RoguePundit

Rolling the Dice with Substandard Fire Protection

Earlier this week, I noted that OR-OSHA fined Siemens Power Generation $10,500 for the various safety violations which led to the collapse of a wind tower and death of a worker.  I thought that amount was rather low.  But comparatively speaking, maybe it wasn't.

The heat of summer, with its wildfires, has been gone for months, but even in winter, there are "flareups" to remind one just how shoddy fire protection is in much of rural Josephine County.

This week, the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined two of the three private fire companies that offer the only protection to an estimated 14,000 homes in the county. OSHA fined Inland Fire $980 and Grants Pass Rural $715. The two departments have 30 days to challenge OSHA's findings.

What is shocking about the fines is not the amounts, but that they're for lack of firefighting basics, ones meant to protect firefighters as well as enable them to do their job.

No, the fines were also shockingly low.

OSHA found Inland Fire, which opened less than a year ago and has only a station near Merlin, wasn't ensuring firefighters wore protective equipment and wasn't inspecting respirators used by them. In addition, protective clothing had been damaged and tires on its vehicles were worn.

Grants Pass Rural's violations were in connection with an Oct. 17 house fire on Crow Road in Merlin. OSHA charged the business' firefighters failed to wear breathing apparatus and other protective gear, lacked training and didn't communicate and coordinate with two other companies on the scene.

Anyone who saw the Daily Courier's video of the fire and read the story can attest to most of these violations, because they were obvious. The company's lack of communication convinced the other two departments to back off, and then it took two hours for Grants Pass Rural to put the fire out.

Along the way, it ran out of water for about 30 minutes, and some of its firefighters were seen wearing jeans and tennis shoes, rather than protective gear. None wore a breathing apparatus.

Keeping fines small can make sense when organizations need to be investing money in safety improvements.  But, Inland has tried to establish a foothold here in JoCo on the cheap and has even fallen behind in paying wages.  Is a small fine going to motivate it to change?  Meanwhile, Grants Pass Rural has operated on a shoestring for years and "earns" the lowest ISO rating for a fire-suppression program--Class 10 (previous blog here).  Same question.

This part of JoCo has three private fire protection companies vying for our business, and no law requiring homeowners to buy fire protection...so about 30 percent don't. That's one way of keeping property taxes and equivalent expenses low.  It also endangers all of us by increasing the risk of fires spreading...in timber country.   

The newsletter in my recent Rural/Metro bill (ISO rating of 6) noted yet another factor that's hurt rural fire protection around here. 

Unprecedented annexations by the City of Grants Pass during the preceding four years resulted in a revenue loss of over $400,000 per year...

Annexations haven't exactly helped the the finances of the Three Rivers School District either. 

The Daily Courier rightly chastises our dysfunctional county commissioners for not coming up with some sort of fix for this mess.  A fire district would at least drive a minimum standard and force property owners to support it.  Would people vote for it, especially with some sort of county payments backfill levy again looming?  Quite possibly not. 

Too bad that providing dangerously substandard fire protection doesn't merit a larger fine.  Fewer fire protection options might drive more folks to support a common solution.

Too-Well Prepared for Disaster

A week ago, a 6.0 earthquake struck near Wells NV, at town of under 1,500 in the sparsely-populated NE part of the state.  The quake damaged buildings in the historic downtown (lots of brick construction) plus much of the 7-12 high school (175 students).  At this point 20-23 buildings, including the high school, are uninhabitable.

FEMA rushed to the scene and has already determined that its help isn't needed.

"FEMA has been very, very responsive," Martin said. "We worked very well with FEMA. They had a quick response. They came in and did a damage assessment and determined that we didn't have enough to meet their criteria."

The town of Wells and the school district have full earthquake insurance.

"It's one of the most prepared cities I've seen in the state," said Dan Burns, a spokesman for the Nevada Department of Public Safety. "It's one of those unique situations where you don't qualify for federal assistance because you're too well prepared."

And while there was damage to homes, it wasn't severe enough to trigger FEMA help, Martin said.

There's a lesson in that somewhere. 

The Small Business Administration has low-interest loans available for homes and businesses damaged by quakes and the state is exploring getting grants from the rural development arm of the federal government.

If people have damage not covered by the federal government, then up to $28,800 is available for each homeowner from the Nevada Homeowners Disaster Assistance Program, said Ron Hood, a state public assistance officer and HDAP coordinator. The Nevada Legislature gave the program $5 million in 2005 and $4.5 million remains, Hood said. The HDAP money also will be used for floods in Eureka in August and in Fernley in January.

