Skip to main content

Home/ Copper end use trends/ Group items tagged politics

Rss Feed Group items tagged

xxx xxx

Data393 Launches Green Initiatives With Data Center Improvements That Reduce Power, Coo... - 1 views

  •  
    Upgrades on Eve of Democratic National Convention's 'Greenest Political Convention in History' Held in Denver\n\nDENVER, CO--(Marketwire - August 22, 2008) - Data393, a Managed Data Holdings Company and a leading provider of colocation, managed hosting, disaster recovery and IP network services, announced today the completion of "Green" initiatives to decrease the facility's carbon footprint. The announcement was made in support of the City of Denver's role as host of the 2008 Democratic National Convention, which is touted as the "greenest political convention in history." Data393's Green initiative also follows in the footsteps of the City of Denver's efforts to leave an enduring legacy of sustainability programs in the Denver metro area. \n\nResulting from the expansion of its multi-million-dollar, 30,000-square-foot data center, Data393 has implemented technological advances and infrastructure upgrades at its Englewood data center, just south of Denver, that reduce its environmental impact. \n\n
Colin Bennett

Nexans : 2014 Full-Year Results - 0 views

  •  
    "2014 was marked by strong volatility in both economic and political terms: South America and Australia saw worsening conditions in the cable market. In Europe, the market for commodity products contracted whereas the industrial applications market improved. North America began to pick up. Markets in the Middle East and Russia were weighed down by political tensions."
Colin Bennett

Australian government pulls the plug on household solar - 2 views

  •  
    "As a storm raged over the government's directive to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to no longer back wind energy projects, it emerged that it has also put a stop to solar investments other than the largest industrial-scale projects."
xxx xxx

Solar Power From Saharan Sun Could Provide Europe's Electricity, Says EU - CommonDreams... - 0 views

  •  
    Dwarfed by any of the north African nations, it represents an area slightly smaller than Wales but scientists claimed yesterday it could one day generate enough solar energy to supply all of Europe with clean electricity. Speaking at the Euroscience Open Forum in Barcelona, Arnulf Jaeger-Walden of the European commission's Institute for Energy, said it would require the capture of just 0.3% The scientists are calling for the creation of a series of huge solar farms - producing electricity either through photovoltaic cells, or by concentrating the sun's heat to boil water and drive turbines - as part of a plan to share Europe's renewable energy resources across the continent. A new supergrid, transmitting electricity along high voltage direct current cables would allow countries such as the UK and Denmark ultimately to export wind energy at times of surplus supply, as well as import from other green sources such as geothermal power in Iceland. Energy losses on DC lines are far lower than on the traditional AC ones, which make transmission of energy over long distances uneconomic. The grid proposal, which has won political support from both Nicholas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown, answers the perennial criticism that renewable power will never be economic because the weather is not sufficiently predictable. Its supporters argue that even if the wind is not blowing hard enough in the North Sea, it will be blowing somewhere else in Europe, or the sun will be shining on a solar farm somewhere.
xxx xxx

Mongolian Resources At Risk From New Laws - 0 views

  •  
    Mongolia's political parties are locked in post-election squabbling, but once the dust settles a new government could finally pass deals to tap the coal, copper and uranium that sit beneath its vast deserts and grasslands. But analysts say the deal that goes ahead would be less than ideal for either Mongolia or foreign investors, with the country better served by taxing its mineral wealth, rather than seeking direct government ownership in massive mines. The current law gives the state either a 34% stake or a controlling 51 percent stake in mining projects. An investment agreement with Ivanhoe Mines and Rio Tinto for the Oyu Tolgoi project, still under negotiation, would be the first such deal.
xxx xxx

South Africa: Engineering,construction industry grows despite global market volatility - 0 views

  •  
    The current growth in the local and international engineering, civils and construction markets is expected to continue despite the current volatility experi- enced in world economic markets, reports the South African Association of Consulting Engineers (Saace). Saace CEO Graham Pirie says that even though the local infrastructure roll-out programme and the infrastructure investments from emerging markets such as China were initiated before the period of global market volatility, infrastructure builds cannot be halted as they are vital to the economic growth of countries. "Government's commitment of R500-bil-lion, in addition to the money invested in the 2010 FIFA World Cup stadiums, to be spent over three years, means that 2010 is a small component of a larger investment that government is encouraging," says Pirie. He comments that the infrastructure roll-out programme is necessary, given the 20-year infrastructure investment backlog that South Africa needs to resolve. Pirie says that events hosted in the country since 1994 have encouraged infrastructure reinvestment. "Prior to 1994, South Africa didn't host sporting or political events that would draw an influx of tourists into the country, so the need for infrastructure reinvestment was minimal. "From 1994, with the 1995 rugby World Cup looming, government got serious about resolving this. Certain sporting events, such as the 1995 rugby World Cup, the 2003 cricket World Cup and the 2010 soccer World Cup, focus the right amount of attention on infras- tructure reinvestment at the right time," says Pirie
Colin Bennett

