The rescue of Bear Stearns marks liberalisation’s limit


By Martin Wolf
Financial Times
March 25 2008


Remember Friday March 14 2008: it was the day the dream of global free-market capitalism died.

For three decades we have moved towards market-driven financial systems. By its decision to rescue Bear Stearns, the Federal Reserve, the institution responsible for monetary policy in the US, chief protagonist of free-market capitalism, declared this era over. It showed in deeds its agreement with the remark by Josef Ackermann, chief executive of Deutsche Bank, that “I no longer believe in the market’s self-healing power”.

Deregulation has reached its limits.

Mine is not a judgment on whether the Fed was right to rescue Bear Stearns from bankruptcy. I do not know whether the risks justified the decisions not only to act as lender of last resort to an investment bank but to take credit risk on the Fed’s books. But the officials involved are serious people. They must have had reasons for their decisions. They can surely point to the dangers of the times – a crisis that Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, calls “the most wrenching since the end of the second world war” – and the role of Bear Stearns in these fragile markets.

Mine is more a judgment on the implications of the Fed’s decision. Put simply, Bear Stearns was deemed too systemically important to fail. This view was, it is true, reached in haste, at a time of crisis. But times of crisis are when new functions emerge, notably the practices associated with the lender-of-last-resort function of central banks, in the 19th century.

The implications of this decision are evident: there will have to be far greater regulation of such institutions. The Fed has provided a valuable form of insurance to the investment banks. Indeed, that is already evident from what has happened in the stock market since the rescue: the other big investment banks have enjoyed sizeable jumps in their share prices (see chart below). This is moral hazard made visible. The Fed decided that a money market “strike” against investment banks is the equivalent of a run on deposits in a commercial bank. It concluded that it must, for this reason, open the monetary spigots in favour of such institutions.

Greater regulation must be on the way.

The lobbies of Wall Street will, it is true, resist onerous regulation of capital requirements or liquidity, after this crisis is over. They may succeed. But, intellectually, their position is now untenable. Systemically important institutions must pay for any official protection they receive.

Their ability to enjoy the upside on the risks they run, while shifting parts of the downside on to society at large, must be restricted. This is not just a matter of simple justice (although it is that, too). It is also a matter of efficiency. An unregulated, but subsidised, casino will not allocate resources well. Moreover, that subsidisation does not now apply only to shareholders, but to all creditors. Its effect is to make the costs of funds unreasonably cheap. These grossly misaligned incentives must be tackled.

I greatly regret the fact that the Fed thought it necessary to take this step. Once upon a time, I had hoped that securitisation would shift a substantial part of the risk-bearing outside the regulated banking system, where governments would no longer need to intervene. That has proved a delusion. A vast amount of risky, if not downright fraudulent, lending, promoted by equally risky finance, has made securitised markets highly risky. This has damaged institutions, notably Bear Stearns, that operated intensively in these markets.

Yet the extension of the Fed’s safety net to investment banks is not the only reason this crisis must mark a turning-point in attitudes to financial liberalisation. So, too, is the mess in the US (and perhaps quite soon several other developed countries’) housing markets. Ben Bernanke, Fed chairman, famously understated, described much of the subprime mortgage lending of recent years as “neither responsible nor prudent” in a speech whose details make one’s hair stand on end.*

This is Fed-speak for “criminal and crazy”.

Again, this must not happen again, particularly since the losses imposed on the financial system by such lending could yet prove enormous. The collapse in house prices, rising defaults and foreclosures will affect millions of voters. Politicians will not ignore their plight, even if the result is a costly bail-out of the imprudent. But the aftermath will surely be much more regulation than today’s.

If the US itself has passed the high water mark of financial deregulation, this will have wide global implications. Until recently, it was possible to tell the Chinese, the Indians or those who suffered significant financial crises in the past two decades that there existed a financial system both free and robust. That is the case no longer. It will be hard, indeed, to persuade such countries that the market failures revealed in the US and other high-income countries are not a dire warning. If the US, with its vast experience and resources, was unable to avoid these traps, why, they will ask, should we expect to do better?

These longer-term implications for attitudes to deregulated financial markets are far from the only reason the present turmoil is so significant. We still have to get through the immediate crisis. A collapse in financial profits (so significant in the US economy), a house-price crash and a big rise in commodity prices are a combination likely to generate a long and deep recession.

To tackle this danger the Fed has already slashed short-term rates to 2.25 per cent. Meanwhile, the Fed also clearly risks a global flight from dollar- denominated liabilities and a resurgence in inflation. It is hard to see a reason for yields on long-term Treasuries being so low, other than a desire to hold the liabilities of the US Treasury, safest issuer of dollar- denominated securities.

“Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice.” Harvard’s Kenneth Rogoff recently quoted Robert Frost’s words in describing the dangers of financial ruin (fire) and inflation (ice) confronting us.**

These are perilous times. They are also historic times. The US is showing the limits of deregulation. Managing this unavoidable shift, without throwing away what has been gained in the past three decades, is a huge challenge. So is getting through the deleveraging ahead in anything like one piece. But we must start in the right place, by recognising that even the recent past is a foreign country.

*Fostering Sustainable Homeownership, March 14 2008, www.federalreserve.gov; **Globalization and Monetary Policy, March 7 2008, conference on globalization, inflation and monetary Policy, www.banque-france.fr

Source:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8ced5202-fa94-11dc-aa46-000077b07658.html
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Paulson's Fixit Plan for Wall Street

If It's Not Dead on Arrival, Someone Should Shoot It Quick


By Mike Whitney
March 31, 2008


It is being billed as a "massive shakeup of US financial market regulation", but don't be deceived.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's proposals for broad market reform are neither "timely" nor "thoughtful" (Reuters)

In fact, its all just more of the same free market "we can police ourselves" mumbo jumbo that got us into this mess in the first place. The real objective of Paulson's so called reforms is to decapitate the SEC and increase the powers of the Federal Reserve. Same wine, different bottle. Paulson's motive is to preempt any regulatory sledgehammer that might descend on the entire financial industry following the 2008 election. There's growing fear that an incoming Democrat may tote a firehose down to Wall Street.

If Paulson's plan is approved in its present form, Congress will have even less control over the financial system than it does now and the same group of self-serving banking mandarins who created the biggest equity bubble in history will be able to administer the markets however they choose without the inconvenience of government supervision. That's exactly what Wall Street, the Treasury Secretary and the folk at the Fed want; unlimited power with no accountability.

Paulson is expected to lay out guidelines and principles that are intended to help regulators supervise the financial markets.

According to AFP:
"The President's Working Group on Financial Markets said the current regulatory structure is working well despite calls by some US lawmakers."

In other words, the failing banking system, the housing meltdown, and the frozen corporate bond market are all signs of a robust financial system? This may be the most ludicrous statement since "Mission accomplished".

The system is imploding and people are being hurt by the fallout.

Thirty years of industry-led lobbying has dismantled the (admittedly frail ad porous) regulatory regime which made US financial markets the envy of the world. Whatever credibility and transparency once existed were washed out in the Clinton era, as with Glass-Steagall and government oversight of the explosive growth of over-the counter derivatives instruments. Now the system is prey to all types of dodgy debt instruments, suspicious "dark pool" trading and off-balance sheets operations which further reinforce the belief that cautious investment is no better than casino gambling.

"The regulatory line of sight today is by the counterparties," the official said, adding that the guidelines should be "beneficial to industry." (AFP)

How is that different than saying, "Caveat emptor"? That's not a motto that inspires confidence.

Many people still naively believe that planning their retirement should not have to be a Darwinian tussle with a crafty junk-bond salesman.

Under Paulson's plan, the Federal Reserve will be granted new regulatory powers, but whatever for? The Fed doesn't use the powers it has now. No one stopped the Fed from intervening in the mortgage lending fiasco, or the ratings agency abuses or the off-balance sheets shenanigans.

They had the authority and they should have used it. The folks at the Fed knew everything that was going on---including the mushrooming sales of derivatives contracts which soared from under $1 trillion in 2000 to over $500 trillion in 2006---but they decided to cheerlead from the sidelines rather than do their jobs. The fact is, they were worried that if they got involved they might upset the gravy-train of profits that was enriching their bankster friends.

Former Fed chief Greenspan used to croon like a smitten teenager every time he was asked about subprime loans or adjustable rate mortgages. And, as New York Times columnist Floyd Norris points out, (Greenspan) "praised the growth in the derivatives market as a boon for market stability, and resisted calls to use the Fed's power to increase regulation."

Of course, he did. It was all part of Maestro's "New Economy"; trickle-down Elysium, where the endless flow of low interest credit merged with financial innovation to create a Reaganesque El Dorado. There are no regulations in this version of Eden, not even "Don't bite the apple".

