Bloomberg | Jan 5, 2010

By Ben Farey

Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) — U.K. natural gas for immediate delivery rose as Britain remains in the grip of freezing conditions after experiencing its coldest December since 1995.

Gas for delivery today gained 1.6 pence, or 3.6 percent, to 46.5 pence a therm. That’s equal to $7.44 a million British thermal units. A therm is 100,000 Btus. The contract jumped as much as 81 percent yesterday to 62 pence a therm when a supply shortfall and high heating demand forced the network manager to issue a so-called gas balancing alert.

December was the coldest since 1995, Barry Gromett, a spokesman for the U.K.’s Met Office, said by telephone from Exeter, southwest England.

“It stays cold for the foreseeable future into next week,” Gromett said. Gas for tomorrow rose 1.45 pence to 46.5 pence a therm.

U.K. gas demand may climb to 448.7 million cubic meters in the 24 hours through 6 a.m. tomorrow, according to National Grid Plc, the network manager. That’s about 97 million more than normal for the time of year. National Grid may issue another alert to signal the need for more supplies or a cut in gas usage if demand is forecast to reach 449.6 million cubic meters.

“There’s no indication we’ll be issuing one today,” Ross Hayman, a National Grid spokesman, said by telephone. The situation will be kept under review, he said.

Average temperatures in London may drop to minus 5 degrees Celsius (23 Fahrenheit) on Jan. 7 from 0 degrees today, CustomWeather Inc. data show. Colder weather will raise demand for heating.

Gas for the rest of the working week climbed 3 pence to 46 pence a therm. The February contract increased 1.45 pence to 37.25 pence a therm.

U.S. Indexes Up 1%; Record Low Temperatures

ticker.com | Jan 4, 2010

10:00 AM New York – U.S. stocks followed the gains in Europe and Asia. Two separate reports in China suggest a robust manufacturing expansion and India reported better than expected data. Crude oil and natural gas gained after record low temperatures in the U.S. and record snowfalls in China and Korea.

U.S. stocks head higher in the early trading after crude oil, natural gas and metals gain.

Freezing weather in the U.S. prompted a rise in futures of the crude oil and natural gas of more than 2%. Immediate month futures for crude oil increase to $80.35 a barrel and natural gas jumped more than 5% to $5.82 per mBtu.

Meteorologists are forecasting record low temperatures in Northern and Eastern regions of the U.S. for today and tomorrow. Heavy snow fall in China and South Korea grounded airplanes at airports in Beijing and Seoul.

Gold increased 1.3% to 1,111.25 per ounce and Copper increased to $7,487 a ton in London trading.

A private estimate of manufacturing industry in China and India showed a faster than expected increases in December. The purchasing managers’ index after adjusting for seasonal swings increased to 56.1, the highest read since the tracking began in April 2004 by HSBC Holdings and Markit Economics.

The official measure release by China on January 1 indicated that manufacturing expanded at the fastest pace since February 2008.

Global Research | Dec 10, 2009

by Olga Chetverikova

After an annual meeting of the Bilderberg Club in May 2009, the establishment of the global management system of institutions seemed to have been given a boost, repeating the plots of American apocalypitc blockbusters.

As soon as the financial top had opted for a lingering crisis, global managers were instructed to work in two major ways: first, to invent a myth about the danger of swine flu pandemic (in order to take control of the national healthcare systems and reorganize the World Health Organization (WHO) into a global healthcare ministry) and impose a threat of global warming to gain control of world natural resources and introduce a unified ‘green’ tax (alongside with creation of a new sub-national managing body- an international ministry of ecology).

Both tasks aim to intimidate the population and thus substantiate any policies undertaken by international organziations. Chairman of the Board of Governors ‘British Petroluem’, Peter Suterlan, once frankly admitted that he would like to impose fear of global warming in order to increase taxes and make people revise their lifestyle.

The implementation of the first scenario suggested by the Bilderberg Club is currently underway.

