Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

[bill]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

I am seriously trying to stop this stupid climate debating.

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!
I would like to make a little $$$$$.
Now, what is Soros doing joining with Grosser and hiring Cathy Zoi.
What industries get the government checks?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20036038-54.html

February 24, 2011

There have been hundreds of green technology start-ups funded by venture capitalists but a new fund with an impressive pedigree is looking to scale up clean energy technologies.
Private equity company Silver Lake today said that it has joined with George Soros' Soros Fund Management to create Lake Kraftwerk, a fund designed for late-stage investments in energy technology companies.

Former Foundation Capital venture capitalist Adam Grosser will head the fund. Cathy Zoi, which recently resigned as acting under secretary of Energy at the Department of Energy and assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy, is part of the investment team.

Silver Lake Kraftwerk will focus on companies involved in energy efficiency, waste and emissions reduction, renewable energy, and better use of natural resources.
The point is to provide "growth capital" for companies that already have developed technology and a proven business model, Grosser said in an interview today. It will stay away from traditional project finance, the type of investments used to finance building new factories.
Specific areas that Silver Lake Kraftwerk expects to invest in are in the grid, such as sensors or software for more efficient operation, Grosser said. Efficient LED lighting, low-carbon content building materials, and alternative solar technologies are also of interest as well as remediation methods for the coal and oil industries, he said.
There have been billions of dollars of venture capital invested in the clean tech category in the past decade but there have only been a handful of companies which have successfully gone public and remain profitable, in part because energy businesses are typically require lots of capital to get to large scale.
Investors often say there's a funding gap between the money that's needed to develop products and get first customers and capital to expand. Grosser said that Silver Lake Kratwerk aims to be the "last money" in before a company is self sustaining.

[metalman]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

SERIOUSLY???

Are you REALLY trying to have a climate debate with me here? That is hilarious. Did you not get that this is a waste of time? What is your agenda? Because clearly you didn't read a word i wrote and are assuming *you* have some sort of authority to judge the degree by which i have been influenced by the consensus.

You poor man. Put your energy somewhere more productive. I am seriously trying to stop this stupid climate debating.

You really want to do this? You want to spend all your energy on this vendetta? And what happens if i win? What would you do if i knocked all your facts out of the arena and left you in a bloody pool? What would that accomplish? I could address each of your points in kind. But instead lets play this game. You address my points:

1. Why do you trust somebody that says they are 'skeptics', why do you believe them?
2. Why do you trust somebody that says they are a critic?
3. Why do you not believe that you are being played as much as the opposition is being played by somebodies agenda? Why not just cut to the chase and stop fighting by proxy?
4. Why do you assume that i learned anything from the consensus? Because they are more consistent with basic physics most likely. My degree is in physics, my publications are in physics, my patent is in software algorithms, and i got kicked out of graduate school for standing up to my climate science professors. And yet, my RATIONAL view STILL falls closer to the consensus because that community as problems, but they are also way closer to correct than everything you reference.

I will not debate this any more.

I care far more about over-population, peak oil, plastics, uni-crops and the end of topsoil to be honest. This is a black hole. Get it yet? A friggin black hole.

Please, WAKE UP. And put your energy somewhere useful.

Please. Read more carefully before you assume somebody's bias. Because, in case you did not notice, you exposed yours in full glory.

[c1ue]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

Is your proposed public system funded entirely by its users or is it funded/subsidized by taxpayers? That distinction would be very important to me.

Clearly if there is to be a public network, it must be funded through public funds. The question is whether/how much is needed.

I don't think there is any debate that a huge amount of public funds is already being used: between welfare/health care programs, Medicare, VA, and existing government health plans, there absolutely is already a gigantic pool of money.

Of course this pool isn't free for the taking, but then again neither does the public system need to be an end-all, be-all replacement right away.

Even taking the baby steps of having said public system be available for GP level work and/or prevention/early diagnosis would be a huge change.

That's not my view at all. In fact, I've pointed out specifically that the only area I'm debating is the denial of coverage for people who have pre-existing conditions.

Perhaps the issue is that you're talking about pre-existing conditions in isolation.

If, hypothetically, a person who's never paid a dime for health insurance got ill, then got a pre-existing condition, certainly this is a very different actuarial situation for which an insurance company justifiably can choose to protect itself.

In reality, most people have had some type of health insurance at some point. Clearly they have paid into the system, thus the denial after a pre-existing condition develops is a very different situation. And this happens because there is no portability of benefits or of 'presence' in the insurance scheme.

The reality that people need more health care as they age dovetails nicely with this paradigm.

This is where I think the reform should start. First, we stop these subsidies such as employer tax breaks. I think that issue alone is a big part of the problem. The consequences of that law have been very significant, widespread and negative.

As a side note, being involved in the health insurance decision process at my workplace, I hate making these decisions. Trying to choose one plan or even a couple options that are the best fit for different people in different circumstances is impossible. It's like deciding what kind house or apartment every person should live in.

You'll note that while I describe the employer health subsidy as a root cause of the problem, I don't advocate its unilateral repeal. Besides being extremely vulnerable to political demagoguery, it is unclear that there is any infrastructure capable of handling the switchover to a more individual health insurance paradigm.

Secondly the fact that health insurance is employer subsidized assumes the problem is only on the payment side - when in reality there is as much problem on the provider side.