Anything goes and to heck with the public, they can fend for themselves.Now its Paulson's job to keep the neoliberal flame lit long enough to make sure that government busybodies and bureaucratic do-goodies don't upset the cart. That means concocting a wacky public relations campaign to convince the public that Wall Street is not just a pirate's cove of land-sharks and bunko artists, but a trusted ally in maintaining a strong economy through vital and efficient markets.

The Times' Norris summed up Paulson's sham reforms like this:

"The plan has its genesis in a yearlong effort to limiting Washington's role in the market. And that DNA is unmistakably evident in the fine print. Although the proposal would impose the first regulation of hedge funds and private equity funds, that oversight would have a light touch, enabling the government to do little beyond collecting information - except in times of crisis. The regulatory umbrella created in the 1930s would grow wider, with power concentrated in fewer agencies. But that authority would be limited, doing virtually nothing to regulate the many new financial products whose unwise use has been a culprit in the current financial crisis. ("In Treasury Plan, a Reluctant Eye over Wall Street", Floyd Norris, New York Times)

What nonsense. The house is on fire and hyperventilating Hank is still wasting our time with this rubbish. The real problem is that Paulson and his buddies at the Federal Reserve think of the financial system as their personal fiefdom so they refuse to loosen their \ grip even though the economy is listing starboard and the water is flooding into the lower decks.

Once again, the New York Times:

"All the checks and balances in the plan reflect the mindset of its architect, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who came to Washington after a long career on Wall Street. He has worried that any effort to substantially tighten regulation could hamper the ability of American markets to compete with foreign rivals."

No one elected Paulson to do anything. He has no mandate. He is an industry rep. who has worked exclusively for a small group of wealthy investors who have put the entire country at risk with their toxic mortgage-backed bonds, their reckless Ponzi-type speculation, and their off-book chicanery.

Paulson should be removed immediately and returned to his wolf's lair at Goldman-Sax.

If Bush is serious about straightening out Wall Street, then bring in Eliot Spitzer. He's probably available, at least in daytime hours. And he'll do what it takes to clean house, that is, put a truncheon-wielding robo-cop in every trading-pit at the NYSE, and dispatch government accountants to every office of every CFO making sure they have a Big Red Pen in one hand and a taser in the other. That's the only way to get the attention of the bandit-class.

"I do not believe it is fair or accurate to blame our regulatory structure for the current turmoil," says Paulson.

Paulson is wrong.

The current turmoil is all about the lack of regulation and he'd better prepare himself for some big changes. The pendulum is already in motion and tighter regulations will soon follow. There needs to be an accounting process for all transactions and capital requirements for every financial institution that creates credit. No exceptions. All of these businesses pose a real danger to the overall system and, therefore, must conform to clearly articulated and strictly enforced rules; no off-balance sheets operations, no dark pool trading, no unregulated derivatives contracts, no level 3 assets, no "mark to model" garbage bonds where CFOs unilaterally decide what they are worth by picking a number out of a hat.

Its time to restore order to the markets so retirees and working class families can feel safe investing in their futures. They are the ones who are most hurt by Wall Street's endless trickery.

Paulson's plan is a non starter. The era of sandbagging, supply-side banditry is over.

Good riddance.

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com

Source:
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney03312008.html
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Salmon Virus Indicts Chile’s Fishing Methods


By Alexei Barriounuevo
New York Times
March 27, 2008


PUERTO MONTT, Chile — Looking out over the low green mountains jutting through miles of placid waterways here in southern Chile, it is hard to imagine that anything could be amiss. But beneath the rows of neatly laid netting around the fish farms just off the shore, the salmon are dying.

A virus called infectious salmon anemia, or I.S.A., is killing millions of salmon destined for export to Japan, Europe and the United States. The spreading plague has sent shivers through Chile’s third-largest export industry, which has left local people embittered by laying off more than 1,000 workers.

It has also opened the companies to fresh charges from biologists and environmentalists who say that the breeding of salmon in crowded underwater pens is contaminating once-pristine waters and producing potentially unhealthy fish.

Some say the industry is raising its fish in ways that court disaster, and producers are coming under new pressure to change their methods to preserve southern Chile’s cobalt blue waters for tourists and other marine life.

“All these problems are related to an underlying lack of sanitary controls,” said Dr. Felipe C. Cabello, a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at New York Medical College in Valhalla that has studied Chile’s fishing industry. “Parasitic infections, viral infections, fungal infections are all disseminated when the fish are stressed and the centers are too close together.”

Industry executives acknowledge some of the problems, but they reject the notion that their practices are unsafe for consumers. American officials also say the new virus is not harmful to humans.

But the latest outbreak has occurred after a rash of nonviral illnesses in recent years that the companies acknowledge have led them to use high levels of antibiotics. Researchers say the practice is widespread in the Chilean industry, which is a mix of international and Chilean producers. Some of those antibiotics, they say, are prohibited for use on animals in the United States.

Many of those salmon still end up in American grocery stores, where about 29 percent of Chilean exports are destined. While fish from China have come under special scrutiny in recent months, here in Chile regulators have yet to form a registry that even tracks the use of the drugs, researchers said.

The new virus is spreading, but it has primarily affected the fish of Marine Harvest, a Norwegian company that is the world’s biggest producer of farm-raised salmon and exports about 20 percent of the salmon that come from Chile.

Salmon produced in Chile by Marine Harvest are sold in Costco and Safeway stores, among other major grocery retailers, said Torben Petersen, the managing director of Marine Harvest here.

Arne Hjeltnes, the main spokesman in Oslo for Marine Harvest, said that his company recognized that antibiotic use was too high in Chile and that fish pens too close together had contributed to the problems. He said Marine Harvest welcomed tougher environmental regulations.

“Some people have advocated that this industry is too good to be true,” Mr. Hjeltnes said. “But as long as everybody has been making lots of money and it has been going very well, there has been no reason to take tough measures.”

He called the current crisis “eye-opening” to the different measures that are needed.
On a recent visit to the port of Castro, about 105 miles south of Puerto Montt, a warehouse contained hundreds of bags, some weighing as much as 2,750 pounds, filled with salmon food and medication.

The bags — many of which were labeled “Marine Harvest” and “medicated food” for the fish — contained antibiotics and pigment as well as hormones to make the fish grow faster, said Adolfo Flores, the port director.

Environmentalists say the salmon are being farmed for export at the expense of almost everything else around. The equivalent of 7 to 11 pounds of fresh fish are required to produce 2 pounds of farmed salmon, according to estimates.

Salmon feces and food pellets are stripping the water of oxygen, killing other marine life and spreading disease, biologists and environmentalists say. Escaped salmon are eating other fish species and have begun invading rivers and lakes as far away as neighboring Argentina, researchers say.

“It is simply not possible to produce fish on an industrial scale in a sustainable way,” said Wolfram Heise, director of the marine conservation program at the Pumalin Project, a private conservation initiative in Chile. “You will never get it into ecological balance.”

When companies began breeding non-native Atlantic salmon here some two decades ago, salmon farming was seen as a godsend for this sparsely populated area of sleepy fishing towns and campgrounds.

The industry has grown eightfold since 1990. Today it employs 53,000 people either directly or indirectly. Marine Harvest runs the world’s largest “closed system” fish-farming operation at Rio Blanco, near Puerto Montt, where 35 million fish a year are raised until they weigh about a third of an ounce.

As the industry abandons the Lakes region in search of uncontaminated waters elsewhere, local residents are angry and worried about their future.

The salmon companies “are robbing us of our wealth,” said Victor Guttierrez, a fisherman from Cochamó, a town ringing the Gulf of Reloncavi, which is dotted with salmon farms. “They bring illnesses and then leave us with the problems.”

Since discovering the virus in Chile last July, Marine Harvest has closed 14 of its 60 centers and announced it would lay off 1,200 workers, or one-quarter of its Chilean operation. Since the company announced last month that it would move south, to Aysén, the government has said the virus has spread there as well, in two outbreaks not involving Marine Harvest.

Industry officials say Chile is suffering growing pains similar to salmon farming operations in Norway, Scotland and the Faroe Islands, where a different form of the I.S.A. virus struck previously.

Norway, the world’s leading salmon producer, eventually decided to spread salmon farms farther apart, reducing stress on the fish, and responded to criticism of high antibiotic use with stronger regulations and the development of vaccines.

Researchers in Chile say the problems of salmon farming go well beyond the latest virus. Their concerns mirror those of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris, which heavily criticized Chile’s farm-fishing industry in a 2005 report.

The O.E.C.D. said the industry needed to limit the escapes of about one million salmon a year; control the use of fungicides like green malachite, a carcinogen that was prohibited in 2002; and better regulate the colorant used to make salmon more rosy, which has been associated with retina problems in humans. It also said Chile’s use of antibiotics was “excessive.”

