Tuesday, February 28, 2012
China's Take on Israeli Arms to Azerbaijan
Japanese Police Raid Chongryon Offices
Monday, February 27, 2012
Developing Nations Eye Biomass Exports to EU
Putin Blasts US Foreign Policy but Calls for Closer Cooperation
Chechen Rebels Planned to Kill Putin
N. Korea Warns South on Drills
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Key Lesson of 1967 and the Looming Iran War
Tuesday, 28 February 2012
China's state owned news agency says the $1.6 billion Israel-Azerbaijan arms deal will anger Iran. Read the Xinhua analysis here.
Related: China's Vision of the Middle East
Japanese police on Tuesday raided offices related to a pro-Pyongyang organization in Japan in connection with an investigation into the illegal shipment of computers to North Korea.
Backed by some 100 riot police, 10 police officers entered the Tokyo offices of an organization connected to the Pyongyang-affiliated General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, Chongryon.
Foreign Confidential™ has learned that several developing nations plan to host conferences on sustainable, socially responsible, value-added biomass exports to Europe in line with the Continent's so-called 20/20/20 mandate that requires EU electric utilities and other EU companies to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 20% by the year 2020. Tens of millions of tons of biomass--including waste-wood left behind from responsible logging operations and inedible grasses and agricultural waste--will be imported to meet the goal, given geographic and other limitations related to wind, solar and other forms of renewable energy.
"There is no alternative but to embrace biomass," an EU utility executive, whose company is investing heavily in biomass, told Foreign Confidential™.
Wood chips, wood pellets, and grass pellets will be burned in both specially built and retrofitted power plants; and, experts say, since much of the biomass will be blended with coal in co-firing applications, European demand fortorrefied biomass, or bio-coal, will be huge--with global demand for bio-coal exceeding 70 million metric tons a year. Water-repellent bio-coal pellets can be transported, stored, ground up, powdered and sprayed, or injected, into blasted furnaces and burned just like real coal. In contrast with bio-coal pellets, conventional wood pellets and wood chips, even after drying, have relatively high moisture contents, are not hydrophobic and thus cannot be moved and left lying around like coal, and, most important, cannot be thoroughly ground up for pulverized coal injection. (Grindability is a major technical issue in co-firing.)
Co-Firing to Drive Demand for Bio-Coal
Co-firing is a key factor driving projected EU demand for bio-coal. As economic advantages for co-firing of biomass with coal are currently (and for the foreseeable future) non-existent, it is important to understand that CO2 emission reduction and global climate change mitigation are the main motivations behind the concept. The Europeans are absolutely committed to "carbon cutting." For them, manmade global warming is settled science and carbon dioxide is a pollutant that must be controlled and reduced. Hence, the government-sponsored-and- subsidized push to cut coal consumption by building standalone biomass power plants or through co-firing.
Co-firing of biomass is to be mandated at all coal-fired power stations in the Netherlands, for example. A minimum 10% biomass fuel mix has been discussed. But that is well below co-firing levels at an Essent combined heat and power (co-generation) plant that produces 1,245 megawatts of power and 600 megawatts of heat using a 34% biomass fuel mix in one of its units. Foreign Confidential™ has learned that Essent intends increase its fuel mix to 50% biomass, followed by 80%. Other utilities are likely to follow the Essent example.
More than 140 million metric tons of raw biomass will be needed annually in order to produce 70 million tons a year of bio-coal. Europe's biomass resources are relatively small and more or less spoken for, and Siberian forestry operations are largely controlled by Russian organized crime syndicates focused on smuggling sawlogs into China, leaving North America as the prime, presently available source for certifiably sustainable, socially responsible bio-coal. (China consumes about 60% of the logs that are produced in the world.) Developing nations in South America and Africa are potentially large bio-coal exporters, assuming governments in these countries can find ways to end domestic illegal logging practices and human rights abuses and assure their own citizens, watchful NGOs and EU end users that the bio-coal is derived from waste wood or energy crops grown on wasteland. (Certain Asian countries are also looking to export biomass to Europe, as reported here, but China is expected to be the main market for regional producers.)
A number of European and American companies are racing to build the first commercial bio-coal plants--the roasting-like torrefaction process, though quite old, has yet to be successfully applied to large-scale, continuous fuel output--and at least one, 100,000-tonne-per-year production capacity facility, backed by one of the world's largest utilities, RWE, which owns Essent, should be fully operational this year with more projects coming on line in 2013 and 2014.
Parallel to the above developments, Foreign Confidential™ energy correspondents in North America and Europe are monitoring a number of emerging, new technologies for converting woody and grass biomass to carbon-neutral, drop-in motor transport fuels, including "green gasoline" and "renewable diesel."