After the WHO announced the A/H1N1 pandemic on July 11, 2009, a real hysteria was launched in mass media worldwide, and people were told to get prepared for the pandemic in November and undergo vaccination (in 2005 the WHO added an amendment to its Charter which says that duirng a pandemic the organization does not recommend but gives instructions and orders, and the number of vaccines should be no less than 4.6 billion). The operation reached its peak when in late September Barack Obama signed a decree to impose ‘a flu pandemic sanitary emergency’, which means that the citizens could be vaccinated against their will and kept in special quarantine zones. Amid panic, Americans and West Europeans were involved in mass immunization, which unveiled that the pandemic had been paid in order to let pharmaceutical companies thrive on it, and also as a weapon against ‘unwanted’ population (and now we all know what a swine flu vaccine is). It was also used as a so-called ‘innovative’ mechanism of handling political processes- which was so actively used in Ukraine. In view of this, the WHO gained extra powers and strengthened its status.

Now we are witnessing another show titled “The UN Copenhagen climate change conference”, currently held in the Danish capital (it will run through December 18) and aiming to work out a document to limit global emissions and replace the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012. Thirty thousand participants, including 60 heads of states and prime mnisters, have arrived there on December,7.

The EU, being one of the major organizers of the summit, had elected its first President, who was immediately described in the media as a creature of the Bilderberg club: on November, 15, a few days before his appointment, Herman Van Rompuy met with the club`s top managers at Val Duchesse castle outside Brussels, where he spoke about the need to revise the mechanism of the EU`s financing and suggested a unified ‘green’ tax which would go directly to Brussels. The fact that the issue was covered in the media proves that members of the Bilderberg Club are no longer going to conceal that they are the real bosses in Europe.

Such confidence annoyed some of the European Parliament members. One of them, an Italian Mario Borghezio, said: “All three candidates (for the role of the EU president) often attended meeting at the Bilderberg club, and I think that they should explain whether they are honest candidates representing their native country or just members of secret groups which had been organized to discuss pressing social and other kinds of issues”. Another MP, an Englishman Nigel Farage criticized Rompuy`s appointment and called him a ‘puppet-leader’ in the hands of Barroso. He even dared to say that the EU is an authoritarian dictatorship ruled by bureaucracy which is not elected by anybody. Commenting on the Lisbon Treaty, Farage told the delegates: “It took you 8,5 years of intimidation, lying and disrespect towards democratic referendums to lobby this deal!”

Immediately after his appointment as the EU President, Van Rompuy (known in Europe as ‘master of compromising’) assured his patrons that he perfectly understood all the tasks he was facing. Speaking at a press-conference, Herman Van Rompuy said that 2009 has become the ‘first year of global management’ (he meant the G20), while the Climate Summit in Copenhagen is a next step in this direction’.

The Danish government carried out a reshuffle and appointed Lykke Friis, pro-dean at the Copenhagen University, as Climate Minister to replace Connie Hedegaard, a member of the Bilderberg Club. The latter swapped her title to First Commissioner on the EU Climate, which was introduced in October 2009 especially in order to control the reduction of CO2 emissions by 20% by the year 2020. Hedegaard is a member of numerous committees and organizations, including the Danish Atlantic Treaty Association led by Robert Gunther.

What goals are being pursued in Copenhagen this time?

Lord Christopher Monckton, former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, explained: “When I read this treaty I see that the authors are talking about the establishment of ‘one world Marxist government’. The second purpose is the transfer of wealth from the countries of the West to third world countries, in satisfaction of what is called, coyly, ‘climate debt’ – because we’ve been burning CO2 and they haven’t. We’ve been screwing up the climate and they haven’t. And the third purpose of this new entity, this government, is enforcement,” Monckton warned. He then noted that the new treaty would be supported by most of the third world countries ‘as they think they will receive money for it’. And the US President will sign it without expecting two thirds of the Senate and the Congress to ratify it.

And the ‘world government’, which would be empowered to interfere in other countries` economic and ecological policies, and the ‘enforcement’- these all are just mechanisms to ‘transfer resources’ which actually means reforming economies of the non-western countries with the use of progressive technologies in order to gain control these resources within that level of consumption permitted in the West that would guarantee a drop in the planet`s population.