It isn't that doctors are greedy - I've noted before in my own case that the doctors literally did not know what the operation cost. If the person conducting the operation doesn't know, then it is difficult to imagine a patient having a prayer of knowing.

That's why I suggest having an alternative: a provider which doesn't have a profit incentive and thus is able to inject fiscal reality into the equation.

This is sort of the reverse house on fire scenario where the insurance company cancels your existing policy right when someone throws a molotov cocktail through your window

If we get rid of the other problems that protect insurance companies from competition and insulate them from any real penalties for their behavior I think these problems will be addressed. If we stop the subsidies and protective regulation and none of the problems go away, I would be much more inclined to look to regulation or public options as a solution.

As I note above, the problem isn't just on the payment side. thus removing the subsidy isn't going to solve the problem.

What we have is a 5 decade old weed infested jungle of entrenched interests. My view is the only way to start fixing the problem is cutting a few paths through which let in some sunlight.

The objective of the public option isn't to take over health care, nor to subsidize it.

It is to inject transparency.

[c1ue]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

SERIOUSLY???

Are you REALLY trying to have a climate debate with me here? That is hilarious. Did you not get that this is a waste of time? What is your agenda? Because clearly you didn't read a word i wrote and are assuming *you* have some sort of authority to judge the degree by which i have been influenced by the consensus.

You poor man. Put your energy somewhere more productive. I am seriously trying to stop this stupid climate debating.

You really want to do this? You want to spend all your energy on this vendetta? And what happens if i win? What would you do if i knocked all your facts out of the arena and left you in a bloody pool? What would that accomplish? I could address each of your points in kind. But instead lets play this game. You address my points:

1. Why do you trust somebody that says they are 'skeptics', why do you believe them?
2. Why do you trust somebody that says they are a critic?
3. Why do you not believe that you are being played as much as the opposition is being played by somebodies agenda? Why not just cut to the chase and stop fighting by proxy?
4. Why do you assume that i learned anything from the consensus? Because they are more consistent with basic physics most likely. My degree is in physics, my publications are in physics, my patent is in software algorithms, and i got kicked out of graduate school for standing up to my climate science professors. And yet, my RATIONAL view STILL falls closer to the consensus because that community as problems, but they are also way closer to correct than everything you reference.

I will not debate this any more.

I care far more about over-population, peak oil, plastics, uni-crops and the end of topsoil to be honest. This is a black hole. Get it yet? A friggin black hole.

Please, WAKE UP. And put your energy somewhere useful.

Please. Read more carefully before you assume somebody's bias. Because, in case you did not notice, you exposed yours in full glory.

You choose not to debate because in your mind, everything is 'settled'.

I posted a video in the Video section which shows a Dr. Richard Muller, a person who believes in the AGW thesis much as you do, but who recognizes the lack of scientific rigor in the present 'consensus' position.

His view at least recognizes that the criticisms leveled at the IPCC, at the high priests of AGW, are valid, and furthermore recognizes the underlying facts about CO2.

So you may not choose to debate, but the reality is that there is much to question and debate about.

Your complete faith in what you've been told is clearly unshakable, even in the face of fact.

For my part, I refuse to allow the terms of the engagement to be set by those who have demonstrated zero objectivity and capability.

You might note that I have many times clearly supported alternative energy, but not at massive subsidies. Massive subsidies help nobody except those industries which immediately profit - the poor don't get helped, the Earth doesn't get helped, nor are natural resources/energy sources conserved.

Zoi in fact is a good example: as 'Alternative Energy Czar' or whatever ridiculous title she had, she steered government funds into a company managed by her husband, as well as to a company for which she and her husband were granted 120,000 'founder' shares. This woman's presence as a 'leader' in 'investment' is actually a red flag, at least for those who care about results as opposed to movement.

You can choose to learn, or you can choose to wallow in your beliefs.

[bill]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

Zoi in fact is a good example: as 'Alternative Energy Czar' or whatever ridiculous title she had, she steered government funds into a company managed by her husband, as well as to a company for which she and her husband were granted 120,000 'founder' shares. This woman's presence as a 'leader' in 'investment' is actually a red flag, at least for those who care about results as opposed to movement.

I choose to make $$$$.
Be prepared for the movement.
Like it or not carbon markets will develop.
http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/art-567581

World Bank corners climate funds?

