One Asset the Government of India Should Buy if the US Government Sells it Off

There is a considerable amount of anti rail feeling in this country with even a magazine that is for low tech and good environmental policies critiqueing rail travel: http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/12/train-travel.html Further, the $ 1 billion stimulus package for the US government owned rail system, Amtrak www.amtrak.com has attracted a lot of criticism from people who think that the US government needs to sell Amtrak off. Apparently, Amtrak has not made a profit in over 40 years. As far as freght trainsa re concerned, too, the Americans seem bad at managing them - most of the rail freight companies have been bought up by Canadian businesses and the Canadians seem to have made them quite profitable, thank you, where the Americans simply couldn't figure out how to make money from them.

I do think, here, that of the US Government decides to sell Amtrak off, the Indian Railways should seriously consider buying them. Coal India Ltd has been buying up coal mines in this country and that is an Indian government owned business. And Indian Railways know how to run and manage a rail business - they move more people than any other system of transportation anywhere else in the world, they employ more people than any single employer anywhere on earth and they make good profits even in bad years in India. If there is anyone who could make Amtrak profitable, it is them. This is not something that I am joking about - as a blog that looks at showing fossil fuel the fist, I do think that the railways are a superb way of reducing pollution and what the American government cannot manage could be run mroe profitably by those with an established record in this area. I hope this happens - it would be good for Amtrak, for the Indian Railways and for a world that is being polluted increasingly day by day.

Off Road Stunts on an Electric Motorcycle

Green Daily has this video of a guy clowning around with his Zero electric motorcycle:http://www.greendaily.com/2009/01/31/zero-motorcycles-kicks-off-monthly-video-contest-edirt-bike-in/ While the video is fun to watch and smile a little, the bike seems to be a really serious product. I hope to check some out - the Chicago Motorcycle fair should come up shortly at Rosemont, not very far from my place. And for those interested in electric motorcycles, there is a fantastic forum to register and participate on: http://www.electricmotorcycleforum.com/

Can't praise the founder enough.

One of the Best Ways to Save Money - a $ 0 Utility Bill Home

I have written about Stitt Energy Systems and their high tech homes in the past: http://www.stittenergy.com/ The company has a long record of building energy saving homes in the USA and Canada and their technology has been much reviewed and praised in some of the most prestigious technical journals available here. I learned about them from one of the best magazines in the business, the American Solar Energy Society's Solar Today: http://ases.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14&Itemid=22 while working on a project some time ago at my university. I hsve since shown their website and directed audiences to it and hope to do this again in South Asia.

While the idea of near zero utility bills may be a very attractive one in the USA as an example of economizing on expenses in a difficult time, this technology would have vastly more applications in countries in South Asia where residents suffer from power shortages as long as 18 hours a day in some places. Just imagine a home where you do not have to bother about the vagaries of power supply from your local electricity board. Think of a home that does not end up in darkness because the local MLA decides to "borrow" your electricity for his campaign. The possibilities are amazing and well worth looking at for this reason as well. I daresay that whoever gets into this field of high tech housing in South Asia, will end up making more money than they could spend in several lifetimes. Right now, there is no one doing this. Period.

The Shipping Industry Supersizes Container Carriers

I grew up as a boy in a seaside town, in a quiet street that was a few blocks away from one of the oldest ports in that part of the world. Roman coins are still found from time to time in Chennai (or Madras as the city was called when I was born and grew up, or Poompuhar if you want the original name for the region and Mylai for the specific town that later became one of the largest cities in India) and the Dutch, the British, the Danish, the Portuguese and french all came there seeking footholds in what was an ancient trading center for seafarers. The people of the region had themselves reached out and settled in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia and other countries as we know them today, forming many of the vibrant Tamil and Telugu Chettiar communities around South and South East Asia. Other communities followed the Chettiar traders over the centuries and did equally well. I remember buying a fifty paise ticket to go to the port of Madras on Saturdays and walking around the docks in the old days. Most sailors were friendly and would get us boys some or the other goodies that they ahd brought back on their voyages to other lands - goodies like imported chocolate and Coca Cola which had been banned by the socialist government in India back then. There were steam ships and diesel ones and we learned to tell the difference from how they were named - SS for the Steam Ships and MV for the diesel ones in those not too old days. I even travelled to Sri Lanka in the TSS Irwin from Rameswaram to Talaimannar as a boy, a voyage that I have some lovely memories of even today.