It is no secret that the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was adopted after the idea of global warming resulting from anthropogenic factors had been promoted among scientists. In 1997 the Kyoto Protocol was prtensented as an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Protocol sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions .These amount to an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012. The US, being the world`s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, has not ratified the Protocol. The EU (now comprising the Baltic States and the countries of Eastern Europe) took the burden of the responsibility to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 8%, Japan and Canada- by 6%. The Protocol limits emission in Russia and Ukraine to a percentage increase or decrease from their 1990 levels. The developing countries, including China and India were not included in numerical limitation of the Kyoto Protocol.

However, the implementation of the Kyoto deal failed to help in resolving environmental problems but added a new commodity to the international market: quota on GHG. It turned into a pure speculation and let the financial capital grasp onto a vital energy sector in the developing countries. Due to their imperfect industrial policies, the developed states could not succeed in modernization and GHG reducing. That is why they found another means to fulfill their obligations: a developed state helps a developing one to reduce emissions and then counts the limited tons of GHG as if those were reduce on its territory. Very soon hundreds of companies and foundations joined this ‘green’ quota games hoping to thrive on it. In the long run, the international environmental market received the strongest expansion ever, and it originally there were only three purchasers: the World Bank, the governments of the Netherlands and Japan, now their number has increased sharply, and professional speculators now make up to 40% of the participants in hydrocarbon exchanges.

Having accepted the conditions, Russia later faced an ambiguous situation: the country has large stocks of free greenhouse gases but this is because in 1990s its industry was in severe crisis, and all emissions then even fell below 30%.

The international community plans to introduce new emission quotas to restrict industrial development and impose western environmental standards that require implementation of very costly projects (and these expenses will never be compensated by the sums earned on ‘green’ quotas trading). And taking into consideration that climate in Russia requires constant expenditures on energy, the country will hardly be able to restore its industrial power.

A group of developed nations have prepared a brand new document especially for the Copenhagen summit. The document says that the divison into developed and developing nations has long become outdated, while today all the states should be obliged to cut GHG emissions and provide assisstance to the poorest countries. The treaty is expected to be legally binding as well so that the states approved new rules at the governmental level. But the differences between the participants were so great that they only managed to agree on a road map plan without discussing the figures.

However, high promises of financial and investment assisstance proved to be more effective than legal mechanisms, and ahead of the summit the leading developing nations followed in the West`s footsteps and pledged GHG emissions cuts by 2020. The EU announced a 20% reduction from the 1990 level, while the US said it will reduce its emissions by 17% from the 2005 level (in accordance with a draft law approved by the House of Representatives). India claimed it wil reduce 20-25%, whiel South Korea and China announced the figures of 30% and 40-45% respectively.

Russian WWF, Greenpeace and Ecoprotection activists said ‘Russia should play the leading role at the talks. We can and should remain at the 1990 level of 30%. And then we shoud proceed with further reduction”. At the Russa-EU summit in November, Dmitry Medvedev said the country would try to reduce its GHG emissions up to 25% by 2020, and added that by 2050 Russia will be ready to cut emission by no less than 50% in comparison to the 1990 level.

This kind of unanimity hides the real differences between the participants of the summit and the gravity of environmental problems and adds fuel to the fire caused by the idea of ‘catastrophic global warming’. Recently, the Prince of Wales Charles has delivered a report in which he said that ‘nations have less than 100 months to act to save the planet from irreversible damage due to climate change.

Global management does everything to hide the real state of affairs. It ignores information and scientific research from alternative sources, especially if the threat of global warming and its anthropogenic factors are being argued (mind the recent leakage of e-mails from the University of East Anglia`s Climatic Research, the so-called ‘climate gate’).

In the past 20 years a powerful system of ecological ‘brainwashing’ has been created which serves the participants in ‘green’ business who can thus control the Earth`s natural resources. But in their attempts to keep the world`s population deluded, global speculators and their servants among politicians have long surpassed reasonable limits.

I remember an old Russian proverb: the devil is scary when you cannot see him but when you do he makes you laugh.

Bob Boyce first noticed what turned out to be the VeriChip implant that caused his malignant tumor when he was working with former associate, Bob Potchen. Having fallen asleep at a desk, when he awoke, his right shoulder felt like it had been numbed; and when he rubbed it, he noticed a small, hard lump there.