Elko County sheriff's deputies are among those looking for new facilities after Thursday's quake, (Undersheriff) Gonzalez said. They had been on the second floor of Wells City Hall but that has been deemed unusable.

The folks in rural Nevada are proud of their independence and are used to being politically ignored.  That's not always a bad thing.

More Mill Closures

Just a short post today...still recovering from a major computer crash yesterday evening.

The lead story in today's Daily Courier was not good news:

Swanson Group plans to shut down all its lumber operations for two weeks beginning March 3.

...

In addition to the Glendale plywood mill and sawmill, Swanson owns mills in Springfield, Roseburg, Noti and Glide, and employs a total of about 950 people at those facilities, about 800 of whom will be laid off, according to Steve Swanson.

The Glendale mills employ about 350 people. It's estimated about half of those workers live in the Grants Pass area.

For those not in the local area, Glendale is about 25 miles north of Grants Pass, just across the line in Douglas County.

The article listed several other mills in Oregon and Washington which are closed.  The information is from Random Lengths, a wood products industry newsletter (subscription required).

• Portac's sawmill in Beaver, Wash., which planned to stop operations this week. Citing poor market conditions and high log costs, company managers planned to evaluate the situation on a weekly basis.

• Warm Springs Forest Products in Warm Springs, which announced a conditional curtailment beginning this week.

Both the sawmill and planer were expected to be down due to current market conditions for an unspecified length of time. Mill managers plan to analyze the situation weekly.

• Bright Wood Corp. in Madras, which laid off 180 workers Feb. 18. Layoffs represented about 16 percent of the company's workforce. Bright Wood cited the weak U.S. housing market and unfavorable prospects for a rebound in the near term for the decision.

• Boise Cascade's stud mill in Elgin, which is taking two weeks of downtime due to market conditions. The mill is scheduled to return to production March 3.

• US Timber Co.'s sawmill in Baker City, which has shut down for an indefinite duration due to market conditions. The remanufacturing plant produces dimension lumber.

• Interfor's sawmills in Port Angeles, Wash., and in Adams Lake, B.C., which remained down this week. The company's sawmill in Molalla has been operating on a limited basis.

• Rosboro Lumber Co., which shut down its Vaughn, Ore., laminated beam plant on Feb. 1 and cut production at its stud mill in Springfield from two shifts to one, starting Feb. 4. Both curtailments were due to market conditions, and will remain in place until market conditions improve.

• High Cascade's sawmill in Carson, Wash., which reduced production by 75 percent beginning Feb. 1. The company's Mount Hood sawmill in Hood River has been closed indefinitely since mid-December as a result of market conditions.

• Boise Wood Products, which announced plans in January to permanently close its White City lumber manufacturing facility. Sawmill and planer departments were expected to be phased out this month and March, with permanent closure scheduled by the end of 2008's first quarter.

The Swanson Group mill closures sure aren't going to help CORP.  Serves it right for dragging its feet on repairing the Coos Bay rail line and cutting off direct service to the North State.

The Causes of the Wind Turbine Collapse

Last August, one worker fell to his death and another was injured when a wind turbine tower collapsed during the construction of PPM Energy's Klondike III facility near Wasco OR (end of previous blog here).  The Siemens Power Generation employees were doing inspection service on a turbine their company manufactured when the accident occurred. 

OR-OSHA has finished its investigation and found that it was safety violations, not structural problems, which caused the collapse.  Siemens has been fined a total of $10,500; it has thirty days to appeal.  The following helps explain the findings. 

According to the agency, workers had halted the blades for safety, and one worker entered the hub of the turbine. That worker then changed the blade position and closed the blades' energy isolation devices, which are designed to control mechanisms that handle blade pitch so workers don't get injured while in the hub.

Before leaving the hub, the worker did not put the energy devices back into the operational position, the agency said. So when the blades were turned back on, the blades were in an "overspeed" position that caused a blade to strike the tower and the tower to collapse, it said.

"This tragedy was the result of a system that allowed the operator to restart the turbine after service while the blades were locked in a hazardous position," said Michael Wood, Oregon OSHA administrator. "Siemens has made changes to the tower's engineering controls to ensure it does not happen again."

The investigation also found workers were not properly instructed and supervised in safe operations, the technicians each had less than two months' work experience and there was no supervisor on site. The agency says the workers were unaware of the potential for such a failure.

The wind was blowing about 25 mph at the time.

