http://www.odograph.com/experiments/php/kcalc.html

It's the cat's pajamas when it comes to understanding your energy use ... as this excellent article illustrates:

http://digitalcrusader.ca/archives/2006/10/household_energ.html

The author comes to an intesting conclusion with regard to conservation for co2 reduction.

found by way of:

http://groovygreen.com/groove/?p=571

Dad noticed the earthquake.  Everything swayed, and tons of leaves flew off the big lichee tree in the front yard.  But he's a little hard of hearing, and apparently didn't hear things crashing in the house.  He didn't even go inside to check it out.

The power went out when the quake hit, so Mom came home from the gym.  (Guess you can't exercise without electricity.  ;-)  She pulled into the garage and saw everything on the garage shelves had fallen off.  

Then she went inside, and found total chaos.  In the kitchen, all the food had fallen out of the fridge and cabinets.  Dishes and jars were smashed.  Pictures had fallen off the wall.  There was cracking along the base of the house walls.  The closet doors had fallen out.    

Of course, the biggest problem, from Dad's POV, was that with no power, there was no football.  However, the electricity did come back on in time for the Sunday night game (an afternoon game Hawai`i time).  

O`ahu, where most of the population of Hawai`i lives, was without power a lot longer.  Apparently, the problem was software that shuts down the entire grid when there's a shortfall.  Though only two generators (out of 11) actually went offline due to the quake, all of them were automatically shut down.

Because Hawai`i gets its water from artesian wells, without power, there's no water, either.  Tourists were in a bit of a panic, rushing to convenience stores to buy bottled water.  Many of the locals stood in line for hours to buy food and drink from lunch wagons. Home Depot was one of the few stores that stayed open; guess they just fired up some of their generators.  They sold out of batteries right away, but reportedly still have propane and charcoal.  

Airplanes were allowed to land in Hawai`i, but could not take off.  Without power, the security machines couldn't run, so no one was allowed to board outgoing planes.

Some buildings partially collapsed, including the hospital where my sister worked part-time when we were in high school.  A structures engineer said the shaking had turned some concrete into powder; he described it as a "mini 9/11."  

Highways are closed due to rockslides, and as many as 170 bridges on the Big Island may be damaged.  Engineers are being flown in from the mainland to inspect them.  Hotels have been asked to keep tourists as close to the hotel as possible, since the roadway infrastructure may not be safe.

Only a few gas stations were open; they attracted long lines.  Many limited purchases to $20, and/or accepted cash only.  

Some grocery stores opened for emergency purchases.  People were escorted in one at a time, guided by an employee with a flashlight.  Hundreds lined up outside.

No lights in Honolulu last night, except from cars

Bush Buys Land in Northern Paraguay

Buenos Aires, Oct 13 (Prensa Latina) An Argentine official regarded the intention of the George W. Bush family to settle on the Acuifero Guarani (Paraguay) as surprising, besides being a bad signal for the governments of the region.

Luis D Elia, undersecretary for the Social Habitat in the Argentine Federal Planning Ministry, issued a memo partially reproduced by digital INFOBAE.com, in which he spoke of the purchase by Bush of a 98,842-acre farm in northern Paraguay, between Brazil and Bolivia.

The news circulated Thursday in non-official sources in Asuncion, Paraguay.

D Elia considered this Bush step counterproductive for the regional power expressed by Presidents Nestor Kirchner, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Evo Morales, Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro.

He said that "it is a bad signal that the Bush family is doing business with natural resources linked to the future of MERCOSUR."

The official pointed out that this situation could cause a hypothetical conflict of all the armies in the region, and called attention to the Bush family habit of associating business and politics.

ef ccs tac rmh

http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7BEBA55617-2676-4091-ABBC-20650EB6FEE1%7D)&language=EN

'It's time to get out of here'

Kathy and Jim Radke have a dairy farm next to the Scotford Upgrader north of Fort Saskatchewan, and they will soon by surrounded by more upgraders.

Dairy farmers Kathy and Jim Radke are bracing for the worst.

Their farm north of Fort Saskatchewan is just two kilometres east of the giant Scotford Upgrader, due to begin a $5-billion expansion in a few months. Directly north of them, the new Heartland Upgrader is under construction.

This area, dubbed Alberta's Industrial Heartland by the municipalities that govern it, is undergoing rapid change. As many as six bitumen upgraders could go up in the coming decade, bringing boom times to the Edmonton area but making life difficult for the Heartland's rural residents.

