In this episode: green jobs, glaciers, Russian nukes, oil and money

Execs see green energy policies preserving US jobs:

Top U.S. business leaders see government regulation and policies on climate change as key to protecting manufacturing jobs that could be lost to overseas rivals who are investing heavily in renewable energy sources and technologies.

Executives from manufacturers to oil companies to venture capital firms criticized the United States government sharply for failing to invest in new energy technologies, create aggressive energy efficiency standards and extend tax subsidies for clean energy sources such as wind and solar — measures they say would create jobs for Americans.

“The entire chemical industry and manufacturing sector has lost 3.1 million jobs due to bad energy policy or a lack of a coherent energy policy,” Dow Chemical Co (DOW.N: Quote, Profile, Research) Chief Executive Andrew Liveris said in an interview at a Wall Street Journal conference near Santa Barbara. “We have a manufacturing crisis in this country … The leadership of this country needs to step up.”

Improved energy efficiency standards for buildings and appliances; more research and development into biomass, clean coal and other technologies; and opening more U.S. acreage to oil exploration would all help create jobs, Liveris said.

Wait a second–are they saying that promoting business is good for jobs? That can’t possibly be true, or the current “better for business than you can imagine” Republican administration would have been all over this opportunity like sweat.

But seriously, folks…

This is one of those details that drives me nuts. The global warming delayers and deniers will tell you endless fables about how man-made global warming is some kind of uber-plot to make vast sums of money or control the planet or some such insane thing. (I wish someone would clue me in how to become part of the Star Chamber running that scam; I’d love to be a billionaire or own my own troical island. Heck, I’d settle for a mile of property long Lake Ontario.) And they tell you how expensive it will be to transition to cleaner, more sustainable technology. But they never seem to get around to talking about two aspects of our situation, namely [1] what the impacts will be, economic and otherwise, if we don’t make the transition, and [2] what economic benefits we’ll see from doing things like those mentioned in the article above.

U.N.: Glaciers shrinking at record rate (emphasis added):

Glaciers are shrinking at record rates and many could disappear within decades, the U.N. Environment Program said Sunday.

Scientists measuring the health of almost 30 glaciers around the world found that ice loss reached record levels in 2006, the U.N. agency said.

UNEP warned that further ice loss could have dramatic consequences particularly in India, whose rivers are fed by Himalayan glaciers.

The west coast of North America, which gets much of its water from glaciers in mountain ranges such as the Rockies and Sierra Nevada, also would be affected, it said.

“There are many canaries emerging in the climate change coal mine,” UNEP’s executive director Achim Steiner said in a statement. “The glaciers are perhaps among those making the most noise and it is absolutely essential that everyone sits up and takes notice.”

(I can’t find this item on the UNEP web site. Perhaps it’s just not posted yet.)

The problem here is the effect on summer water supply for all purposes, including hydroelectric and thermoelectric generation, drinking and sanitation, manufacturing, etc.

Putin Beats Soviet Sword Into Atomic Weapon for Generator Sales:

For decades, Russian civilian nuclear scientist Vladimir Asmolov lived in the shadow of the bomb makers. They were the elite, their names and work secret, building the arsenal behind a superpower.

While the Soviet Union lost the Cold War, the Russians are back as a nuclear force. Asmolov, deputy head of nuclear-plant operator Rosenergoatom in Moscow, is tapping yesterday’s military brains to develop a new generation of atomic plants. Russia’s reactor industry aims to compete with Westinghouse Electric Co., General Electric Co. and Areva SA.

Since the 1986 meltdown of a reactor at Chernobyl in Ukraine, Russian engineers have adopted safety measures similar to those used in the U.S., including reactors that shut down automatically when there’s a fault. Rosatom Corp., the state-run nuclear holding company, expects to build as many as 42 plants in Russia and 60 abroad by 2030, according to Chief Executive Officer Sergei Kiriyenko. The value may total $300 billion, based on Russian estimates.

See the article for much more detail about this effort and their potential customers.

Oil Retreats From a Record Amid Signs the Fed Will Cut Rates:

March 14 (Bloomberg) — Crude oil in New York retreated from a record, amid signs that the Federal Reserve will reduce interest rates next week to spur economic growth.

Five U.S. interest-rate cuts in the past six months along with steady rates in Europe have driven up the euro against the dollar. Investors project the Fed will lower the benchmark rate by three-quarters of a point at its next meeting on March 18. The falling dollar has spurred a rally in commodities.

“This market won’t fall until either we enter a very deep recession or the Fed stops pumping money into the market and weakening the dollar,” said Kyle Cooper, director of research at IAF Advisors in Houston.

Economics doesn’t get much simpler than that. The Fed needs low interest rates to save the housing and credit sectors, but it also needs high interest rates to rein in inflation and strengthen the dollar. It (and we here in the US) can’t have it both ways.

In the next few months, perhaps longer, look for the Fed and Helicopter Ben Bernanke to do everything possible to get lenders lending again, even at the cost of moderate to high inflation and a substantial boost to oil prices. As ugly as that could get, it will still probably be better than the alternative–letting the US housing sector all but burst into flames around us while credit dries up even further. (I’m not passing judgment on whether the Fed can actually fix this mess, merely describing what it’s likely to do.)

This is no great insight on my part, as practically everyone in the “investing class” and the financial press has figured it out. That’s why there’s such a flood of money going into five-year US treasuries that they currently have a negative yield; people are scared spitless of a major bout of inflation.

The US housing situation will likely get worse before it gets better. The last update I saw showed that the peak in mortgage resets (when those variable rate mortgages jump in monthly payments) happens this month, which implies that the peak in foreclosures is at likely three to six months away, with a continued low interest rate policy until that storm passes.