Other safety violations included improper company procedures and failure to train employees in emergency rescue procedures.

Siemens spokeswoman Melanie Forbrick said the company has made some changes, is reviewing the report and will make additional changes as needed. She said the company has brought in experts inside and outside the company to review the case.

"Obviously we take that event very seriously," Forbrick said. "We are trying to make measures above and beyond (those) required to make sure it doesn't happen again."

Just $10,500?

This was the first death from a wind turbine collapse in the U.S. 

Selective Border Fencing

When the Secure Fence Act of 2006 was signed, it was obvious that the $1.2 billion wouldn't cover 700 miles of fencing (previous blog here).  Last year, the effort was scaled down to 370 miles...with some gaps that seem really suspicious.   

Tamez, a nursing director at the University of Texas at Brownsville, is one of the last of the Spanish land grant heirs in Cameron County. Her ancestors once owned 12,000 acres. In the 1930s, the federal government took more than half of her inherited land, without paying a cent, to build flood levees.

Now Homeland Security wants to put an 18-foot steel and concrete wall through what remains.

While the border wall will go through her backyard and effectively destroy her home, it will stop at the edge of the River Bend Resort and golf course, a popular Winter Texan retreat two miles down the road. The wall starts up again on the other side of the resort.

...

River Bend Resort is owned by John Allburg, who incorporated the business in 1983 as River Bend Resort, Inc. Allburg refused to comment for this article. A scan of the Federal Election Commission and Texas Ethics Commission databases did not find any political contributions linked to Allburg.

The article noted a similar gap for the Sharyland Plantation, a development belonging to the Hunt family.  Ray L. Hunt is an oil and real estate billionaire who for instance has donated $35 million to SMU for the George W. Bush presidential library.  He's a younger step-brother of the Hunts who lost a fortune in the silver market in 1980.

Most border residents couldn't believe the fence would ever be built through their homes and communities. They expected it to run along the banks of the Rio Grande, not north of the flood levees—in some cases like Tamez's, as far as a mile north of the river. So it came as a shock last summer when residents were approached by uniformed Border Patrol agents. They asked people to sign waivers allowing Homeland Security to survey their properties for construction of the wall. When they declined, Homeland Security filed condemnation suits.

In time, local landowners realized that the fence's location had everything to do with politics and private profit, and nothing to do with stopping illegal immigration.

There are certainly instances where the lay of the land would motivate engineers to put the fence some distance from the river.  Building in floodplains obviously has its downsides...so does leaving landowners in the lurch between the fence and the river.  But the gaps?   

How did his agency decide where to build the segments? Chad Foster, the mayor of Eagle Pass, says he thought it was a simple enough question and that the answer would be based on data and facts. Foster chairs the Texas Border Coalition. TBC, as Foster calls it, is a group of border mayors and business leaders who have repeatedly traveled to Washington for the past 18 months to try to get federal officials to listen to them.

Foster says he has never received any logical answers from Homeland Security as to why certain areas in his city had been targeted for fencing over other areas. "I puzzled a while over why the fence would bypass the industrial park and go through the city park," he says.

...and the UT Brownsville campus.  So, the reporter went digging for some answers.  After a fair amount frustration, she was pointed to the Secure Border Initiative (SBI) Office within U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

Giddens is executive director of the SBI office, as it is called, which is in charge of SBInet, a consortium of private contractors led by Boeing Co. The group received a multibillion dollar contract in 2006 to secure the northern and southern borders with a network of vehicle barriers, fencing, and surveillance systems.

...

A phone call to Giddens at SBI is referred to Loren Flossman, who's in charge of tactical infrastructure for the office. Flossman says all data regarding the placement of the fence is classified because "you don't want to tell the very people you’re trying to keep from coming across the methodology used to deter them."

Flossman also calls the University of Texas at Brownsville campus a problem area for illegal immigration. "I wouldn't assume that these are folks that aren't intelligent enough that if they dress a certain way, they’re gonna fit in," he says.

Chief John Cardoza, head of the UT-Brownsville police, says the Border Patrol would have to advise his police force of any immigrant smuggling or narcotic seizures that happen on campus. "If it's happening on my campus, I'm not being told about it," he says. Cardoza says he has never come across illegal immigrants dressed as students. 

Switching to an article in the SBI monthly newsletter (Sep '07)....

Fencing locations are based on operational assessments by Border Patrol sectors, identifying those places along the Southwest border where new fencing solutions as part of an overall SBInet systems approach would most effectively help CBP perform its priority homeland security mission. 