Officials at Sernapesca, Chile’s national fish agency, declined repeated requests for interviews for this article and did not respond to written questions submitted more than a week ago.

But Cesar Barros, the president of SalmonChile, an industry association, said, “We are working with the government to improve the situation.”

He dismissed the broader criticism of sanitary conditions, saying there was no scientific evidence to support the claims. But researchers charge that the industry has been reluctant to pay for scientific studies, which Chile sorely needs.

Residual antibiotics have been detected in Chilean salmon that have been exported to the United States, Canada and Europe, Dr. Cabello said.

He estimated that 70 to 300 times more antibiotics are used by salmon producers in Chile to produce a ton of salmon than in Norway. But no hard data exist to corroborate the estimates, he said, “because there is almost an underground market of antibiotics in Chile for salmon aquaculture.”

Researchers say that some antibiotics that are not allowed in American aquaculture, like flumequine and oxolinic acid, are legal in Chile and may increase antibiotic resistance for people.

Last June the United States Food and Drug Administration blocked the sale of five types of Chinese seafood because of the use of fluoroquinolones and other additives.

But huge numbers of fish go uninspected. The F.D.A. inspected only 1.93 percent of all imported seafood in 2006, Food and Water Watch said, citing F.D.A. data.

Stephanie Kwisnek, a spokeswoman for the F.D.A., said that she did not know the percentage inspected. But she said the F.D.A. tested 40 samples of the 114,320 net tons of salmon imported from Chile in 2007. None of them tested positive for malachite green, oxolinic acid, flumequine, Ivermectin, fluoroquinolones or drug residues, she said.

The F.D.A. is planning an inspection trip to assess Chile’s overall controls on its farmed salmon, she added.

Mr. Petersen, the managing director of Marine Harvest in Chile, said the company planned to return to the Lakes region in a few years, once the area had become free of contamination. In the longer term, he said, Marine Harvest will leave Chile’s fresh-water lakes and produce more older salmon in closed systems where it can maintain “biological control.”

Meanwhile, neighboring fishermen who have been affected by the fish-farming industry can only hope for better days. Mr. Guttierrez, 33, said that just six years ago he and his fishing partner would haul in 1,100 pounds of robalo on a typical day. On a recent day he pointed to that morning’s catch of only 88 pounds in a cooler in the bed of a pickup truck.

He lamented the changes he had observed in the fish: they are rosier than before, and their skin is flabbier. He said he suspected that the wild fish were eating the same food pellets that the salmon were being fed, which he said were falling to the sea floor.

“If the water continues to be contaminated, we will simply have to go to another area to find our fish,” he said. “But it is getting harder and harder.”

Pascale Bonnefoy contributed reporting from Santiago, Chile.

Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/world/americas/27salmon.html?em&ex=1206849600&en=4556586d0a469d39&ei=5087%0A
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China Stumbles as Tibet Burns


by S.R. Nunnally
Taipan Trader


The 2008 Olympic games were hoped to be a moment of great pride for China. But as the Olympic torch wends its way to Beijing, dark questions loom.

For instance: The torch is scheduled to pass through Tibet on June 19. But will Lhasa, the strife-torn Tibetan capital, be ready to receive it?

The current outbreak of violence and unrest in Tibet is the worst in decades. The Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader in exile, has even threatened to resign if the violence doesn’t stop.

Harsh Words, Harsh Actions

China’s heavy-handed actions in Lhasa have sparked protests around the world. At the official torch-lighting ceremony in Athens, Greece, protestors breeched security to disrupt a speech. Upon grabbing the spotlight, they waved a flag showing the Olympic circles as handcuffs.
It just so happens that Beijing’s envoy, Mr. Liu Qi, was the one speaking at the time.

These protests weren’t just minor skirmishes. They are starting to have a real effect. On March 19, for example, Germany declared that its aid talks with the Chinese government were suspended as a result of the military crackdown in Tibet.

Germany was furious with China for its words as well as its deeds. Chinese officials talked of the Tibetan uprising as “a fierce battle of blood and fire,” calling it “a life-and-death struggle between the foe and us.”

Those are harsh words to be sure. Germany’s human rights commissioner, Guenther Nooke, responded with equal harshness: “The language used by the Chinese government is unspeakable,” Nooke said. “The vocabulary of the Chinese Cultural Revolution is being used here again. That scares me. We shouldn’t allow a country like China to get away with it.”

Tensions Rising

Other Western leaders agree. U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared that, “If freedom-loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China’s oppression in Tibet, we have lost our moral authority to speak on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world.” And how did China respond? By calling her “a defender of arsonists, looters and killers.” Ouch.

Tensions are rising as the West applies more scrutiny, and criticism, to China’s actions. No one is quite sure how things will turn out, or how Beijing will ultimately handle this.

The global outcry has got investors’ hackles raised. It certainly has our attention, too. China’s fast-growing market has been an investment hot spot for years now. So when investors start hesitating, it’s important to keep a close eye on the situation.

And of course, this couldn’t come at a worse time for China. The Olympic games are like a new film director’s first shot at a blockbuster movie. They could make or break China’s budding relationship with the rest of the world.

he Wall Street Journal does a good job of clarifying what’s at stake here:

How China responds could have enormous repercussions domestically, as well as internationally – especially given the approach of this summer’s Beijing Olympics. A bloody crackdown would draw international condemnations and, possibly, a boycott of the Olympics by some nations or athletes – potentially spoiling what is intended to be a sort of coming-out party for China. It also would be a huge embarrassment for corporate sponsors.

In short, everyone’s on pins and needles waiting to see how this will play out.

We may not have a clear answer until the actual Olympics take place, when we see who shows up. But certainly, by the time the torch makes its way through the Himalayas, things had better be improving. China can ill afford this new blow to its reputation.

The good news is, China is not the only fast-growing country in Asia. Far from it. And that leads me to conclude it’s time to look at some of the other Asian countries for opportunity and growth.

Beyond China: Vietnam and Singapore

The timing could hardly be better actually. This coming Monday, I’ll begin my journey to two Southeast Asian countries: Vietnam and Singapore.

My discoveries begin in the bustling city of Saigon, where I have an exclusive interview scheduled with the manager of one of the best-performing funds investing in Vietnam. It’s got nearly a billion dollars invested.

Want to know where they’re putting their money? I’ll be asking...

I’ll spend the next two weeks making my way up the coast to Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, with all her colonial splendor. My trip will take me past multi-industrial complexes, where countries like Germany and the U.K. are spending billions of dollars to develop anything from manufacturing to refining. Infrastructure is big in Vietnam, and I’ll find out which projects are next to receive funds, and who will profit.

From Hanoi, I’ll catch a plane to the immaculate city-state of Singapore, whose stock exchange has attracted more than 200 international companies. Rumor has it that Vietnam’s Hanoi Securities Trading Center could float shares of its listed companies on the Singapore exchange, too.

Just how far does this inter-country cooperation go? From mobile phones to shipbuilding to airlines, Singapore and Vietnam are increasing their economic ties.

Did you know, by the way, that the tiny nation of Singapore has the third-largest sovereign wealth fund in the world, with assets of $330 billion? That’s enough for the government to write a $100,000 check to each and every one of its citizens.

My goal is to find out how investors can get in on this wealth boom. I’ll spend six days getting to the bottom of things.

Countries like Vietnam and Singapore are enjoying peace and prosperity right now. That’s a big contrast with the upheaval and uncertainty plaguing China and Tibet (and the economic woes plaguing America, too).

This just goes to show that, while global cooperation remains critical to emerging markets, not all countries are joined at the hip. Even with unrest next door, independent and thriving economies are making their debut.

Source:
http://www.taipanpublishinggroup.com/taipan-trader/
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Ethanol presents fire challenge


March 24, 2008
Arkansas Democrat Gazette


Many small-town and rural fire departments across the nation do not buy alcoholresistant foam to snuff out corn-based ethanol fires because it is too expensive.

“The proliferation of ethanol is becoming an issue in our communities,” said the national programs director for the International Association of Fire Chiefs in Fairfax, Virginia.

“Preparation nationally for these fires varies widely, but I think we have a severe shortage of alcohol-resistant foam in our communities,” he said.

Small cities are likely to look to the regional hazardous materials team for help if a major ethanol fire comes to pass, said a fire chief in Gentry, Arkansas.

They would take the same approach if a tanker carrying gasoline or diesel fuel caught fire.

“We’d make the initial response, and once we identified it, we’d activate the regional team,” he said.

Source:
http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/220730/
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Authorities cite, then release nineteen Anti-Nuclear protestors


March 24, 2008
Las Vegas Review Journal


Nineteen anti-nuclear protesters were cited for trespassing during an annual rally Sunday outside the Nevada Test Site, security officials said.

They were among about 30 demonstrators who took part in the event sponsored by the Nevada Desert Experience outside the test site, said the protest organizer.