News|Bretton Woods Project|17 February 2011|


As governments reached an agreement at the climate negotiations in Cancun in December 2010, the World Bank continued to stir controversy as it attained a role in a new global climate fund, launched new carbon market initiatives, and touted the success of the controversial Bank-housed Climate Investment Funds.
While some civil society groups applauded the Cancun agreement, there was warning about optimism from a range of organisations. “A careful analysis will find that its text may have given the multilateral climate system a shot in the arm and positive feelings among most participants … but that it also failed to save the planet from climate change and helped pass the burden onto developing countries,” said Martin Khor, Executive Director of think tank the South Centre.
Ongoing opposition from civil society groups to the role of the Bank in climate finance came to a head, with over 100 NGOs signing an open letter to governments demanding there be no role for the Bank in future climate change architecture, and staging protests in Cancun. “[Having] directly experienced the consequences of [Bank] loans, loan-financed projects and policy conditionalities, to us, it is inconceivable that this institution can be entrusted with climate finance," said Abdul Awal of SUPRO, a network of grassroots community groups in Bangladesh and a member of Jubilee South.
Others such as Brussel-based NGO Eurodad highlighted that the Bank is unfit for a role in climate finance stating “The World Bank will deliver a significant part of climate finance as loans that will very likely come attached with conditionalities, advisory services and undermine recipient ownership of the funds. The World Bank's governance structures are undemocratic, with representation dominated by governments of rich, industrialised countries that will pursue their own commercial interests through the process." The group also drew attention to the Bank's privileging of the private sector.
Despite uproar about Bank involvement, an agreement to create a new Green Climate Fund (GCF) was reached, naming the Bank as interim trustee for the first three years. This role was hotly debated, with several negotiators from developing countries trying to define that role as narrowly as possible, and civil society groups speaking out against it. Tim Gore of international NGO Oxfam expressed the opinion, repeated by many civil society organisations and delegates from developing countries, that the fund must “act under the authority of the UNFCCC … independent from institutions such as the World Bank.”
The fund is to be designed by a transitional committee that will report at the next negotiations at the end of the year in Durban. The committee will be comprised of 40 members, with 25 from developing countries, as well as staff seconded from multilateral development banks (MDBs) and UN agencies. As think tanks Overseas Development Institute and the Heinrich Boell Foundation point out in a January paper, it is likely that Bank experts will be seconded to the transitional committee to recommend operational procedures, project selection criteria, and performance standards or safeguard measures for adoption in Durban. According to UK government officials, thus far the MDBs are the only ones to put forward names for secondment. Attention has also been drawn to the question of whether and how civil society participation will take place, with more than 50 NGOs submitting a letter to the UNFCCC calling for full civil society participation as “active observers”. The letter also calls on the UNFCCC to ensure balance in those selected for the transitional committee. “We particularly encourage you to ensure the secondment of staff with expertise in areas such as gender, sustainable development and poverty alleviation, new renewable energy and efficiency technologies, and social and environmental safeguards and not over-rely on experts from the finance community and multilateral development banks,” it states.
In early February, at an event in the UK parliament, Bank president Robert Zoellick highlighted that the GCF needs resources committed to it. This was followed by the message that the Bank is eager to apply the knowledge it has gathered through the Climate Investment Funds (CIFs). In Cancun, comments from Bank staff about being a development institution that would rather apply its knowledge than just write cheques, further suggests the Bank’s ambitions for long-term participation in the international climate architecture go far beyond that of a trustee role. That said, the Bank does receive significant earnings by providing trustee services. The high costs rendered for these services led the Montreal Protocol to move to use Barclays Bank, in conjunction with UNEP, as trustee.
Touting the Climate Investment Funds

The Bank held a high profile event in Cancun alongside other MDBs, hosted by Mexican president Felipe Calderón, extolling the virtues of the CIFs as “a new model for transparency, cooperation, and scaling-up climate action.” The CIFs will hold another Partnership Forum (see Update 70) in March where stakeholders are expected to discuss lessons and experiences so far, with rumours that the focus will be on how these can be applied to the design of the GCF.
Civil society groups have highlighted an array of continuing concerns over the CIFs (see Update 72, 68, 61), including the extent to which projects are genuinely contributing to transformational change, the monitoring and accountability of MDBs who act as implementing partners in CIF projects, and whether the CIFs are offering developmental gains. A February 2011 Eurodad report, Storm on the horizon, focuses on how the Bank is disbursing climate finance at the CIFs. It finds that only one sixth of the pledged funds will be delivered as grants, and that eligibility criteria for CIF funding “may constrain the policy space available for developing countries to decide on their own pathways for sustainable development.” It highlights the fact that over one third of CIF funding is channelled to the private sector, arguing that “private equity is a risky and opaque instrument, likely failing to deliver on intended climate purposes and often undermining country-led equitable and sustainable development.” It also suggests that this type of investment is often marked by “a lack of transparency and environmental and social safeguards.”
Doubts also remain over the extent and depth of community participation. A notable example is the failure of the Forest Investment Program’s Dedicated Mechanism, aimed at ensuring extensive consultation with indigenous peoples and local communities, to be developed in time to allow participation in the development of investment strategies.
A recent report by the Global Gender and Climate Alliance and the United Nations Development Programme has critiqued CIF policies' and projects' approach to gender. The report argues that CIF projects risk “perpetuating existing gender imbalances in climate change funding.”
Carbon finance

