScientist

Biofuel Impacts on Weather

All hot and sweaty this summer? It could be the corn.

Climatologists are building evidence that crops, particularly corn, are driving up dew points as they put water into the atmosphere through evaporation. They also may make corn-growing areas cooler and alter rain patterns.

...In some ways, researchers are taking a second look at a 19th century adage — "rain follows the plow." Popularized by Charles Dana Wilber in an 1881 book touting the agricultural promise of Nebraska, the phrase supported a grand notion that the western Great Plains, which in the early 19th century had been labeled the "Great American Desert," could be transformed into a garden if people would expose its moist soil to the atmosphere.

From USA Today

An Email from the President of Planktos

On 7/23/07, russ george wrote:

Your statement that Planktos has hired and paid for the information being promoted by PennyStockHunter.com is utterlly false and intended to mislead your readers. Planktos has not in any way

been associated with that organization or the production of the information presented on that web site. We do not endorse that information nor support it and are in no way responsible for it. We ask that you correct your false and misleading comments pertaining to this. If you have any knowledge about the world of stock promotion you would know that any person is able to produce and distribute such information and that such information does not automatically link to the company being promoted.

Russ George - president

Planktos

This post has been referenced in an update to the post, "Planktos, How Low Will They Go" below.

Playing Climate Change Poker, Magical Thinking and Why Shrinks make Better Money Managers than Quants

The story that goes with the above headline, below.
First a segue:

Jerry Yang, a 39-year-old psychologist who uses his professional training in his card-playing arsenal, won the $8.25 million top prize Wednesday at the World Series of Poker.

From Forbes

A second segue:
Psychologists Are Better Stockmarket Speculators Than Economists

Now get these names:

Shareholders seem to be swayed by the buying pattern of other shareholders much less than has hitherto been assumed. This at least is the conclusion arrived at by economists of the Bank of England and the universities of Heidelberg and Bonn. Together with the corporate consultants McKinsey they scrutinised the share-buying behaviour of about 6,500 persons in an Internet experiment. They found no signs of 'herd instinct' during the experiment - on the contrary, some of the test subjects decided against buying those specific shares which had just been bought by so many other players. Psychologists, particularly, mistrusted those shares which they regarded as overvalued. This strategy benefited them enormously: on average they were markedly more successful in their speculation than physicists or mathematicians - or even economists.

Those folks can round up some intellectual horsepower although when McKinsey asserted superiority, BofE, UH and UB voted en bloc.
McKinsey cried foul, called for en banc and made a couple mil. while waiting.

Abstract of paper from Medical News Today

Finally: "As above, so below"
This phrase comes from the beginning of The Emerald Tablet and embraces the entire system of traditional and modern magic which was inscribed upon the tablet in cryptic wording by Hermes Trismegistus.

Speaking of magic, from Climate Progress (and the ostensible purpose of this blog):

What’s the target? Both the European Union (EU) and, at a national level, the United Kingdom have focused on a CO₂ emissions cut of at least 60%, which is intended to reduce average global warming by 2°C. (The June G8 summit also spoke of an emissions cut of 50% globally, but only in the context of exploring such a goal and with no greenhouse gas stabilization target in mind.)

What are the chances of meeting the 2° objective? Not likely, according to Malte Meinshausen of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, who presented the scientific evidence in a report of the 2005 Exeter climate change conference and who’s been quoted since, both by UK government economic advisor Sir Nicholas Stern and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Which seems to imply that the EU's "Limiting Global Climate Change to 2 degrees Celsius"
is mighty close to what the psychologists call Magical Thinking.
Perhaps we should put a little more effort into adaptation.
It's just a thought.

Galapagos Update

High cost of female choice in a Lekking Lizard

Here we report that females can incur high energetic costs as a result of discriminating among potential mates.

Females that spent more time on the territories of high-quality, high-activity males displayed greater energetic expenditure on mate choice, lost more mass, and showed a trend towards producing smaller follicles. Choosy females also appear to face a reduced probability of survival if El Niño conditions occur in the year following breeding. These findings indicate that female choice can carry significant costs, and suggest that the benefits that lek-mating females gain through mating with a preferred male may be higher than previously predicted.

To all the girls....Sorry.
This is just an excuse to show you the Public Library of Science (PLoS)

Here's the story I was going for:
High-Yield Hydrogen Production from Starch and Water by a Synthetic Enzymatic Pathway

The future hydrogen economy offers a compelling energy vision, but there are four main obstacles: hydrogen production, storage, and distribution, as well as fuel cells.

PLoS ONE