Boyce chip implanter suspect identified

Pure Energy Systems News | Dec 6, 2009

by Sterling D. Allan

We recently reported that Bob Boyce, the highly-revered inventor of ultra-efficient electrolysis systems and of a self-charging battery circuit (harnessing energy from the environment, possibly from zero point energy), had contracted terminal cancer and that the originating point was a VeriChip microchip that someone implanted in his right shoulder without his knowledge or permission.

We said that he didn’t know when or how the chip was implanted. However, as he has thought back through recent events, he has pieced together a number of things that paint a fairly incriminating portrait.

The first time he noticed what turned out to be the chip was on May 9 when he was working with an associate, Bob Potchen, of Precombustion Technologies Inc. (PTI), now “The Cell”. (Hereafter, “Bob” will refer to Bob Boyce, and “Potchen” will refer to Bob Potchen). Potchen was implementing Bob’s hydroxy gas booster technology into a product to take to market. Their relationship had been growing tense, and Bob was preparing to depart.

Bob had fallen asleep at a desk at PTI’s office, pulling an all-nighter. When he awoke, his right shoulder felt like it had been numbed; and when he rubbed it, he noticed a small, hard lump there. Having recently had some benign skin cancer removed, he assumed it was just another tumor, and thought no more of it, until the skin turned red and his shoulder became very sore many months later.

Related

Free energy inventor discovers mystery Verichip tracking implant in shoulder, caused cancer

Back at his own lab, he noticed that his shoulder was “transmitting” RF radiation. Then, when he had the tumor that formed there removed, he looked at the small-grain-of-rice-sized microchip before the doctor took the tissue away to be examined by pathology. He then researched various companies that manufacture implantable microchips, and he saw that the chip that had been removed from his shoulder matched the chip design by VeriChip. In particular, there is a thin, white rubber-like coating on one end that the tissue grows to so the chip won’t migrate. The pathology report did not mention the chip.

The reason for Bob’s falling out was that Potchen, who is ‘former’ Military Intelligence, had been making modifications to the hydroxy-generating device that Bob said were reducing the cell’s efficiency. Prior to those modifications, the cell was producing great results when installed in test vehicles. In one case, the mileage of a truck increased from 5.5 mpg to 11.7 mpg – more than double.

Bob described a number of modifications that Potchen made in the name of making the cell cheaper to produce, but which significantly worked against the efficiency. “It’s as if he was intentionally sabotaging the system to discredit the field.”

Bob withdrew his endorsement of Potchen’s device and published his concerns to some hydroxy forums, but later deleted those posts due to Potchen threatening legal action, not wanting to be dragged through court.

The input meter on the device was modified to read lower than reality. One truck’s alternator was burned out, because the device was pulling 195 amps, while the device meter read only “45 amps”.

In October, Bob had one of Potchen’s cells tested by a university on a dynamometer. The mileage of the truck with the cell installed went from 13 mpg before the install to 10 mpg after the install.

I talked to another former associate of Potchen’s and he made the same observation about the performance of the cell when Bob was involved verses after Potchen made all those changes that “didn’t make any sense.” He said that he knows of around 100 customers who have had complaints about the device. He also said that there are a number of people who sacrificed a lot of money to help launch the business, but who have not seen anything in return.

When people contact Potchen to complain about the performance of the cell they purchased, he tells them something to the effect, “That’s odd. You’re the only one who’s contacted me about having problems. It’s working well for everyone else.”

The former associate said that there are rumblings about some of those customers taking the matter up with their state attorney generals. He said that if Potchen threatens action against anyone at this point, that he will be further stirring up 100 customers to come forward with formal complaints. “At that point, he’ll probably jump on his plane and fly out of the country.”

When asked about the possibility that Potchen might have implanted the VeriChip in Bob Boyce’s shoulder, the former associate said, “I don’t put anything past Bob Potchen.”

Bob Boyce is a famous inventor in the world of ultra-efficient electrolysis and hydroxy research.  The chip found in his shoulder at the point of tumor formation turns out to be manufactured by VeriChip.

