Commentary: IEEFA Versus the IEA FacebookTwitterLinkedInEmailPrint分享Independent Australia:The same claims of bad forecasts are also occasionally made about the Institute for Energy Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) — an independent group of highly experienced analysts, who argue that the coal industry is in structural decline. One way of resolving this tension is to assume that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. But, of course, a far better way is to check their past predictions against observed reality and, by this measure, IEEFA is consistently very close and the IEA is somewhere out in the outer rings of Saturn.In a world that has come to depend so strongly on energy, bad forecasts carry disastrous consequences for financial markets, international relations, war and peace, employment, social planning and, of course, climate change.Which begs the question: why is the IEA so far off the mark? The answer might lie in their Coal Industry Advisory Board (CIAB), which was set up by the IEA to inform the agency about the future of the coal industry. However, rather than being made up of experts, like analysts, economists and futurists, the Coal Industry Advisory Board is made up exclusively of CEOs and very senior managers for companies that trade in coal, sometimes exclusively.The Australian coal industry has four representatives on the advisory board, of whom Greg Everett, the CEO of Sunset Power, who owns the Vales Point Power Station at Lake Macquarie, is one. Vales Point spits out about as much carbon as Jamaica.Peter Freyberg is the Head of Coal Assets at Glencore, which is the biggest thermal coal mining company in Australia. Glencore has been accused of violating Indigenous rights and poisoning rivers at the McArthur River Mine in the Northern Territory. Glencore also happens to be very good at avoiding corporate tax.James Palmer is the “Asset President, Coal” at BHP Billiton. Although BHP was the largest coal producer in Australia, BHP’s strategy is to get out of coal, making Palmer’s job very hard.The last representative is Jeyakumar Janakaraj, the CEO of an outfit you may have heard of — Adani. Adani, of course, wants to build a massive toxic coal mine in Queensland and ship it through the Great Barrier Reef, with a free water licensce in drought-stricken Queensland. Which begs the question: why does the guy who runs the company get to help write the most authoritative report in the world on the future of the coal industry? Nice work if you can get it.In defiance of the laws of thermodynamics, the information system driving decision-making around energy looks like a closed system, where the coal industry tells the IEA what it thinks demand for coal will look like in decades to come, the IEA tells decision-makers that coal will be around for decades, and the companies get to claim that the IEA supports their arguments. A generous way to look at it would be to assume that the industry’s subconscious biases are seeping into the World Energy Outlook. A more sinister view is that the industry is running a self-protection racket.You would think that Department Secretaries, the Planning and Assessment Commission and the Queensland Land Court would research who writes these reports and work out whether their claims stack up. Unfortunately, given our tendency to wrongly attach weight to opinions coming from perceived authorities, communities challenging coal, oil and gas projects have to argue why their claims are more justifiable than the World Energy Outlook.The reality is that, as IEEFA has repeatedly pointed out, coal is on the way out. The technology to power 100 per cent of the entire world with the power of the sun, the wind and the waves, is plummeting in cost and already exists today. What this means for coal-affected communities is that we deserve to be told the truth and to very quickly create a vision for the future of our communities. For financial institutions and companies related to fossil fuel companies, they need to develop a strategy to reduce their exposure to fossil fuels, starting immediately. Decision-makers need to take the WEO reports with a degree of caution. Governments at all levels need to significantly increase their ambition and action to get to a 1.5oC world. Citizens like us need to do what we do best and ramp up our efforts to force decision-makers to speed up the transition.Last year, dozens of companies and governments moved away from coal because of people-powered movements and campaigns. It is far from enough, but we are getting bigger and better at winning. It’s time to get vested interests out of energy analysis. Those who stand in the way of progress have been warned.More: The IEA’s World Energy Outlook and its coal bias
10 works were submitted to the competition within the prescribed deadline, while the first prize in the amount of HRK 250.000,00 net is awarded to the work under the code “10”, ie ARCHITECTURAL BUREAU ANTE KUZMANIĆ doo The planned approximate total value of the investment is up to HRK 500.000.000,00 (excluding VAT), approximately HRK 14.800 / m2 for the terminal building, HRK 7.400 / m2 for the canopy and HRK 20.000.000,00 for landscaping. The subject of the tender was the development of a conceptual architectural and urban design of the passenger terminal of Zadar Airport, while the main task of the tenderer was to propose an optimal architectural and urban design in terms of functionality, construction, height and design of the building. Namely, Zadar Airport announced a tender, while the Zadar Architects’ Association was the implementer and organizer of the same. 
