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American born entrepreneur William Heinecke, 64, makes his debut among the world’s billionaires, thanks to a surge in the value of his Minor International hotel and food company. Shares of the outfit, in which he has a one third stake, were up 5% on Thursday; they have nearly doubled in the past year. Minor, which he founded nearly five decades ago, is now the largest listed hotel operator in Thailand and manages the Four Seasons, Marriott, and its own brand, the Anantara, which has 26 properties in 6 countries. It also operates 1,200 restaurants in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, under such brands as Swensens, Sizzler, Dairy Queen, Thai Express, the Coffee Club and Burger King. Heinecke has been building his fortune in Thailand and throughout Asia for nearly five decades. The son of an American Foreign Service member and a Voice of America journalist, Heinecke grew up in cities across Asia and attended high school in Thailand. More interested in go-karting than studying, he convinced the editor of Bangkok World to run his column on go-karts in exchange for selling ads. He earned commissions, and within months he was making more than most full-time reporters. At age 17 he became the paper’s advertising manager. A year later, after he graduated,  he started a business selling office cleaning services and radio advertising. He was too young to get any loans, so he came up with a clever scheme to raise money, getting sponsors to pay for him to race his car from Singapore to Bangkok. Three years later he sold out and named his new business Minor, in a nod to his youth. In one of the first signs of his gutsiness and resourcefulness, he turned a soured deal with Pizza Hut into a huge opportunity. An early franchisee of the American pizza chain in Thailand, he ended up suing Pizza Hut’s owner after the relationship soured in 1999. They eventually settled but Heinecke took his experience and turned it into a new opportunity,  opening his own competing chain, The Pizza Company, that offered middle class Thai consumers dishes, including a tom yum gung flavored pie, to better suit their tastes. Pizza Company quickly came to dominate the country’s fast food pizza market and still holds a 70% market share. Heinecke, who abandoned his American passport and became a Thai citizen in 1991, is a rare example of a former American who struck it rich in foreign lands. Other examples of Americans who made fortunes abroad include Jim Thompson, who arrived in Asia in 1963 and founded Crown Worldwide, and William Connor, who took over the logistics business that his father began in Japan, later moving its headquarters to Hong Kong in 1985. Both rank among Hong Kong’s richest. “I still feel like a big kid,” Heinecke told Forbes a few years ago when we last profiled him. “I’m still very passionate about [all my businesses]. You have to be.” via American Born Entrepreneur Becomes Billionaire In Thailand – Forbes.

Until last year, business was good for Charoen Laothamatas, the president of Thai rice exporter Uthai Produce. With Thailand dominating the global market for rice exports, Uthai enjoyed strong demand. In 2012, though, Charoen had to cut his workforce by 40Â percent. Thailand’s Farmer-Friendly Rice Subsidy Backfires

Thailand’s economy is rapidly gaining momentum on loose monetary and fiscal policies, but it may be growing too quickly for its own good, according to Nomura Research. Thai authorities have insisted that they remain conscious of not compromising fiscal sustainability. Economy may be growing too fast

Bernanke: recession could end in '09 WASHINGTON ? America's recession "probably" will end this year if the government succeeds in bolstering the banking system, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Sunday in a rare television interview. In carefully hedged remarks in a taped interview with CBS' "60 Minutes," Bernanke seemed to express a bit more optimism that this could be done. Still, Bernanke stressed ? as he did to Congress last month ? that the prospects for the recession ending this year and a recovery taking root next year hinge on a difficult task: getting banks to lend more freely again and getting the financial markets to work more normally. "We've seen some progress in the financial markets, absolutely," Bernanke said. "But until we get that stabilized and working normally, we're not going to see recovery. "But we do have a plan. We're working on it. And, I do think that we will get it stabilized, and we'll see the recession coming to an end probably this year." Even if the recession, which began in December 2007, ends this year, the unemployment rate will keep climbing past the current quarter-century high of 8.1 percent, Bernanke said. A growing number of economists think the jobless rate will hit 10 percent by the end of this year. Asked about the biggest potential dangers now, Bernanke suggested a lack of "political will" to solve the financial crisis. He said, though, that the United States has averted the risk of plunging into a depression. "I think we've gotten past that," he said. It's rare for a sitting Fed chief to grant an interview, whether for broadcast or print. Bernanke said he chose to do so because it's an "extraordinary time" for the country, and it gave him a chance to speak directly to the American public. (A transcript of the interview was provided in advance of the broadcast.) Bernanke spoke at a time of rising public anger over financial bailouts using taxpayer money. Battling the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, the government has put hundreds of billions of those dollars at risk to prop up troubled institutions and stabilize the banking system. Institutions that have been thrown lifelines include American International Group Inc., Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp., mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and others. Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill have questioned the effectiveness of the rescue efforts and have demanded more information about how taxpayers' money is being used. Bernanke's TV interview seemed to be part of a government public relations offensive. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner appeared on PBS' "The Charlie Rose Show" last week, discussing the financial crisis and the Obama's administration's relief efforts. The Fed chief on Sunday's broadcast repeated his ire over the AIG bailout, saying that over the past 18 months, that was the case that angered him the most. He says he "slammed the phone more than a few times on discussing AIG." The government's four efforts to save the troubled insurance giant total more than $170 billion. A collapse of AIG would have wreaked havoc on the global economy, the Fed has said. AIG ignited fresh outrage over the weekend with news that it's making $165 million in bonus payments to executives on Sunday, most of them in the unit that sold risky financial contracts that caused huge losses for AIG. When the financial crisis intensified last fall, Bernanke and President George W. Bush's Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson rushed to Capitol Hill for help. That led to the swift enactment of a $700 billion bailout package in October. Since then, banks have received billions in capital injections in return for government ownership stakes in them. Looking back, Bernanke said the world came close to a financial meltdown. Asked how close, Bernanke responded: "It was very close." Bernanke admitted that the Fed could have done a better job of overseeing banks. Critics say lax regulatory oversight contributed to the crisis. Bernanke said he believes all the big banks the Fed regulates are solvent. Big banks won't fail under his watch, Bernanke said ? though, if necessary, the government should try to "wind it down in a safe way." http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090316/ap_on_bi_ge/bernanke60_minutes

