Posts Tagged ‘Japan’
Asian and Pacific stock exchanges were mixed on the first trading day of the new year, with Hong Kong and South Korean markets showing gains Friday and Australia slumping.
The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong was up 2.22 percent at midday, while Seoul’s KOSPI climbed 1.69 percent. The All Ordinaries index in Sydney had dipped about 0.69 percent by mid-afternoon, however.Tokyo’s stock exchange remained closed for the holiday Friday. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei index closed Tuesday down 42.1 percent for the year.
Analysts expect 2009 to bring another bumpy ride for the global economy, with the world’s major economies — the United States, Japan and the European Union “Eurozone” countries — now officially in recession.
Bangkok nightclub fire kills 58
Posted on: January 1, 2009
A fire and resulting stampede left nearly 60 dead early Thursday at one of Bangkok’s most upscale nightclubs, where about 1,000 revelers were ringing in the new year, Thai police said.
The fire broke out at the nightclub Santika about 12:35 a.m., Thai police said. Police revised the death toll down to 58 Thursday afternoon, and said 20 bodies had yet to be identified. Another 100 were believed injured.
Steven Hall, a British national injured in the blaze, told that flames began to spread along the ceiling above the stage where a band and DJ were performing. But some people appeared to believe it was part of the performance.
“At the same time there were people rushing to get out, there were other people who seemed to be lacking a sense of urgency and didn’t seem to realize what was going on,” Hall said.
The blaze started near a stage where fireworks were being used as part of a performance on the club’s closing night, police Maj. Gen. Chokchai Deeprasertwit said.
“It may have been caused from sparks, but we don’t know if it was sparks from guests or from the night club’s countdown display on the nightclub stage,” he said.
Most of the fatalities were Thais, but foreigners have been identified from Australia, the Netherlands, Nepal and Japan, police said. Most of those who died in the building died from smoke inhalation or were trampled in a rush to get out of the club.
Hall said his wife escaped ahead of him, but he got caught in a crowd. “The lights went out, and at that moment, my back started burning and I was breathing in hot air,” he said.
Heart rates
Posted on: December 14, 2008
High resting heart rates may be linked to the development of obesity and diabetes, a Japanese study shows.
Heart rate is regulated by the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), a network of neurons in the body operating without conscious thought. It is also believed to affect the large intestine, blood vessels, pupil dilation, perspiration and blood pressure.
In an article published in the American Journal of Hypertension, researchers in Japan said people with resting heart rates of over 80 beats per minute had higher odds of developing insulin resistance, diabetes and cardiovascular problems.
The project was one of the first studies to assess the impact of higher heart rates on the body’s metabolism. It involved 614 participants who were followed over a period of 20 years.
The participants were divided into four groups: those with heart beat rates of under 60, 60-69, 70-79 and over 80.
Compared to those with heart rates of under 60, those who had rates of more than 80 were 1.34 times more likely to be obese, 1.2 times more likely to develop insulin resistance and 4.39 times more likely to end up diabetic.
“These findings provide a mechanism that might explain how obesity and the SNS are linked. This may, in turn, increase understanding of their causal role in the development of heart attack and stroke, the leading causes of death worldwide,” the researchers said in a statement.
The researchers believe that excessive nerve activities may lead to obesity because they lower the amount of fat burn in the body.
Economic plan
Posted on: December 13, 2008
The leaders of three of Asia’s biggest economies have vowed to work more closely together to reduce the damage caused by the global financial crisis.
Japan and China’s prime ministers and the South Korean president – meeting in Japan – agreed to boost trade and greatly increase currency swaps.
China’s Wen Jiabao called the summit, the first of its kind, a “milestone”.
He said such co-operation would “have real significance” as the crisis impacted on economies around the world.
The North Asian nations, former enemies, have held talks on the sidelines of international meetings, but this is their first independent trilateral summit.
“It is quite a milestone to hold a stand-alone China-Japan-South Korea summit,” Mr Wen said as he opened talks with Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in the southern city of Fukuoka.
Swap facilities
The Duncan Bartlett in Tokyo says China, Japan and South Korea are closely intertwined economically and their leaders regard co-operation with their neighbours as a vital means of lifting the East Asian region out of its current financial malaise.