Bob Boyce, who has invented a super-efficient electrolysis method, as well as a self-looping electrical circuit capable of charging batteries, discovered a microchip implant in his shoulder when having a tumor removed from that spot, which metastasized.  It turns out the chip was made by VeriChip.

Pure Energy Systems News | Nov 28, 2009

Inventor’s terminal cancer courtesy of Verichip?

by Sterling D. Allan

On Nov. 12, we reported that a South African experimenter has modified an electrolysis circuit developed by Bob Boyce so that now it recharges his daughter’s electric vehicle riding toy. We said that what makes this remarkable is that the energy is not drawn from the wall but from the environment somehow; and that he’s done this around 35 times now and knows of three replications of the effect by others.  We created a feature page and a discussion list to facilitate additional replications and development of the technology.

We also reported in the same story that we had become aware the day before that Bob Boyce has “terminal” cancer, and that his days are numbered if some kind of remedy isn’t found.

On Nov. 12, Bob wrote:

The cancer that I have developed was not directly due to my research, as many have suggested. Having said that, it did occur under suspicious circumstances. When I was in Florida earlier this year, I noticed a small, hard lump had appeared under the skin of my right shoulder. I wondered where it came from, of course, but did not give it much thought. Over time, the skin over and around the lump turned reddish and became sore.

What I really want to know is, what was this object, and how in the heck did it get imbedded in the skin of my shoulder without me knowing about it?

Many of you have sent us emails and made phone calls suggesting various possible cures.  We are hopeful that with the information that has come Bob’s way that he will be able to secure a complete cure from his cancer.

Meanwhile, on Thanksgiving evening Bob called and left a voice message in which he informed me that it turns out that the chip that was implanted in his shoulder was made by VeriChip, a company that makes implantable microchips.

According to the VeriChip VeriMed page:

About the size of a grain of rice, the microchip is inserted just under the skin and contains only a unique, 16-digit identifier. The microchip itself does not contain any other data other than this unique electronic ID, nor does it contain any Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking capabilities. And unlike conventional forms of identification, the Health Link cannot be lost, stolen, misplaced, or counterfeited. It is safe, secure, reversible, and always with you.

Close-up of a VeriChip implant device, the size of a small grain of rice.

Another page on their site describes the RFID technology, which is an essential component of their chips, and the proximity required for reading different kinds of chips, such as those used in automated toll collection.

In his message to me, Bob referred me to a website, AntiChips.com, which documents the link between embedded RFID microchips and tumor formation.  It cites a paper, Microchip-Induced Tumors in Laboratory Rodents and Dogs: A Review of the Literature 1990–2006, and summarizes it as follows:

CASPIAN’s new report … is a definitive review of research showing a causal link between implanted radio-frequency (RFID) microchip transponders and cancer in laboratory rodents and dogs. It was written in part to correct industry misstatements and misinformation circulating about the studies.

In almost all cases, the malignant tumors, typically sarcomas, arose at the site of the implants and grew to surround and fully encase the devices. These fast-growing, malignant tumors often led to the death of the afflicted animals. In many cases, the tumors metastasized or spread to other parts of the animals. The implants were unequivocally identified as the cause of the cancers.

This is one story you will want to pass on to your networks to get the word out about the kinds of nefarious deeds going on to suppress new energy technology that could truly empower people to break free of the powers that be.

I’ve got a few questions for Bob the next time I talk to him.

* How did you find out the chip was made by VeriChip?
* Is your source willing to go on record?
* Are you planning legal action?
* Is it okay for Watkykjy1 to disclose to the B-Hex group the full details of how he built his charging device?

I’ll probably append his responses here.

I also tried to contact VeriChip for a comment, but being a holiday weekend, I haven’t heard back yet.

Full Story

_________

Related

Toronto Star: ‘One generation is all they need’
One day we will all happily be implanted with microchips, and our every move will be monitored. The technology exists; the only barrier is society’s resistance to the loss of privacy.

Bob Boyce Electrolyzer Plans

Al Gore, the fattest among carbon fat cats

The ‘carbon market’ – trading in an invisible gas which cannot be used – has involved the redistribution of resources to unproductive green pursuits and the creation of a vast bureacracy. Let’s bring it down before it gets any bigger.