"We would like to get out," said Kathy in an interview in the family kitchen. "We just don't have the funds to do it."

For the Radkes and others, air pollution is a central cause of concern.

An emission from the Scotford Upgrader on Sept. 12 sent residents inside their houses for hours, after getting a call from Shell. The Radkes said their throats were burning so badly they left the farm. Bad air also drifts across the river over from a fertilizer plant, which could soon have three new upgraders as neighbours.

Kathy Radke said her daughter Shelley was able to throw her asthma inhaler away after she moved to southern Alberta.

"It's time to get out of here," echoed Maureen Chichak, who lives on an acreage in the area. "It's far too dangerous."

The Radkes said their cows have started sickening in the past year. They've lost about 35 cows since last fall and are down to a dairy herd of 100. The herd has been tested and cleared for mad cow disease. Jim Radke thinks a combination of environmental causes, including the air pollution, is killing his cows.

It looks like many, but not all of the articles are free at the public area of the WSJ web site.  The main page for the section is here:

http://online.wsj.com/public/page/2_1252.html

U.S. at 300 million: 'Heaven on earth' to 'uncharted territory'

The 300 millionth American will be born early Tuesday, the U.S. Census Bureau says. The United States has become a "supersize, metro-nation with a fast-growing population, and supersize appetites for housing, land and resource consumption," one expert says. The U.S. is now a vastly different nation from the one where the Baby Boomers were born.

300 million US consumers make an outsized environmental mark

The United States, the only industrialized country with strong population growth, now has 300 million people whose lifestyle makes a disproportionately huge mark on the global environment, experts say.

The world's third most populous country behind China and India, the United States has five percent of the world's population. But it consumes -- alone -- more than a quarter of the world's natural resources, more than any other country, according to the National Report on Population and Environment, put out by the US-based Center for Environment and Population.

"The nation's relatively high rates of population growth, natural resource consumption and pollution combine to create the largest environmental impact, felt both within the nation and around the world," the report read.
"The US population has the largest ecological footprint in the world," it adds.

The United States emits almost one quarter of carbon dioxide (CO2) and greenhouse gases -- emissions that are expected to soar 43 percent by 2020.

With more than 237 million vehicles in 2006 (up from 98 million 40 years ago when the population was 200 million) the transport sector alone accounts for a third of CO2 emissions. The average US driver spends some 47 hours every year in rush hour traffic jams compared to 16 hours 20 years ago, according to the CEP.

And the size of typical American homes has ballooned even as the number of people living in each home has declined from 3.1 per household in 1970 to 2.6 in 2000. "At the same time, the average size of new single-family homes increased by more than 700 square feet," the report says.

The taste for super-sizing homes has driven up the amount of natural resources used in home construction as well as the amount of energy used to heat them in the winter and cool them in the summer. Overall, taking into account the space given to housing, schools, roads and commercial areas, each American uses 20 percent more land than in the mid-1980s.

Americans also use an average of three times more water than the average planet resident. Pollution has left roughly 40 percent of US rivers off-limits to fishing and bathing.

Every day, US consumers toss out 2.3 kilos (five pounds) of trash -- an average of five times more than people in developing countries.
Their food consumption, one third of which is animal origin, tops the scales at an average 136 kilos of meat per person compared to 72 kilos for a European and 27 kilos for a resident of a developing country.

With a growing population and a mushrooming demand for resources the country's infrastructure is vulnerable, said Carlos Restrepo, a research scientist at the Wagner School's Institute for Civil Infrastructure Systems (ICIS). One sign of straining infrastructure is that there have been some 400 blackouts between 1990 and 2004.

Given the interdependence of production and electric distribution systems, and water supplying and oil or gas supplies, breakdowns are taking longer to fix, Restrepo said.
"Those levels of energy consumption are probably not sustainable," he said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601072&sid=aJNu32QG4gYI&refer=energy

``If you told me I had to go long or short today, I would go long,'' betting on higher prices, said Pickens, whose Dallas hedge fund is up 120 percent this year. Gas may reach $10 this winter if cold weather depletes inventories, he said on Oct. 11 in New York. He declined to predict when his fund might get back into the gas market after exiting earlier this year.

I know many here highly regard Pickens, and his fund is up 120% this year.  Holy crap!