Since May 2007, CBP has engaged in extensive discussions with state and local stakeholders about the placement of the remaining 225 miles of fencing. 

"We are committed to continuing this open and candid dialogue with landowners and our state and local stakeholders," said Project Manager Loren Flossman.  "Our intent is to make investments that effectively balance border security with the diverse needs of those who live in the border communities."

Open and candid... 

Maybe SBI is--or at least was--going to use some sort of virtual fencing in those gaps.  From the current Business Week... 

But Homeland Security Dept. officials have decided that an experimental 28-mile "virtual fence" meant to extend the U.S. Border Patrol's eyes and ears along the U.S.-Mexico border—a web of radar, infrared cameras, ground sensors, and airborne drones—won't be copied anywhere else in its entirety. The project was plagued with design, software, and other glitches; had fallen months behind schedule; and sometimes proved inoperable.

The government agreed to pay Boeing almost the full $20 million for successful completion of the prototype endeavor just south of Tucson, known as Project 28. But in choosing not to expand the project, Homeland Security officials are dashing expectations and causing embarrassment from Capitol Hill to the campaign trail.   

The virtual fence, which only works about 30 percent of the time, traverses the Buenas Aires National Wildlife Refuge, which is being environmentally degraded by a steady stream of illegal immigrants (previous blog here).  And now the Refuge has three relatively useless security towers (and supporting infrastructure) in it as well.

Random Nature #157

Drinking Calories:  We've long known that salt consumption drives thirst.  Since many people prefer to quench their thirst with something other than water, the following isn't particularly surprising.

"Sugar-sweetened soft drinks are a significant source of calorie intake in children," said Feng J. He, M.D., lead author of the study. "It has been shown that sugar-sweetened soft drink consumption is related to obesity in young people. However, it is unclear whether there is a link between salt intake and sugar-sweetened soft drink consumption."

Dr. He and colleagues analyzed data from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS) in Great Britain, conducted in 1997 in a nationally representative sample of more than 2,000 people between 4 and 18 years old. Among the participants, more than 1,600 boys and girls had salt and fluid intake recorded using a seven-day dietary record, with all food and drink consumed weighed on digital scales.

"We found that children eating a lower-salt diet drank less fluid," said Dr. He, a cardiovascular research fellow at St. George's. "From our research, we estimated that 1 gram of salt cut from their daily diet would reduce fluid intake by 100 grams per day."

The researchers also found that children eating a lower-salt diet drank fewer sugar-sweetened soft drinks. From their research, they predicted that reducing salt intake by 1 gram each day would reduce sugar-sweetened soft drink consumption by 27 grams per day, after considering other factors such as age, gender, body weight and level of physical activity.

In other words, almost 250 calories per week--roughly two sugary soft drinks.  That can contribute to weight gain and thus higher blood pressure, both of which can have a number of adverse impacts on one's health.  Where does most of the salt in our diets come from?

In most developed countries, about 80 percent of salt intake is from salt already added to food by the food industry. Reducing salt would not necessarily impact food taste, she said.

"Small reductions in the salt content of 10 percent to 20 percent cannot be detected by the human salt taste receptors and do not cause any technological or safety problems," Dr. He said.

Pepsi's ownership of Frito-Lay sure seems like a natural.

Consuming too little salt can also cause health problems, but people in the developed world tend to err to the high side.

Too Simplistic:  The following wasn't nearly as definitive as the researchers are trying to claim.

Many animals possess protective markings to avoid predation, including patterns to reduce the risk of detection (camouflage), to indicate that the animal is toxic or inedible ("warning colours"), or to mimic another animal or object ("mimicry" and "masquerade"). In addition, many creatures such as butterflies, moths, and fish possess two or more pairs of circular markings, often referred to as "eyespots". Many eyespots are effective in startling or intimidating predators, and can help to prevent or stop an attack. For the past 150 years it has been assumed that this is because they mimic the eyes of the predator’s own enemies.

However, recent work by University of Cambridge zoologists, Martin Stevens, Chloe Hardman, and Claire Stubbins, indicates that this widely-held hypothesis has no experimental support.

No experimental support?  How about the studies here and here, just to note a couple?  Anyway...

Stevens, Hardman, and Stubbins tested the response of wild avian predators to artificial moths, created from waterproof paper. Specific patterns, such as intimidating eyespots of different shapes, sizes and number, and with different levels of eye mimicry, were printed on to the paper using a high quality printer. These "moths" were then pinned to trees of various species at a height of one to three metres in the mixed deciduous Madingley Woods in Cambridgeshire, UK. Attached to each of the artificial moths was an edible mealworm as a temptation for woodland birds such as the blue tits, great tits, blackbirds, and house sparrows.

