Proposals for the first large solar power plants ever built on Federal lands won final approval from Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.
The Interior Department’s action was delayed by the need for multiple approvals from agencies ranging from the Secret Service to the General Services Administration, officials said.
Both plants are to rise in the California desert under a fast-track program
4 October 2010. By David Caploe PhD, Chief Political Economist, EconomyWatch.com.
As Deng Tsiao-Ping observed before his death, rare earth metals – which are crucial to producing all manner of “clean” high-technology – are China’s oil.
Despite the name, rare earth metals aren’t that “rare” – they are just found scattered throughout ores that make them hard – and expensive – to secure.
Here’s a later version of the mainstream media version of what happened on May 6.
As you can see, there’s a bit more detail in terms of WHO and HOW,
but the outlines remain pretty much the same as we described them in our first “scanning” of the various media accounts …
You will note, however, that at least SOME of the questions WE raised initially were also raised by other observers,
and are — minimally — addressed in this updated version …
Enjoy — if you have the stomach for it … 😉 …
We long ago identified Friday afternoon – or even better – night as the best time to release anything an organization considers “bad news”,
and, sure enough, the joint Securities & Exchange Commission [ SEC ] / Commodity Futures Trading Commission [ CFTC – think “derivatives” ] did just that
30 September 2010. By David Caploe PhD, Chief Political Economist, EconomyWatch.com
As regular readers of this site know, we have been pretty appalled with, and confused by,
29 September 2010.
No matter how healthy or rich Asian economies are, one thing is certain:
Asians will never stop getting sick.
That helps explain why Malvinder Singh left his home in New Delhi this year to move to Singapore.
He first made a fortune in 2008 selling the generic-drug giant that his family built, Ranbaxy Laboratories.
Now, Mr. Singh, 37, is trying to expand Fortis Healthcare, another of the family companies,
The term “peak oil” is used by energy experts to refer to a point in time when global oil reserves pass their zenith and production gradually begins to decline.
This would result in a permanent supply crisis — and fear of it can trigger turbulence in commodity markets and on stock exchanges.
Air fares have marched steadily upward in recent months and are now close to pre-recession levels —
and that’s not even counting all the fees that airlines have introduced lately.
The increase in fares is the result of a remarkable discipline shown by the airlines –
anti-competitive / anti-trust / oligopolization, anyone 😉 ??? –
which have generally not added more flights this year
22 September 2010. By David Caploe PhD, Chief Political Economist, EconomyWatch.com
Because China’s economic growth has been so spectacular over the past 15 or so years,
many people have forgotten its pre-condition has been a general political calm in East Asia.
This basic stability in the region – occasionally broken by North Korean outbursts, and unnecessary roils with Taiwan –
has allowed China to direct its energies on its extraordinary drive towards prosperity and increasing its people’s standard of living.
In recent years the limits of physics and finance faced by chip makers had loomed so large that
experts feared a slowdown in the pace of miniaturization
that would act like a brake on the ability to pack ever more power into ever smaller devices like laptops, smartphones and digital cameras.
Scientists at Rice University and Hewlett-Packard, though, have reported they can overcome a fundamental barrier