Interesting read. http://sunbeltasia.com/contents.aspx?page=aa9957d2-85b2-4062-a7e7-69f53ffc6e58 [ATTACH=CONFIG]119873[/ATTACH]

Thailand's status as the world's top rice exporter is under threat from a controversial scheme to boost farmer incomes that has resulted in a growing mountain of unsold stocks, experts warn. Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's year-old policy to buy rice from farmers for 50 percent more than the market price has hit the competitiveness of Thai exports, which are expected to almost halve in 2012. "It's the worst year we have ever faced," said Chookiat Ophaswongse, honorary president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association. "We are already losing our market share in the world to our competitors, especially the newcomers like Cambodia and Myanmar which are producing more and more rice for export," he told AFP. Rice is the staple food for more than three billion people -- nearly half the world's population. Last year Thailand had nearly a third of the global export market. But its worldwide share is forecast to drop to less than one-fifth in 2012, according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which expects the Southeast Asian nation to fall behind rival exporters Vietnam and India. Thailand produces about 20 million tonnes of rice each year on average, about half of which is normally sold overseas. This year, however, exports are expected to reach only about 6.5 million tonnes, according to the exporter association and the USDA. With its warehouses filling up quickly, Thailand is running out of space to house its unsold stocks and even briefly considered using an aircraft hanger in Bangkok's number two airport Don Mueang. The longer the government holds on to the stocks, the bigger the drain on the public finances. Yet experts say if Thailand abandons the scheme now, it risks flooding the world market. "They are in a jam because with all this rice hanging around they have very little option to do anything else other than just keep on going because otherwise the rice price will drop and then they will have political problems," said Ammar Siamwalla, an economist with the Thailand Development Research Institute Foundation (TDRI). "The Vietnamese and the Indians are rubbing their hands. They're taking advantage of the fact that we've slowed down our exports considerably," he said. If Thailand tries to shift its glut of rice on world markets now, "the price would plummet," Ammar warned. "There is no exit strategy." He estimates that Thailand has about 10 million tonnes of stock sitting around in storage. The USDA predicts the country will have stocks of about 9.4 million tonnes at the end of 2012 and 12.1 million tonnes in 2013. China and India also have large stockpiles but their production and domestic consumption are much higher. While the scheme is putting strains on Thailand's government finances, it has been welcomed by many farmers, whose support helped sweep Yingluck to a landslide election victory last year. Her older brother Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted as prime minister by royalist generals in a coup in 2006, is hugely popular with Thailand's rural poor thanks to his populist policies while in power. "I want the government scheme to continue because, at the very least, it helps us farmers sell our rice at a high price," said Supoj Joopia, who has 9.6 hectares (24 acres) of rice paddy in Chachoengsao province east of Bangkok. He said his annual earnings from rice cultivation have soared by more than half to 780,000 baht ($25,000) since signing up. About four million households rely to some extent on farming in Thailand, of which 900,000 have joined the scheme so far, according to the TDRI. The policy is seen as benefiting owners of large farms in particular as they have a bigger surplus to sell to the authorities after their own household consumption. The scheme has also been dogged by allegations of corruption. The government says it is confident that it can find buyers for its rice on world markets at a price that will raise the living standards of its farmers. It says it has signed deals to sell rice directly to other countries. Nigeria, Iraq, Indonesia, Ivory Coast and South Africa are the top customers so far this year, according to the Thai Board of Trade, which says exports slid 45 percent in January-September from a year earlier, to 5.0 million tonnes. "We're still confident that we can keep releasing the rice that we have," Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom said earlier this month. But not everyone is so optimistic and the fear is that Thailand might struggle to recapture lost market share. "If the situation continues like this, you will see a lot of exporters gone out of business," Chookiat said. Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/thailands-giant-pile-of-rice-threatens-to-flood-global-markets-2012-10#ixzz2AEC4xPFw

