Iran: OPEC Can’t Raise Output
January 6th, 2008Via: Reuters:
Many OPEC states are now producing as much oil as they can, limiting the ability of the cartel to raise output even if such a decision was made to help cool crude prices, an Iranian oil official was quoted on Saturday as saying.
Mohammad Ali Khatibi, deputy director of international affairs at the National Iranian Oil Company, also said in comments to ISNA news agency that any decision to hike OPEC output would only help if the market faced a crude shortage.
Iran has previously said there was no shortage in crude supply and has blamed other factors for surging oil prices, which hit a lifetime high of $100 a barrel this week.
“Because most members are currently producing at full capacity it seems that even if there is a decision to increase the output ceiling, not all members would be able to increase their production capacity,” Khatibi said, when asked if OPEC would hold an emergency meeting to discuss surging prices.
California to Set Thermostats via Remote Control
January 6th, 2008What could possibly go wrong?
For example, hackers will never figure out how to take control of these systems.
Oh no. That won’t happen. * chuckle *
Via: American Thinker:
In the proposed revisions to Title 24 is the requirement for what is called a “programmable communicating thermostat” or PCT. Every new home and every change to existing homes’ central heating and air conditioning systems will required to be fitted with a PCT beginning next year following the issuance of the revision. Each PCT will be fitted with a “non-removable ” FM receiver that will allow the power authorities to increase your air conditioning temperature setpoint or decrease your heater temperature setpoint to any value they chose. During “price events” those changes are limited to +/- four degrees F and you would be able to manually override the changes. During “emergency events” the new setpoints can be whatever the power authority desires and you would not be able to alter them.
In other words, the temperature of your home will no longer be yours to control. Your desires and needs can and will be overridden by the state of California through its public and private utility organizations. All this is for the common good, of course.
Brown: 2008 “Difficult and Dangerous Situation for the World Economy”
January 6th, 2008Via: Guardian:
Gordon Brown today issues a powerful declaration that 2008 will decide the fate of his premiership as he pledges to push through a series of controversial decisions that will shape Britain for decades to come.
In his first major interview of the year, the Prime Minister serves notice on his opponents that he is planning a fightback which will see him taking unpopular decisions on nuclear power, airport expansion and house building.
Brown delivers a strong warning that voters will face tough economic conditions this year as the US credit crunch spreads across the Atlantic. ‘This is a difficult and dangerous situation for the world economy,’ he says.
Super-Sized Autopsy Tables Needed For Big Corpses
January 5th, 2008More freedom fries, corn syrup and dead, cooked blood/pus hormone milk. And NutraSweet. Don’t forget that.
Via: Local6:
The Orange-Osceola Medical Examiner’s Office has a new addition: An autopsy table that can support 1,000 pounds.
The standard used to be around 300 pounds. But more medical examiners said they need larger tables to accommodate larger bodies.
Larger morgue drawers and other equipment used to carry and store the dead are also in demand.
Researchers said more than 20 percent of Floridians are obese.
In the Orange-Osceola Medical-Examiner’s Office, that means performing an autopsy on one 300-pound person a week.
The office’s chief investigator says it’s been difficult working with such large bodies on standard-sized tables.
Video of Sleeping Guards Shakes Nuclear Industry
January 5th, 2008Via: Washington Post:
Kerry Beal was taken aback when he discovered last March that many of his fellow security guards at the Peach Bottom nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania were taking regular naps in what they called “the ready room.”
When he spoke to supervisors at his company, Wackenhut Corp., they told Beal to be a team player. When he alerted the regional office of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, regulators let the matter drop after the plant’s owner, Exelon, said it found no evidence of guards asleep on the job.
So Beal videotaped the sleeping guards. The tape, eventually given to WCBS, a CBS television affiliate in New York City, showed the armed workers snoozing against walls, slumped on tabletops or with eyes closed and heads bobbing.
The fallout of the broadcast is still being felt. Last month, Exelon, the country’s largest provider of nuclear power, fired Wackenhut, which had guarded each of its 10 nuclear plants. The NRC is reviewing its own oversight procedures, having failed to heed Beal’s warning.
Related: Astonishing Security Breach at South African Nuclear Facility
December Earnings
January 5th, 2008Earnings from all sources came to a total of $1339.25, or about 2.7X the minimum monthly goal of $500.
As usual, the extreme generosity of direct cash contributors represented the main component of earnings in December. Several new contributors showed their support as 2007 came to a close. That’s great! For the most part, the same people are doing a lot of heavy lifting in that column to the right each month. Thank you.
Amazon activity continues to amaze me. For the first time, Cryptogon saw Amazon commissions from the U.S., Germany, Britain and France in December. Thanks to everyone around the world who remembered to start their Amazon sessions via Cryptogon. It all ads up (in dollars, euro and sterling).
Weird Note: Incredibly, Amazon doesn’t support the basic requirement of thousands of affiliates to display relevant ads to readers from around the world. Since about 40% of people reading Cryptogon aren’t inside the U.S., it seemed stupid to display Amazon U.S. banners to them. Long story short, Germans are seeing amazon.de banners, French are seeing amazon.fr, and so on.
Thanks to the owners of Marginal Way House and Orgonise Africa for signing up for hosting with BlueHost.
Cryptogon readers continued to use BullionVault for their gold ownership and professional vaulting needs. I show the commissions in dollars, but readers are active in euro and sterling denominated accounts as well.