EU to forge new strategic partnership with Russia - 0 views

  •  
    MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Andrei Fedyashin) - On May 26, EU foreign ministers approved plans to begin discussing a new strategic partnership and cooperation agreement (PCA) with Russia.
Colin Bennett

Lunchtime is the New Primetime on PSFK - 0 views

  • A recent NY Times article highlights the rise of midday “media snacking” by cubicle dwellers, a trend that’s affecting not only office culture, but online media producers and the advertisers who help support them as well. An increasing number of 9-to-5ers are opting to spend their lunch hour breaks viewing online shows, news recaps, and maybe the random YouTube clip over the traditional lunch, sometimes stockpiling clips throughout the day and coordinating simultaneous watching with coworkers. Video-hosting sites and other websites featuring video content are seeing a spike in viewership during the three hour period around 12 noon, with shows like Yahoo’s The 9, a best-of-the-Web segment (sponsored by Pepsi), or Political Lunch, a popular three-minute webcast on politics, catered to office snackers (brief with daily updated content). And advertisers are finding that online content made with the midday viewer in mind are perfect for targeted marketing:
Colin Bennett

EU starts screening raw materials 'critical list' - 0 views

  • Three types of risk The expert group put together by the Commission has already identified three types of risks: Import risk, where raw materials are imported from a politically instable region or from a country where the market economy does not work. "That is relatively easy to do as the World Bank has put together governance indexes which measure the political and economic stability index of countries," the EU official explained.    Production risk within the EU, with potential problems such as land access. "If we are in a country for example where the population density is very high, where urbanisation is very high, obviously access will be weak," the EU official explained. Environmental risk, based on indicators such as air or soil pollution, where the impact of raw materials use is measured from an environmental point of view. "This is innovative compared to other studies," the EU official said. "We have just launched a life-cycle analysis to determine what the environmental impact is for each raw material in terms of exploitation, use, treatment, recycling etc., for air or soil pollution as well as emissions of greenhouse gases."
Colin Bennett

A blueprint for a European transmission system - 0 views

  • The European Commission’s proposal is supposed to deliver more cross-border electricity transmission.It is an extension of the current system of national-welfare centred regulations, a system which does not target the optimisation of the EU electricity network, and as such is inconsistent with a truly single market. However, the integrated first-best solution – a single European system operator, regulated by a single regulator, which develops the network in coordination with generators and consumers – appears politically infeasible. To overcome this, we propose a bold blueprint for a European system to fund andincentivise infrastructure development. The approach is fourfold: (1) implement vertical unbundling; (2) add a European system-management layer; (3) establish a stringent planningprocess; and (4) phase-in European cost-sharing.
Colin Bennett

World Direct Current Distribution Networks Will Surpass 2.3 Gigawatts (up from 196 MW) ... - 0 views

  • The electricity loads being served by today’s alternating current (AC) power grids are increasingly natively direct current (DC), at the end-use level.  In fact, according to some estimates, approximately 80 percent of the power loads in commercial and residential structures are now DC.  Along with the broad political and policy support for inverter-based native DC power sources, this is leading many industry players to conclude that it makes inherent sense to reduce DC-AC-DC conversion losses and integrate DC distribution networks into the power supply infrastructure.  According to a new report from Navigant Research, the total worldwide capacity of DC distribution networks will surpass 2.3 gigawatts (GW) by 2025, up from just 196 megawatts (MW) in 2013.
Matthew Wonnacott

Encore reports lower sales in Q3 - 0 views

  •  
    US wiring manufacturer Encore Wire released its financial results for Q3 and the nine months ending September 2012. Sales for Q3 were $269.2 million down y-o-y from $319.4 million. The company said lower prices for building wire and the lower copper price contributed to this. Net income for the quarter also fell y-o-y from $13.7 million in Q3 2011 to $5.5 million in Q3 2012. The company's CEO commented that "The third quarter of this year was another fairly steady volume quarter in the midst of this construction industry recession. There are signs of bright spots around the country and talk of some major projects, but for the most part we are still in the trough. Major projects are discussed but then get delayed due to uncertainties surrounding the global economy and the U.S. economy and political environment. The good news is that our volumes are not trending downward."
Colin Bennett