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/03/13/bloomberg_articlesM0STY06S972A01-M0T7S.DTL#ixzz1p7LUalFT

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At this point;2 AM bkk time, it is the time of almost closing bell of stock markets in the US. All of the exchanges are negative while gold price is climbing up.I just can't sleep and want to think about how Thai stock market will perform tomorrow. What would your ideas on how to manage your money ; given this financial situation? Which market or assets would you put your money in? How much yield will you require in return per annual?

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5idiOE0aYmMcMWf6ulViZ_AmW728g?docId=32689c37168c47fa8dd8c68ff286648f Interesting to see this story covered in the international press because most of the local press (Bangkok Post, The Nation) have portrayed the rice subsidies as being a huge benefit to the farmers (which they are) and have not really addressed the fact that raising the world price encourages other nations to produce more rice in an effort to bring the price back down. The Philippines, which was mentioned in the article, has done a lot to increase their rice production after the shortage a few years back. Expect a lot more countries to use Thailand's price increase to invest even more into becoming more self-sufficient. Of course, if you took Economics 101, you see this for what it is. Thailand, an export economy, is mucking with their number one export and creating conditions which make it more profitable for other nations to compete with them. Hmmmm . . . . again, if you took Econ 101, you know this rarely ends well.

Nice in depth look at the world wide economic crisis. If you only have time for one, click on number four below. BTW, each of these are 45 minutes long, and last one pretty much sums up the previous 3 links.

It started out as a subprime issue in the US. Now, it is likely the US will enter a recession. Not only that, but the subprime fallout is also affecting credits worldwide - and this could possibly lead many countries into a recession as well. There is going to be major cutbacks (sackings) worldwide. Are you prepared for this?

The price of driving a car keeps going up and up :shock: Someone is getting rich :twisted: What are you paying now for a litre :?: Thailand about 26 baht US about 31 baht UK about 75 baht :shock: :shock:

Is it just me or does this Government Housing Bank deal offering zero interest for the first two years on home purchases under 3 million baht sound like a housing bubble in its last stages? http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/236184/first-home-buyers-flock-to-interest-free-loan-offer Nearly 6,000 people applied on the first day and I heard some people were lining up as early as 4am. Call me cynical but it sounds to me like some government ministers want to juice the people for the upcoming elections. Also, it probably doesn't hurt that many government officials are invested in many of the building projects going on around the city. Nice way to clear out the inventory and stick it with GHB and the suckers who take the interest free loans and then can't make the payments when the interest kicks in in 2 years. The home owners will be upside down in their properties and won't be able to avoid selling at a loss or getting foreclosed on and having the banks sell the properties back to the rich at pennies on the dollar.

My friend took a taxi last week, and the taxi driver thought my friend was glad about PTP. policy. Minimum wage for new graduated BA. 15000 / month. and minimum wage will be 300 baht / day. My friend told him it doesn't matter, cuz cost of living would gain up. It's disappointed why most of Thai people have short-sight. Don't they see, it's big issue, it's easy to say give 15,000 b. / month for BA. yes!! sounds good. How about the old employees? They might get like 8000 - 9000 at start, what if they get like 12000 now? and how about the employees who have higher education? So that's mean the companies have to change whole system payment. Are they ready? and how much does it cost? which mean they gain up price of everything? How about minimum wage 300 baht / day? my friends who have small business are complaining about it now. Deal to the problem of Thai labour wage these days make them turn to hire Cammy, Burmese, or Rohingya. After those people heard the news, they ask for more pay. I can't get the picture how Ms.Yingluck will deal with it. Ofcourse, she (or her brother) has to force, to push til she get what she promise or else, she will screwed up. After read news today, I see how the react of the employers. Please share your thought. FTI against the proposal By The Nation Published on July 12, 2011 The Federation of Thai Industries (FTI), the largest grouping of industrial manfacturers, strongly opposed the new government's policy to raise the minimum wage nationwide to Bt300. FTI chairman Payungsak Chartsutipol said after the meeting today that 513 manufacturers surveyed by the organisation strongly opposed the policy, as this would push up the manufacturing cost. They proposed that the wages should be raised gradually not abruptly, based on the inflation, employers' financial capacity and the economic condition in each province. "Small operators are now comfortable if the minimum wage is raised to Bt200 a day, while medium-sized operators can accommodate Bt211 and large-sized at Bt205," he said. After a meeting today, the FTI issued an open statement to the government, containing the grouping's five stand points. First, the FTI is totally against the Pheu Thai Party's proposal and urges the new government to review this proposal thoroughly as it would affect the overall economy. Second, minimum wages should be adjusted in line with market mechanism. Third, the central wage committee should be given a free hand in setting the minimum wage, without any political interference. Fourth, if the wage hike really happens, the government must come up with measures to assist employers. Fifth, the FTI is ready to participate in any wage-related negotiation, for the benefits of all parties.

