Green, Japan and Dow

Many people these days are trying to go green.

But how green is green?

Green cars
All governments and car companies these days are vying for electric cars to cut carbon emissions. However manufacturing the batteries, setting up the infrastructures, replacing the batteries during lifetime of the car require a lot of power from power plants plus the power [ie carbon emission] required for mining of the necessary minerals which make up the components of the batteries and infrastructure.

We all seem blindfolded and never asked questions like HOW MUCH WE SAVE ON CARBON EMISSIONS when comparing electric cars with conventional fuel cars.

We also have not yet handled the question of recycling the batteries which would mean even more carbon emissions and pollution.

Wind power
We also heard that wind power is infinite and is green as it does not emit CO2. Do people know how much steel is required to erect a wind turbine tower? The lowest height is at least 50m [15 storeys] and could go as high as 100m [30 storeys], the higher it goes, the larger the diameter of the tower to sustain higher wind speed. That would mean a lot of steel is required. For every wind tower, it means the steel required is enough to build a building, the height of which depends on how high the wind tower is.

Wind power has to be stored too which means another round of infrastructure is required [like power cables] to support its use.

Wind power will push up prices of steel when used on a large scale by many countries.

Again here we have never heard or seen any valuation of the savings in carbon emissions estimated by Green Peace or Friends of the Earth. Simply no cost/benefit analysis had been made available to the public.

Solar Power
This option is even worse, it took up a lot of space and the cells are composed of toxic materials when disposed of at the end of their useful life.

Again we do not hear from Green associations giving a rational model to support such wide use of this alternative power source.

JAPAN
This country has always pursued a homogeneous society which means minimum immigration, thus becoming the earliest advanced country to have an aging problem. Population growth due to aging would not support organic growth in internal demand, this will cause severe stress in Japan's economy and it may again fall into a deflation spiral.

The bureaucrats also have engineered a high savings society to benefit the corporate world so they can borrow cheaply to expand their productions. Now that, after the financial crisis, these corps are challenged at the low end by China/Taiwan producers of electronic gadgets [mobile phones, pcs] and electrical appliances with also the high end challenged by Korean producers, they have nowhere to hide but to report heavy losses ever since the financial markets hit their peaks in 2007. Major power houses in the past like HITACHI, TOSHIBA, PANASONIC, FUJITSU, SONY had better spin off their subs and concentrate on a smaller core of products/markets, otherwise they may go bankrupt very soon. Like I said earlier in this blog, yen can go as high as 65 because of more layoffs down the road thus causing even more contraction in money supply.

Dow
Earlier I said Dow will hit 11000, more likely in 2010 than 2009.

Now that Dow is only 600 points from it, highly likely that it may hit around end 2009 or early 2010.

Another forecast is that we might see another mini crisis [of Dow] very soon but no drastic fall like that of 2008, after which Dow will resume its climb. Recent currency swings to the upside [dollar falling] and starting to either fall off a trendline [like NZD just did and AUD likely to follow suit] or the formation of an inverted head and shoulder [USDCAD] suggest the mini crisis will not be too far off.

Two scenarios
1. Mini crisis happening before Dow reaches 11000 or
2. Dow reached 11,000 and then fall off the peak fast.

My call is option 2 more likely than 1 bearing no major incidents like the failing of a major bank as we are coming close to year end with most banks already made their fortunes from trading and will not trade aggressively before Xmas ie the year ends. Low volume will make any major unloading of stocks by funds etc triggering heavy selloff ruining the bonus party, thus the upside is easier to achieve on low volume given the lack of interest in selling.