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aVWp2YNByXWU&refer=worldwide

Credit Suisse Group, Switzerland's second-biggest bank, lost about $120 million on South Korean derivatives in the third quarter, an undisclosed stumble by equity traders struggling to catch the leaders in the securities industry.

Derivatives are dangerous when not used correctly.  Do you think there's more shake out coming?  I do.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aqFRXrWq703k&refer=us

Corn production in the U.S., the world's largest grower and exporter, will drop this year because farmers sowed less than they planned and drought damaged some fields, the Department of Agriculture said Oct. 12. The amount of corn used as animal feed and to make fuel has exceeded production in six of the past seven years, reducing inventories to the lowest in two decades.

``The world is just beginning to confront the issue that it has not been able to produce enough corn,'' said Dave Marshall, a market consultant in Nashville, Illinois. ``Farmers the world over have not had the incentive to produce bigger crops.''

My favorite is that last quote.  Farmers are going to magically alter drought conditions.  Right.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-coal16oct16,1,1411854.story?coll=la-headlines-business

DALLAS -- A building boom that would add scores of coal-fired power plants to the nation's power grid is creating a new dilemma for politicians, environmentalists and utility companies across the United States.

Critics, however, say the company is driven by the profit motive and is rushing to beat more stringent federal restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions in an era of escalating concern about global warming. Texas already produces more carbon dioxide than any other state, a fact that worries big-city mayors downwind of the proposed plants.

OK LA times piece.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/16/business/16hedge.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin

In early March, executives from Movie Gallery, a big movie rental chain, held a private conference call for their lenders to talk about how disastrous 2005 had been for the company. A string of Hollywood flops had kept customers away. More people were recording movies from television instead of renting them from a store. The executives said they needed more time to fix the problems, which included more than $1 billion in debt.

Most of the roughly 200 lenders were not bankers, but hedge funds. And what they heard was supposed to be confidential: it was inside information, as valuable to investors as a tip about an imminent takeover.

During the next two days, though, Movie Gallery's shares were heavily traded, and its stock plummeted 25 percent.

I'm beginnning to firmly believe it will be a hedge fund that does break the camels back.  This article is important as it shows the power of hedge funds.  I've read that increasingly upwards of half of the business is settled at JP Morgan and Sachs.  Increasingly debt is what hedge funds own as assets.  We all know these aren't assets.  When the domino starts falling, there will be no one to stop it.  

Personal opinion, but a basic finance principle is risk/reward.  For increased risk, you demand (and usually get) higher returns.  There's a reason these funds return stellar results, in business cycle peaks, and there are reasons they will be DOGS in the coming recession.  These are not true hedge funds as they were orignally coined, but as Janszen posits, Unregulated Investment Pools.  Increasingly more people are jumping on the debt based bandwagon (pension funds, insurance, any business with spare cash laying around).  You've got one sector of the financial community controlling close to 1/6 aggregate GDP.  Nice.

After thinking about it, even if the conspiracy theory should happen to be true, I think that it may be best if peak oil folks stay away from pursuing this issue. Some considerations:

1. Where would such a conspiracy theory lead? Suppose it were true that there was some involvement of the Bush administraction in 9/11. Both the US population and overseas oil producers (and others) would be outraged. We need a functioning US government and we need other nations to be happy enough with us to continue selling us oil, in order to have the framework to continue at a reason level, as long as we can. Thus, disclosing this information would likely make the country worse off than we would be otherwise.

2. Bush and his compatriots will be out of power in a little over two years, regardless of what information is disclosed. Perhaps the elections in November will reduce their power.

3. Those involved in peak oil have enough other issues to deal with. This issue doesn't really add to the solution.

This link on the Unholy Trinity posted by Leanan this morning was extremely revealing. The Unholy Trinity is peak oil, climate change and water shortage.  The author almost acknowledges that we are already in overshoot:

The weight of scientific evidence points to the fact the globe cannot support its present population, let alone an additional 2.5 billion, unless we embrace change.

In fact the above statement is entirely incorrect. We are already deep into overshoot and no way can the earth support, long term, 6.5 billion people no matter what changes we embrace. But I find those last four word, in one form or another, repeated by peak oilers, environmentalists and just about everyone else who is aware of the terrible mess humanity is in. In fact, Lester Brown has written an entire book on just how we can get ourselves out of this mess.  Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble.