The ‘food bubble’ is bursting, says Lester Brown, and biotech won’t save us http://www.grist.org/article/food-2011-01-12-lester-brown-the-food-bubble-is-bursting by Tom Philpott 12 Jan 2011 3:53 PM Camp in HaitiHaitians awaiting food distribution from a U.N. food program.Photo: U.N./Sophia ParisFor years -- even decades -- Earth Policy Institute president and Grist contributor Lester Brown has issued Cassandra-like warnings about the global food system. His argument goes something like this: Global grain demand keeps rising, pushed up by population growth and the switch to more meat-heavy diets; but grain production can only rise so much, constrained by limited water and other resources. So, a food crisis is inevitable. In recent years, two factors have added urgency to Brown's warnings: 1) climate change has given rise to increasingly volatile weather, making crop failures more likely; and 2) the perverse desire to turn grain into car fuel has put yet more pressure on global grain supplies. Brown's central metaphor -- which he's been using at least since the mid-‘90s -- will be familiar to readers who've lived through the previous decade's recent dot-com and real-estate meltdowns: the bubble. The world has entered a "food bubble," he argues; we've puffed up grain production by burning through unsustainable amounts of three finite resources: water, fossil fuels, and topsoil. At some point, he insists, the bubble has to burst. Well, for the second time in three years, the globe is lurching toward a full-on, proper food crisis, especially in places like Haiti that have de-emphasized domestic farming and turned instead to the global commodity market for food. In 2008, global food prices spiked to all-time highs, and hunger riots erupted from Haiti to Morocco. Now prices are spiking again, and have already surpassed the 2008 peak, The Sydney Morning Herald reports. As if on cue, Lester Brown has come out with another of his reports, this one titled (with that Brownian flair for understatement), World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse. You can download the whole thing free here, grab the brief presentation on food [PDF] lifted from the book, or just read Brown's own post today for Grist on the topic. Brown may sound at first blush like a neo-Malthusian predicting the inevitable collapse of human civilization, but he makes important points that I've never heard policymakers grapple with seriously. Take the question of irrigation water. As I've pointed out -- along with others -- before, India has essentially tapped out the water table in its main agricultural regions since embracing industrial agriculture in the 1970s. Brown hastens to add that India, the globe's second-most-populous nation, is hardly alone in facing an irrigation crisis. In China, he claims, 130 million people owe their sustenance to "grain produced by overpumping groundwater." Overall, Brown depicts a global food system characterized by severe fragility. With global grain reserves returning to the all-time lows reached in 2008, "the world is only one poor harvest away from chaos in world grain markets," as he writes. Indeed, the main reason for the current upswing in prices, he states, is the heat wave that gripped Russia this past summer, which caused a 40 percent drop in that nation's grain crop. Brown warns that a similar weather event in the U.S. corn belt (which produces several times more grain than Russian) would be calamitous -- it would "likely result in unprecedented food price inflation and food riots in scores of countries, toppling weaker governments." Brown delivered his presentation on the food crisis at a teleconference Wednesday, and I listened in. After he finished, he opened the floor for questions, and I piped up. U.S. policy elites in both parties, when they can be bothered to comment on the global food crisis, revert to biotech-industry talking points: In order to "feed the world," we'll need to convert as much food production as possible to patent-protected genetically modified seeds. What does he think of high-tech seeds' chances of staving off the crisis? I asked. Not much, he replied. Brown pointed out that that current-generation transgenic seeds have not increased yields; and that next-generation ones -- like corn engineered to tolerate drought, or use nitrogen more efficiently -- will likely increase yields "only marginally." Such technologies might have "important contributions to make," he said, but will likely not be "nearly enough" to feed our growing population. Coming from a man who's been studying agricultural productivity since the 1960s, and who was in fact a booster of the original "Green Revolution" -- the push by U.S. policymakers and foundations to prod farmers in the global south to use "modern" agriculture technologies such as hybrid seeds, industrial fertilizers and pesticides, and heavy irrigation -- this is a significant statement. Brown is no wild-eyed critic of the biotech industry. He is making a cold, informed assessment: its products are a distraction from, not a solution to, the task of averting a global food disaster. And if he's right, our policymakers aren't taking the problems he describes nearly seriously enough -- and that's chilling. (Here, for example, is USDA chief Tom Vilsack babbling about the wonders of biotech for feeding an expanding global population. Nina Fedoroff, Hillary Clinton's chief science adviser, toes an even more rigid GMO-centric line.) But there's no reason to plunge into Malthusian anguish about a coming global population plunge. A lot people across the world are thinking hard about how to grow sufficient food without sucking dry the global water supplies or burning through fossil fuels like there's no tomorrow. For a bit of hope after imbibing a dose of Brown's bitter truth, check out WorldWatch's State of the World 2011 report, which surveys interesting sustainable-agriculture projects across the globe. Tom Philpott is Grist’s senior food and agriculture writer. http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6567 "In Kibera, Nairobi, the largest slum in Kenya, more than 1,000 women farmers are growing "vertical" gardens in sacks full of dirt poked with holes, feeding their families and communities. These sacks have the potential to feed thousands of city dwellers while also providing a sustainable and easy-to-maintain source of income for urban farmers. With more than 60 percent of Africa's population projected to live in urban areas by 2050, such methods may be crucial to creating future food security. Currently, some 33 percent of Africans live in cities, and 14 million more migrate to urban areas each year. Worldwide, some 800 million people engage in urban agriculture, producing 15–20 percent of all food." FUBAR, "f**ked up beyond all recognition/any repair".

