Category: Business

Trapping Carbon, Freeing Coal

Trapping Carbon, Freeing Coal: BLOG: SciAm Observations
The idea is to burn the coal but capture the carbon that the burning produces and pump it back underground.

It sounds simple. But millions of dollars have been spent–with the promise of billions more–in the thus far vain pursuit of a technology that can capture a diffuse gas (carbon dioxide), concentrate it and render it suitable for transport. Now the R.E. Burger Plant in Shadyside, Ohio, stands on the threshold of becoming the first coal-fired power plant to test both the capture and storage of the leading greenhouse gas.

Celsius Rising?

TCS Daily – Celsius Rising?
The new soda comes in three flavours – cola, lemon and lime and ginger ale. It was launched in 2005 when it won the Beverage Industry’s Best New Product award for an energy drink also scientifically proven to actively burn our calories. In other words, drinking Celsius burns more calories than the drink itself contains.

Celsius contains a thermogenic blend. The process of thermogenesis (thermo: heat, genesis, creation) has, of course, been understood for some time. Thermogenetic agents stimulate the natural resting metabolic rate (RMR) that raises body temperature – which causes the body to burn additional calories.

Retailing for around $1.99 per 12-ounce bottle, Celsius, depending on the flavour, contains between five and ten calories. Janice Haley, vice president of Elite FX, Inc., which developed Celsius, says, “It naturally raises your metabolism by 12 percent over a three- to four-hour period. The net effect of this is that the 5 – 10 calories is more than ‘eaten up’ as the body burns between 67 to 72 calories.” Continue reading “Celsius Rising?”

Can the Net make ticket scalping legit?

Can the Net make ticket scalping legit?
Internet companies such as TicketsNow.com and StubHub are trying to clean up the industry’s image by weeding out con artists, offering up no-nonsense pricing and guaranteeing on-time delivery.

StubHub is an online marketplace where anyone, brokers and individual ticket holders alike, can buy and sell. To secure transactions, the company holds the money paid by a ticker buyer. Then, like an escrow service, StubHub tracks the ticket and pays the seller once the buyer receives it.

Wind-Power Projects Halted

Wind-Power Projects Halted
More than 130 wind turbines are proposed for the hilltops of central Wisconsin, but that project and at least 11 others have been halted by the Defense Department as it studies whether the projects could interfere with military radar.

Wind farm developers, Midwestern legislators and environmentalists say the farms pose no risk, noting that there are already numerous wind farms operating in military radar areas. They say a renewable, domestic source of energy such as wind is crucial to energy security and independence.

They say their wind turbines are victims of the ongoing dispute between Cape Cod residents and developers of the proposed Cape Wind farm in Nantucket Sound. The Defense Department study was put in the 2006 Defense Authorization Act — inserted, say wind farm developers, by senators who want to block Cape Wind.

Report Claims Over-Fishing as Major Threat

Report Claims Over-Fishing as Major Threat | Outside Online
(Picture is of a giant piece of 500 year old gorgonian coral being hoisted out of a bottom trawl net.) Specifically, World Wildlife Fund spokesman Tom Lalley, cited the legal practice of bottom-trawling as a culprit in the practice of over fishing. The practice, Lalley said, involves scraping “the bottom of the sea clean,” and heavily damaging to the marine environment.

The report, released ahead of meeting in New York for the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement, cites an over-capacity of authorized fleets, over-fishing of stocks under catch limits and the absence of rebuilding strategies for depleted populations, Reuters reported.

“What it’s saying is the current governance structure has failed,” Lalley said. Citing the bluefin tuna and orange roughy as examples of over-exploited species, Lalley said the purpose of the report was to identify weaknesses and to improve the current regulatory system.

Germany’s beer lovers can already taste defeat

Germany’s beer lovers can already taste defeat – World – Times Online
The Germans are furious that Budweiser will be the official tipple for the World Cup, which starts next month. The American lager has secured a near-monopoly of beer sales inside World Cup stadiums and within a 500m radius of the grounds, supplanting more than 1,270 domestic breweries.

And what most upsets the fans is that Budweiser — advertised as the “King of Beers” in the US — fails to meet the ancient German standards for purity, which stipulate that beer can be brewed only from malt, hops and water. Budweiser uses rice in its production process and therefore does not qualify as a beer in the German sense.

Budweiser paid $40 million for the concession even before Germany had been chosen to host the tournament. ” Franz Maget, a Bavarian Social Democrat, has entered the fray, calling Budweiser “the worst beer in the world”.

Shark Defense

Kayak Company

Shark Defense

These guys have developed chemical Shark Repllants and just won the World Wildlife Funds Contest for Smart Gear, from among 80 entries with magnets to repel sharks from Long Line Trawler’s fish hooks.

Sharks are known to be able to detect magnetic fields – they use this sense to detect Earth’s magnetic field and orient around the ocean. It appras that they wil also avoid artificial magnetic fields that would clutter their orientation.

Every year thousands of sharks die after becoming snared on hooks set by commercial fisheries to catch tuna and swordfish and this has literally pushed some shark species to the brink of extinction. According to the WWF, 89% of hammerhead sharks and 80% of thresher and white sharks have disappeared from the Northeast Atlantic Ocean in the last 18 years, largely due to bycatch.

Link to Promtional video

Blacks see threat from Hispanic illegal aliens

Blacks see threat from Hispanic illegal aliens – Metropolitan – insider.washingtontimes.com
“Illegal immigration is the greatest threat to black people since slavery,” Mr. Hayes said. “The civil rights movement was made by black citizens of this country, but [illegal aliens] are claiming civil rights as a key to cross the American border illegally.”

Northwest resident Mae Bruce, 68, said her biggest concerns are illegal aliens’ “flooding” historically black neighborhoods without assimilating and taking advantage of overburdened government resources such as public education and health care.

Business Plan for a Pandemic?

Business Plan for a Pandemic?
More than half of U.S. companies think there will be a global flu epidemic in the next two years. Two-thirds think it will seriously disrupt their operations as well as foment social unrest. But two-thirds also say they aren’t prepared. One-third of executives surveyed say nobody in their organization has been appointed to plan for a pandemic; another one-quarter couldn’t or wouldn’t answer the question.

“Corporations are looking at this like deer at headlights,” said Tommy G. Thompson, who spent much of his last two years as secretary of health and human services sounding the pandemic alarm

Analysis finds boom in Hispanics’ home buying

USATODAY.com – Analysis finds boom in Hispanics’ home buying
Smith and Johnson remain the two most popular, but Rodriguez has replaced Brown in third. Four Hispanic names are in the top 10, compared with two in 2000.

Hispanic surnames made up 14.6% of all home buyers’ names, up from 10.3% five years earlier. “The Latino population is really integrating into the middle class — and rapidly,” says John Karevoll, analyst at DataQuick,