Tokyo Electric close to insolvency

June 10, 2011

NYT: On Thursday, shares in Tokyo Electric again fell to a record low, at one point slumping to 148 yen ($1.85), down 93 percent from prequake levels. Shares finished at 192 yen ($2.40), down 4 percent from the previous day, and the company already had a 1.25 trillion yen loss in the year ending March 31, the largest annual loss for a nonfinancial institution in Japanese history.

Current Stock Chart Performance for TOKYO ELECTRIC POWER CO INC (9501)

http://investing.businessweek.com

The physical damage from the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has been so widespread that even conservative estimates of compensation claims amount to tens of billions of dollars — a burden that could render Japan’s largest utility insolvent….

….

And banks were so certain of this that they agreed, in early April, to lend almost 2 trillion yen ($25 billion) to the struggling utility company. In the eyes of the market, Tokyo Electric was too big to fail.

Now, three months later, the market is not so sure.

…. Meanwhile, the head of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Atsushi Saito — who was once the president of a state-sponsored organization that assisted ailing companies, — shocked investors when he suggested in an interview last week with local media that Tokyo Electric should go through court-led restructuring, similar to the path Japan Airlines had taken since declaring bankruptcy last year.

Tokyo Electric is Japan’s biggest corporate bond issuer, representing about 8 percent, or about 5 trillion yen, of the country’s 70 trillion yen corporate bond market. And because many of Japan’s largest banks hold shares in Tokyo Electric, they have already taken a direct hit from the utility’s difficulties.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government owns about 3 percent of Tokyo Electric’s shares, and the city’s finances have been thrown into disarray as share prices plunge and dividends are canceled.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Business, Japan, Natural Disasters | Comments Off on Tokyo Electric close to insolvency

Ununquadium = Flerovium and Ununhexium = Moscovium?

June 9, 2011

In June last year it was reported that element 114 – with the temporary name ununquadium – had been manufactured in the lab.

Periodic table gets bigger: Element 114 Ununquadium

Now a a joint working party of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) have concluded that elements 114 and 116 have fulfilled criteria for official inclusion in the periodic table.

Discovery of the elements with atomic numbers greater than or equal to 113

doi:10.1351/PAC-REP-10-05-01

Abstract: The IUPAC/IUPAP Joint Working Party (JWP) on the priority of claims to the discovery of new elements 113–116 and 118 has reviewed the relevant literature pertaining to several claims. In accordance with the criteria for the discovery of elements previously established by the 1992 IUPAC/IUPAP Transfermium Working Group (TWG), and reinforced in subsequent IUPAC/IUPAP JWP discussions, it was determined that the Dubna-Livermore collaborations share in the fulfillment of those criteria both for elements Z = 114 and 116. A synopsis of experiments and related efforts is presented.

The discovery of both elements has been credited to a collaborative team based at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, US. The collaborative parties have proposed the name flerovium for 114, after Soviet scientist Georgy Flyorov, and moscovium for 116, after the region in Russia.

In recent years, there have been several claims by laboratories for the discovery of elements at 113, 114, 115, 116 and 118 in the periodic table. The working party concluded that elements 114 and 116 now fulfilled criteria for official inclusion in the table.

Periodic Table

Periodic Table with the Unun series: image BBC

The two new elements are radioactive and only exist for less than a second before decaying into lighter atoms. Element 116 will quickly decay into 114, and 114 transforms into the slightly lighter copernicium as it sheds its alpha particles.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Chemistry, Physics, Science | Comments Off on Ununquadium = Flerovium and Ununhexium = Moscovium?

Skin cells made to behave like nerve cells without the use of stem cells

June 7, 2011

A new paper by researchers at Lund University in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America describes how they have managed to develop nerve cells from human skin cells without using stem cells – a development described as an ethical and medical breakthrough.

Direct conversion of human fibroblasts to dopaminergic neurons

by Ulrich Pfisterer, Agnete Kirkeby, Olof Torper, James Wood, Jenny Nelander, Audrey Dufour, Anders Björklund, Olle Lindvall,Johan Jakobsson, and Malin Parmar

doi:10.1073/pnas.1105135108 PNAS June 6, 2011

Abstract: Recent reports demonstrate that somatic mouse cells can be directly converted to other mature cell types by using combined expression of defined factors. Here we show that the same strategy can be applied to human embryonic and postnatal fibroblasts. By overexpression of the transcription factors Ascl1, Brn2, and Myt1l, human fibroblasts were efficiently converted to functional neurons. We also demonstrate that the converted neurons can be directed toward distinct functional neurotransmitter phenotypes when the appropriate transcriptional cues are provided together with the three conversion factors. By combining expression of the three conversion factors with expression of two genes involved in dopamine neuron generation, Lmx1a and FoxA2, we could direct the phenotype of the converted cells toward dopaminergic neurons. Such subtype-specific induced neurons derived from human somatic cells could be valuable for disease modeling and cell replacement therapy.

The Local reports:

 

 

Swedish team turns skin into nerve cells

Swedish team turns skin into nerve cells

A team of researchers at Lund University in southern Sweden have managed to develop nerve cells from human skin cells without using stem cells – a development described as an ethical and medical breakthrough.