The 19 protesters were released after being cited by Nye County sheriff’s deputies for crossing onto test site property, said a spokesman for the company that provides security there.

The Nevada Desert Experience has been holding the test site rallies around Easter since 1981.

Source:
http://www.lvrj.com/news/16948486.html
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Nuclear energy breakthrough – from atomic waste to recycled inert material


March 24, 2008
Cutting Edge


Israeli firm Environmental Energy Resources (EER) has created a reactor that converts radioactive, hazardous, and municipal waste into inert byproducts such as glass and clean energy.

Using a system called plasma gasification melting technology developed by Russian and Israeli scientists, EER combines high temperatures and low-radioactive energy to transform waste.

“We are not burning. This is the key word,” said EER’s president.

“When you burn you produce dioxin. Instead, we vacuum out the oxygen to prevent combustion.”

He said that EER can take lowradioactive, medical, and municipal solid waste and produce from it clean energy that “can be used for just about anything including building and paving roads.”

The cost for treating and burying low-radioactive nuclear waste currently stands at about $30,000 per ton.

The EER process will cost $3,000 per ton and produce only a one percent per volume solid byproduct.

In the U.S., EER is working to treat low-radioactive liquid waste and recently contracted with Energy Solutions.

Source:
http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=381
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How to Find Out if You Use Too Much Water


By Tara Lohan
AlterNet
March 22, 2008,


These days the environmental buzz is all about carbon. People, businesses and even countries are talking about their "carbon footprint" -- or the impact of their activities on the environment in terms of the greenhouse gases produced (and measured in CO2). As we evolve in our consciousness about how our consumption affects the world around us, and what we can do to live equitably within the bounds of our planet's resources, we need to consider much more than just carbon.

A next step is water. Many of us in the developed world rarely give it a thought. We turn on our drinking and shower taps, and clean water comes out. We flush our toilets and magically, the waste disappears. We turn on our sprinklers and green lawns abound. We run our dishwaters and washing machines and fill up our pools and hot tubs, often without thought.

As our climate crisis becomes a part of daily consciousness, our energy future will need to match our water future. The two are inextricably linked.

And today, on World Water Day, it is the perfect time to ask: How much water do we use?

A new website, H2O Conserve, allows you to actually calculate how much water you use so you can begin to assess your "water footprint."

As their site explains, "Your water footprint takes into account not only the water used in your home, but also the water that is used to produce the food you choose to eat and the products you buy. Your water footprint also includes other factors, such as the water used to cool the power plants that provide your electricity and the water that is saved when you recycle. You may not drink, feel or see this water, but it makes up the large majority of your water footprint."

On a global scale, water consumption varies greatly. It is estimated that, in order to survive, a person needs 4 to 5 gallons of water per day -- this includes water for drinking, cooking and sanitation. The average water use per person per day, just for domestic purposes in the United States and Canada is actually around 150 gallons. In Europe, things are different. With roughly the same standard of living, the average resident of the United Kingdom uses 31 gallons per person per day. And of course, in the developing world, the numbers are a stark contrast. The average person living in Africa uses 5 gallons per person per day, which means that in many areas, people are getting even less water than that -- and often not enough to survive. Globally, a staggering 25,000 people die daily from lack of access to clean water.

While the water consumption rates for the United States seem high in comparison, the amount of water we all use is actually even higher. These statistics consider only the basic domestic water use, but the H2O Calculator gives a more holistic view of what impact we have on our water resources. This includes where our energy comes from, the products we buy, how much we drive, whether we use bottled water, and the kinds of food we eat.

The website also goes a step further -- once you know your shocking number (and yes, you'll probably be shocked by the actual number of gallons you use in a day because it's more like 1,000 and not 150) -- there is a ton of information that helps you figure out how to cut that footprint down. Some things are definitely lifestyle choices, like how far you drive and the vehicle you use to get you there. Or the kind of food you eat -- eating lower on the food chain, less meat and dairy, saves a lot more water.

Some of the tips are also pricey and geared more towards homeowners, like when you're in the market for new appliances, choose Energy Star-rated ones or get a rain sensor for your automatic sprinklers on your lawn (or better yet, use xeriscaping).

Of course, replacing toilets, showerheads and faucets with low-flow/flush versions save a lot of water and aren't too expensive. Likewise, setting up rain-harvesting or graywater systems to reuse water (although not for drinking) is a great way to cut back on water consumption without shelling out a ton of money. After all, do we really need to be using potable water to flush our toilets and water our lawns?

But there are also lots of tips for people that may be renters or apartment dwellers and aren't able to change their appliances or install solar panels. Here's a few: Recycle and reuse products in your home; buy whole instead of processed foods; only run the dishwasher when full, and if washing by hand, don't leave the water running; save water you use for boiling, and let it cool and then use it for your plants; be speedy in the shower; and the list goes on. A lot of it is common sense or what you may have heard from your parents or grandparents, but much of us could probably use a reminder.

You are what you eat (and buy)

Of course cutting down on how much water we use in our homes and yards is important, but it is only part of the equation. The products that we buy also have their own water footprints that we inherit. How thirsty are some of those?

Here's how H2O Conserve breaks it down:

• Steel for the average car takes about 32,000 gallons of water to produce.
• Every gallon of gas that a car burns takes 1.75 gallons of water for refining.
• It takes 24 gallons of water to make 1 pound of plastic, so to produce the average soda (or water) bottle it takes 1.5 gallons of water.
• Each pound of cotton that makes up our sheets, blankets, towels and clothes takes 101 gallons to produce.
• A pound of beef takes over 1,500 gallons of water.
• A cheese sandwich is about 34 gallons of water.
• A bag of potato chips is 83 gallons of water.
• A beer is 30 gallons of water.

When you start to break down the numbers, it can get overwhelming -- if not disheartening.

But the good thing about our water footprints is that so much of it is in our control. Every time we recycle and conserve, we are decreasing our footprint.

We also have options to eat local or regionally produced food and to stay away from the processed, packaged stuff. And when we begin to limit the number of goods we buy or the miles we drive, we're not just impacting our water footprint, we are reducing our carbon footprint as well. When we buy local food, we may also be getting to know our neighbors better and supporting small farmers and local businesses.

Every drop counts

Right now we live in a world that is getting thirstier by the minute. Over 1 billion people don't have access to adequate drinking water and that number is expected to grow over the coming decades.

By 2025, the United Nations estimates that 2.8 billion people in 48 countries will be living in areas facing water stress or scarcity. Ten years from now, water managers in the United States expect that 36 states will be strapped for water. Already, regions of the United States, including the Southwest and Southeast have experienced drought in the last year, with Atlanta nearing the end of its drinking supply.

While globally, agriculture uses 70 percent of the world's water, in the United States the numbers are split more evenly between farming (40 percent) and energy/power plants (39) percent. Industry uses 5 percent. Taken together, that's 300 billion gallons of fresh water every day.

Like carbon, our water footprints, need to extend to more than just domestic measures. We can help make industry and agriculture more efficient, and we can move toward using more sustainable energy sources that cut down on both water and fossil fuels.

We can eliminate our use of bottled water, and we can fight water privatization at home and around the globe. We can tackle pollution problems and demand clean water standards. We can also support organizations like Food and Water Watch, the Polaris Institute, Blue Planet Project, International Rivers, and Corporate Accountability International, which are fighing water privatization, helping people eliminate bottled water or organizing grassroots movements for water justice.

Thankfully, there is a growing movement across the world that is dedicated to not just helping to conserve and protect our water resources, but also helping to ensure that what we do have is equitably distributed. We can start by figuring out our water footprint, and we can keep going from there. World Water Day is a great day to start.

Tara Lohan is a managing editor at AlterNet.
© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

Take the test and find out how much your water footprint is.

View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/80444/
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Happy Anniversary,

America!

How Lethally Stupid Can One Country Be?


by David Michael Green
CommonDreams.org
March 21, 2008


Watching George W. Bush in operation these last couple of weeks is like having an out-of-body experience. On acid. During a nightmare. In a different galaxy.

As he presides over the latest disaster of his administration, (No, it’s not a terrorist attack - that was 2001! No, it’s not a catastrophic war - that was 2003! No, it’s not a drowning city - that was 2005! This one is an economic meltdown, ladies and gentlemen!) bringing to it the same blithe disengagement with which he’s attended the previous ones, you cannot but stop and gaze in stark, comedic awe, realizing that the most powerful polity that ever existed on the planet twice picked this imbecilic buffoon as its leader, from among 300 million other choices.

Seeing him clown with the Washington press corps yet once again - and seeing them fawn over him, laugh in all the right places, and give him a standing ovation, also yet once again - is the equivalent of having all your logic circuits blown simultaneously. Truly, the universe has a twisted and deeply ironic sense of humor. Monty Python is about as funny - and as stiff - as Dick Nixon, by comparison.