In Cancun, the Bank also launched the Partnership for Market Readiness (PMR), a fund designed to help middle-income countries establish and participate in international and domestic carbon markets through a range of market instruments. A recent report on the PMR by NGO Carbon Trade Watch identifies how it is seeking to pioneer new market instruments beyond those agreed under the UNFCCC’s Kyoto Protocol. Despite the fact that the Cancun accords state that new mechanisms should be agreed in Durban in 2011, “the Bank clearly intends to pursue the creation of new carbon market mechanisms irrespective of UNFCCC negotiations.” This includes controversial 'sectoral carbon markets', which would for the first time oblige developing countries to reduce emissions in certain specific sectors of their economies. The report warns that this could “chip away at the idea – enshrined in the UNFCCC – that Annex 1 (industrialised) countries bear the burden of current and historical responsibilities for climate change, and seek to extend further obligations to developing countries”.
The Bank’s ambition to drive forward the growth of carbon markets was further underlined in January when the Umbrella Carbon Facility, one of its carbon funds, announced a new funding tranche of $92 million. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Bank’s private sector lending arm, also launched its $200 million Post-2012 Carbon Facility. Both funds are aimed at ensuring the operation of carbon-credit creating business beyond the potential expiration of the Kyoto Protocol commitment period in 2012, when there would no longer be a legal obligation for countries to reduce emissions.
However, a recent overview of the Bank's role in carbon markets by London based NGO the Bretton Woods Project outlines a wide range of concerns, from both civil society and internal Bank reviews, regarding the effectiveness of Bank carbon finance in reducing emissions and generating development benefits. These include a lack of meaningful additional emissions reductions, an improvement in the profitability of fossil fuel intensive industries, and a lack of focus on development in both design and monitoring of projects.

[c1ue]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

I choose to make $$$$.
Be prepared for the movement.
Like it or not carbon markets will develop.

Did you invest in the Chicago Climate Exchange?

http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthr...dead.?p=181391

How about the RGGI?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-0...e-program.html

What about European carbon credits? [trading suspended due to theft]

http://www.redd-monitor.org/2011/01/...arbon-credits/

Between the Republican House, and the ongoing freezing weather, and most importantly the ongoing economic malaise, carbon trading is in for a very rough ride.

[bill]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

Did you invest in the Chicago Climate Exchange?

http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthr...dead.?p=181391

How about the RGGI?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-0...e-program.html

What about European carbon credits? [trading suspended due to theft]

http://www.redd-monitor.org/2011/01/...arbon-credits/

Between the Republican House, and the ongoing freezing weather, and most importantly the ongoing economic malaise, carbon trading is in for a very rough ride.

I invest in “Real Assets” not paper.
Unfortunately gov. subsidies do move market pricing and low carbon energy going forward will get its fair share.
I passed on farm land in 2006 for the very reason not wanting to rely upon gov. ethanol subsidies. That was a mistake, farm land in Iowa doubled.
http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthr...12550#poststop

bill 07-20-07
ethanol (never exercised option on farm ground I had tied up in Iowa 1 year ago and since then the price doubled) and if Nuclear comes into the picture wind and ethanol will struggle.

I purchased over 1000 ac. (2000+ rai) and still accumulating rice and cassava farm land in Thailand. No gov. subsidies needed to turn a profit.
With oil 100+ alternative energy, energy efficiency and nuclear are more competitive without subsidies.
That does not mean I’m focused on USA market for investments.

[Jill Nephew]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

I apologize for anything i said that might have been inflammatory.

I have a big emotional button around this because i watched and researched carefully the propaganda machine evolve around the 'climate skeptics' movement while being embedded in a different propaganda machine (academia).

I tried to give public talks at the time (2003) to raise the discourse to a rational argument but found that i could not find a rational audience. We simply have failed to educate our society to think critically. I tried to simply put some facts out there, but even that seems to be impossible in this environment.

Further, i find that rational solutions get little audience. The real root cause of this issue (to me) is that people aren't used to rational discourse over debate. You cannot debate facts. You debate inferences based on those facts. And in the end everybody has a couple agendas they do not wish to give up:

1. Short term economic gains and the cost of the long term
2. A desire to consume shared resources in a selfish, irresponsible manner (myself included, i would love to do a road trip right now, what hypocrisy!).

It is another variant on 'the tragedy of the commons' - with all things environmental.

As such i have 3 real tools at my disposal:
1. Try to push political agendas that force governing bodies to consider the commons at the expense of the individuals right to choose.
2. Use social pressure with my immediates (shaming, shunning, ridicule etc. - all the normal unpleasant social tools that have, for example, driven the massive green movement)
3. Educate people how to examine their thinking processes

I did 3 very poorly by escalating to make a point. Didn't feel good. Again, sorry.

[c1ue]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

I apologize for anything i said that might have been inflammatory.

No worries!

I have a big emotional button around this because i watched and researched carefully the propaganda machine evolve around the 'climate skeptics' movement while being embedded in a different propaganda machine (academia).

Indeed. You may note I have not made any comments on the recent drubbing on AGW in the House due to Republicans' new control. What's going on there is purely political; the reactionary side is no more correct than the revolutionary one.

I tried to give public talks at the time (2003) to raise the discourse to a rational argument but found that i could not find a rational audience. We simply have failed to educate our society to think critically. I tried to simply put some facts out there, but even that seems to be impossible in this environment.

Further, i find that rational solutions get little audience. The real root cause of this issue (to me) is that people aren't used to rational discourse over debate. You cannot debate facts. You debate inferences based on those facts. And in the end everybody has a couple agendas they do not wish to give up:

Indeed, this is what EJ has referred to by the BullHorn and the kazoo analogy. He's also noted in this very thread how poorly this entire situation has been set up and how it seems very politically motivated as opposed to factual.

EJ has also noted, as I have (in the Austrian vs. FIRE thread: http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthr...s.-itulip-FIRE) that there seems to be something beyond pure self interest in how people behave.

Whether this is due to enemy action (MSM), some inherent human herding behavior, some strange metaphysical/emotional meme, or combination thereof, nonetheless it seems clear that there are 'tipping points' at least with human behavior.