Spiked | Nov 27, 2009

by Josie Appleton

Adam Smith and Karl Marx disagreed about many things, but they would surely have concurred that the very idea of a ‘carbon market’ is bonkers. Carbon dioxide is an invisible gas and a naturally occurring substance. When it is produced as a waste product from another process, like burning fossil fuel, it cannot be used for anything else. How on earth could carbon dioxide, as waste product, have a value and be subject to exchange? How could it become the gaseous analogue to money or gold, an atmospheric ‘universal equivalent’ into which other gases can be converted?

The carbon market in 2007 was worth $64billion: how could this be? A market is supposed to be the exchange of products that are the result of somebody’s work, for the satisfaction of somebody else’s needs. Smith stated that the value of the product is proportional to the amount of work expended in it: ‘The real price of everything’, he wrote in the Wealth of Nations, ‘is the toil and trouble of acquiring it’ (1). This goes for markets in bread or tables, iTunes or diamonds, no matter what nature the ‘work’ or how frivolous the ‘need’. But a market in carbon: quoi?

Related

Al Gore, world’s first ‘carbon billionaire’, raking in profits from climate change

Quietly and without fuss, all the rules of classical economics are being torn up – in a way that could be very foolish indeed. As we approach the deal-making at the UN conference on climate change at Copenhagen, it is worth thinking about exactly what we are doing here.

What is a carbon market?

At present, there are several fragmentary carbon markets. The biggest by far is the European Emissions Trading Scheme, tied to EU-wide carbon targets (worth $50 billion in 2007) (2); then the much smaller Australian New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme, and voluntary Chicago Climate Exchange. What these markets trade is not carbon dioxide itself, but carbon dioxide emissions reductions – either unused carbon credits, or certified ways in which carbon dioxide production has been reduced.

In addition to these, there are project-based carbon markets – under the headings of ‘Joint Implementation’ (JI) or ‘Clean Development Mechanism’ (CDM). These were created under the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, and essentially allow industrialised countries to invest in a carbon-reducing project elsewhere, in order to meet their carbon targets (JI is investment within Kyoto countries; CDM invests in developing countries).

This is nothing compared to the plans of green economists – the most megalomaniac of whom must be Britain’s Lord Nicholas Stern of Brentford, currently issuing thoughts for the day on everything ranging from world diet (everyone should go vegetarian) to the desired world total carbon emissions two generations’ hence (20 gigatonnes by 2050) (3). Stern envisages a global carbon market – which encompasses world economic production and consumption, as well as the ‘work’ of trees in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – and hopes that Copenhagen will take us a step in that direction.

(Valuing trees’ photosynthetic processes might sound a bit mad, but Australia has shown that this can be done with its set-up of ‘carbon rights’, which allow the owner of a plot of land to have ‘rights’ over carbon-removing and producing capacity (4). So if you plant more trees, your investment goes up – if you chop down trees or they burn down in a bush fire, the carbon rights investment goes up in flames, too.)

Stern, of course, was the guru who gave the economic justification for carbon emissions reductions, spelling out in his 700-page UK government report in October 2006 that it would be well worth it to sacrifice one per cent of world GDP to reduce carbon emissions, because the risk of non-reduction would be consumption plummeting by up to 20 per cent (5). Every subsequent alteration in Stern’s calculations has been announced with grave fanfare, as if expecting economics ministers of the world to hurriedly adjust their budgets in line with his latest thinking. In June 2008, for example, he revised his estimate to two per cent of world GDP that should be sacrificed in carbon mitigation (apparently this is still a bargain).

Now Stern has condensed and revised his thoughts in the book, Blueprint for a Safer Planet. Of all economists, Stern has done the most to theorise the idea of carbon value, and his theories are already being put into practice in the UK government’s carbon budgets, under the 2008 Climate Change Bill. The headaches for UK civil servants trying to put Stern’s kooky theories into practice should act as a warning against any further expansion of these ideas.

The fantasy of carbon value

Stern defines carbon value (or the cost of carbon) as ‘embodying in the price of a good not only the cost of the raw materials, labour, capital and so on used in its production, but also the cost of the damages from the emissions produced in the consumption or production of that good’ (6). At base, carbon value is a negative value, which expresses the damage done by industrial activity.