It’s simply incomprehensible.

It’s not so astonishing, of course, that a country could have a bad leader whose aims are nefarious on the occasions when they are competent enough to rise to that level of intentionality.

Plenty of countries have managed that feat, especially when - as was the case with Bush - every sort of scam is employed to steal power, and then pure corruption and intimidation used to keep it. History is quite littered indeed with bimbos and petty criminals of this caliber. What is harder to explain is how a country of such remarkable achievements in other domains, and with the capacity to choose, and in the twenty-first century no less, allows this to happen. And then stands by silently watching for eight years as the tragedy unfolds before their eyes, all 600 million of them, hardly any of them even blinking.

And so, remarkably, as we mark now the fifth anniversary of the very most tragic of these debacles, the most destructive and the most shameful - because it was the most avoidable - the sad question of the hour is less what is to be done about it than will anyone even notice? Not likely. And not for very long if they do. And, most of all, definitely not enough so as to take meaningful action to bring it to an end, even at this absurdly late date.

But let’s give credit where credit is due. This is precisely by design. This is exactly the outcome intended by the greatest propaganda-promulgating regime since Hermann Göring set fire to the Reichstag. It was Göring himself who famously reminded us that, “Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. …Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

Sure worked in Germany. And it worked even better here, because these guys were so absolutely careful to avoid exposing the costs of their war to those who could demand its end.

For example, by some counts, there are more mercenaries fighting in Iraq, at extremely high cost, than there are US military personnel. There’s only one reason for that. If the administration implemented the draft that is actually necessary to supply this war with adequate personnel, the public would end both the war and the careers of its sponsors, post haste. For the same reason, this is the first American war ever which has not only not been accompanied by a tax increase, but has in fact witnessed a tax cut.

Likewise - to ‘preserve the dignity’ of the dead, of course - you are no longer permitted to see photographs of flag-draped caskets returning to Dover Air Force Base. And the press are embedded with forces who are also responsible for their safety, which is just a fancy way of saying that they’re so censored they make Pravda look good. It is, in short, quite easy for average Americans to get through their day, every day, without the war impacting their lives in any visible respect, and that is precisely what hundreds of millions of us are doing, week in and week out. All of this is courtesy of an administration that couldn’t run a governmental program to save its own life - but, boy, they sure as hell know how to market stuff.

So perhaps there is no excuse, after all, for my naïveté, for my credulousness in wanting to believe that twenty-first century America might be different enough not to follow the smallest of men - a personal failure and a 40-year drunkard who, unlike Herr Göring’s führer, couldn’t even claim charismatic eloquence as the sole virtue accounting for his power - to follow such a petulant child off the deep end of a completely unjustified war.

Perhaps Americans and American democracy are no wiser or better than any other people or political system, even today, even after the worst century of warfare in human history, even after the mirror-image experience of Vietnam. Maybe the experience of Iraq hasn’t even changed them, and they’ll once again follow like lemmings when led to war by pathetic creatures such as George W. Bush, fifty years from now. Or five years from now. Or even five months from now, as the creature d.b.a Dick Cheney tees up a confrontation with Iran in order keep Democrats out of the White House, and himself out of jail.

Sure, presidents and prime ministers, no less than kings and führers, will lie their countries into war. Sure, they’re very good at it, and getting better all the time. Definitely a frightened people are more prone to stupidity than those lucky enough to contemplate in the luxury of quiet safety. Without question, it helps an awful lot - if you’re just Joe Sixpack, out there trying to figure out international politics in-between a long day’s work, helping the kids with their algebra homework, and the Yankee game - to have a checking-and-balancing Congress, a responsible opposition party, and/or a critical media helping you to understand the issues accurately, rather than gleefully capitulating to executive power at every opportunity. But that by no means excuses a public who were fundamentally far more lazy than they were ignorant or confused.

And lazy is one thing when you’re talking about a highway bill or even national healthcare. But when it comes to war, lazy is murder.

I don’t think it took a giant leap of logic to understand that this war was bogus from the beginning, even based on what was known at the time. The war was sold on three basic arguments, each of which could have been easily dismantled even then with a little thoughtful consideration.

The first was WMD, of course.

So, okay, perhaps your average American didn’t know that the United States government (including many in the current administration) had actually once supplied Saddam Hussein the material to make these evil weapons, and had covered for him at the UN and elsewhere when he used them. Although this historical myopia is very much part of the problem, of course.

Americans are so ready to denounce supposed enemies without doing the slightest bit of historical homework to become acquainted with the slightest bit of history to make sense of the situation. If you don’t know that the US actually canceled elections and helped assassinate a ‘democratic’ president in Vietnam, of course you’re going to support war there. If you don’t know that the US toppled a democratically elected Iranian government to steal the country’s oil and then installed a brutal dictatorship in its place, of course you’re going to be angry at US diplomats being held hostage. And if you don’t bother to learn the true history of Iraq, perhaps you’ll find the WMD argument quite persuasive.

But, in fact, even without the historical background information, it never made a damn bit of sense. Iraq had been pulverized by war and sanctions for over twenty years prior to 2003. Two-thirds of its airspace was controlled by foreign militaries. Its northern region was effectively autonomous, a separate country in all but name. It was in no position to attack anyone.

Moreover, it hadn’t attacked anyone - not the United States or anyone else. Indeed, it hadn’t even threatened to attack anyone. Shouldn’t that be part of the calculation in determining whether to go to war? Do we really want to give carte blanche to any dry (we hope) drunkard in the White House who today wants to bomb Norway (”They’re stealing our fish!”), or tomorrow wants to invade Burkina Faso (”They dress funny!”)?

Too often, of course, the historical answer to that question has unfortunately been yes, we apparently do want to do that. But let’s consider the massive warning signs in this case, even apart from what could be known about the administration’s lies at the time. Shouldn’t it have been enormously problematic that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11?

Even the administration never had the gall to make that claim. Wasn’t it transparent to anyone that America had plenty on its plate already in dealing with the enemy we were told we had, rather than adding a new adventure to the pile? And why wasn’t this thing selling throughout the world, or even amongst the traitorous half of the Democratic Party in Congress?

Remember how everyone at home and abroad - yes, including the French - supported the US and its military actions in Afghanistan only twelve months before?

Shouldn’t it have been a warning sign of epic proportions that these same folks wouldn’t countenance a war in Iraq just a year later? That the administration had to yank its Security Council resolution off the table, even after breaking both the arms of every member-state around the horseshoe table, because it could still only get Britain and two other patsies to lie down for this outrage, out of a total of fifteen, and nine needed to pass?

And how about the logic of that whole WMD thing, after all? Did anyone ever stop to think that several dozen other countries have WMD, including some that are pretty hostile to the United States? Did anyone not remember that the Soviets once had nearly 25,000 strategic nuclear warheads pointed in our direction? What ever happened to the logic of deterrence?

To mutually assured destruction? And what about the mad rush to go to war, preempting the UN weapons inspectors from doing their job? Are we really okay with the notion that instead of ‘risking’ whatever would have been at risk by giving the inspectors another six or eight weeks to finish up, we’ve instead bought this devastating war down on our own heads for no reason at all? If you stop to think about it, it makes you shudder. Which I guess explains why not too many people stop to think about it.

The second rationale for war was the bogus linkage between Iraq and al Qaeda. The extent and ramifications of this lie are so significant that the White House, it was just recently revealed, squelched a Pentagon report showing no connections between the two. Is this sort of censorship what the Bush administration means by democracy, the remedy it’s always preaching for the rest of the world but never practicing at home?

Anyhow, remember how definitive Cheney and the rest were of this supposed al Qaeda linkage, based pretty much entirely on a meeting between two operatives in Prague which likely didn’t even take place? Now we find out that the Department of Defense has spent the last five years combing through a mere 600,000 documents, and found zero evidence of such a link. Not some evidence. Not mixed evidence.

Zero evidence.

But you could tell even then that they had almost nothing to go on. Christ, the United States government itself has had far more interactions with al Qaeda - including helping to build the beast from its inception - than one disputed meeting between two spooks in Prague. Doesn’t it seem that a decision to go to war should hang on more than a single thread like that, let alone a narrow and tattered one? And how many of us are down for attacking any country right now that might have had a single meeting between a low-level functionary and an al Qaeda representative?

Then, once again, there’s the matter of that whole pesky logic thing. Pay attention now, class. What do we know about al Qaeda? They are devoted to religious war - jihad - in the name of replacing governments across the Middle East with theocracies, or better yet recreating the old Islamic caliphate stretching across the region, right? Right. Now if this vision could have more thoroughly contradicted Saddam’s agenda for a secular dictatorship seeking regional domination on his own Stalinist terms, it is hard to imagine how.