I did 3 very poorly by escalating to make a point. Didn't feel good. Again, sorry.

Again, no worries. I actually am fairly thick-skinned - I have no people on my 'ignore' list and I do pretty much read all thread and all replies.

At some point, generally after dozens and dozens of posts where a clear agenda and also a clear lack of desire to learn is exhibited, then I will react.

There are a number of those whom I disagree with but have agreed to disagree. Some things simply are not able to be settled by debate.

However, I would note that one fundamental weakness of rational debate is the assumption that the person/movement/idea being debated is of equally rational and objective provenance.

While I am not a conspiracy theorist - getting rich people to act in concert is no more easy than getting poor people, and likely more difficult, nonetheless all groups of people do share certain areas where there is clear mutual interest.

The furthering of this mutual interest can take many forms both conscious and subconscious.

[cjppjc]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

getting rich people to act in concert is no more easy than getting poor people,

Much good could be accomplished if a way could be found to get rich people to act in the best interests of all. I wish I had a good idea.

[bill]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

bill
Be prepared for the movement.
Like it or not carbon markets will develop.

On 15 February 2011 Mercer's Responsible Investment (RI) team launched Climate Change Scenarios - Implications for Strategic Asset Allocation,
http://www.mercer.com/articles/1406410


MSM
Dan Rather Reports, March 1, 2011
http://www.hd.net/programs/danrather/

I noticed Dan Rather interviewing Hyperion, they may need all the help they can get.
http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/201...clear-battery/

February 23, 2011

This week I wrote a piece for the magazine on what many energy analysts believe to be the future of the nuclear industry: small modular reactors.
These mini reactors, which generate up to 300 megawatts compared to 1500 megawatts for traditional large nuclear power plants, are all the rage because they are versatile and cheap. My story focused on the smallest of the small reactors--the 25 megawatt Hyperion Power Module (a.k.a the nuclear battery) which Denver-based Hyperion Power hopes will soon fuel subdivisions, mining operations, military bases, hospitals, desalination plants and even cruise liners around the world soon.
But it is a competitor, it seems, that may be the first company to break ground on a commercial mini reactor in the U.S. This week the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) revealed to me that the Tennessee Valley Authority, the U.S.'s biggest public utility, had exchanged letters with the NRC about receiving licensing for two small reactors at its Clinch River site—and the reactors will be designed by Babcock & Wilcox, a maker of nuclear-propulsion systems for the US Navy.
That's significant because a problem facing Small Modular Reactors is that the NRC is already reviewing a dozen applications for new large reactor designs. The Babcock & Wilcox design, called mPower, is based on existing (but miniaturized) technology. That makes it more likely to have a smooth licensing process than more novel designs, the NRC told me.
The Hyperion Power Module is a new design, which the company says makes it more safe than traditional reactors but which the NRC, while not commenting the company's claims on safety, says will require the module to undergo a particularly extensive review before it can be licensed.
Hyperion's executives have expressed frustration at energy conferences about the NRC's lengthy review process, and have said that it will likely build modules abroad first as a result. Not so fast, say the NRC, as any nuclear technology exported from the U.S. would need approval from several agencies, including the NRC.
So it may be Babcock & Wilcox that wins the race to be the first mini reactor by a U.S. company. Recently Babcock & Wilcox told The Economist that the company's small reactor offers another advantage on top of mature technology: "Because it can use existing power-transmission lines without overloading them, the mPower can act as a "drop-in replacement" for ageing coal furnaces without the need for costly refurbishment."

Hyperion power's nuclear battery has all the gee-whiz factor of new technology--and it's CEO may indeed be proven correct that the reactor is a "game-changer" for the industry. But as of now, it seems that it will be reactor with more a mature and tested design that will likely be the first small reactor licensed in the U.S. by the NRC.

[c1ue]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

On 15 February 2011 Mercer's Responsible Investment (RI) team launched Climate Change Scenarios - Implications for Strategic Asset Allocation,
http://www.mercer.com/articles/1406410

The problem with listening to Mercer, much a similar problem with listening to Munich Re, is that they're talking their own book.

Certainly financial companies would love to get into the Carbon Credit scheme - it allows yet another vehicle for derivatives. However, the failure of CCE as well as the ongoing failure of the European carbon credit system (it is cheaper to buy the credits than it is to actually stop emitting CO2) should form a cautionary tale.

Equally so the tale of how AGW was used to derive $82M in additional insurance premiums despite clear scientific 'consensus' that there is no upward trend in either hurricane incidence or intensity:

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article...tc=pgall&tc=ar

Hurricane Katrina extracted a terrifying toll -- 1,200 dead, a premier American city in ruins, and the nation in shock. Insured losses would ultimately cost the property insurance industry $40 billion.

But Katrina did not tear a hole in the financial structure of America's property insurance system as large as the one carved scarcely six weeks later by a largely unknown company called Risk Management Solutions.

RMS, a multimillion-dollar company that helps insurers estimate hurricane losses and other risks, brought four hand-picked scientists together in a Bermuda hotel room.

There, on a Saturday in October 2005, the company gathered the justification it needed to rewrite hurricane risk. Instead of using 120 years of history to calculate the average number of storms each year, RMS used the scientists' work as the basis for a new crystal ball, a computer model that would estimate storms for the next five years.