The zoologists discovered that artificial moths with circular markings survived no better than those with other conspicuous features and that the features of eyespots which most encouraged predators to avoid them are large size, a high number of spots, and conspicuousness in general.

As Dr Stevens explains, "the birds were equally likely to avoid artificial moths with markings such as bars and squares as they were to avoid those with two eye-like markings. This leads us to conclude that eyespots work because they are highly conspicuous features, not because they mimic the eyes of the predators' own enemies. This suggests that circular markings on many real animals need not necessarily, as most accounts claim, mimic the eyes of other animals."

There are actually multiple theories regarding the why species have eyespots.  The abstract of this study explains it pretty well.

Eyespots are found in a variety of animals, in particular lepidopterans (butterflies and moths). The role of eyespots as antipredator mechanisms has been discussed since the 19th Century, with two main hypotheses invoked to explain their occurrence. The first is that large, centrally located eyespots intimidate predators by resembling the eyes of the predators' own enemies; the second, though not necessarily conflicting, hypothesis is that small, peripherally located eyespots function as markers to deflect the attacks of predators to non-vital regions of the body. A third possibility is also proposed; that eyespots intimidate predators merely because they are novel or rarely encountered salient features. These hypotheses are reviewed, with special reference given to avian predators, since these are likely to be the principal visually hunting predators of the lepidopterans considered. Also highlighted is the necessity to consider the potential influence of sexual selection on lepidopteran wing patterns, and the genetics and development of eyespot formation.

Heck, there are species that only develop eyespots during certain times of the year.  Genetic variation also impacts the coloration surrounding the eyespots.  Motion can impact their display and predators' reactions to them.  Plus, we know that some predator responses are inherited while others are learned.  Et cetera.

In other words, various predators respond to various eyespots on various prey in various ways, some of which can vary over time.

Thinking Clearly Longer:  Living longer can seem scary if, for instance, we lose those years to the fog of Alzheimer's.  Fortunately, the odds of doing so seem to be dropping.

A new nationally representative study shows a downward trend in the rate of "cognitive impairment" — the umbrella term for everything from significant memory loss to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease — among people aged 70 and older.

The prevalence of cognitive impairment in this age group went down by 3.5 percentage points between 1993 and 2002 — from 12.2 percent to 8.7 percent, representing a difference of hundreds of thousands of people.

And while the reasons for this decline aren't yet fully known, the authors say today's older people are much likelier to have had more formal education, higher economic status, and better care for risk factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and smoking that can jeopardize their brains.

In fact, among the 11,000 people in the study, those with more formal education and personal wealth were less likely to have cognitive problems.

Interestingly, the more-educated seniors who had cognitive impairment were more likely to die within two years. But the researchers say this may actually result from a protective effect of better education on a person's "cognitive reserve" — their ability to sustain more insults to their brain before significant thinking problems arise.

Specifically when it comes to education and health...

"We know mental stimulation has an impact on the way a person’s brain is 'wired,' and that education early in life likely helps build up a person’s cognitive reserve. We also know cardiovascular health has a close link with brain health," he continues. "So what we may be seeing here is the accumulated effects of better education and better cardiovascular prevention among the people who were over age 70 in 2002, compared with those who were over age 70 in 1993."

...

At the same time, the use of cholesterol-lowering drugs, blood pressure medications and other preventive cardiovascular medications and strategies increased dramatically in the 1990s. These factors may have helped protect seniors’ brain function by decreasing the incidence of vascular dementia — cognitive problems brought on by mini-strokes, strokes and decreased blood flow to and within the brain due to "hardened" or clogged arteries.

Additionally, the researchers included the following speculation in their study.

While the new study shows a decline in cognitive impairment prevalence over time, the researchers note that the gains made in the 1990s and early 2000s might be offset by the damage that could result if the current epidemic of type 2 diabetes keeps growing among the elderly and if current middle-aged and younger people stick with unhealthy eating and exercise habits that lead to unhealthy weights and blood pressures.

Fatter and more forgetful?  There was a study on that a couple of years ago...

Scientists have wondered why obese patients who have diabetes also may have problems with their long-term memory. New Saint Louis University research in this month's Peptides provides a clue.