“This fundamentally changes how we look at mature cells and their capacity. Previously a skin cell was thought to always remain a skin cell, but we have shown that it can be any cell,” said Malin Parmar, the Lund University researcher leading the study, to The Local on Tuesday.

The new technique works by reprogramming connective tissue cells, so-called human fibroblasts, directly into nerve cells, opening up a new field with the potential to “take research around cell transplantation to the next level”.

Parmar explained that members of the research team were surprised at how receptive the fibroblasts were for new instructions.

“From the beginning this was mostly an experiment that was fun to try out. But fairly quickly it was shown that the cells were unexpectedly receptive to instructions,” she said.

 

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Medicine, Science | 1 Comment »

Deforestation? Carbon sequestered in forests is increasing

June 7, 2011

A new paper studying forest area and the density of forests by researchers from the University of Helsinki, the US Forestry Department and Rockefeller University:

A National and International Analysis of Changing Forest Density

by Aapo Rautiainen, Iddo Wernick, Paul E. Waggoner,Jesse H. Ausubel, Pekka E. Kauppi

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0019577  pdf

Carbon mass by region 1990–2010.

Annual change in forest area a, carbon density d′, and carbon mass q by region (a) 1990–2000 (b) 2000–2010.

The density of forests and woodland across much of the world is actually increasing

In countries from Finland to Malaysia, the thickening has taken place so quickly that it has reversed the carbon losses caused by deforestation between 1990 and 2010. In Britain, forest density has increased by 10.8 per cent from 2000 to 2010 and by 6.6 per cent across the whole of Europe. Even South America and Africa, which have suffered deforestation because of logging and farming, have recorded increases in forest density of 0.8 per cent and 1.1 per cent respectively. The research, carried out by teams from the University of Helsinki and New York’s Rockefeller University, shows that forests are thickening in 45 of 68 countries, which together account for 72 per cent of global forests. Traditionally, environmentalists have focused their concern solely on the dwindling extent of forested areas, but the authors believe evidence of denser forests could be crucial in reducing the world’s carbon footprint. Professor Pekka Kauppi of Helsinki University, a co-author of the study, said: ‘People worry about forest area, and that’s quite correct. But if you want to know the carbon budget, it cannot be monitored observing only the changes in area. It is more important to observe this change in forest density.’  Aapo Rautiainen, lead author of the report, also based at Helsinki University, said: ‘The reversal occurred in Europe much earlier, then a little bit later in North America, and it has now spread to certain parts of Asia. So that is a positive sign.’  In China, an ambitious reforestation programme has added three million hectares to the country’s forests every year over the past decade, but green campaigners believe this is predominantly composed of one species – eucalyptus. 

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Agriculture, Alarmism, Environment, Science | 1 Comment »

Royal Wedding Indian Style

June 6, 2011

Where did they find all the very agile lookalikes? Impressive and amusing.

 

 

Posted in Trivia | Comments Off on Royal Wedding Indian Style

The Age of Fossil Fuel may be just beginning

June 3, 2011

A little bit over the top from Michael Lind in Salon but still fundamentally not wrong:

Are we living at the beginning of the Age of Fossil Fuels, not its final decades? The very thought goes against everything that politicians and the educated public have been taught to believe in the past generation. According to the conventional wisdom, the U.S. and other industrial nations must undertake a rapid and expensive transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy for three reasons: The imminent depletion of fossil fuels, national security and the danger of global warming.

What if the conventional wisdom about the energy future of America and the world has been completely wrong?

As everyone who follows news about energy knows by now, in the last decade the technique of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking,” long used in the oil industry, has evolved to permit energy companies to access reserves of previously-unrecoverable “shale gas” or unconventional natural gas. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, these advances mean there is at least six times as much recoverable natural gas today as there was a decade ago.

Natural gas, which emits less carbon dioxide than coal, can be used in both electricity generation and as a fuel for automobiles.

……

Two arguments for switching to renewable energy — the depletion of fossil fuels and national security — are no longer plausible. What about the claim that a rapid transition to wind and solar energy is necessary, to avert catastrophic global warming?

The scenarios with the most catastrophic outcomes of global warming are low probability outcomes — a fact that explains why the world’s governments in practice treat reducing CO2 emissions as a low priority, despite paying lip service to it. But even if the worst outcomes were likely, the rational response would not be a conversion to wind and solar power but a massive build-out of nuclear power. Nuclear energy already provides around 13-14 percent of the world’s electricity and nearly 3 percent of global final energy consumption, while wind, solar and geothermal power combined account for less than one percent of global final energy consumption. ….

In the meantime, it appears that the prophets of an age of renewable energy following Peak Oil got things backwards. We may be living in the era of Peak Renewables, which will be followed by a very long Age of Fossil Fuels that has only just begun.

Read complete article

 

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Energy, Engineering, Technology | 1 Comment »

Nothing new under the sun: Global warming in the 80’s followed by global cooling after 2000 was predicted back in 1979

June 1, 2011

From JoNova

St Petersburg Times, Jan 1, 1979

Drs Leona Libby and Louise Pandolfi projected world temperatures in 1979 for the next 70 years and got results that, 30 years later, appear to have been broadly correct if out by 5 – 7 years. Ironically, they used, of all things, … tree ring data (going back 1,800 years). The critical difference was they assumed that the climate changes in natural cycles.