But we will not embrace change. We will not embrace Lester's Plan B. We will do absolutely nothing until it is way, way too late to do anything that will make any real difference. Why? Simply because it is not in our nature to do so. People who give rescue plans, or plans for their idea of Utopia, or any kind of plan that requires most everyone to behave in this manner or that, know absolutely nothing about human nature. Only a tiny percentage of people are ever convinced by argument. The vast majority of people, perhaps in excess of 99%, are only convinced by events. People, as Francis Bacon pointed out, desire to believe what they desire to be true. Doomsayers, even doomsayers who offer a plan of salvation, are simply laughed at by that vast majority. Very few will believe the well is running dry until the day they can pump no more water. Few will believe in climate change until the rains no longer come, or come every day. (A few in Australia are beginning to believe however.;-) And a very few will believe in peak oil until years after the actual peak.

And even when these events actually happen, especially the peak oil event, few will still embrace the fact that it is truly because of depleting oil fields. They will find someone to blame for their predicament.

So people, the statement "Here is what we must do" is totally meaningless. We, the population of the earth as a whole, are not going to do one damn thing. Catastrophy must happen first! Then we will swing into action in a big way. Yeah! Of course then it will be way too late.

Ron Patterson

The mass of mankind is ruled not by its intermittent moral sensations, still less by self-interest, but by the needs of the moment. It seems fated to wreck the balance of life on earth - and thereby to be the agent of its own destruction. What could be more hopeless than placing the Earth in the charge of this exceptionally destructive species.
- John Gray, Straw Dogs

Two interesting pieces on CNN this morning:

1.  A good story on the water woes in the west.  They pointed out that Lake Meade is down 50% (yikes!).  The drought continues.  No direct GW tie-in, but it was kinda "hint, hint", like they do.

2. And a good one on the coming electricity crunch based on that report saying potential trouble in 2-3 years.  They discussed building new plants, pointed out NIMBY problems, and admitted that coal is still dirty and "clean coal" is  unproven and simply not available yet.

54 days seems like a lot but its not really.  

I really don't think we have till 2020 to decide what to do about Peak Oil?  I don't even think we have till 2010.   It is only 3 years away you say!

In 1999 some people thought the end was going to be 2000, I didn't not a enough systems were likely to crash totally, though COBOL was a big thing,  I did pull myself out of the 401K I was in, only because I felt the market going south for the company I was in, and I lost my jab in said company when they lost contracts.

But would any of you have guessed that 2000 would be a dud, only to have 2 towers go POOF the very next year?

3 years in not that long away. 54 days surplus emergancy grain supplies is not that many days.  And we are going to gas our speeding habits with grain, and party like its 1999!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2095-2404009,00.html

It is this fiscal situation, this unwillingness to rein in spending so that the boom in tax receipts can be used to provide support for American diplomacy, that has made it impossible for America to have an effective foreign policy. Indeed, it is arguable that George Bush has presided over the largest decline in America's ability to influence world events since ... well, since the 1920s, when we decided it was in the nation's interests to let the world take care of itself while we partied at that era's equivalents of today's discos -- the jazz joints and speakeasies that offered solace to the Wall Street crowd after a hard day of share-price manipulation.

North Korea was confident that America would not use force to eliminate its nuclear facilities, or to bring its long-range missile programme to a halt, or to stop its counterfeiting of $100 bills -- counterfeits so good that they are dubbed "superdollars" and can be detected only when they turn up at Federal Reserve banks. After all, even that country's cloistered politicians can see that the Bush team is unwilling to commit the resources needed to bring the Iraq intervention to a successful conclusion.

China owns us.  Damn.  Who owns Canada?

Why gas prices dropped:  Trust us. It wasn't OPEC or Republicans trying to influence midterm elections.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/10/30/8391681/index.htm?cnn=yes

According to Joel Fingerman of Chicago-based OilAnalytics.net, between the peak of $77 a barrel in August and the October low of just under $58, traders dumped nearly 40 million barrels (a 20 percent drop) from their long positions. The volatile gasoline market showed an even sharper decline - with traders cutting long positions from 32 million barrels in midsummer to just 1.7 million in October.

"Whatever you want to call it - speculators, fast money, hot money - a big part of the drop in crude that we've seen this year is because of selling by hedge funds," says Merrill Lynch technical analyst Mary Ann Bartels.