"Leptin is a hormone secreted by fat cells that tells us to stop eating. In obese people, it doesn't cross into the brain to help regulate appetite," says Susan A. Farr, Ph.D., principal investigator and associate research professor in the division of geriatric medicine at Saint Louis University School of Medicine.

We've now found leptin affects the brain in other ways, compromising learning and memory. Low levels of leptin also could be related to cognitive deficits in disorders like type two diabetes."

Farr and her research team tested the role of leptin in learning and memory using an animal model. They found that mice navigated a maze better after they received leptin.

But did the mice improve their exercise, sleeping, and eating habits?

Camelina-Based Biodiesel

Great Plains--The Camelina Company is in the biodiesel business.  In case you're wondering what camelina is...

• Camelina sativa (false flax) is an ancient food plant but no longer broadly used
• Native to Northern Europe- from Finland to Romania
• Member of the mustard family
• Typically grown in marginal agricultural lands
• Minimal management required if planted on relatively clean ground
• High Protein content of the seeds: 25%
• High in oil content: ~40%
• Introduced to US several years ago

That last bullet is a reference to the fact that it's a weed that was probably brought over with flax seed.  It's now found in much of the U.S., including parts of Oregon.  Switching links...

Camelina is well-suited to marginal land, including much of Eastern Washington, Eastern Oregon, and Montana. In Montana alone, there are 50,000 acres of camelina in production. Camelina can also  be grown in dry climates, such as Southern California and Texas.

...and possibly the Four Corners region.  In some climates, camelina can be a cheaper feedstock for biodiesel than rapeseed (also in the mustard family).  Camelina farming here is in its infancy, but that's rapidly changing...and the price of the feedstock is already rising.

Competition from surging grain prices prompted a Bigfork MT biofuels developer to announce Friday it will boost its contract price for the oilseed crop camelina.

Great Plains--The Camelina Company is one of two groups with plans to produce a combined 200 million gallons of biofuels annually from camelina within the next two to three years.

The companies are aiming to capitalize on rising interest for crop-derived fuels such as biodiesel, touted as an alternative to foreign oil. But reaching their lofty goals will require the companies to secure contracts on an estimated 2 million acres of farmland.

That’s a tough sell for farmers enjoying record-high wheat prices. Spring wheat was priced at between $17 and $20 a bushel on Friday, said Lola Raska with the Montana Grain Growers Association. She said about 5 million acres of wheat are planted each year in Montana. To compete, Great Plains said Friday it is increasing its camelina contract price to $9 per bushel. Company founder Sam Huttenbauer said the remaining gap with wheat prices would be covered by camelina's low "input" costs — meaning it needs fewer fertilizers and herbicides.

Two million acres of camelina between the two companies?  From this link:

In August, Great Plains announced a partnership with INEOS Enterprises, a U.K. manufacturer of specialty chemicals and oil products. The partnership seeks to boost the production of camelina in Canada and the Pacific Northwest to 100,000 acres. ... Great Plains also has a partnership with Ohio-based Peter Cremer North America LP to supply camelina for the company’s Nexsol brand of biodiesel. Great Plains said it is willing to contract all the camelina acres that Montana growers are willing to plant.

Returning to the original article...

U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., inserted a measure in the farm bill pending before Congress that would offer crop insurance to camelina growers. He said Friday that high wheat prices won’t be enough to stall the demand for camelina.

"I think it’s competitive and that's the bottom line," said Tester, a farmer from Big Sandy.

Great Plains also said Friday it will invest $20 million this year in an oilseed crushing facility and a biodiesel refinery. The company previously said it would announce a location for those projects last year, but Huttenbauer said he is still trying to finalize a site.

Sustainable Oils is the other company referenced in the article.  It's a joint venture between Targeted Growth (of Seattle) and Green Earth Fuels, both of which are privately held.  From its initial press release in November...

The new venture will produce and market up to 100 million gallons of Camelina-based biodiesel by 2010, launching the single-largest  U.S. contract for the unique biodiesel-specific feedstock.  Nearly all of the initial Camelina production is expected to be grown in Montana.

Switching links (Feb 13 article)...

Montana camelina crops will be crushed in-state, but Panter says his company (Sustainable Oils) has not yet committed to a location for the biodiesel production plant.

Neither has a site for their proposed plants, and camelina acreage is currently a fraction of what will be needed.  Yet, the two companies will produce a combined 200 million gallons of camelina-based biodiesel in 2-3 years?  "Up to" was the key phrase.

A Bill for the Rescue

Talk about adding insult to injury...   