You don’t need a PhD in international politics to see that these two actors were about as antithetical to each other as the Republican Party is to integrity. Then again, even having one doesn’t necessarily mean you have the foggiest clue about what’s going on in the world, as Condoleezza Rice clearly demonstrated by brilliantly failing to anticipate that Hamas would win elections she had pushed the Palestinians to hold.

For someone serving as secretary of state, this idiocy is the rough equivalent of anyone else being shocked when a dropped bowling ball hurtles to the ground, because they’re not yet fully acquainted with the concept of gravity. Evidently, in Texas this is what they call ‘credentials’.

Lastly, Bush’s little adventure in Mesopotamia was supposed to bring democracy to the region, remember? Never mind, of course, that there has long already been a fairly thriving Islamic democracy, right next door. Oops! It’s called Turkey. And let’s not forget Mr. Bush’s long-standing devotion to democracy, as he amply demonstrated in the American election of 2000.

Or as he has continually manifested by bravely and publicly pushing the Chinese to democratize.

Just as he has with his pals in Egypt and especially the family friends running Saudi Arabia, the recipient of more American foreign aid than nearly any other country in all the world. And let’s not forget the several hundred thousand perished souls from Darfur, whom this great champion of human rights has fought valiantly to keep alive by… by… well, I’m sure he’s done a lot behind the scenes. Sure is gonna be hard for them to exercise their precious right to vote from the next world, eh?

What is clear is that the reasons given to the American public for the war in Iraq were entirely bogus. This much is already on the public record, from the Downing Street Memos and beyond.

Even if we can only speculate on why they actually invaded - oil, glory, personal insecurity, Israel, clobbering Democrats, Middle Eastern dominance - what we know for sure is that the rationale fed to the public was a knowingly fabricated pack of scummy lies. It wasn’t about WMD, it wasn’t about links to al Qaeda, and it sure wasn’t about democracy.

But even if we can’t identify the true motivations within the administration for invading, we can surely begin to see the costs. Probably a million Iraqi civilians are dead. Over four million are displaced and now living as refugees. Together, these equal a staggering one-fifth of the population of the entire country.

Meanwhile, the remaining four-fifths are living in squalor, fear and a psychological damage so extensive that it is hard to grasp. America has lost 4,000 soldiers, with perhaps another 30,000 gravely wounded. Hundreds of thousands more will be scarred for life from their experiences in the hell of Mr. Bush’s war.

Our military is broken and incapable of responding to a real emergency, at home or abroad.

Our economy will sustain a blow of perhaps three trillion dollars before it is all said and done.

Our reputation in the world is in the toilet. We have turned the Iranian theocracy into a regional hegemon. And we have massively proliferated our own enemies within the Islamic community.

That would be one hell of an expensive war, even if the reasons given for it were legitimate. It is nearly incomprehensible considering that they were not.

This week, a man died in France, the last surviving veteran of World War I, a devastating conflict that - even a century later - nobody can still really explain to this day. Meanwhile, Dick Cheney, John McCain and Joe “Make-me-SecDef-Mac-oh-please-pick-me-Mac” Lieberman parachuted into Iraq for photo-ops to sustain the war they don’t have the integrity or the guts to abandon.

Never mind that their visits had to be by surprise, and that they stroll around the Green Zone wearing armored vests - surely the most powerful measures of the war’s success imaginable. Of course, to be fair, we’ve only been at it for five years now. Perhaps after the remaining ninety-five on McCain’s agenda go by, Americans will finally be safe enough in Iraq to announce their visits in advance.

So, Happy Anniversary, America! You put these people in charge, and then - after seeing in explicit in detail what they were capable of - you actually did it again in 2004! You stood by in silence watching the devastation wrought upon an innocent people, produced in your name and financed by your tax dollars. And you continue to do just that again, now in Year Six.

Brilliant! Put on your party hat, America. You won the prize.

You’ve successfully answered the musical question, “How lethally stupid can one country be?”

David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers’ reactions to his articles (dmg@regressiveantidote.net), but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond. More of his work can be found at his website, www.regressiveantidote.net.

Source:

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Biodiesel plant suspends operations due to soybean oil cost


March 17, 2008
Associated Press


The rising cost of soybean oil, a main ingredient in biodiesel, has led a New Jersey company to shut down, delayed construction of a plant in Nebraska, and now forced a Minnesota producer to temporarily suspend operations.

The chairman of the Board of Governors of SoyMor in Minnesota said Monday that SoyMor had already scaled back production – operating only about 15 days a month for the last four months.

Last week, the board voted to suspend operations.

Other biodiesel producers are feeling the pinch and a handful have suspended production, said a spokesperson for the National Biodiesel Board (NBB). Recent news reports have cited the soaring price of soybean oil as a factor in the shutdown of a biofuel company in Edison, New Jersey, and in construction delays at a plant in Beatrice, Nebraska.

“Many other plants are running at a very low rate of capacity,” said an agricultural economist with the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“There are many others that were building, constructing plants that were never opened, and probably a lot of others that had plans drawn up that have been abandoned for now.”

Soybean prices are at historic highs, the economist said, and the market is volatile.

On Monday, soybean oil futures were trading at 60 cents a pound. In early February, the price was about 55 cents a pound.

With soybean prices at all-time highs, some companies have diversified so their plants can use more than one kind of feedstock, the NBB spokesperson said.
Source:

http://www.jamestownsun.com/ap/index.cfm?page=view&id=D8VFF8HG2
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Anything that grows 'can convert into oil'

Company finds natural solution that turns plants into gasoline


By Joe Kovacs
WorldNetDaily
March 19, 2008


After three years of clandestine development, a Georgia company is now going public with a simple, natural way to convert anything that grows out of the Earth into oil.

J.C. Bell, an agricultural researcher and CEO of Bell Bio-Energy, says he's isolated and modified specific bacteria that will, on a very large scale, naturally change plant material – including the leftovers from food – into hydrocarbons to fuel cars and trucks."What we're doing is taking the trash like corn stalks, corn husks, corn cobs – even grass from the yard that goes to the dump – that's what we can turn into oil," Bell told WND. "I'm not going to make asphalt, we're only going to make the things we need. We're going to make gasoline for driving, diesel for our big trucks."

Wood pulp is among the many natural materials that can be converted into oil and gasoline, according to Bell Bio-Energy, Inc., of Tifton, Ga.

The agricultural researcher made the discovery after standing downwind from his cows at his food-production company, Bell Plantation, in Tifton, Ga."Cows are like people that eat lots of beans. They're really, really good at making natural gas," he said. "It dawned on me that that natural gas was methane."

Bell says he wondered what digestive process inside a cow enabled it to change food into the hydrocarbon molecules of methane, so he began looking into replicating and speeding up the process."Through genetic manipulation, we've changed the naturally occurring bacteria, so they eat and consume biomass a little more efficiently," he said. "It works. There's not even any debate that it works. It really is an all-natural, simple process that cows use on a daily basis."

Naturally occurring bacteria used to convert biomass into hydrocarbons.

But does he think it will make environmentalists happy?

"They love this. We had one totally recognizable environmentalist from Hollywood say this is everything they ever had hoped for," Bell said. "This could be considered the ultimate recycling of carbon. We are using the energy of the sun through the plant. We're not introducing any new carbon [to the environment]."

The research has received strong support from the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of Energy, Department of Agriculture and committees in both chambers of Congress, and Bell plans further discussions in Washington, D.C., next week.

He expects to have the first pilot plant for the process running within two to three months, and will operate it for a year to collect engineering data to design full-scale production facilities. He thinks the larger facilities will be producing oil "inside the next two years."

And just how much oil is in Bell's bio-forecast?

"With minor changes in the agricultural and forestry products, we could create two to two and a half billion tons of biomass a year, and you're looking at 5 billion barrels of oil per year. That would be about two-thirds of what we use now."

Turning some of nature's produce into energy has been done for years, especially when it comes to the conversion of corn and cellulose-based products into ethanol, used to extend gasoline volume and boost octane.

The Energy Information Administration says in 2005, total U.S. ethanol production was 3.9 billion gallons, or 2.9 percent of the total gasoline pool.Bell admits his bacterial breakthrough has been kept under wraps until now, but he plans to explain it all once his website is fully operational.

Bell Bio-Energy, Inc., aims to use modified bacteria like this to convert biomass into oil and gasoline within two years.

"We're actually gonna tell people how we do it, with streaming video. We're to the point now with our patent that we can say more and we fully intend to."

We want to develop public support so they can understand what we're doing; to develop political support, because this is a combination of making the United States more independent from foreign oil sources; make [the country] healthier from an economic point of view; and it goes a long way to solving the environmental problems a lot of people are concerned about.

When asked why he thought no one else has patented this process, Bell answered, "It literally is because it's too simple. Everyone was looking for a real complicated mechanism. We looked at how it occurs naturally. But it's now going to develop in a hurry."