Sweden: Rethinking the IKEA Syndrome

Call it the IKEA syndrome. The constant battle by business to get around high labor costs is evident everywhere in Sweden. Here, the gap between high and low salaries is much narrower than in almost any other modern economy. The typical Swedish waiter, say, makes €23,000 a year, or about a quarter of what a Swedish CEO takes home. In Britain, the waiter would earn much less (€17,628), the CEO much more (€164,788). In the United States, the gap would be wider still. Thus, in IKEA-syndrome Sweden, the restaurant world looks very different. McDonald's thrives, according to a recent McKinsey & Co. study, but its fast-food competitor Pizza Hut, with bigger tables and larger serving staff, struggles.

Until recently, most Swedes liked the idea that life in their country was more equitable than elsewhere. But global competition is now persuading many to rethink the whole issue of employment. McKinsey warned in August that the high cost of doing business in Sweden would force companies to "move 100,000 to 200,000 jobs offshore in the next 10 years." Sweden has enjoyed outstanding economic growth, but it came in part because companies shed jobs to boost productivity. In the run-up to last month's general election, the independent National Institute of Economic Research suggested that Sweden had hit a growth ceiling: unless the labor supply expanded, GDP growth would slow.

And on page 24 of same issue they have a full page article on the new Skystream 3.7 wind generator from Southwest Windpower (www.windenergy.com). 1.4 kw generator that outputs 240 volt AC current to easily attach to household/utility power. Under $10,000 @. It certainly is tempting. These could become real popular in rural areas.
Current magazine on their web site is still October issue, but I would imagine in the next few weeks these articles will be available on the Popular Science web site (www.popsci.com)

Mike Morgan:

With so many "experts" out there singing the praises of the housing market, I think it is time for me to once again poke my head out. I had an email exchange this week with Jim Cramer, and it was hard to believe he is as bullish as he is. I hear from too many analysts and Wall Street gurus that don't take the time to get out of their offices and get on the front line here in Florida, as well as Arizona, Texas, California, Virginia, etc. I also hear from the analysts and hedge fund managers that are visiting the corporate offices of the big builders. Unfortunately, they're drinking the Cool Aid. It's potent stuff that clouds rational thinking and it is probably just what is needed to wash down a few hundred stale donuts.

Do you remember my analogy of housing to donuts? A year ago I said this was like the room of 1,000 donuts. Even if they are warm Krispy Kremes, how many can you eat? Three? Maybe four? And even if you come back the next day, and the donuts are now half price, how many can you eat? Same thing with housing. We only have so many people in the US. But builders built houses like donuts. They sold houses to non-users. They sold houses to the greedy masses that bought multiple houses to flip. Now we have the inventory, but there are not enough people to occupy these homes. Moreover, with interest rates rising and mortgages becoming tougher to obtain, we have less and less people that can buy these homes, even if they want to.

Since my recent article in Barron's, I have received dozens of calls from builders, bankers, buyers and investment groups perched like vultures. Let me give you a sampling of a few calls.

Public Builder - Called me to find them bulk buyers with the ability to buy out all remaining units in developments they cannot sell. They are willing to sell at cost. I told them they were about 10% over the current distress market, and they didn't even hesitate. They said, fine. Drop the price 10% and we'll pay a 5% commission to you. Just help us get rid of this inventory.

Condo Developer - They have a 600 unit project that is 100% up for resale. This means no one is going to close when the building is completed in January. Every single buyer will walk from their 20% deposits. The developer will simply going to turn the keys over to the bank. And the bank will take a massive hit that will have the Feds on top of them in the blink of an eye.

Townhome Developer - Asked me to resell 132 units that they had sold a year ago for an average of $400,000 a unit. All of their buyers have notified them that they will not close. Unfortunately, even a year ago in the heated market these units were only worth about $250,000. Now, the units will not command more than $175,000 . . . if they're lucky.

Real Estate Agent - She sold 10 of the 132 units I just mentioned to her friends, family, banker and co-workers. They're all going to walk away from their $40,000 deposits, so they don't lose $250,000. The developer will be stuck with 132 units that are not worth what it cost to build them.