In a joint statement, the leaders said that Asia was “expected to play a role as the centre of world economic growth in order to reverse the downward trend of the world economy”.
The countries said they planned to increase the amount of money swapped between them through the Chiang Mai Initiative – a move which should benefit South Korea especially, as the won has lost a third of its value since the start of the year.
Our correspondent says the nations believe the swaps will prevent a repeat of the situation 11 years ago when sudden slides in currency values triggered a major financial crisis in Asia.
The three men also called for an urgent injection of capital into the Asian Development Bank.
Ahead of the talks, the South Korean central bank announced in a statement that it had increased its bilateral swap facility with the Bank of Japan to $20bn (£13bn), and a similar facility with the People’s Bank of China to $26bn.
Japan is also trying to put aside its past differences with China, partly because it was trade between them that helped pull Japan out of its last prolonged recession during the 1990s, our correspondent says.
All three countries – which account for 75% of the region’s economy and two-thirds of its trade – have announced major individual economic stimulus packages in recent months.
On Friday, the Japanese government increased by 23 trillion yen ($255bn) its stimulus plan, more than half of which will be used to bring stability to the financial markets. It follows a 27 trillion-yen package in October.
“This is a great global recession which comes once in a hundred years,” Mr Aso said. “But by taking appropriate measures without any delay, we can minimise the impact.”
Earlier this week, China revealed that its exports had fallen for the first time in seven years. However, it still reported a record monthly trade surplus.
Beijing launched a four trillion yuan ($586bn) stimulus plan last month, and on Wednesday pledged to boost public spending and cut taxes.
South Korea, the hardest hit by the financial crisis, meanwhile offered $130bn of guarantees on foreign-currency borrowing and liquidity to its banks.
At a separate meeting on Saturday, the South Korean and Japanese leaders condemned North Korea for showing an “unco-operative attitude” in the latest round of six-party talks aimed at dismantling its nuclear disarmament programme in Beijing this week.
With fossil fuel prices escalating and countries searching for ways to reduce oil dependence and greenhouse gas emissions, capturing the earth’s heat for power generation is garnering new attention. First begun in Larderello, Italy, in 1904, electricity generation using geothermal energy is now taking place in 24 countries, 5 of which use it to produce 15 percent or more of their total electricity. In the first half of 2008, total world installed geothermal power capacity passed 10,000 megawatts and now produces enough electricity to meet the needs of 60 million people, roughly the population of the United Kingdom. In 2010, capacity could increase to 13,500 megawatts across 46 countries—equivalent to 27 coal-fired power plants.
Originating from the earth’s core and from the decay of naturally occurring isotopes such as those of uranium, thorium, and potassium, the heat energy in the uppermost six miles of the planet’s crust is vast—50,000 times greater than the energy content of all oil and natural gas resources. Chile, Peru, Mexico, the United States, Canada, Russia, China, Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, and other countries along the Ring of Fire (an area of high volcanic activity encircling the basin of the Pacific Ocean) are rich in geothermal energy. Another geothermal hot spot is the Great Rift Valley of Africa, which includes such countries as Kenya and Ethiopia. Worldwide, 39 countries with a cumulative population of over 750 million people have geothermal resources sufficient to meet all their electricity needs.
Typically, power generation using the earth’s heat required underground pockets of high-temperature water or steam to drive a steam turbine. Now, new technologies that use liquids with low boiling points in closed-loop heat exchange systems allow electricity to be generated at much lower temperatures. This breakthrough is making geothermal power generation viable in countries such as Germany that are not known for their geothermal resources and is one reason why the number of countries using the earth’s heat to generate electricity could almost double by 2010.
One advantage of geothermal power plants, beyond the benefit of producing electricity from a low-carbon, indigenous energy source with no fuel costs, is that they provide baseload power 24 hours a day. Storage or backup-power is not required.
The United States leads the world in generating electricity from the earth’s heat. As of August 2008, geothermal capacity in the United States totaled nearly 2,960 megawatts across seven states—Alaska, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. California, with 2,555 megawatts of installed capacity—more than any country in the world—produces almost 5 percent of its electricity from geothermal energy. Most of this capacity is installed in an area called the Geysers, a geologically active region north of San Francisco.
Thanks to the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which made geothermal power generation eligible to receive the federal renewable energy production tax credit, electricity generated from geothermal resources now costs the same as fossil-fuel-based electricity in many markets in the western United States. With favorable economics, the geothermal industry is experiencing a surge in activity. As of August 2008, some 97 confirmed new geothermal power projects with up to 4,000 megawatts of capacity were under development in 13 states, with some 550 megawatts of this already in the construction phase. Expected to create 7,000 permanent full-time jobs, the new capacity will include numerous large-scale projects such as the 350-megawatt and 245-megawatt projects by Vulcan Power near Salt Wells and Aurora, Nevada; the 155-megawatt project by CalEnergy near the Salton Sea in southern California; and the 120-megawatt project by Davenport Power near the Newberry Volcano in Oregon.
Current development is only scratching the surface of what is possible. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that with emerging low-temperature technologies, at least 260,000 megawatts of U.S. geothermal resources could be developed. A study led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology indicates that an investment of roughly $1 billion in geothermal research and development over 15 years (roughly the cost of a single new coal-fired power plant) could lead to commercial deployment of 100,000 megawatts by 2050.
In Europe, the top countries in geothermal energy development are Italy with 810 megawatts and Iceland with 420 megawatts. Italy is expected to nearly double its installed capacity by 2020. Iceland, with 27 percent of its electricity needs met by harnessing the earth’s heat, is number one in the world in the share of its electricity generated from geothermal energy. Germany, with only 8 megawatts of installed capacity, lags behind but is beginning to see the effects of a feed-in tariff of €0.15 (US $0.23) per kilowatt-hour that was implemented in 2004. Almost 150 plants are now in the pipeline in Germany, with most of the activity centered in Bavaria.
Ten of the top 15 countries producing geothermal electricity are in the developing world. The Philippines, which generates 23 percent of its electricity from geothermal energy, is the world’s second biggest producer behind the United States. The Philippines aims to increase its installed geothermal capacity by 2013 by more than 60 percent, to 3,130 megawatts. Indonesia, the world’s third largest producer, has even bigger plans, calling for 6,870 megawatts of new geothermal capacity to be developed over the next 10 years—equal to nearly 30 percent of its current electricity-generating capacity from all sources. Pertamina, the Indonesian state petroleum company, anticipates building most of this new capacity—adding its name to the list of conventional energy companies that are beginning to diversify into the renewable energy market.
The geothermal development potential of the Great Rift Valley in Africa is enormous. Kenya is the frontrunner in the effort to tap this potential. In late June 2008, President Mwai Kibaki announced a plan to install some 1,700 megawatts of new geothermal capacity within 10 years—13 times greater than the current capacity and one-and-a-half times greater than the country’s total electricity generating capacity from all sources. Djibouti, aided by Reykjavik Energy Invest’s commitment to provide $150 million for geothermal energy projects in Africa, aims to tap the earth’s heat to produce nearly all of its electricity within the next few years. Further stimulating development is the African Rift Geothermal Development Facility (ARGeo), an international organization partly funded by the World Bank that seeks to increase the use of geothermal energy in the Great Rift Valley by protecting investors from losses during early stages of development.
Industry, which accounts for more than 30 percent of world energy consumption, is also starting to turn to reliable, low-cost geothermal energy. In Papua New Guinea, a 56-megawatt geothermal power station owned by Lihir Gold Limited, a leading global gold company, meets 75 percent of corporate power demand at a notably lower cost than oil-fired power generation. In Iceland, five geothermal power plants planned near Reykjavik, which are slated to have a total capacity of 225 megawatts when completed in 2012, will provide electricity to new aluminum refineries.
Despite development potential measured in the hundreds of thousands of megawatts, tapping this renewable source of power is still in its infancy. But as more and more national leaders begin to see renewable energy as a cost-effective, low-carbon alternative to price-volatile, carbon-intensive fossil fuels, geothermal power generation is expected to move rapidly from marginal to mainstream.
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