Source / Photo: Society of Architects Zadar The results of the tender for the development of the conceptual architectural and urban design of the ZADAR AIRPORT PASSENGER TERMINAL have been published.
BILL NEAL :10 The Masters is Coming, the Masters is Coming, the Masters is Coming…and so is Tiger Woods, and he’s bringing hell with him. (Tombstone…Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp, after they killed his brother.) Come on people try to keep up.:09 “Champions” High School All-Star Basketball Classic (formerly The Kenny Durrett High School All-Star Basketball Classic) is back on track after a down year last year due to extenuating circumstances beyond our control. But as the saying goes, “Champions Rise to the Occasion…That’s Why They Are Champions.” And rise we did as the 38th annual classic tipped off Sunday, April 7 at the brand spanking new and super magnificent, state of the art Penn Hills High School. Over 1,000 people rolled through on the day to see the middle school girls’ tournament won by Pittsburgh Impact and the boys middle school tournament won by “UMOJA” out of Homewood. The big events on the day saw the WPIAL high school senior girls dominate the Pittsburgh City League girls for the fifth consecutive year with a final score of 58-36. And bringing home the WPIAL sweep, the WPIAL boys won a hard fought contest in a great game over the City League boys, 54-53. The event was a slam-dunk on the day and a “Great” time was had by all. A big thank you goes out to all our sponsors, volunteers, players, coaches, All-Star committee and executive staff, and most especially Chuck Sanders Charities and the Penn Hills Democratic Committee. And a real tip of the hat goes out to Jerry Chippinelli and Phil Scaleri.
News from the Good Ship Leaf is not good as the Heritage City franchise continues to fight the injury bug heading into the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League stretch run.“Unfortunately, we’re not getting any healthier,” said Leaf coach Dave McLellan on the eve of Friday’s 7 p.m. home game against the Creston Valley Thunder Cats at the NDCC Arena.“And that hurts has in many areas of our game — power play, penalty killing . . .,” McLellan added.“Hopefully we get them back in a week or two.”What has been frustrating for the Leaf coaching staff is when one player returns, another goes on the injury list.“Our original goal was to be up and running and ready for the playoffs,” McLellan confessed.“But right now it’s hard to assess that when we don’t have our set power play units in place or set concepts because everyone is moving around playing in different roles.”Who’s in and who’s out? Good Question On the positive side, McLellan did see the return of defenceman Patrick Croome and forward Blair Andrews during last weekend’s East Kootenay road trip.However, both players had some considerable rust with their game.“We had (Patrick) Croome back in the lineup, but he played like he’d been out of the lineup for two months,” said McLellan.McLellan said forward Dylan Williamson may see limited action this weekend after recovering from a hand injury as well Michael Crawford, who left the team, is now back with the Leafs.Nelson’s second leading scorer, Matt MacDonald, remains out of the lineup.MacDonald was definitely missed last weekend as Nelson scored one goal in two games.Help from the Kootenay Ice McLellan said defenceman Aigne McGready-Bruce should be in the lineup to bolster the Leafs this weekend as his Ice team is idle in the BC Hockey Major Midget League.McLellan said he also hopes to give Ice netminder Jason Mailhoit some action before the regular season ends.Hawks on horizonNelson, playing in Spokane Saturday, has a mid-week contest next week as Beaver Valley pays a visit to the NDCC Arena.The Hawks, holding a nine-point lead on the third-place Leafs in Murdoch standings, are winners of three straight entering weekend action.