The change created an $82 billion gap between the money insurers had and what they needed, a hole they spent the next five years trying to fill with rate increases and policy cancellations.
RMS said the change that drove Florida property insurance bills to record highs was based on "scientific consensus."

The reality was quite different.

Today, two of the four scientists present that day no longer support the hurricane estimates they helped generate. Neither do two other scientists involved in later revisions. One says that monkeys could do as well.

In the rush to deploy a new, higher number, they say, the industry skipped the rigors of scientific method. It ignored contradictory evidence and dissent, and created penalties for those who did not do likewise. The industry flouted regulators who called the work biased, the methods ungrounded and the new computer model illegal.

Florida homeowners would have paid more even without RMS' new model. Katrina convinced the industry that hurricanes were getting bigger and more frequent. But it was RMS that first put a number to the increased danger and came up with a model to justify it.

As a result of RMS' changes, the cost to insure a home in parts of Florida hit world-record levels.
Hundreds of thousands of homeowners were forced to find new insurers as national carriers fled the state.

Yet the prediction of a more dangerous Florida has not played out.

The new RMS model called for at least 11 hurricanes to come ashore in the United States by the end of 2010, most of them aimed at Florida.

Four hurricanes struck the U.S. None hit the Sunshine State.

RMS stands by its five-year outlook and contends that the risk of hurricanes remains higher than normal. Company officials last week said they would continue to adjust their model as needed, but a single five-year lull does not disprove their results.

Yet a growing number of experts now wonder if the changes spurred by RMS -- and the accompanying spike in insurance premiums -- were justified.

The woman credited with launching the industry of hurricane modeling questions how near-term models were introduced. She accuses RMS of overselling software that lacked sufficient scientific support, and says insurers accepted the output of that model as if it were fact.

"I've never seen the industry so much just hanging on what a handful of scientists or one model would say," said Karen Clark, founder and former CEO of AIR Worldwide, an RMS competitor.

"They're just tools," Clark said.

"They're models.

"They're wrong."

FOUR MEN, FOUR HOURS

The daily papers were still blaring news about Katrina when Jim Elsner received an invitation to stay over a day in Bermuda.

The hurricane expert from Florida State University would be on the island in October for an insurance-sponsored conference on climate change. One of the sponsors, a California-based company called RMS, wanted a private discussion with him and three other attendees.

Their task: Reach consensus on how global weather patterns had changed hurricane activity.

The experts pulled aside by RMS were far from representative of the divided field of tropical cyclone science. They belonged to a camp that believed hurricane activity was on the rise and, key to RMS, shared the contested belief that computer models could accurately predict the change.

Elsner's statistical work on hurricanes and climatology included a model to predict hurricane activity six months in advance, a tool for selling catastrophe bonds and other products to investors.

There was also Tom Knutson, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration meteorologist whose research linking rising carbon dioxide levels to potential storm damage had led to censoring by the Bush White House.

Joining them was British climate physicist Mark Saunders, who argued that insurers could use model predictions from his insurance-industry-funded center to increase profits 30 percent.

The rock star in the room was Kerry Emanuel, the oracle of climate change from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Just two weeks before Katrina, one of the world's leading scientific journals had published Emanuel's concise but frightening paper claiming humanity had changed the weather and doubled the damage potential of cyclones worldwide.

Elsner said he anticipated a general and scholarly talk.

Instead, RMS asked four questions: How many more hurricanes would form from 2006 to 2010? How many would reach land? How many the Caribbean? And how long would the trend last?

Elsner's discomfort grew as he realized RMS sought numbers to hard-wire into the computer program that helps insurers set rates.

"We're not really in the business of making outlooks. We're in the business of science," he told the Herald-Tribune in a 2009 interview. "Once I realized what they were using it for, then I said, 'Wait a minute.' It's one thing to talk about these things. It's another to quantify it."

Saunders did not respond to questions from the Herald-Tribune. Knutson said if RMS were to ask again, he would provide the same hurricane assessment he gave in 2005.

But Emanuel said he entered the discussion in 2005 "a little mystified" by what RMS was doing.
He now questions the credibility of any five-year prediction of major hurricanes. There is simply too much involved.

"Had I known then what I know now," Emanuel said, "I would have been even more skeptical."
Elsner's own frustration grew when he attempted to interject a fifth question he thought critical to any discussion of short-term activity: Where would the storms go?

The RMS modelers believed Florida would remain the target of most hurricane activity. Elsner's research showed storm activity shifted through time and that it was due to move north toward the Carolinas.

But RMS' facilitator said there was not enough time to debate the matter, Elsner said. There were planes to catch.

In the end, the four scientists came up with four hurricane estimates -- similar only in that they were all above the historic average.

RMS erased that difference with a bit of fifth-grade math. It calculated the average.

Thus, the long-term reality of 0.63 major hurricanes striking the U.S. every year yielded to a prediction of 0.90.

Contrary to Elsner's research, RMS aimed most of that virtual increase at Florida.

On paper, it was a small change from one tiny number to another tiny number.

Plugged into the core of a complex software program used to estimate hurricane losses, the number rewrote property insurance in North America.

Risk was no longer a measure of what had been, but what might be. And for Floridians living along the Atlantic, disaster was 45 percent more likely.