Finally, thanks to Financial Web for their continued and generous sponsorship of Cryptogon.
PowerShares DB Agriculture Trades Just Under 52 Week High
January 5th, 2008WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.
It was up about 1% during the regular session and then another 2% in after hours. It’s at $35.25. The 52 week high is $35.94.
Congratulations to all Cryptogon DBA traders.
Forget Oil, the New Global Crisis is Food
January 4th, 2008“In 2008, food could become a out front national security issue in the developed world. My top concerns are wheat and corn. For hundreds of millions of people, especially in America and Europe, this will translate into higher food costs across the board.”
—Cryptogon, Some Guesses About 2008
“PowerShares DB Agriculture Fund (DBA) NOTE: I am slightly overweight this one. If you look at the ongoing crises involved with food production, you see not just a perfect storm, but multiple perfect storms.”
Via: Financial Post:
A new crisis is emerging, a global food catastrophe that will reach further and be more crippling than anything the world has ever seen. The credit crunch and the reverberations of soaring oil prices around the world will pale in comparison to what is about to transpire, Donald Coxe, global portfolio strategist at BMO Financial Group said at the Empire Club’s 14th annual investment outlook in Toronto on Thursday.
“It’s not a matter of if, but when,” he warned investors. “It’s going to hit this year hard.”
Mr. Coxe said the sharp rise in raw food prices in the past year will intensify in the next few years amid increased demand for meat and dairy products from the growing middle classes of countries such as China and India as well as heavy demand from the biofuels industry.
“The greatest challenge to the world is not US$100 oil; it’s getting enough food so that the new middle class can eat the way our middle class does, and that means we’ve got to expand food output dramatically,” he said.
The impact of tighter food supply is already evident in raw food prices, which have risen 22% in the past year.
Mr. Coxe said in an interview that this surge would begin to show in the prices of consumer foods in the next six months. Consumers already paid 6.5% more for food in the past year.
Wheat prices alone have risen 92% in the past year, and yesterday closed at US$9.45 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade.
At the centre of the imminent food catastrophe is corn – the main staple of the ethanol industry. The price of corn has risen about 44% over the past 15 months, closing at US$4.66 a bushel on the CBOT yesterday – its best finish since June 1996.
This not only impacts the price of food products made using grains, but also the price of meat, with feed prices for livestock also increasing.
“You’re going to have real problems in countries that are food short, because we’re already getting embargoes on food exports from countries, who were trying desperately to sell their stuff before, but now they’re embargoing exports,” he said, citing Russia and India as examples.
“Those who have food are going to have a big edge.”
With 54% of the world’s corn supply grown in America’s mid-west, the U.S. is one of those countries with an edge.
But Mr. Coxe warned U.S. corn exports were in danger of seizing up in about three years if the country continues to subsidize ethanol production. Biofuels are expected to eat up about a third of America’s grain harvest in 2007.
The amount of U.S. grain currently stored for following seasons was the lowest on record, relative to consumption, he said.
“You should be there for it fully-hedged by having access to those stocks that benefit from rising food prices.”
Japan to Increase Emergency Stockpiles of Grains
January 4th, 2008Via: Bloomberg:
Japan, the world’s biggest grain importer, plans to increase emergency stockpiles of corn, wheat and soybeans next year to ensure stable supplies at a time of soaring global prices, the Yomiuri newspaper reported.
The country plans to boost reserves, including privately held inventories, to three months of annual demand in 2009 from one to two months currently, Yomiuri said yesterday, without saying where it obtained the information. A team led by Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda will draw up a report by March and submit it to the farm ministry, the newspaper said.
Japan’s imports of corn, which come mostly from the U.S., are forecast at 16.3 million metric tons in the year ending September 2008, while wheat imports are projected at 5.5 million tons and soybean imports at 4.2 million tons, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a report on Dec. 11.
Wheat and soybeans have been among the best-performing commodities of the past year, with respective gains of 79 percent and 81 percent. Corn, which gained 18 percent in the past year, reached an 11-year high today of $4.62 a bushel.
Japan’s emergency stockpiles of essential feed grains in 2006 included 536,000 tons of corn, 64,000 tons of sorghum and 350,000 tons of barley, according to a report by the U.S. Foreign Agricultural Service in March 2007.
Wheat inventories were set at 1.8 months’ of demand, or about 900,000 tons, in 2006, the report said, adding that actual stock figures are not disclosed.
The target stockpile amount for soybeans was reduced to 39,000 tons in April 2006 from 43,000 tons in 2005, the FAS, a branch of the USDA, said in a separate report in May.
Related: CHINA: 36 MAJOR CITIES TOLD TO KEEP FOOD, OIL RESERVES
Air Force Academy Developing Wave Power System
January 4th, 2008Imagine my shock.
Via: Colorado Springs Gazette:
Researchers at the Air Force Academy are developing an idea that could use ocean waves to meet much of the nation’s energy needs.
The devices used to extract the energy look like the paddle wheels on river steamships of
old, but with some new twists added by researcher Stefan Siegel along with aeronautics research center director Thomas McLaughlin. They envision submersible barges lined with the wheels that would be able to use the movement of ocean water to generate electricity and transmit it to shore over submerged cables.
“Wave energy has lots of potential,” said Siegel, who is working with cadets to figure out the mind-boggling mathematics involved in accurately modeling the invention. “There is also a tremendous amount of it available.”