Recalling other great inventions, Bell cited on another person with his last name. "Alexander Graham Bell put together stuff that was already on the shelf and made a phone. I don't want to compare myself to the great inventors. I'm not there yet, but to be able to look at simple things and create things from them, that's how we think in this company."

[News2u Note: This is not a new idea, but it takes a innovative and resourceful person to make it happen and it is a far superior idea to using foods as fuel.]

Source:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=59402
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Canada Kills ecoAUTO Program, Rebates to End for Fuel Efficient Vehicles


EcoModder
February 26, 2008


Canada’s ecoAUTO program was set up by the federal government to encourage the purchase of fuel efficient vehicles through financial incentives. The program was funded by levies on the most inefficient vehicles and provided rebates of $1000 to $2000 for the purchase of fuel sipping models (the $1000 rebate threshold was 6.0L/100KM, or 39 mpg US).

However, after just a year and a significant amount of complaint and pressure from auto manufacturers (who incidentally make bigger profit margins on less fuel efficient vehicles like SUVs) the government announced in today’s budget that it will allow the ecoAuto program to lapse.

Instead, the Canadian government is pledging $250 million over the next five years to assist the auto industry in developing green technology. In short, Canada is attempting to move its effort from one based on consumer demand to one based on government support of big business.

While government development of green technology certainly has its place, the auto industry is largely motivated by consumer demand. In the case of the ecoAUTO program, we already saw the Honda Fit, which initially missed the rebate cutoff by 0.1 L/100 km, tweaked to get better fuel economy to appeal to more consumers through the rebate. The Fit was just one of several vehicles modified for improved efficiency by manufacturers in response to the program.

Of course, the program was flawed, as many new programs (and cars) tend to be, but it is unclear that government subsidies will make a more profound difference in the auto market than an economically motivated move towards smaller cars.

Source:
http://ecomodder.com/blog/2008/02/26/canada-kills-ecoauto-program-no-longer-gives-rebates-for-fuel-efficient-vehicles/
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Natural Gas Trade Groups say U.S. climate bill could boost gas demand 20 percent in decade


March 12, 2008
Platts


U.S. natural gas consumption could jump by as much as 20 percent over the next ten years if climate change legislation under consideration in Congress becomes law, several gas trade groups said on Tuesday.

“We want members of Congress to understand that their actions will have serious consequences for America’s natural gas customers,” said the president of the American Gas Association, who is also a member of the Natural Gas Council (NGC).

“Meeting the nation’s clean air goals requires natural gas and lots of it. While the natural gas industry whole-heartedly supports increased energy efficiency, conservation, and use of renewable fuels, U.S. energy demands cannot be met by these measures alone.”

The council’s findings contradict an earlier analysis by the U.S. Energy Information Agency, which indicated that gas use would fall if a CO2 emissions reduction bill (S. 280) becomes law.

Source:
http://www.platts.com/Natural%20Gas/News/8587805.xml?sub=Natural%20Gas&p=Natural%20Gas/News&?undefined&undefined
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Rail, barge improvements could cut coal supply drain


March 12, 2008
Platts


The recent spike in coal exports is draining supply for U.S. utilities, but improved railroad and barge capacity will make it easier to seek out new coal supplies, said Southern Company’s vice president of fuel services at the American Coal Council’s Spring Coal Forum in Miami.

Railroads “have significant influence on the energy industry,” and rail rates may influence siting of new coal-fired plants and even force some old plants into early retirement.

Delivery problems may arise when rails reach maximum capacity, especially in the Powder River Basin.

“Hopefully, [improved railroads and barge lines] will have the capacity to accommodate major shifts in basins.”

He said he is encouraged by recent developments at the U.S. Surface Transportation Board, which is seeking to engage utilities, producers, and railroads about service and capacity issues.

In the meantime, the export spike also is causing more volatility in the coal markets.

High ocean freight rates are limiting import options for U.S. utilities, while growing exports “significantly reduced availability of coal” in the country.

“The changes [in the market] we are seeing are probably not a short-term phenomenon, but perhaps a major structural change.”

Utilities are developing plans to diversify coal sources as a way of reducing the impact of high prices. One of their options is increasing the intake of lower-Btu western coals.

Source:
http://www.platts.com/Coal/News/8587803.xml?sub=Coal&p=Coal/News&?undefined&undefined
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Carlyle Fund's Assets Seized


By Thomas Heath
Washington Post
March 13, 2008


A publicly traded affiliate of the Carlyle Group said yesterday that lenders were seizing its assets, sending the fund, Carlyle Capital, into insolvency.

The collapse of Carlyle Capital is the first time a Carlyle Group fund has failed and is a stinging embarrassment for the District private-equity powerhouse, which has built an international reputation with a client list that reaches around the world.

The high-profile downfall, part of the broad turmoil in credit markets worldwide, followed a week of frantic negotiations between the Carlyle Group and a number of lenders. Carlyle Group's three founders as recently as Monday were considering injecting cash into the fund as a way to usher it through the credit crisis.

By yesterday the fund had defaulted on $16.6 billion of debt and said it expected to default soon on its remaining debt. The fund's $21.7 billion in assets were exclusively in AAA mortgage-backed securities issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, traditionally considered secure and conservative investments, which it was using as collateral against its loans.

In a statement, Carlyle Capital said that it had been unable to meet margin calls in excess of $400 million over the past week and that it expected its lenders to take control of its remaining assets. The lenders, headed by Deutsche Bank and J.P. Morgan Chase, began selling the securities last night, according to a report on the Wall Street Journal's Web site.

The problems at Carlyle Capital have preoccupied the top leaders at Carlyle Group. The firm's founders, David M. Rubenstein, William E. Conway Jr. and Daniel D'Aniello, had been in meetings with lenders in an effort to resolve Carlyle Capital's problems, not only to protect their own investment and that of employees who have put millions of dollars into the company, but also to preserve Carlyle's Midas-touch reputation.

Forbes magazine last year estimated Carlyle's three founders to each be worth about $2.5 billion.

Carlyle Capital is incorporated on Guernsey, an island in the English Channel, and is traded on Amsterdam's Euronext exchange.

The fund was set up in August 2006 with roughly $670 million in cash from Carlyle's owners and other investors, and about $300 million in additional capital raised from a public stock sale.

The capital allowed the fund to go to banks and borrow far more, leveraging its cash investment some 20 times into the portfolio.

Carlyle Capital's prospects were dimmed by the same doubts that have upended securities linked to riskier subprime mortgages, namely whether the underlying assets were losing value and whether the homeowners would continue to make their payments.

As the market value of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securities has dropped, Carlyle Capital's lenders asked it to increase its cash equity from what was 1 percent to as much as 5 percent. An increase of that amount on $20 billion in loans amounts to several hundred million dollars.

The Carlyle Group last summer loaned Carlyle Capital $150 million to cover debt obligations.
Conway and Rubenstein were in New York much of this week, accompanied by a team of Carlyle Group insiders, including the company's chief financial officer, negotiating a "standstill" agreement with lenders as they tried to work out a financial solution.

The agreement would have stopped lenders from foreclosing on loans they made to Carlyle Capital.

Carlyle Capital stock closed at $2.80 in Amsterdam yesterday before the announcement, off 89 percent from its peak.

Source:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/13/AR2008031300061.html
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Canada warns U.S. over oil sands


March 9, 2008
Financial Times


Canada has warned the U.S. government that a narrow interpretation of the Energy Independence and Security Act 2007 would prohibit its neighbor buying fuel from Alberta’s vast oil sands, with “unintended consequences for both countries.”

Section 526 of the law limits U.S. government procurement of alternative fuels to those from which the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions are equal to or less than those from conventional fuel from conventional petroleum sources.

Canada’s oil sands are considered unconventional fuels, and producing them emits more greenhouse gas than conventional production.

The Bush administration has, nonetheless, encouraged developing oil sands.

A Canadian diplomat said, “Classifying fuel from the oil sands as non-conventional fuel…would unnecessarily complicate the integrated Canada-U.S. energy relationship.”

An energy expert said cutting out the oil sands as a source of fuel would limit global supplies further, forcing up the price of oil: “$106 a barrel is going to look cheap.”

Source:
http://www.windaction.org/news/14588
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Area residents opposed to drilling near the Project Rulison nuclear blast site


March 9, 2008
Post Independent


Area residents opposed to drilling near the Project Rulison nuclear blast site – where the government detonated a 43-kiloton nuclear weapon 8,426 feet below the surface in 1969 in an experiment to free up natural gas – addressed Garfield County, Colorado, commissioners on Monday.

EnCana Oil & Gas (USA) and Noble Energy have received conditional approval for 19 permits for wells within a three-mile area after a December 21 decision by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to allow drilling within the area.

