Blatant Reality

Boeing is looking to partner with several Chinese organizations in order to develop a biofuel (possibly algae-based) for Chinese airlines.

EIJING – The United States and China launched a research venture Wednesday to develop biofuels for use by Chinese airlines based on algae or oily nuts and said an inaugural flight could come as early as this year.

The announcement of a series of research partnerships follows a pledge this week by the governments at a high-level meeting to cooperate closely in renewable energy, which both said was essential to fight climate changeand could spur new industries.

“Renewable energy development is central to our cooperation with China,” David Sandalow, a U.S. assistant secretary of energy, said at a conference on renewable fuel.

(…)

The first flight in China using biofuels could happen this year, and the fuel could be in use in commercial aviation in three to five years, said Al Bryant, Boeing’s vice president for research and technology in China. He said four test flights using biofuels have been flown successfully in the United States.

“Today we’ve proven it can be flown,” Bryant said. “It’s a matter of scaling it up so it can be commercialized.”

Algae is once againg makings its way into the headlines with a Japanese airline looking to be the fourth airline to use biofuels in a test flight tomorrow. However, the most interesting tidbit in this article is the claim that an algae farm the size of Belgium would produce enough fuel to power all commercial airlines worldwide.
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P.S. For those of you who aren’t near a map, Belgium is quite a small country.
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Click here for story

PetroSun recently announced that it was looking to China for algae biofuel production and today has announced that the proposed site for their commercial production of Algae Biofuel is satisfactory.

The Joint Venture visited potential algae farm system sites in YanCheng, Xiangshui County and New Zone Cixi, Zhejiang. The locations inspected meet all of the requirements for large scale commercial production of algae, biofuel processing and access to multiple markets. Shanghai Jun Ya Yan will represent the Joint Venture in the final negotiations with representatives of the aforementioned Economic Development Zones.

Things are moving along quite well.

Some of the key players in the algae biofuel realm are planning on attending the Algae World ’08 conference in Singapore this coming November. The newest addition to the list is CEO Riggs Eckelberry of OriginOil, a company currently develping a comercialization process of algae based fuels. The goal is to find a way to make algae a legitimate competitor of oil.
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Read more here

Even with his presidential bid over, Ron Paul still finds ways to make his way into the news. What was his latest antic that was found newsworthy? Well, it seems that Paul was the only Representative to vote against sending our condolences to the people of Myanmar that were affected by the cyclone.

As the article states, these resolutions are just ceremonial and overall are completely worthless. Why he would vote against something this simple if it doesn’t commit any of our resources is beyond me. Even if he doesn’t give a care about anything else that happens in the world you would think a simple “We offer our condolences” would be fine. Crazy kid.

Anyways, my favorite part of the article was that the author referred to Ron Paul followers as “Paultards.” That made me laugh just because I, for one, have never heard his followers called that.

In recent meetings, North Korea has admitted to sending engineers to Syria. However, they swear that they weren’t involved in any nuclear business Syria was doing.

North Korea acknowledged sending engineers to military-related facilities in Syria, during its recent talks with the U.S. over its nuclear program, Kyodo News reported, citing unidentified diplomatic sources in New York.

 

The communist nation, however, denied involvement in Syrian nuclear development, Kyodo said yesterday.

With his party conceding the defeat in the election today, Musharraf’s future isn’t to certain. With his party coming in third in the number of parliamentary seats won so far, impeachment or the invalidation of his October election could become a reality.

With the support of smaller groups and independent candidates, the opposition could gain the two-thirds majority in parliament needed to impeach Musharraf, who has angered many Pakistanis by allying the country with Washington in 2001 to fight al-Qaida and the Taliban after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States…

 

Musharraf has promised to work with whatever government emerges from the election. But the former general is hugely unpopular among the public and opposition parties that have been catapulted into power are likely to find little reason to work with him — particularly since he no longer controls the powerful army.

 

Sharif has been especially outspoken in demanding that Musharraf be removed and that the Supreme Court justices whom the president sacked late last year be returned to their posts. Those judges were fired as they prepared to rule on whether Musharraf’s re-election last October was constitutional.

 

If the opposition falls short of enough votes to remove Musharraf, the new government could reinstate the Supreme Court justices and ask them to declare the October election invalid.

 

The spokesman for Sharif’s party, Sadiq ul-Farooq, told reporters Tuesday that Musharraf “should go.” But he added that if the restored justices validate Musharraf’s October election to a new term, the opposition would accept the decision.

Gateway Pundit has a good post concerning several US legislators’ involvement in this election. It’s worth a read.

Yea, I wasn’t so interested in the nuclear talks part but more in the way this Indian paper referred to the United States presidency as a “regime.” I mean this is first class liberal jargon we are talking about here. The worst part is, the paper doesn’t even get this phrase from the interview. Here, take a look (emphasis added):

Atomic Energy Commission chairman Anil Kakodkar has said efforts to ensure success of the Indo-US nuclear deal would go on regardless of regime change in the US.

 

Speaking to reporters after delivering a lecture on Monday at the National Institute of Advanced Studies on India’s nuclear energy status, he said: “It is a step-by-step process and takes time. I am not willing to conjecture on what will happen to the nuclear deal in connection with the US presidency… I don’t want to say whether the deal will be seen through before or after the Bush presidency… We will continue to talk with the US.”

 

Kakodkar said he was neither positive nor negative about the deal. “I am a realist, I am realistic about it. If the deal goes through, it is very good. I don’t think about whether it won’t… But if it doesn’t, our indigenous programme will go on. I can say our indigenous programme is sustainable on its own…”

Unless the reporter left out the part where Mr. Kakodkar referred to the Bush presidency as a “regime,” I really don’t know why the author would even refer to it as that. I mean, this isn’t an opinion piece so words like “regime” are normally limited to referring to those really bad nations (aka Iran and North Korea).

Well, I guess if it ain’t liberals at home you got to worry about it’s also the ones abroad. Go ahead Mr. Anonymous Liberal, keep putting words in other people’s mouths. Just remember that there are people like me watching and catching your (intentional) mistakes.

Today, Pakistan arrested two men in connection with the assassination of Bhutto last December.

Pakistani investigators arrested two men in connection with the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, the Interior Ministry said.

 

The men were arrested today in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, where Bhutto was assassinated in a shooting and suicide bomb attack on Dec. 27, ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said in a telephone interview. An investigating team of police and intelligence officials is interrogating the suspects, he said.

China seems to be experiencing one of the coldest winters it has had in the past century.

Millions remained stranded in China on Monday ahead of the biggest holiday of the year as parts of the country suffered their coldest winter in a century.

 

Freezing weather has killed scores of people and left travellers stranded before the Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival — the only opportunity many people have to take a holiday all year.

 

It has also brought China unwanted negative publicity six months before the Summer Olympics in Beijing.