The national media has a funny habit of over-simplifying complicated topics.Most of the time, they do so as to create overarching segment questions — Is Russell Wilson the MVP? Are the Seahawks Super Bowl contenders? Were the 49ers exposed? — but on Tuesday, it seemed that commentators at ESPN, Fox, and NBC decided to play the blame game.They claimed Jimmy Garoppolo lost Monday night’s game for the 49ers. … CLICK HERE if you are having a problem viewing the photos or video on a mobile device
Vodacom, First National Bank and Sanlam have been voted tops in an annual consumer satisfaction survey.The survey with a moniker bigger than a mouthful – the “internationally measurable consumer satisfaction index research in the long-term insurance, telecommunications and banking sectors”, or the SAS index survey – was conducted by South African Satisfaction (SAS) Index in partnership with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).The survey measured some 27 critical drivers of “customer satisfaction and delight”. Some of these included quality and efficiency of staff, general attitude of staff and whether client information is kept up to date.The survey is an annual initiative designed to encourage competitiveness across industries. According to the DTI, it is unlike similar benchmark offerings and is comparable to similar surveys in the US and Europe – such as the American (ACSI) and European (EPSI) studies. It is the third year running that the survey has been conducted.View the full resultsof the survey.See comparable statistics (US and UK).Results indicate that South African customers are more satisfied than their counterparts in Europe and America. However, the DTI says this may be because South African consumers “have lower expectations”, suggested by a recent consumer survey conducted by the department.The DTI says the survey raises important issues about the level of consumer protection and awareness in South Africa. The results clearly show low levels of awareness about consumer rights, and limited support mechanisms to promote consumer activism and protection on the ground.Of consumers surveyed 55% did not know any consumer rights at all, 85% asked for more information on consumer rights, 79% did not know of any consumer rights organisations and only 2% belong to a consumer NGO. The DTI says this “poses a challenge to all government, industry and consumer activists to improve services and raise consumer awareness of their rights and expectations”.Improvement across the boardThe survey shows that overall improvement has been seen in all the sectors:TelecommunicationsLooking at the industries individually, the ranking of the players in the telecommunications industry remained consistent. However, the industry as a whole showed a 5.5% point improvement.Although Telkom showed a substantial improvement ahead of the launch of the second fixed-line operator, it is not yet delivering the same level of performance as the more competitive cellular industry. On the brighter side, the survey shows that Telkom is doing significantly better than the telecommunication industry in both Europe and the US in satisfying its customers.Vodacom and MTN continue to lead the telecommunications field, but Cell C is well on track to challenge the more established players on service levels. Vodacom and MTN are producing the sort of satisfaction levels that one would expect from global players, making their results even more significant.Banking industryAccording to the DTI, the banking results confirm the success of its investment in the SAS index to improve service levels. Significant levels of improvement were reported by all of the big four banks. FNB and Standard Bank still scored higher than Nedbank and ABSA, with their improvements setting a new benchmark for competitors in the banking industry. As was the case last year, South African banking customers remain more satisfied than banking customers in America and Europe.Long-term insurance industryThe DTI says the better banking and telecommunications service levels may be one of the reasons for the new entrant, the long-term insurance industry, trailing behind banking and telecommunications as far as customer satisfaction is concerned. Little separated the top long-term insurance performer (Sanlam) from the least well received (Liberty Life) – a result the DTI attributes to the highly competitive nature of the industry.The department says the study will be rolled out across all major industries in South Africa in the near future, providing local and international comparisons to fuel the ongoing drive of local businesses to achieve world-class customer satisfaction.SouthAfrica.info reporter
Share Facebook Twitter Google + LinkedIn Pinterest Rural business development in Ohio and West Virginia is getting a boost thanks to a $200,000 grant presented to the Ohio Cooperative Development Center, housed at The Ohio State University South Centers in Piketon.The funding is one of 29 grants awarded Oct. 3 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture through its Rural Cooperative Development Grant program. The federal agency awards a total of $5.8 million to help rural cooperatives create jobs and support business expansion, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a written statement.“America’s rural communities have incredible potential to create jobs and expand economic opportunities,” Vilsack said in the statement. “Many rural businesses and organizations are succeeding under the cooperative business model, and with access to additional resources, they can boost job creation and create an environment where more products are made in rural America.”The grant will be used to help businesses and individuals in rural Ohio and West Virginia explore cooperative opportunities in several industries, including energy and wood products, according to Sam Rikkers, administrator of USDA’s Rural Business-Cooperative Service, who announced the grant awardees during a visit to the centers in Piketon.The grant will provide the opportunity for groups exploring cooperatives and for emerging cooperatives to access one-on-one technical assistance throughout their development process, said Hannah Scott, program manager of the Ohio Cooperative Development Center.The center is part of Ohio State University Extension’s work to increase economic productivity and job and business development in the region. OSU Extension is the outreach arm of the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences at The Ohio State University.“The center’s mission revolves around rural economic development,” Scott said. “We provide assistance to businesses in order for them to become drivers of economic growth in their communities.“We’re appreciative of USDA’s support of this work this year and throughout our history. OCDC has been working in Ohio since 2000 and has recently expanded to offer services in West Virginia.”As a result of the funding, the development center will provide a seed grant program to develop and expand cooperatives, she said, with a goal to assist 20 businesses and eight startups.The grant will provide a beneficial boost to the region, Scott said.According to the Appalachian Regional Commission, residents in Appalachian Ohio and West Virginia experienced 8.9 and 7.2% unemployment, respectively, from 2011 through 2013, with a per-capita income in 2013 of $24,855 and $26,020 and a three-year poverty rate of 17.6 and 17.9%, respectively.During the past five years, the center has provided more than 2,900 hours of technical assistance and has assisted with the formation of 35 cooperatives and other business entities in a variety of industries, Scott said.That has resulted in an estimated 194 new jobs and 229 retained jobs. It has also resulted in the investment of $72,000 in seed grants, she said.Examples of work that the USDA grant can fund include conducting feasibility studies, developing business plans, providing leadership and operational improvement training, and facilitating strategic planning for individuals and businesses in rural areas, Scott said.For more information on the Ohio Cooperative Development Center and its programs, contact Scott at 740-289-2071, ext. 227, or scott.1220@osu.edu.