According to a letter submitted by the residents to the commissioners, the Department of Energy is willing to conduct further research and testing at the blast site, and that the state will request additional research if Garfield County will agree.

The residents also requested that the commissioners endorse an open scientific advisory committee.

That committee would be composed of recognized scientists “to work with the DOE in ensuring the quality and openness of any DOE research and recommendations regarding the need for a ‘no drilling’ closure enveloped to protect the public health and safety from contamination of ground, water, soil, or produced natural gas.”

Source:
http://www.postindependent.com/article/20080309/VALLEYNEWS/850218644
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PUC investigating state’s electric grid crisis


March 1, 2008
Star-Telegram


The Texas Public Utility Commission has opened an inquiry into last week’s plummet in wind power production that nearly led to rolling blackouts across Texas.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) – which responded to the drop in production by cutting power to large industrial customers who agree to forgo power during grid emergencies in exchange for lower rates – acknowledged that they violated their own rules by not issuing a general conservation alert during the incident.

ERCOT attorneys said that by appealing for dramatic energy conservation measures, they could have actually made matters worse because the organization had already taken steps to restore stability to the grid.

An ERCOT spokesperson said it remains unclear whether the organization should have done something differently Tuesday night, or whether the rules themselves should be changed.

Source:
http://www.star-telegram.com/state_news/story/504967.html
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Worker inhales radioactive material, no threat to public


March 2, 2008


Officials on Sunday were assessing the best way to clean up the Sabia Inc. building in Bonneville County, Idaho, where a worker inhaled an unknown amount of radioactive material strontium-90 on Friday.

An Idaho National Guard spokesman said the contamination is contained and there is no threat to the public.

The worker sought treatment at a local hospital and was released. Three others in the area were not affected.

Source:
http://www.theolympian.com/northwest/story/376637.html
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Cleanup may begin on radioactive waste spread by animals at Hanford


March 2, 2008
Tri-City Herald


Plans are being developed to start cleaning up the largest waste site near central Hanford, Washington, later this year.

The 13-square-mile is just south of the BC Cribs and Trenches Area where 50 million gallons of liquid waste contaminated with radioactive salts were discharged during the Cold War.

Animals attracted to the salts spread the waste across miles of the Hanford desert.

“This area has a large spread of contamination on the surface with the ability to move around with our winds,” said the Department of Energy (DOE) assistant manager for central Hanford cleanup.

An engineering analysis prepared by Fluor Hanford for DOE concluded that the surface soil in contaminated spots should be dug up and hauled to a lined landfill for low-level radioactive waste a few miles to the west.

DOE, the Washington state Department of Ecology, and the Environmental Protection Agency are taking public comment on the plan until March 26.

Then work could begin to dig up soil later this year.

The proposal estimates that about 237,000 cubic yards of dirt will need to be dug up in cleanup work that could take three years.

Source:
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/901/story/106285.html
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The Ethanol Con


Commentary


The corn fed ethanol fascination is misplaced and taking sustainable technologies in the wrong direction.

Cellulosic ethanol can be made from such a wide range of materials, it wouldn't put any strain on the nations forests.

The same corn that is grown for corn based ethanol contains more energy in the cellulose of the stalks and husks, than is in the corn itself.

Waste materials from many other foodstuffs, as well as grass clippings, recycled paper, and the waste from making lumber out of trees that are already being cut down can be used.

Ethanol is a ridiculously inefficiently fuel, primarily because it has to be distilled. To boil the ethanol off from the fermented grain (or cellulose), it takes some 70% of the energy that is in the resulting fuel.

So, for every gallon of ethanol produced, you burn .7 gallons, netting .3 gallons. So to fill up your 20 gallon tank on your SUV with ethanol, the poor little yeast have to make 67 gallons of alcohol.

Carbon footprint? One of the by-products of the fermentation itself is CO2. CO2 is emitted while fermenting, then again during the distillation process, and finally while burning the resultant small amount of fuel to propel your vehicle.

Corn based "Ethanol" just seems to be the marketing word of the day, it's only going to create more pollution, food shortage/price increase, CO2, heat, and it will make money of course for all those that jump on the bandwagon that is hurtling toward the abyss. Currently ethanol from corn is not a sustainable energy source, just a get rich quick scheme for a select few.

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Ethanol won't solve energy problems


By H. Josef Hebert
7/10/2006


Ethanol is far from a cure-all for the nation's energy problems. It's not as environmentally friendly as some supporters claim and would supply only 12% of U.S. motoring fuel — even if every acre of corn were used.

A number of researchers, the latest in a report Monday, are warning about exaggerated expectations that ethanol could dramatically change America's dependence on foreign oil by shifting motorists away from gasoline.

As far as alternative fuels are concerned, biodiesel from soybeans is the better choice compared with corn-produced ethanol, University of Minnesota researchers concluded in an analysis Monday.

But "neither can replace much petroleum without impacting food supplies," the researchers concluded in the paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The paper said development of non-food materials such as switchgrass, prairie grasses and woody plants to produce cellulosic ethanol would be a major improvement with greater energy output and lower environmental impacts.

But creation of cellulosic ethanol remains in the laboratory research stage. And even non-food sources of ethanol would fall far short of replacing gasoline, most researchers agree.

Biofuels such as ethanol are "not a practical long-term solution," and their widespread use — even from non-food crop sources — could have a "devastating" impact on agriculture, two researchers at the Magleve Research Center of the Polytechnic University of New York, argued recently.

"Ethanol from 300 million acres of switchgrass still could not supply our present gasoline and diesel consumption, which is projected to double by 2025," the researchers, James Jordan and James Powell, wrote in an op-ed article in the Washington Post. "The agricultural effects of such a large-scale program would be devastating."

In addition to a reduction in soil fertility by not plowing wastes back into the ground, there is concern that using corn and soybeans for ethanol would create competition for food crops.

But Geoff Cooper, a spokesman for the National Corn Growers Association, calls suggestions that the growth of ethanol will jeopardize food supplies as "fear mongering."

"There's absolutely no shortage of corn," said Cooper. He said demand for corn for livestock feed has been flat and that increased production and expected higher yields per acre will provide plenty of corn to meet all needs.

In a frenzy to respond to public outcries about high gasoline and crude oil prices, members of Congress as well as the Bush administration have embraced ethanol as the alternative to gasoline to help move the country closer to energy independence.

Ethanol, virtually all of it made from corn in this country, also has been touted as the "green" alternative motor fuel with a push to make it more widely available not only as a 10% additive but with an 85% blend with gasoline.

"We definitely believe that biofuels (such as ethanol) have a significant potential," said Jason Hill, lead author of the University of Minnesota study. But he added that ethanol should not be viewed as "a savior" to our energy problems and its rapid expansion as a motor fuel has its drawbacks, especially if it is dependent on food crops such as corn and soybeans as feedstock.

If every acre of corn were used for ethanol, it would replace only 12.3% of the gasoline used in this country, Hill's study said, adding that the energy gains of corn-produced ethanol are only modest and the environmental impacts significant.

As a motor fuel, ethanol from corn produces a modest 25% more energy than is consumed — including from fossil fuels — in growing the corn, converting it into ethanol and shipping it for use in gasoline.

While often touted as a "green" environmentally friendly fuel, corn-based ethanol's life cycle environmental impacts are mixed as best, the researchers said.

Compared with gasoline, it produces 12% less "greenhouse" gasses linked to global warming, according to the study.

But the researchers also said it has environmental drawbacks, including "markedly greater" releases of nitrogen, phosphorous and pesticides into waterways as runoff from corn fields.

Ethanol, especially at higher concentrations in gasoline, also produce more smog-causing pollutants than gasoline per unit of energy burned, the researchers said.

"There's a lot of green in the money that's going into ethanol, but perhaps not so much green is coming out as far as the environment," said Hill, the lead author, in a telephone interview.

The ethanol industry says there's little new in the University of Minnesota study.

"Everyone in the industry recognizes that there is a limit on how much ethanol you can produce from corn," said Matt Hartwig, a spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association, which represents ethanol producers.

"Nobody is saying that ethanol is the silver bullet that is going to solve all our energy problems. It's going to take a whole host of technologies. ... But ethanol and other biofuels play a very critical role."

He said the University of Minnesota study is only the latest to conclude that ethanol produces more energy than it consumes. "More importantly, there is a significant reduction in petroleum use with ethanol," he added.

Last year about 14% of the corn crop went to ethanol, compared with 11% four years ago. This year the amount of corn for ethanol could be nearly one in every five bushels grown, or 19%, according to Agriculture Department estimates.

The Corn Growers Association says that by 2015 a third of all the corn grown — or 5.5 billion bushels — likely will be for ethanol. The Energy Department says it has a goal of 30% of the fuel used by motorists to be ethanol — both corn-based and cellulosic — by 2030.

Source:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-07-10-ethanol-study_x.htm
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