RMS defended its new model by suggesting it had brought scientists together for a formal, structured debate.

Elsner disputes that idea.

"We were just winging it," he said.

PREDICTING APOCALYPSE

In the Oz of insurance, RMS is the man behind the curtain.

The company is a Silicon Valley prodigy created 22 years ago by four Stanford graduates and their engineering professor, who parlayed a research project into a commodity: calculating earthquake probabilities and selling them to the insurance industry.

It was a short leap from there to run odds on just about every terrible and unlikely event, from Florida hurricanes to Japanese typhoons to European tempests, what RMS CEO and co-founder Hemant Shah calls a "full portfolio of apocalyptic hazard events."

The company Shah started from his California apartment is now a $200 million-a-year enterprise.

Major insurance and reinsurance companies the world over pay annual subscriptions of $1 million or more to lease RMS' disaster-predicting software.

The impact these private models have on the insurance price homeowners pay is so great that Bob Hunter, insurance director for the Consumer Federation of America, calls them unregulated "rate bureaus."

For most of the past two decades, risk models have relied on actual hurricane activity recorded over more than 100 years to produce averages and other estimates of storm formation.

But even before Katrina, RMS was under pressure to disband the long-term outlook. Insurance insiders wanted something they believed would be more accurate. And they wanted it to forecast hurricane activity for next few years based on current conditions, not simply assume history would repeat itself.

The pressure came from several places. Some reinsurers sought validation that global warming was increasing the threat of hurricanes. Others in the industry wanted a short-term model to encourage investors, who wanted odds on their returns in the near term.

Shah says he had an obligation to pursue the short-term model because of the belief that hurricanes had gotten more dangerous.

"How are you going to incent people to mitigate their homes if you don't have the right kind of signaling on what risk really is?" he told the Herald-Tribune in 2008.

An accurate prediction of the near future could save insurers billions of dollars by indicating when to raise rates or drop policies in places most likely to be ravaged. It's the difference between predicting how many times the number 1 will appear in 100 rolls of the dice, and anticipating what number is expected for the next five rolls.

That, essentially, was what RMS promised.

RiskLink 6.0, RMS chief researcher Robert Muir-Wood wrote in a February 2006 column, "is likely to be the most eagerly awaited model ever introduced into the reinsurance market." [see below]

RUSHING TO RAISE RATES

Records show reinsurers and insurers did not wait.

Using numbers RMS provided in its promotional materials, they began increasing their own hurricane loss estimates 30 to 40 percent, six months before the new model was finished in May 2006.

Florida insurers in turn sought rate boosts in anticipation of what the new model would do to their own costs.

But the yet-unpublished five-year model did not become an industry standard until December 2005, when it was embraced by A.M. Best, the Chicago firm that provides financial ratings for insurance investors.

Best said it would determine an insurer's soundness by simulating its performance in back-to-back 100-year hurricanes as calculated by the five-year model.

The reasoning was simple.

"Catastrophe is the single largest threat of insolvency to an insurance company," Devin Inskeep, senior financial analyst at A.M. Best, said in an interview.

According to a confidential presentation one of its officers gave an industry think tank, RMS calculated its new hurricane model raised the expected cost of a major U.S. hurricane by $55 billion.

Plugging that model into A.M. Best's stress test meant the industry as a whole would need to raise $82 billion to remain solvent.

RMS' two chief competitors argued there was inadequate scientific grounding to heavily promote a five-year outlook.

Clark, at the time CEO of AIR Worldwide, said she urged A.M. Best to reconsider requiring a model "based on theories."

Having alternative models available was good, she said, but "I personally was an advocate of not rushing into something that was not tested and would have a dramatic change. Certainly, I had a lot of conversations with A.M. Best."

The warnings were not heeded. Both Eqecat and AIR eventually produced their own five-year versions, though AIR warned clients it considered the only credible version to be the long-term model.

By January 2006, five months before RMS released its new model, at least half a dozen reinsurers were pricing their contracts based on the new numbers, comments made in quarterly earnings calls show. The pricing triggered a cascade of rate hikes in Florida.

In a calculation Florida regulators learned about two years later, State Farm added a $1.5 billion "frequency adjustment" to its potential hurricane losses. That, in turn, required it to buy more reinsurance from its parent, a cost that resulted in a 47 percent rate increase to its Florida customers.

Allstate increased the loss estimates of its long-term hurricane model by 41 percent, a "climate cycle" adjustment it only briefly noted within its 4,000-page request for a 22 percent rate hike.

By the time the actual model was released in May 2006, it had already reshaped the Florida property insurance market, unleashing the largest spike in premiums in state history.

Florida has a law intended to prevent just such chaos.

A state commission must review and approve catastrophe models before insurers may use them to set rates. No short-term model has ever passed that test.

RMS in 2007 submitted its model for review by the Florida Hurricane Loss Methodology Commission -- the only body of its kind in the nation.

Meteorologists, statisticians and engineers for the commission began a lengthy review. But when RMS learned those reviewers planned to reject the model, the company withdrew it from consideration.

A draft report shows the objections centered largely on how RMS had determined its new hurricane rates.

The panel said the model change failed to meet credibility and bias tests, and it questioned how RMS had picked its four scientists and why so few were invited.

Shah later told the Herald-Tribune he believed Florida was "mucking things up," suppressing a credible view of risk "so pricing can be more affordable."