Where can I get the best exchange rate in BKK, Samui and Chiang Mai? Thank you.

I was so happy when I read today my Newsweek Magazine, at last people realized how dangerious are the chinese goods for both the health and the enviroment. I expect the same strong movements will grow eventually into Europe and other parts of Asia, where consumers are so tired from the poor quality Chinese goods that stealing their jobs and deteriorating their county s economy.

Starbucks will close 70% of its Australian stores and slash more than half of its workforce as the once-mighty coffee giant battles an economic downturn in the US, its own rapid expansion and local competition. Across the country, the company's 84 cafes closed yesterday at 2pm. Employees were summoned to meetings to learn whether or not their store was one of the 61 "underperforming" to be closed by Sunday or if they were one of the 683 employees to lose their job. The 23 remaining stores in Australia will be located in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane CBD areas only. I don't really like Starbucks Coffee so it won't worry me!!! Your thoughts!!!

By 2050 solar power could end U.S. dependence on foreign oil and slash greenhouse gas emissions By Ken Zweibel, James Mason and Vasilis Fthenakis Scientific American Magazine, December 2007 ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S) Ken Zweibel, James Mason and Vasilis Fthenakis met a decade ago while working on life-cycle studies of photovoltaics. Zweibel is president of PrimeStar Solar in Golden, Colo., and for 15 years was manager of the National Renewable Energy Laboratorys Thin-Film PV Partnership. Mason is director of the Solar Energy Campaign and the Hydrogen Research Institute in Farmingdale, N.Y. Fthenakis is head of the Photovoltaic Environmental Research Center at Brookhaven National Laboratory and is a professor in and director of Columbia Universitys Center for Life Cycle Analysis. High prices for gasoline and home heating oil are here to stay. The U.S. is at war in the Middle East at least in part to protect its foreign oil interests. And as China, India and other nations rapidly increase their demand for fossil fuels, future fighting over energy looms large. In the meantime, power plants that burn coal, oil and natural gas, as well as vehicles everywhere, continue to pour millions of tons of pollutants and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere annually, threatening the planet. Well-meaning scientists, engineers, economists and politicians have proposed various steps that could slightly reduce fossil-fuel use and emissions. These steps are not enough. The U.S. needs a bold plan to free itself from fossil fuels. Our analysis convinces us that a massive switch to solar power is the logical answer. Solar energy?s potential is off the chart. The energy in sunlight striking the earth for 40 minutes is equivalent to global energy consumption for a year. The U.S. is lucky to be endowed with a vast resource; at least 250,000 square miles of land in the Southwest alone are suitable for constructing solar power plants, and that land receives more than 4,500 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu) of solar radiation a year. Converting only 2.5 percent of that radiation into electricity would match the nation?s total energy consumption in 2006. To convert the country to solar power, huge tracts of land would have to be covered with photovoltaic panels and solar heating troughs. A direct-current (DC) transmission backbone would also have to be erected to send that energy efficiently across the nation. The technology is ready. On the following pages we present a grand plan that could provide 69 percent of the U.S.?s electricity and 35 percent of its total energy (which includes transportation) with solar power by 2050. We project that this energy could be sold to consumers at rates equivalent to today?s rates for conventional power sources, about five cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh). If wind, biomass and geothermal sources were also developed, renewable energy could provide 100 percent of the nation?s electricity and 90 percent of its energy by 2100. The federal government would have to invest more than $400 billion over the next 40 years to complete the 2050 plan. That investment is substantial, but the payoff is greater. Solar plants consume little or no fuel, saving billions of dollars year after year. The infrastructure would displace 300 large coal-fired power plants and 300 more large natural gas plants and all the fuels they consume. The plan would effectively eliminate all imported oil, fundamentally cutting U.S. trade deficits and easing political tension in the Middle East and elsewhere. Because solar technologies are almost pollution-free, the plan would also reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants by 1.7 billion tons a year, and another 1.9 billion tons from gasoline vehicles would be displaced by plug-in hybrids refueled by the solar power grid. In 2050 U.S. carbon dioxide emissions would be 62 percent below 2005 levels, putting a major brake on global warming. Photovoltaic Farms In the past few years the cost to produce photovoltaic cells and modules has dropped significantly, opening the way for large-scale deployment. Various cell types exist, but the least expen­sive modules today are thin films made of cadmium telluride. To provide electricity at six cents per kWh by 2020, cadmium telluride modules would have to convert electricity with 14 percent efficiency, and systems would have to be installed at $1.20 per watt of