Homeowner - This one really hurts, and this is the next wave of the massive tidal wave hitting this industry. As surfers know, the third set is the biggest. This homeowner purchased her home for $390,000 plus $15,000 in closing costs. It is now worth maybe $300,000. Their interest only ARM is scheduled for refinancing. The bank told them they need to come up with additional cash to cover the drop in equity. But they don't have the $75,000 the bank wants. And even if they sell for $300,000 and clear $280,000, they can't pay off their $390,000 mortgage balance. You see, their mortgage was 100% and it was interest only. They are going to walk away from the house and give it to the bank. The bank, if they are lucky, will sell the house for $300,000 less commissions and expenses. Maybe they will net out at $280,000. The math is simple. The bank, at best, will lose at least $110,000 on a $390,000 mortgage. That's a 28% loss . . . IF they can sell at $300,000. Back to the donuts. Maybe they can sell a few of these homes at market prices, but as foreclosures mount, prices will drop further.

The Third Wave - This massive tidal wave will effect all aspects of our economy. Some banks will fail. Other banks will suffer the worst liquidity crisis since the Depression. And there is no way to stop this wave. This wave not only effects current mortgage holders who can no longer afford to live in their homes, but it devastates the new home market. Buyers with contracts are finding it tougher to qualify for mortgages. We can't forget that rates are also up about 18% from a year ago, so buyers cannot afford the same home they could have a year ago.

I will wrap up with a statistic from a recent FDIC presentation.

"Bank exposure to mortgage and home equity is now at peak levels, having risen dramatically. If you look at 1998, the total exposure to mortgage and home equity loans was about 25 percent. In the last quarter, the third quarter, it had risen to 37 percent."

And here's the why this tidal wave is a killer. The 25 percent exposure was during a period of rising home prices and low inventory levels. The 37 percent follows the first two tidal waves of the highest inventory levels in the history of the United States and prices falling with equity disappearing daily.

I sold three homes last week for one public builder. Each of these homes sold for 40% less than the same homes sold a year ago. How about all of those neighbors when it comes time to refinance? The appraiser is going to look at current sales prices, and the bank is going to ask for additional funds to meet the equity requirements. Ouch. Where's the Kool Aid?

The locomotives are quite old types (from the 1960ies), gone through extensive refurbishing.

The first indicates that US domestic production will be a messy, polluting industry. Any claims of ethanol being "carbon neutral" ot non-polluting can now be thrown out. The pressure from industry, investors and politicians drives us towards disaster.

The second article, quoting devil-incarnate Claude Mandil (can we put him under permanent house arrest in Paraguay?), spells out another side of the mess: the rich should use the poor to grow their fuel (the benefits of open markets). That means more palm oil (great EROEI, right?), less tropical forest, increasing forest fires in Asia and the end of the "man of the woods".

It also means Brazil will be pushed towards an overkill of sugar cane (yeah, yeah, great EROEI), which means less Amazon forest. The myth that sugar does not affect the Amazon must be put to rest: sugar cane is largely grown where there used to be soy, and soy where there used to be trees.

EPA relaxing environmental rules for ethanol plants

There already are questions about whether ethanol is good for the environment. The fuel additive releases somewhat less carbon dioxide than gasoline - reducing the amount of greenhouse gases that are making the planet hotter. But the EPA recently reported that pumping more ethanol into cars and trucks is expected to increase the amount of chemicals that create smog.

Existing clean-air rules consider ethanol plants as major sources of air pollution if they emit more than 100 tons of toxic chemicals a year. Those that do must go through an intensive - and time-consuming - permitting process. They also must install equipment that burns off most of the emissions.

Under the proposed changes, ethanol plants wouldn't be subject to the stringent federal requirements unless they spewed more than 250 tons of air pollution. Most of the new refineries are expected to emit a few tons less than that.

IEA chief: EU and US should import ethanol from developing world

According to Claude Mandil, "ethanol produced in Brazil, even when it is imported by Europe [taking into account the energy needed to transport the fuel across the Atlantic] makes sense. If the United States and Europe are serious about biofuels, they must turn to the South for their supplies". The South has the land available, the climate and the crops. Mandil does not deny that careful planning must be undertaken to limit environmental damage, though.

Claude Mandil warns that the United States and Europe do not see the larger picture. They are confusing agricultural policies and energy policies, mixing them up in a cocktail that "has no advantages", Mandil concludes. Implicitly, he is referring to both President Bush and President Chirac's recent announcements that they are going to support biofuel farming in the US and the EU.

Any ideas on books or where to buy this stuff online? I can find plenty of 100W panels online but I'm not sure if I am missing someone with good prices (as panels that size aren't cheap) and I'm not sure where to start looking with the battery/power storage system.

More than impressive. Totally scary!

If anything goes wrong [like the two train derailments in 2005] then electricity may go off in some of the US.