"If you artificially constrain your view of risk then you're not going to have the clarity of insight that suggests what really needs to be done to solve the problem," he said.

RMS continues to promote its short-term model as the preferred option for its customers. A survey by Bermuda officials shows it is the dominant model for Bermuda reinsurers, the most crucial source of private hurricane protection for Florida.

MONKEYS COULD DO THIS

At the outset in 2005, RMS promised to revisit its forecast at the end of every season. "If there is a material change," the company said, "rates would be updated."

So it was in October 2008 that RMS assembled a group of seven weather science experts at the Hotel Victor on Miami's South Beach.

Rather than produce their own storm predictions, they were asked by an expert in gathering scientific opinion to rank 39 different climate models that RMS would then run to produce a five-year forecast.

The man running the show was Tony O'Hagan, a British statistician who had developed drug trials for AstraZeneca. He came armed with Tiddlywinks, 30 for each scientist, to help them visualize and rank the weather simulators.

What struck University of Colorado environmental science professor Roger Pielke as he played with his pile of green chips was the pointlessness. Pielke, already a critic of the five-year forecast, believed the 39 models were a stacked deck, "biased upwards."

RMS said it gave its experts the option of sticking with a long-term average. "We were strongly encouraged not to do so," Pielke said.

Another participant, Georgia Tech climatologist Judith Curry, had her own misgivings. She believed the selection too narrow.

"I thought all of the models were wrong. I didn't have confidence in any of them," Curry said.

When RMS averaged the scientists' choices, the number of expected storms had dropped from the previous finding in 2005.

This time, the number of Category 3 and higher hurricanes expected to strike the U.S. each year dropped, from .9 to .8, a seemingly small change.

That decrease meant the risk of hurricanes had dropped by a third. Presumably, homeowners' premiums should follow suit.

But there was no rush to adjust homeowners' bills and no publicity surrounding the new scientific "consensus."

RMS in December 2008 described the results as "consistent" with past findings. It disclosed the lower numbers six months later in an April 2009 confidential report to clients. By then it was too late to effect that year's reinsurance rates for many insurance companies.

Company vice president Claire Souch denied that RMS promoted the increase and downplayed the decrease. "Our time lines were the same," she said.

Even after it was released, brokers said, the revised model was not roundly embraced.

"It is true that many 'set aside' the model change when underwriting this year," said John DeMartini, vice president at the Towers Watson brokerage.

"While they were quick to adopt near-term when it raised loss estimates, they didn't commit to sticking with it through reductions."

Following the unusually inactive 2009 season, RMS announced it would skip its annual expert review.

By fall 2010, RMS had changed its methodology to remove the human element, Souch said. Souch said a new model will be released in February. It is expected to decrease rates along the coast and increase them inland, RMS officials said.

For his part, Pielke returned to Colorado and set up a random number generator to rank RMS' 39 climate models from 2008 -- akin to blindly throwing darts to choose the best model.

The outcome nearly matched the scientists' consensus.

"So with apologies to my colleagues," he wrote in his science policy blog, "we seem to be of no greater intellectual value to RMS than a bunch of monkeys."

Note: Muir-Wood is a prominent AGW proponent, even to the point of participating in public debates:

http://omniclimate.wordpress.com/201...london-debate/

[Zen$]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

Amen sister: "collective loss of reasoning and common sense" pretty much nails it. However, I wonder if "we" ever had it in the first place.

I will offer this perspective from armenian mystic George Ivanovich Gurdjieff:
Gurdjieff claimed that people cannot perceive reality in their current states because they do not possess consciousness but rather live in a state of a hypnotic "waking sleep".
"Man lives his life in sleep, and in sleep he dies."[16] As a result of this condition, each person perceives things from a completely subjective perspective. Gurdjieff stated that maleficent events such as wars and so on could not possibly take place if people were more awake. He asserted that people in their typical state function as unconscious automatons, but that one can "wake up" and become a different sort of human being altogether.[17]
[source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gurdjieff


Seems to be the problem on all sides of a political question.

[Zen$]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

No it does not point in both directions. Her point is about the nature of the scientific method and controls and inquiry.

[Sharky]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

There are two challenges facing anyone who attempts to educate the public on this topic: one, to convince the reader that 90% of human behavior is driven by unconscious impulses not by free will; and two, that our unconscious has been consciously shaped by others, that many of our own most treasured beliefs were constructed by forces beyond our own will, including the belief in free will itself.

That certainly will be a challenge, because there's no such thing as "unconscious impulses." The unconscious mind does not force you to do anything. All actions and choices are made volitionally, through free will. The fact that some people choose to evade the consequences of their actions, or choose not to focus or not to critically view the things put in front of them, is much, much different from saying that we are somehow controlled by unconscious impulses. Humans do not, and in fact cannot, simply wander around the world and rely on their unconscious for survival. In order to be acted upon, memories or concepts must first be made conscious -- whereupon they come under the influence and control of the conscious mind, which means choice and free will.

In the case of smoking, people made a choice to listen to advertising; perhaps they used those words and pictures to justify their evasion of the knowledge that smoking is harmful; they wanted to smoke, and were happy to find any reason to support that view, in spite of knowing that it was actually harmful. Blaming their subsequent actions on "unconscious impulses" is simply a cop-out.