Green Industry in US continues to flourish despite the general apathy towards global warming from a significant section of the population and parties. USA is the hotbed of green innovation despite stiff challenge by China which is spending billions of dollars to become the No.1 in Green Industry and Technology. US has the lead in Fuel Cell Technology with a number of top companies like Fuel Cell Energy, Bloom Energy. Now a start up ClearEdge Power has got one of the biggest fuel cell orders in the world worth $85 million from Austria’s Gussing Renewable Energy. The deal calls for supplying of 50 megawatts of power by the year 2020.
Train Accidents in India are starting to happen with surprising regularity with hardly a month passing by without a major collision or accident. Small accidents seem to be happening every day with news report of a collision not generating any mindshare these days. Road Accidents in India too happen with great regulatiry with some estimates of 1000 Road Deaths happening in India every day . This is due to government and people apathy towards safety regulation and following of laws and norms. It is just not resticted to trains but encompasses the entire system such as fire safety etc. Without a major change in the people attitude towards safety regulation expect such accident and waste of human life will continue to happen.
Bank of America had already announced thousands of job cuts earlier.Today it cut 20% of its Asian MDs as it tries to cope with the sinking of investment banking revenues.Other investment banks like RBS,Nomura,BNP Paribas,Societe Generale are also cutting jobs with a vengeance.Goldman Sachs also announced big time salary cuts for its partners and fixed income trading.
Note one of the main dangers of nuclear energy is the probability of the fuel getting into the hands of terrorists and rogue nations which can use it to make nuclear weapons.Note the fears of a Taliban like group getting their hands on nuclear arms in Pakistan is all too real.With Iran getting nuclear weapons,this will increase.Nuclear Power is already being phased out in Germany,Japan,Switzerland after the Fukushima nuclear disaster.The dangers of nuclear energy are too great to make it an option to secure mankind’s energy in the future.Despite the advantages of nuclear power,the risks are too great to be played with.
Japan which has faced two of the worst nuclear accidents in history,the atomic bombing in WW2 and the Fukushima disaster,is thinking of nationalization of the nuclear industry.This comes after the fallout of the Fukushima,where the utility TEPCO needed a massive bailout.To pay compensation and repair the disaster would have bankrupted TEPCO and still left a massive hole.The Japanese government had to step in with a big money package so that TEPCO could meet its liabilities.Note the biggest disadvantage of nuclear power is the catastrophic tail risk of a nulcear meltdown.
Financial Jobs are being let go in the tens of thousands by European and USA Financial Institutions. The Financial Industry has become too huge as a percentage of the global economy with any value creation to say something like the IT industry. The share of the market cap of the stock market had become too high during the boom boom years of 2008 and it is continuing to go down.Despite the best (some would say the worst) effort of the governments to prop up the Too Big to Fail Banks,jobs are being let go as there is not enough work. European Banks are shrinking their balance sheets as they are too leveraged and insolvent. Without the ECB crutch,almost all of them would go under.