No person in their right mind aspires to be taken hostage, but now there's even more reason to avoid the experience. According to a court ruling reached on Thursday in Berlin, Germans who are taken hostage abroad can now be required to cover the costs incurred by their release.

The ruling of the Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court is based on the case of Reinhilt Weigel. On Sept. 12, 2003, the Bremen physiotherapist, together with six other tourists, was kidnapped by leftist rebels while visiting the ruined ancient city of Ciudad Perdida in northern Colombia.

After 10 weeks in captivity, she and Spanish fellow hostage Huegun Etxeberria were rescued by helicopter from a jungle hide-out. But there was an unexpected postscript to the story two months after Weigel's return home, when the German Foreign Ministry asked her to pay €12,640 ($18,735) for the helicopter flight.

Weigel found the sum excessive and took legal action against the government's demand. In the first instance, the administrative court decided in Weigel's favour. But the German government then appealed that ruling -- and won.

In its ruling Thursday, the court deemed that, according to consular law, the Foreign Ministry had the right to demand compensation for expenses incurred in a rescue. Consular law states that Germans who require assistance abroad must be granted it by the state if no other means of help are available. However the recipient is required to later repay the expenses incurred.

Many parts of the Colombia are spectacular, but few of them are particularly safe, including the national park in which Ciudad Perdida is found.  It was members of the National Liberation Army (ELN) who kidnapped the tourists, demanding that the government investigate human rights abuses.  However, the ELN has long been in the business of kidnapping people for the ransom money (so has the FARC).  In 2001 alone, the ELN took over 800 hostages for ransom.

The tourists rolled the dice and got burned.  But Germany has spent millions on ransoms in recent years...so why the penny pinching on a helicopter ride? 

Revenues or Biodiesel

The biodiesel glut in Europe continues, which hasn't been good for the owners of Germany's biodiesel plants. 

Three German biodiesel production plants were recently sold to the United States and Canada and more are up for sale after biodiesel sales collapsed, a German renewable fuels industry leader said on Wednesday.

"I estimate that 30 percent of Germany's biodiesel plants are now up for sale," said Peter Schrum, president of the German renewable fuels industry association BBK.

...

The country's five million tonnes biodiesel industry is only producing at about 10 percent of capacity largely because a biofuels tax increase on Jan 1 has sharply cut sales, he said.

Although the European Union wants to increase biofuel use to stop global warming, Germany has started taxing biodiesel as the government said it cannot afford to lose the large tax revenue from fossil diesel.

Germany's tax on "fossil" diesel fuels is much higher than its tax on biodiesel, even with the recent increase.  So as people switch back to using fossil diesel, the government collects more revenue.  Easy to see what's more important there...

The EU's goal is for biofuels to comprise 5.75% of total fuel consumption by 2010.

To reduce the impact of biodiesel taxes, Germany introduced compulsory blending of biodiesel with fossil diesel at oil refineries in January 2007.

The BBK says the 4.8 percent biodiesel blended content in fossil diesel would create demand for about 1.5 million tonnes of biodiesel annually.

But a high proportion of the biodiesel used for blending is coming from the United States and is being sold cheaply in Europe with the help of US subsidies.

Our blenders tax credit is written in a way that allows a practice known as splash-and-dash (end of previous blog here).  Companies import tankers of biodiesel to the U.S., add a bit of diesel fuel (0.1%) to qualify for the tax credit, and export the resulting blend to Europe.  Our tax dollars are making biodiesel cheaper in the EU...and Congress did nothing about it last year.

Schrum said the decline of Germany's biodiesel industry could also create serious problems for the country's animal feeds sector.

German biodiesel is largely made from rapeseed oil and huge volumes of high-protein rapeseed meal, a key animal feed, are produced as a by-product.

"If oil is not produced for biodiesel then protein feed will not be produced either," he said. "This requirement will have to be met by more expensive imports, probably of soymeal."

He estimated 60 percent of German feed meal production was generated as a by-product of biodiesel production.

"This will have to be replaced by more expensive imports in coming months as the biodiesel industry closes," he said. "Large volumes of German rapeseed will also have to be sold abroad."

The edible waste products from biofuels production have only recently become an important source of feed.  In 1998, Germany produced 50,000 tonnes of biodiesel; last year it produced 4.8 million tonnes.  With the big push for biofuels (including the EU's $27 per acre subsidy for growing biofuel crops), it became more lucrative for many farmers to grow rapeseed than other crops for man and animals.  And with the decreasing availability of other feeds, biodiesel refiners were gaining a market for their edible waste product. 