YouTubeThe Jameis Winston crab legs story was one of the craziest of the year in college football, and based on a clip from ESPN’s “Draft Academy,” we may not have had the whole story after all. On the “Combine” episode of ESPN’s series, while going through interview practice with Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh, Winston went into detail about the crab legs incident, explaining that a Publix employee had “hooked him up” with the free food before someone else called security on him.
This certainly changes the story, and seems like it could be an NCAA issue, especially if this is a common occurence. We’ll continue to update on this new development as more unfolds.
SAN FRANCISCO – MoviePass, a startup that lets customers watch a movie a day at theatres for just $10 a month, is limiting new customers to just four movies a month.The move comes as the sustainability of MoviePass’ business model comes into question. Because MoviePass is paying most theatres the full price of the ticket, the service loses money with just one or two movies in a month. The average ticket price in the U.S. is about $9, though $15 and up is common in big cities.MoviePass regularly changes its promotions and rates, and it’s not clear whether the one-movie-a-day deal will return. It appears customers who have already paid under the old plans aren’t affected, but it’s not known whether they would be able to renew under the more generous terms. MoviePass would say only that it is “continually testing various promotions.”The service’s movie-a-day deal was popular among moviegoers, many of whom were seeing more movies at theatres than they normally would have. Without MoviePass, going to the movies was worth it only a few times a year for many people. Ticket prices keep rising, and moviegoers have plenty of cheaper alternatives, including Netflix.But the service also has struck a nerve with the movie industry. Adam Aron, CEO of the giant theatre chain AMC, has called MoviePass’ price “unsustainable.” AMC initially threatened legal action, but seems to have backed off.MoviePass wants to work out ticket discounts and revenue-sharing deals with theatres on the premise that it’s driving more people to theatres. The company is also eyeing a share of concession sales, saying moviegoers are more willing to buy popcorn and soda when scoring a “free” movie. But theatres have balked at offering MoviePass anything.MoviePass’ parent company, Helios and Matheson Analytics, has warned in a financial report that MoviePass’ future is in “substantial doubt” because it “has incurred losses since its inception and has a present need for additional funding.”MoviePass now has more than two million subscribers, up from 20,000 when MoviePass slashed prices to $10 a month in August.
With an increase in demand for these hampers, the donation will be of great help for the Salvation Army.If you would like to donate to the Christmas Hamper Campaign, donations can be dropped off at the Community & Family Services office, 10116 100 Ave.Distribution Day of the hampers is Wednesday, December 19th. FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. – The Doig River First Nations presented a donation in the amount of $2500.00 to the Salvation Army for their Christmas Hamper Campaign.Chief Trevor Makadahay presented Cameron Eggie, Executive Director – Northern Centre of Hope with the Donation at the recent ‘World Cafe’ event held December 5th at the Northern Grand Hotel.The donation was given to go towards the Christmas Hamper Campaign, a service that the Salvation Army provides for anyone in the community to apply for. Unlike the Food Bank, an income matrix is used to assess and prioritize the need. The Salvation Army assesses household income vs expenses to determine the value of the hamper.