This is also called the ‘marginal social cost’ (MSC), or the ‘shadow price of carbon’. Stern claims that carbon value captures the ‘true costs’ of productive activity:

‘At the heart of economic policy must be the recognition that the emission of greenhouse gases is a market failure. When we emit greenhouse gases we damage the prospects for others and, unless appropriate policy is in place, we do not bear the costs of the damage. Markets then fail in the sense that their main coordinating mechanism – prices – gives the wrong signals. That is, prices… do not reflect the true cost to society of producing and using those goods.’ (7)

These costs of CO2 production, apparently, include ‘severe dislocation, with rising sea levels, a greater frequency of intense storms and hurricanes…’, which inflict damage on the earth’s climate, on people, and on future generations (8).

In an ideal economy, according to Stern, the value of carbon is equal to the marginal social cost (MSC), which is also equal to what is termed the ‘marginal abatement cost’ (MAC: the cost of reducing carbon emissions, by shifting to low-carbon energy or carbon capture/storage). That is, in a rational economy, people would pay the same for the right to produce carbon – and continue using fossil fuels – as it would cost them to switch to another technology; which is also equivalent to the damage inflicted by their carbon production. Industry will exploit all possible low-carbon technologies up until the point where their costs are balanced out by the price of carbon. Stern represents this reasoning in the following equation:

MSC=MAC=CO2 price

So the whole thing hangs on the marginal social cost (MSC), the damage done by carbon production. Yet there is a problem: it turns out that MSC is a phantasm. Stern basically admits that MSC, the supposed crux of and basis for all carbon value, cannot be calculated. He says there is a ‘very large possible range for the MSC’ (9), and that because of the ‘huge range of estimates for the SCC [the social cost of carbon]’ this ‘means that the SCC is a very weak and unreliable peg for policy.’

Indeed, in Why We Disagree About Climate Change, Mike Hulme notes the wild variation in estimates for the social cost of carbon, ranging from $0 to $2,000 per tonne. Hulme observes that the mainstream debate in UK circles focuses on whether it is $14 or $140 per tonne (which is vast – imagine if people couldn’t agree the price of gold within a factor of 10) (10).

So having admitted that MSC and MAC are so vague as to be unworkable, in the book Stern uses an ‘alternative route’, which ‘considers the appropriate targets from the perspective of risk and costs, and seeks out the cheapest method, generally using a price mechanism, of reaching the targets’ (11).

UK civil servants, after banging their heads against the wall trying to implement Stern’s damage-based carbon value, have now also taken this route. In July 2009, the UK government produced a new report saying that it would abandon valuation of carbon damage as a basis for carbon value – which, following Stern’s advice, it had been unsuccessfully trying to implement – and shift instead to the ‘cost of mitigation’ (12)

That is, the value of carbon is that which persuades industry to meet the carbon target. Carbon price is the price that would persuade people to switch to low-carbon technology by the degree necessary to meet the target.

It is the bureaucratic target – and the target alone – that is actually the rationale and logic for the whole enterprise of establishing carbon value. For the UK government, its target is to reduce carbon emissions by 60 per cent by 2050, with five-year intermediary ‘carbon budgets’, and it is these bureaucratically invented targets that determine the price of carbon.

Full Story

Youtube | Nov 6, 2009

Posted by: SignificantImagery

The dollar will get “utterly destroyed” and become “virtually worthless”, said Damon Vickers, chief investment officer of Nine Points Capital Partners. Due to the huge wage disparities between the United States and emerging markets like China, Vickers said that may resolve itself in some type of a global currency crisis.

“If the global currency crisis unfolds, then inevitably you get an alignment of a global world government. A new global currency and a new world order, so we may be moving towards that,” he said.