And that brings me to this post - an article in the Wall Street Journal talks about some of the world's largest shipping companies investing to build huge container carriers: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123292489602813689.html While shipping is a very cost efficient method of carrying goods from one part of the world to another, sadly, today, there are no emissions regulations on ships anywhere. This is equally true of the huge oil tankers and container carriers as well as of small private yachts that are used by people for recreation in the world. While I do think that the businesses that are building these monster ships would try and use the most advanced technologies possible to make them cheap in operation, it would be nice if this were a time when governments around the world led by the various industries bodies that work in shipping push for greater efficiency by regulation and force the industry to adapt more green practices.

I personally think that this is also a good time to look at building advanced sailships especially to carry valuable agricultural produce in small quantities. There are French companies that deliver wine to European destinations in sail ships - I can't see why tea clippers cannot be built these days. The old tea clippers were faster than the fastest steam ships of their time. There is no reason why new ones that are even faster, larger and modern competition to the diesel ships cannot be designed. I did not see any sailships when I was a boy, but, boy, what would I not give to see them back before I die!

Kohler's Save Water America Contest

This contest has been posted on several environmental blogs and it is one that I hope many people would participate in: http://savewateramerica.com/home.swa For every person who participates, Kohler, one of the world's largest makers of taps, shower systems etc, would donate $ 1 to Habitat for Humanity to supply people with water saving devices. Their goal is to donate $ 1 million and I hope we could get them to do this asap.

Please enter and also forward this link to as many people as you can. Thank You.

The Saudis Gear Up to Raise Oil Prices

I wonder if anyone remembers the humiliating trips that George W Bush made to Saudi Arabia several times as oil prices rose to their highest ever some months ago? How many trips did he make with his cap in hand begging the Saudis to help reduce oil prices - was it two or three? Whatever it was, it was a terrible humiliation for the Saudis to treat the President of the very country that saved their backsides from Saddam several times in such a shoddy way. And you have the Saudis gear up to do this yet again.

The Gulf News website has a piece here: http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/09/01/23/10278009.html sternly warning Barack Obama that Saudi - US ties are at risk over the USA's inactivity in the Gaza conflict. This comes a day after Obama appointed a special envoy who is renowned for finally making peace between the British and the Catholic Irish after some seven and a half centuries of fighting. Surely the Saudis don't expect miracles like NBC does two days after Obama got into the White House?

My feeling is that the new Saudi tone has only one implication - low oil prices are hurting the Saudis as they are other oil producing countries. The Saudis are hurting more than others because they produce so much more oil. This whole threat to Obama is the same, essentially, as their behavior with Bush. They want to use Gaza as an excuse to push oil prices up in order to pay fir their new Rolls Royces. Barack Obama would do well to see through the obnoxious Saudi behavior and concentrate even harder on alternative energy to make sure that this country could wave the Saudis a good-bye the next time they try this kind of stunt. I hope to write an article about this on a website that I do write occasionally for and I shall post a link here when I do.

In Praise of Pullela Gopichand

Some years ago in an incident that came to be forgotten by the media and the public at large, Indian Badminton champion Pullela Gopichand refused a contract worth millions of dollars to endorse Pepsi Cola and advised his fans to drink fresh fruit juice instead. I can understand the Indian media forgetting about this - it was convenient for them. They do make a lot of money, after all, from seling ad-space to the soft drink manufacturers. Outlook, one of India's most commercial magazines, even came out with an issue disputing the research that suggested pesticide content in colas being sold in the country piggybacking on a supposed British Laboratory where it got some bottles of soft drink analyzed.

But it is not just pesticides that are the issue - the process of manufacturing these drinks puts a lot of carbon in the air. That, of course, is the filth that this blog is dedicated to opposing. And this article from the New York Times suggests where this information is now being reluctantly offered by Pepsi to consumers who may want to know exactly how much they have harmed the environment in drinking their stuff: http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/do-consumers-care-about-carbon-footprints/

The best part of this not-so-funny-joke is that Pepsi are most reluctant to post information about their packaged Tropicana (TM) orange juice. One more reqason to buy oranges and make the juice at home yourself? You bet!