Barrick Gold chief hails benefits of Newmont merger - 0 views

  • Peter Munk, the founder and chairman of Barrick Gold, has hailed the potential benefits of merging the world’s largest gold miner with its US rival Newmont Mining, saying that investors should welcome the cost cuts and lower political risk that a combination could deliver.
Colin Bennett

Global Solar Power Market - 0 views

  • Frost & Sullivan estimates that global solar market revenues will grow between 2014 and 2020 despite the economic uncertainty in the global markets. A number of government sponsored initiatives are expected to boost the proportion of energy coming from 'green sources' and political willingness will also be a key driver of this market. With climate change high on the agenda for most governments, renewable energy has come to the forefront as one of the solutions proposed to combat global warming. Incentive mechanisms are also an important factor encouraging investments for the growth of the solar power market.
Colin Bennett

Exploratory mining for copper begins in Clayoquot Sound - 0 views

  •  
    \nExploratory mining for copper begins in Clayoquot Sound
Glycon Garcia

94% of Americans Say Solar Energy Development Is Important - 0 views

  • According to the recently released SCHOTT Solar Barometer report, a majority of Americans, across all political parties, overwhelmingly support development and funding of solar energy. Ninety-one percent of Republicans, 97 percent of Democrats and 98 percent of Independents agree that developing solar power is vital to the United States, the survey results said.
Sergio Ferreira

European Nuclear Energy Forum mtg in Prague - 0 views

  • European Nuclear Energy Forum benefits from an increasing interest from the EU Member States' governments, many Members of the European Parliament representing different political groups, the Economic and Social Committee, and main actors from the nuclear industry, power utilities, energy intensive consumers, finance sector and civil society.
Wade Ren

Demographic projections and trade implications - 0 views

  •   To summarize the raw numbers, China’s population is expected to grow from 1.32 billion today to 1.46 billion in 2030, after which it will decline slowly, to around 1.42 billion in 2050.  Its working population is currently around 840 million.  This component of the population will rise in the next ten years to around 910 million and then will decline quite rapidly to around 790 million by 2050.
  • The graph below shows the composition of China’s population by age group.  Needless to say the most dramatic change is the explosive growth of the over-65 population, followed by the decline in the share of the young.  Another way of understanding this is to note that China’s median age basically climbs over this period from 24 to 45 (which, by the way, may have favorable consequence for long-term political stability).
  • I don’t have the figures yet from before 1990, but looking at other sources I would guess that China’s working population grew by about 2% or more annually during the 1970s and 1980s.  In the 1990s, as the table indicates, the growth rate of the working population slowed to 1.72%, declining further in the current decade to around 1.42% on average.  The number of working Chinese keeps growing until around the middle of the next decade, and then begins to decline by about half a percent a year.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • All this has important implications both for nominal growth rates and per capita growth rates in the next few decades.  For one thing, a country’s GDP growth rate can be expressed as a factor of the growth rate of its working population and the growth rate of average productivity per worker.  As the growth rate of the working population swings from positive to negative – by a little more than 2%, depending on what periods you compare – this will have a commensurate impact on Chinese GDP growth rates, i.e. all other things being equal (which of course they are not).  China’s equilibrium growth rate should be about 2% lower than the equilibrium growth rate of the past two or three decades.
  •  This implies that over the last three decades China has had a demographic bias towards trade surpluses (working population, a proxy for production, grew faster than total population, a proxy for consumption), but over the next three decades it is likely to have a demographic bias towards trade deficits.  
  • Three years ago I argued in a Wall Street Journal OpEd piece that because of the aging and declining populations of Europe and Japan (and to a lesser extent China and Russia), compared to the growing population and relatively stable age distribution in the US, it was not unreasonable for the former countries to run large current account surpluses with the US since they would need the accumulated claims against the US to pay for the current account deficits they would need to run to manage their demographic adjustments.  This is why I have never been terribly worried about the sustainability of the US trade deficit.  In the next decade it is likely that demographic changes will create pressures to reverse those US trade deficits.
1 - 20 of 27 Next ›
Showing 20 items per page