For those who have claimed this is a fake clip I suggest you visit CNBC’s website:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/33709379

Note the inverted pyramid/illuminati triangle with the hypnotic spinning lights of Nine Points Capital Partners in the background. – PJ

Group wins bid to develop west Qurna as baghdad signs up slew of big contracts

Reuters | Nov 6, 2009

by Ahmed Rasheed and Muhanad Mohammed

BAGHDAD: An ExxonMobil-led consortium has beaten rival Russian, French and Chinese groups to bag initial rights to develop Iraq’s West Qurna field, the Oil Ministry said, adding momentum to Iraq’s bid to unlock its oil riches. With reserves of 8.7 billion barrels, West Qurna is among the prized Iraqi fields eyed by Western oil majors as they face flat or lower output at home and stiff competition from Chinese and Indian oil companies in bidding for oilfields elsewhere.

“The consortium led by ExxonMobil, which includes Shell, won the contract to develop West Qurna Phase One oilfield,” Oil Ministry spokesman Asim Jihad said.

The initial deal was signed in Baghdad on Thursday but needs Cabinet approval before it can be finalized.

The 20-year contract is part of a raft of deals Iraq is close to formalizing in a bid to catapult itself to the world’s third largest oil producer after decades of war and economic decline.

There is no guarantee that Iraq’s next government – to be elected in January ­– will honor the deals, but it injects optimism into prospects for Iraq’s battered oil sector and a second oil bid-round in December, after a lacklustre June auction.

ExxonMobil, partnering Royal Dutch Shell, beat Russia’s LUKOIL – which had teamed up with US oil-major ConocoPhillips – and two other groups led by France’s Total and China’s CNPC.

ExxonMobil’s output target for West Qurna Phase One beat those of its rivals and allowed it to clinch the contract, said an Iraqi oil official, who was part of the negotiating team.

“This is better for us,” the Iraqi oil official said. “We need higher production. This is a supergiant field and it has the capacity to produce even more than the target set by Exxon.”

The group plans to raise the field’s output nearly five-fold to 2.325 million barrels per day (bpd) from less than 500,000 bpd at present, Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said.

He also said the consortium planed to spend as much as $50 billion in investment and operating costs for the project over six years, but there was no immediate confirmation of the figure from the companies.

The consortium would get a remuneration fee of $1.9 per barrel, the minister said.

The pact on West Qurna comes after British oil major BP Plc. and China’s CNPC on Tuesday signed an agreement for the Rumaila oil field: Iraq’s first major new oil deal since the 2003 US-led invasion.

A group led by Italian oil major Eni also signed an initial agreement on Monday to develop the Zubair oilfield, and Iraq said it also expected to ink an agreement with Nippon Oil Corp on Nassiriya in the coming days.

Analysts said the timing of the deals ahead of the January 16 poll in Iraq was convenient for both the Iraqi government and oil companies.

DPR threatens to deal with culprits

businessdayonline.com | Nov 1, 2009

by Olusola Bello

Artificial scarcity of premium motor spirit, better known as petrol hit Lagos, Abuja and neighbouring areas yesterday leading build ups of long queues at filling stations.

The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) says the cause is that some petroleum marketers are hoarding the product with a motive to profiteer from an unfounded anticipation of the deregulation of the nations petroleum downstream sector.

Billy Agha, the director of DPR warned today that petroleum marketers who were hoarding fuel would have themselves to blame if the continued to hoard the product.

Agha said some marketers and dealers were engaging in black marketpractices for the purpose of making undue and unofficial personal gain from petroleum product sales.

He said any marketer or distributor caught in the act would be severely dealt with.

Japan’s Wireless, Power-Generating, Solar Satellite Inhabitat

PopSci | Sep 2, 2009

By Adrian Covert

Japan has serious plans to send a solar-panel-equipped satellite into space that could wirelessly beam a gigawatt-strong stream of power down to earth and power nearly 300,000 homes.

The satellite will have a surface area of four square kilometers, and transmit power via microwave to a base station on Earth. Putting solar panels in space bypasses many of the difficulties of installing them on Earth: in orbit, there are no cloudy days, very few zoning laws, and the cold ambient temperature is ideal.

A small test model is scheduled for launch in 2015. To iron out all the kinks and get a fully functional system set up is estimated to take three decades. A major kink, presumably, is coping with the possible dangers when a 1-gigawatt microwave beam aimed at a small spot on Earth misses its target.

The $21 billion project just received major backing from Mitsubishi and designer IHI (in addition to research teams from 14 other countries).