capacity. Current modules have 10 percent efficiency and an installed system cost of about $4 per watt. Progress is clearly needed, but the technology is advancing quickly; commercial efficiencies have risen from 9 to 10 percent in the past 12 months. It is worth noting, too, that as modules improve, rooftop photovoltaics will become more cost-competitive for homeowners, reducing daytime electricity demand. In our plan, by 2050 photovoltaic technology would provide almost 3,000 gigawatts (GW), or billions of watts, of power. Some 30,000 square miles of photovoltaic arrays would have to be erected. Although this area may sound enormous, installations already in place indicate that the land required for each gigawatt-hour of solar energy produced in the Southwest is less than that needed for a coal-powered plant when factoring in land for coal mining. Studies by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., show that more than enough land in the Southwest is available without requiring use of environmentally sensitive areas, population centers or difficult terrain. Jack Lavelle, a spokesperson for Arizona?s Department of Water Conservation, has noted that more than 80 percent of his state?s land is not privately owned and that Arizona is very interested in developing its solar potential. The benign nature of photovoltaic plants (including no water consumption) should keep environmental concerns to a minimum. The main progress required, then, is to raise module efficiency to 14 percent. Although the efficiencies of commercial modules will never reach those of solar cells in the laboratory, cadmium telluride cells at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory are now up to 16.5 percent and rising. At least one manufacturer, First Solar in Perrysburg, Ohio, increased module efficiency from 6 to 10 percent from 2005 to 2007 and is reaching for 11.5 percent by 2010. Pressurized Caverns The great limiting factor of solar power, of course, is that it generates little electricity when skies are cloudy and none at night. Excess power must therefore be produced during sunny hours and stored for use during dark hours. Most energy storage systems such as batteries are expensive or inefficient. Compressed-air energy storage has emerged as a successful alternative. Electricity from photovoltaic plants compresses air and pumps it into vacant underground caverns, abandoned mines, aquifers and depleted natural gas wells. The pressurized air is released on demand to turn a turbine that generates electricity, aided by burning small amounts of natural gas. Compressed-air energy storage plants have been operating reliably in Huntorf, Germany, since 1978 and in McIntosh, Ala., since 1991. The turbines burn only 40 percent of the natural gas they would if they were fueled by natural gas alone, and better heat recovery technology would lower that figure to 30 percent. Studies by the Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto, Calif., indicate that the cost of compressed-air energy storage today is about half that of lead-acid batteries. The research indicates that these facilities would add three or four cents per kWh to photovoltaic generation, bringing the total 2020 cost to eight or nine cents per kWh. Electricity from photovoltaic farms in the Southwest would be sent over high-voltage DC transmission lines to compressed-air storage facilities throughout the country, where turbines would generate electricity year-round. The key is to find adequate sites. Mapping by the natural gas industry and the Electric Power Research Institute shows that suitable geologic formations exist in 75 percent of the country, often close to metropolitan areas. Indeed, a compressed-air energy storage system would look similar to the U.S. natural gas storage system. The industry stores eight trillion cubic feet of gas in 400 underground reservoirs. By 2050 our plan would require 535 billion cubic feet of storage, with air pressurized at 1,100 pounds per square inch. Although development will be a challenge, plenty of reservoirs are available, and it would be reasonable for the natural gas industry to invest in such a network. Hot Salt Another technology that would supply perhaps one fifth of the solar energy in our vision is known as concentrated solar power. In this design, long, metallic mirrors focus sunlight onto a pipe filled with fluid, heating the fluid like a huge magnifying glass might. The hot fluid runs through a heat exchanger, producing steam that turns a turbine. For energy storage, the pipes run into a large, insulated tank filled with molten salt, which retains heat efficiently. Heat is extracted at night, creating steam. The molten salt does slowly cool, however, so the energy stored must be tapped within a day. Nine concentrated solar power plants with a total capacity of 354 megawatts (MW) have been generating electricity reliably for years in the U.S. A new 64-MW plant in Nevada came online in March 2007. These plants, however, do not have heat storage. The first commercial installation to incorporate it?a 50-MW plant with seven hours of molten salt storage?is being constructed in Spain, and others are being designed around the world. For our plan, 16 hours of storage would be needed so that electricity could be generated 24 hours a day. Existing plants prove that concentrated solar power is practical, but costs must decrease. Economies of scale and continued research would help. In 2006 a report by the Solar Task Force of the Western Governors? Association concluded that concentrated solar power could provide electricity at 10 cents per kWh