Considering that rapeseed is an annual crop, I've little doubt that German agriculture is already trying to adjust to the new market realities.  It won't be painless, but neither was the adjustment to increasing biodiesel production.  The consumers bore some of that pain, as the EU's biofuels push has helped drive food inflation.  That sounds rather familiar from the ethanol push here in the U.S.

Wonder if the U.S. and Canadian investors--whoever they are--will make money in the long run off of those German biodiesel plants?  Maybe they have the clout to get Congress to plug that blenders tax credit loophole.

Suddenly Disenchanted with Small Hydro

Oregon and California are amongst the states that have adopted the unscientific conceit that large dams don't produce renewable power but small-hydro projects (up to 25 MW) do.  This has allowed a number of environmentalists and politicians to give the impression that they're supportive of a compromise position.  Few figured that anyone would devote much effort to small hydro.   

British Columbia's environmentalists have gotten a rude awakening in that regard.  The government there has been pushing small (2 - 50 MW) and micro (up to 2 MW) hydro projects, and last year it streamlined the approval process for clean energy projects up to 10 MW.  Suddenly, a number of folks are decrying these projects as not being green.   

A keystone of B.C.'s low-emissions energy strategy is power generated by private "run of river" plants driven by rushing water. But what's good for fighting global warming has raised various other fears for Rankin and a diverse range of groups opposed to the projects.

Rankin turned activist when he caught wind of a private hydro development planned for Ashlu creek, just north of Squamish where the rancher calls home. He went to meetings, got on the phone and formed the society to stop what he sees as the "theft of B.C.'s rivers."

One of his converts was Gwen Barlee of the Wilderness Committee, who says Rankin's persistent calls prompted her to look more closely at private hydro projects.

Barlee admits she was initially pleased about BC Hydro's first call for green power proposals in 2003, the year the contract for Ashlu creek was granted.

That changed when she actually saw the project construction site.

"I thought of a little turbine in a stream," she says. "They're called run-of-river projects . . . they should be called river diversion projects."

Ignorance was bliss. 

FYI, Gwen Barlee is the Policy Director of the (Western Canada) Wilderness Society, "the largest membership-based, citizen-funded wilderness preservation organization in Canada." From this link...

Her campaigns in recent years have focused on environmental degradation and the erosion of the public good through privatization.

That last point allies her with the original group that objected to the smaller hydro projects.  Returning to the article...

Right now there are 35 private power projects up and running, another 45 have been granted contracts and more than 500 water licenses--obtaining one of these is the first step for hydro project development--have been bought.

This is too much, too quickly with too little consultation with stakeholders, say opponents.

...

David Black, president of Canadian Office and Professional Employees local 378, says members have been rallying against BC Hydro privatization since 2002 when it launched BC Citizens for Public Power.

In 2003, one-third of BC Hydro jobs were outsourced to Accenture, an international management consulting, technology and outsourcing company.

The unions and anti-corporate groups aren't necessarily against the projects; it's the privatization they oppose.  The environmental groups fighting these projects aren't interested in consultation either, except as a means to block approvals.  Regarding the tribes...

Last June, the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs called for a moratorium on private hydro development until there was assurance of "transparent" consultation with First Nations and a review of the terms of existing water licenses.

...

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip says First Nations communities already in "dire straits" are particularly vulnerable to power companies that promise jobs, skills training and revenue sharing in exchange for land and water rights.

...

Phillip says private hydro development on rivers, streams and waterways "flies in the face of everything we consider important" and urged activist groups to reach "beyond the usual suspects" and let ordinary people know how privately owned power will affect them.

"We're 15 months out from the next election," says Phillip. "This issue has to become part of everyone's kitchen table talk."

But, his views aren't representative of all of the tribes.   

Last April, a 119 MW project on the East Toba River, north of Powell River, was approved after consultation with Klahoose Chief Ken Brown.

Brown said when the project proponent, Plutonic Power Corporation, expressed interest in developing Klahoose territory, it was like "the stars had aligned."

Plutonic is spending $34 million on an initiative to rebuild old logging roads and bridges that have been decommissioned for 20 years, something the Klahoose could never have afforded, says Brown.

"You sit around waiting for a treaty settlement or you step up to the plate," says Brown. "You interface with private business and create economic opportunities for people. I try not to focus on the divisiveness of it."

119 MW is too large to qualify as small hydro.  But, it is a run of river effort that avoids the construction of a dam while providing a lot of renewable energy.  The project is under construction and should go on-line in 2010.