Related: Wood-Based Biofuels Coming Soon
Copyright © 2012 Foreign Confidential™
Russia's Premier and Presumed Next President Praises Kissinger
in World Affairs Essay on Syria, Iran, Relations With Washington
Russia's prime minister and soon-to-be president (again) Vladimir Putin has blasted the U.S. for intervening in Libya and supporting "religious extremists" in the name of democracy promotion; seeking regime change in Syria; threatening military action against Iran; and pursuing policies with respect to NATO and missile defense that run counter to Moscow's interests, in his view. Yet the Russian leader, who was reportedly the target of a foiled election day (March 4) assassination plot, has also called for improved relations and closer cooperation with the United States, praising former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for his approach to the issue of U.S.-Russia relations.
Click here to read about Putin's long essay on world affairs and here to read the actual article--a sophisticated, stinging and seemingly revealing polemic that towers above the simplistic speechifying and moralistic drivel on foreign policy that typically emanates from Washington.
Given the current world situation, politically and economically, the Iranian and North Korean nuclear threats, and the fact that the Cold War ended two decades ago, it is inexcusable that relations between Washington and Moscow are at such a low point and that the subject does not even appear to be on the national news agenda in the run-up to the U.S. Presidential election in November. In this regard, although President Obama can be criticized for failing to "reset" U.S. relations with Russia, his opponents and the media deserve most, if not all, the blame for miring public discourse in idiotic, diversionary debates about so-called social issues and related, red-herring nonsense.
Copyright © 2012 Foreign Confidential™
A Chechen separatist plot to assassinate Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has been foiled, as reported here. The suspects planned to kill Putin in Moscow immediately following the March 4 presidential election, which he is expected to win.
Rose Kim reports from Seoul:
The U.S. and South Korea began annual military drills over the objections of North Korea, which called the exercises a violation of its sovereignty that could lead to confrontation.
“The war drills are an unpardonable infringement upon the sovereignty and dignity” of North Korea, the official Korean Central News Agency said today in an editorial. “The army and people of the DPRK are fully ready to fight a war…."
Related: New N. Korean Provocations Likely
45 Years After its Astonishing Six-Day War Victory,
Israel Could Feel Compelled to Strike Iran Alone,
and Aim to Neutralize Nuclear and Missile Threats
There is increasing speculation that Israel will attack Iran to eliminate its menacing nuclear project--possibly in June--and that Saudi Arabia will support the assault. Click here for the report.
Reading it, this reporter is struck by a coincidence: June 5, 2012 will mark the 45th anniversary of the Six-Day War. Israel's remarkable victory in that conflict could well be guiding the Jewish State's military and political leaders more than the 1981 Israeli air raid that destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor and the presumed 2007 Israeli attack that obliterated a secret Syrian nuclear site.
In 1967, encircled by enemies that were mobilizing for an all-out war of annihilation, and feeling abandoned and alone, Israel launched a series of lightning-like, preemptive strikes that assured it of a stunning victory. The critically important initial move was a surprise attack on Egyptian airfields that destroyed virtually the entire Egyptian Air Force--on the ground.
Four-and-a-half decades later, Iran is defiantly pressing ahead on the atomic front while threatening to eradicate Israel (after musing openly about "a world without America and Zionism"). The United States, Israel's main ally, is reportedly pressuring Israel to refrain from attacking Iran. If Israel decides to go ahead on its own, it will have to use all its U.S.-made fighter jets, plus precision-guided bombs, cruise missiles and air-to-ground missiles to take out numerous hardened installations.
Even if the mission is successful--Israeli planes will have to fly over 1,000 miles to reach their targets--Iran will still be able to retaliate with massive missile strikes on Israeli cities. There is every reason to believe that Iran will try to make good on repeated threats to "burn Tel Aviv" and wipe Israel out in "nine minutes."
Which brings us back to the Six-Day War. Just as Israel in 1967 destroyed Egypt's Air Force before its bombers could attack Israeli troops and civilians, Israel's initial moves in a war with Iran could be aimed at neutralizing or at least minimizing the mullahocracy's capacity to carry out crushing reprisals. Israel has the weaponry--and the political will--to do this.
Remember: the Iranian nuclear threat is a future, albeit increasingly imminent, existential threat to Israel; but the Iranian/Hezbollah/Hamas missile threat is a present-day existential threat, given that perhaps as many as 200,000 rockets and ballistic missiles are believed to be pointed at and capable of striking the tiny Jewish State.
ENDNOTE: Israeli leaders are guided, too, by what happened in October 1973--i.e. the nearly catastrophic Yom Kippur War--specifically, by the intelligence and political failures that prevented preemptive strikes by Israel and made possible coordinated sneak attacks by Egypt and Syria that almost resulted in Israel's destruction. Iranian threats to attack Israel (and the U.S.) first are not taken lightly in Israel.
Copyright © 2012 Foreign Confidential™
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