or less by 2015 if 4 GW of plants were constructed. Finding ways to boost the temperature of heat exchanger fluids would raise operating efficiency, too. Engineers are also investigating how to use molten salt itself as the heat-transfer fluid, reducing heat losses as well as capital costs. Salt is corrosive, however, so more resilient piping systems are needed. Concentrated solar power and photovoltaics represent two different technology paths. Neither is fully developed, so our plan brings them both to large-scale deployment by 2020, giving them time to mature. Various combinations of solar technologies might also evolve to meet demand economically. As installations expand, engineers and accountants can evaluate the pros and cons, and investors may decide to support one technology more than another. Direct Current, Too The geography of solar power is obviously different from the nation?s current supply scheme. Today coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear power plants dot the landscape, built relatively close to where power is needed. Most of the country?s solar generation would stand in the Southwest. The existing system of alternating-current (AC) power lines is not robust enough to carry power from these centers to consumers everywhere and would lose too much energy over long hauls. A new high-voltage, direct-current (HVDC) power transmission backbone would have to be built. Studies by Oak Ridge National Laboratory indicate that long-distance HVDC lines lose far less energy than AC lines do over equivalent spans. The backbone would radiate from the Southwest toward the nation?s borders. The lines would terminate at converter stations where the power would be switched to AC and sent along existing regional transmission lines that supply customers. The AC system is also simply out of capacity, leading to noted shortages in California and other regions; DC lines are cheaper to build and require less land area than equivalent AC lines. About 500 miles of HVDC lines operate in the U.S. today and have proved reliable and efficient. No major technical advances seem to be needed, but more experience would help refine operations. The Southwest Power Pool of Texas is designing an integrated system of DC and AC transmission to enable development of 10 GW of wind power in western Texas. And TransCanada, Inc., is proposing 2,200 miles of HVDC lines to carry wind energy from Montana and Wyoming south to Las Vegas and beyond. Stage One: Present to 2020 We have given considerable thought to how the solar grand plan can be deployed. We foresee two distinct stages. The first, from now until 2020, must make solar competitive at the mass-production level. This stage will require the government to guarantee 30-year loans, agree to purchase power and provide price-support subsidies. The annual aid package would rise steadily from 2011 to 2020. At that time, the solar technologies would compete on their own merits. The cumulative subsidy would total $420 billion (we will explain later how to pay this bill). About 84 GW of photovoltaics and concentrated solar power plants would be built by 2020. In parallel, the DC transmission system would be laid. It would expand via existing rights-of-way along interstate highway corridors, minimizing land-acquisition and regulatory hurdles. This backbone would reach major markets in Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Diego to the west and San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, Birmingham, Ala., Tampa, Fla., and Atlanta to the east. Building 1.5 GW of photovoltaics and 1.5 GW of concentrated solar power annually in the first five years would stimulate many manufacturers to scale up. In the next five years, annual construction would rise to 5 GW apiece, helping firms optimize production lines. As a result, solar electricity would fall toward six cents per kWh. This implementation schedule is realistic; more than 5 GW of nuclear power plants were built in the U.S. each year from 1972 to 1987. What is more, solar systems can be manufactured and installed at much faster rates than conventional power plants because of their straightforward design and relative lack of environmental and safety complications. Stage Two: 2020 to 2050 It is paramount that major market incentives remain in effect through 2020, to set the stage for self-sustained growth thereafter. In extending our model to 2050, we have been conservative. We do not include any technological or cost improvements beyond 2020. We also assume that energy demand will grow nationally by 1 percent a year. In this scenario, by 2050 solar power plants will supply 69 percent of U.S. electricity and 35 percent of total U.S. energy. This quantity includes enough to supply all the electricity consumed by 344 million plug-in hybrid vehicles, which would displace their gasoline counterparts, key to reducing dependence on foreign oil and to mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Some three million new domestic jobs?notably in manufacturing solar components?would be created, which is several times the number of U.S. jobs that would be lost in the then dwindling fossil-fuel industries. The huge reduction in imported oil would lower trade balance payments by $300 billion a year, assuming a crude oil price of $60 a barrel (average prices were higher in 2007). Once solar power plants are installed, they must be maintained and repaired, but the price of sunlight is forever free, duplicating those fuel savings year after year. Moreover, the solar investment would enhance national energy security, reduce financial burdens on the