Visit Steven Goddard’s blog to read the full news story.

Climate Predictions 1979

St Petersburg times news 1979

http://joannenova.com.au/2009/04/global-warming-a-classic-case-of-alarmism/

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Science | Comments Off on Nothing new under the sun: Global warming in the 80’s followed by global cooling after 2000 was predicted back in 1979

Power generation from shale gas is here to stay

May 31, 2011

The capital cost of building different types of power plants is a reality that cannot be wished away:

November 2010 Capital costs for power plants

Gas fired combined cycle plant use the least capital of all power generation plants. With shale gas set to become even cheaper than natural gas and with gas fired plants having capacity factors well above 90% compared to the 25% of wind power or the 30% of solar plants, it is a no-brainer to conclude that wherever shale gas is available it is going to be used for power generation.

Where it is not available coal fired plants and nuclear plants will continue to be used.

Intermittent renewable power plants are going to need subsidies for a long time to come to get anywhere near the cost of electricity from gas. At best they could be useful to augment production of electricity but being intermittent cannot really contribute to reliable capacity.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Energy, Engineering, Gas, Technology | 2 Comments »

2012 US Presidential elections: A visitor’s perceptions

May 31, 2011

After a 2 week visit to the US (New York and Boston) it is difficult to resist the temptation to believe that one has become an expert on all things US!!!

But perceptions are relevant and are probably based on much more than just the observations of the last 2 weeks. In simple terms my perceptions are:

  1. There is no credible opposition to Barack Obama within the Democrats even if he has not quite lived up to the expectations of “Yes we can”. But he has not done anything considered by Democrats to be drastically wrong. The Health Care Bill was passed though it has not (will not) deliver all that was hoped. And above all – even if he did not close Guantanamo – he got Osama!!! But he is less of a leader and more of a follower than I thought he would be.
  2. The economy is still floundering and jobs are still hard to come by. But it cannot get worse and in the two years till the Presidential election the inbuilt American resilience can only make it better (whatever Obama may or may not do).
  3. The Republican candidates – so far – are very unimpressive as potential Presidential candidates.
  4. In many cases they are quite bizarre. That Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, Michelle Malkin and their ilk could or can even be considered as serious contenders reveals that a large section of the Republican supporters are not merely anti-intellectual but also anti-thought and their world view only extends as far as sound-bites on Fox news takes them.
  5. The tea-party movement and the right-wing of the Republican party seem quite similar in nationalist aspirations and ideology and insularity to the National Socialist electorate Hitler appealed to. But Michelle Malkin is actually closer to Hitler than Sarah Palin.
  6. Some of Sarah Palin’s shenanigans over the weekend suggest she is more interested in promoting brand Palin and her future earnings than in anything else. Even any eventual candidacy would be to make money.
  7. Romney is the front runner and he would certainly not be less competent than George Bush and probably less susceptible to being a puppet in the hands of a Dick Cheney. But he may be too intellectual for the right-wing of the Republican party. Pawlenty seems to be a non-person but that is mainly image.
  8. What political issues would be relevant in 2012 will change but right now the Republicans are shooting themselves in the foot over Health Care. If they continue attacking Medicare they could lose this election already within the next few months.
  9. Energy policy is the Democratic Achilles heel. It is beginning to sink in even among the “do-gooders” that fossil fuels and nuclear energy are the main-stay which actually permits the fiddling around with and subsidising of solar and wind power. It is also beginning to be understood that “climate change” is a political ideology and not a science. I cannot see Energy policy alone winning the election for the Republicans but I can see the Democrats losing it if they allow the fungus of “going green” to spread too far.
But the next 12 months will be fascinating. If the Republicans have not found a credible candidate of substance by this time next year Obama will win his second term easily and will be back in 2012.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Behaviour, Politics, US | 2 Comments »

Conspiracy theory: New York police conspire with hotel maids against ageing foreign bankers?

May 31, 2011

When it happened to former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn and since DSK has a reputation for being something of a womaniser I took the reports at face value.

But it has happened a second time just 3 weeks later and again against a foreign banker – 74 years old – and with the same kind of allegations and again with the New York police involved. Since I don’t think hotel maids in New York are all that naive or that New York police are particularly gullible I begin to think they probably have a deal going with selected hotel maids and they probably also have a “hit” list of ageing foreign bankers ( business men?) to be shaken down !!!

Huffington Post:

The former chairman of one of Egypt’s major banks has been arrested on charges of sexually abusing a maid at a Manhattan hotel, just weeks after the arrest of former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on similar allegations.

Police say Mahmoud Abdel Salam Omar was arrested at the Pierre Hotel on Monday morning.

The 74-year-old businessman is accused of sexually abusing the maid and holding her against her will inside his hotel room.

Police say the incident happened Sunday night.

Police spokesman Paul Browne says detectives found the complainant to be credible.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Behaviour, Trivia | 3 Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »