Tag Archives: israel
Turning Wood Chips Into Gasoline? NJ Firm Hopes To
Published: Thursday, 3 Oct 2013 By: Brad Quick, CNBC field producer Source: Primus Green Energy View from the north side of the demonstration plant. A New Jersey company has opened an energy facility that converts cheap natural gas into gasoline, and the firm hopes to eventually convert biomass—wood chips or switchgrass, for instance—and even to make jet fuel. The process being carried out by Primus Green Energy at its synthetic gas-to-gasoline, or “STG+,” facility, which launched Wednesday, is not new, but the size and efficiency of this particular plant are. Primus hopes to create about 100,000 gallons of gas a year—a small amount compared with modern oil refineries, but still making it the largest facility of its kind anywhere in the world, Primus said. Primus takes cheap natural gas and through a chemical process, converts it into more expensive gasoline that can power your car. Primus is using the new plant as a testing facility, a scaled-down version of how it hopes its future plants will operate. The company hopes the operation will be enough to show investors that the technology is both economically feasible and possible to build on a larger scale. Pavel Molchanov, an energy analyst with Raymond James, said Primus has to prove it can raise capital before it can be successful. “This is an early stage company. They’ve yet to produce gasoline commercially. It’s going to take some time to scale up,” Molchanov said. “With any scale up comes the need for a large amount of capital. Raising capital is never easy, particularly for an early stage business.” To date, Primus has raised about $60 million, all of it through an investment from IC Green Energy, the renewable energy arm of Israel Corp . Primus is working with Credit Suisse to raise additional capital by the end of the year. ( Read more : Six myths about renewable energy) A larger facility that will produce 28 million gallons a year, which the company hopes have built by 2016, will cost roughly $280 million. That’s cheaper than what it would cost to build an oil refinery of the same size. Natgas price worries? Not really, says CEO Source: Primus Green Energy Primus Green Energy CEO Robert Johnsen Molchanov said he sees the cost of natural gas as another potential headwind. “If natural gas prices go up, it would not be helpful for their margins,” he said. “I’d like to see what would happen if prices doubled.” Primus CEO Robert Johnsen said that’s not a scenario that keeps him up at night. The natural gas industry just released its winter forecast, and both supply and demand look as if they’ll remain steady, with prices hovering at around $3.47. Johnsen estimates that at current natural gas prices, it costs him about $1.65 to create one gallon of gasoline, far cheaper than the big oil refiners. And with those kinds of margins, prices would need to move significantly higher before the process was no longer profitable. “Natural gas would have to be in the double digits for us to be uneconomic, given the current forecast for gasoline prices,” Johnsen said. Continue reading
Hungry China Wants To ‘Borrow’ Land From ‘Bread Basket’ Ukraine For 50 Years
Chinese plans to lease 5 percent of Ukraine’s total land to grow crops may be nothing more than a pipe dream. Ukrainian officials say they know nothing of the deal, reported in a Chinese newspaper over the weekend. The South China Morning Post reported China’s Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) had a 50-year plan for crop and pig farming, spanning over 9 percent of Ukraine’s arable land. Sergey Kasyanov, Chairman of KSG agro, explained the misunderstanding. China’s reported ‘land grab’ would include eastern territories near the Dnieper river, Kherson, and Crimea, well-known for its coastal beaches. “I don’t have any information on the subject, unfortunately. I know that Chinese companies occasionally show interest,” Igor Livin, the Chairman of the Association of the Ukrainian-Chinese Cooperation told Vesti 24. On Monday, the Ukrainian Minister of Agriculture and Food said China and Ukraine will become strategic partners. A Chinese-Ukrainian cooperation could help Kiev increase its international trade, while Beijing could reach its goal of becoming 95 percent self-sufficient in food. Ukraine is home to 45 million people and boasts a gross domestic product of $176 billion. China’s population accounts for about a fifth of the global population, with at 1.4 billion people living in the country. It is also the world’s second largest economy, with over 8 trillion in GDP. Land Grab Worldwide 115 million acres are leased to foreign investors. These countries are seeking greener pastures to grow crops in Congo, Sudan, Indonesia, Tanzania, Mozambique, Ethiopia, and Australia, according to the report. Land has made a comeback – from cattle, private ski resorts, hunting and fishing clubs, to the Maine coastline – for American entrepreneurs who prefer to take a stake in natural real estate to diversify and hedge their assets against the risky gold, oil, and stock prices. Continue reading
Israel lists names of 26 Palestinians to be freed
Israel lists names of 26 Palestinians to be freed (AP) / 12 August 2013 Israel on Monday published the names of 26 Palestinian prisoners, most of them held for deadly attacks, who are to be released this week as part of a US-brokered deal that led to a resumption of Mideast negotiations. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas shake hands before their meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday. -AP Israelis and Palestinians are to launch talks in Jerusalem on Wednesday, following a preparatory round two weeks ago in Washington. The prisoner release, expected Tuesday, is part of an agreement to restart the talks after a five-year freeze. The fate of Palestinian prisoners stirs strong emotions on both sides, highlighting the competing narratives of their conflict. The upcoming release is particularly sensitive because many of those to be freed were involved in killing Israelis. “It’s painful to pay such a heavy price just as a concession for talks,” said Pini Rotenberg, after he learned that one of the killers of his father, Isaac, would be freed. The elder Rotenberg, a Nazi death camp survivor, was 69 and working as a contractor when he was killed with an axe from behind while at a construction site in 1994. In Gaza’s Bureij refugee camp, Fatima Nashabat, 48, said she was counting the hours until the release of her husband, Mohammed, 52, who has spent the last 23 years in prison. “Last night, when they said he will be in the first group, our house turned into a big dance floor,” said the mother of four. “We were cheering and singing.” She refused to talk about what got her husband arrested. Israeli authorities say Nashabat is serving a 25-year term as an accessory to murder. He was convicted of involvement in the killing of an Israeli reserve soldier, Amnon Pomerantz, who was stoned and firebombed by a mob, burning to death in his car, after he mistakenly entered the camp. In all, 104 long-held Palestinian prisoners are to be released in four stages during the nine months set aside for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have spent time in Israeli prisons since Israel’s capture of the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in 1967. They were jailed on charges ranging from throwing stones to membership in outlawed groups and killing civilians. Most Palestinians view prisoners as heroes, regardless of their acts, arguing they made personal sacrifices in the struggle for independence. Palestinians argue that the 104 prisoners slated for release carried out their acts at a time of conflict, before Israel and the Palestinians struck their first interim peace agreement in 1994. They say Israel should have released them long ago, as part of previous peace talks. Many Israelis view those involved in the killings as terrorists for targeting civilians. Some of the victims’ families planned a protest outside Israel’s Defence Ministry later Monday. “They are terrorists and murderers who will be returning home to a hero’s welcome,” said Gila Molcho, whose brother, Ian Feinberg, was working at a European aid office in Gaza City when he was stabbed to death in 1993. “They will be celebrating the killers of our brothers and children,” she told Israel TV’s Channel 2. Israel’s Prison Service posted the 26 names online early Monday to allow two days for possible court appeals. Twenty-one in the group were convicted of killings, while others were involved in attempted murder or kidnapping. Half the prisoners on the list had no given release date, meaning they were serving full life terms, while others would have been released in a few years without the special deal. Most have already served around 20 years, with the longest-held arrested in 1985. The first release is to precede a round of negotiations in Jerusalem on Wednesday. The US envisions an agreement within nine months on the terms of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, including drawing a border, agreeing on security arrangements and deciding the fate of Palestinian refugees. The Palestinians want a state that would include the territories Israel captured in 1967. The diplomatic paralysis of the last five years was largely due to disputes over the construction of Israeli settlements in areas the Palestinians want for their future state. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has long insisted he will only resume talks if Israel freezes construction. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a freeze. US Secretary of State John Kerry eventually brokered the resumption of negotiations, and Abbas dropped a settlement freeze as a condition for talks. In exchange, Kerry won Israeli agreement that it will release the 104 Palestinians. Continue reading