military, and greatly decrease the societal costs of pollution and global warming, from human health problems to the ruining of coastlines and farmlands. Ironically, the solar grand plan would lower energy consumption. Even with 1 percent annual growth in demand, the 100 quadrillion Btu consumed in 2006 would fall to 93 quadrillion Btu by 2050. This unusual offset arises because a good deal of energy is consumed to extract and process fossil fuels, and more is wasted in burning them and controlling their emissions. To meet the 2050 projection, 46,000 square miles of land would be needed for photovoltaic and concentrated solar power installations. That area is large, and yet it covers just 19 percent of the suitable Southwest land. Most of that land is barren; there is no competing use value. And the land will not be polluted. We have assumed that only 10 percent of the solar capacity in 2050 will come from distributed photovoltaic installations?those on rooftops or commercial lots throughout the country. But as prices drop, these applications could play a bigger role. 2050 and Beyond Although it is not possible to project with any exactitude 50 or more years into the future, as an exercise to demonstrate the full potential of solar energy we constructed a scenario for 2100. By that time, based on our plan, total energy demand (including transportation) is projected to be 140 quadrillion Btu, with seven times today?s electric generating capacity. To be conservative, again, we estimated how much solar plant capacity would be needed under the historical worst-case solar radiation conditions for the Southwest, which occurred during the winter of 1982?1983 and in 1992 and 1993 following the Mount Pinatubo eruption, according to National Solar Radiation Data Base records from 1961 to 2005. And again, we did not assume any further technological and cost improvements beyond 2020, even though it is nearly certain that in 80 years ongoing research would improve solar efficiency, cost and storage. Under these assumptions, U.S. energy demand could be fulfilled with the following capacities: 2.9 terawatts (TW) of photovoltaic power going directly to the grid and another 7.5 TW dedicated to compressed-air storage; 2.3 TW of concentrated solar power plants; and 1.3 TW of distributed photovoltaic installations. Supply would be rounded out with 1 TW of wind farms, 0.2 TW of geothermal power plants and 0.25 TW of biomass-based production for fuels. The model includes 0.5 TW of geothermal heat pumps for direct building heating and cooling. The solar systems would require 165,000 square miles of land, still less than the suitable available area in the Southwest. In 2100 this renewable portfolio could generate 100 percent of all U.S. electricity and more than 90 percent of total U.S. energy. In the spring and summer, the solar infrastructure would produce enough hydrogen to meet more than 90 percent of all transportation fuel demand and would replace the small natural gas supply used to aid compressed-air turbines. Adding 48 billion gallons of biofuel would cover the rest of transportation energy. Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions would be reduced 92 percent below 2005 levels. Who Pays? Our model is not an austerity plan, because it includes a 1 percent annual increase in demand, which would sustain lifestyles similar to those today with expected efficiency improvements in energy generation and use. Perhaps the biggest question is how to pay for a $420-billion overhaul of the nation?s energy infrastructure. One of the most common ideas is a carbon tax. The International Energy Agency suggests that a carbon tax of $40 to $90 per ton of coal will be required to induce electricity generators to adopt carbon capture and storage systems to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. This tax is equivalent to raising the price of electricity by one to two cents per kWh. But our plan is less expensive. The $420 billion could be generated with a carbon tax of 0.5 cent per kWh. Given that electricity today generally sells for six to 10 cents per kWh, adding 0.5 cent per kWh seems reasonable. Congress could establish the financial incentives by adopting a national renewable energy plan. Consider the U.S. Farm Price Support program, which has been justified in terms of national security. A solar price support program would secure the nation?s energy future, vital to the country?s long-term health. Subsidies would be gradually deployed from 2011 to 2020. With a standard 30-year payoff interval, the subsidies would end from 2041 to 2050. The HVDC transmission companies would not have to be subsidized, because they would finance construction of lines and converter stations just as they now finance AC lines, earning revenues by delivering electricity. Although $420 billion is substantial, the annual expense would be less than the current U.S. Farm Price Support program. It is also less than the tax subsidies that have been levied to build the country?s high-speed telecommunications infrastructure over the past 35 years. And it frees the U.S. from policy and budget issues driven by international energy conflicts. Without subsidies, the solar grand plan is impossible. Other countries have reached similar conclusions: Japan is already building a large, subsidized solar infrastructure, and Germany has embarked on a nationwide program. Although the investment is high, it is important to remember that the energy source, sunlight, is free. There are no annual fuel or pollution-control costs like those for coal, oil or nuclear power, and only a slight cost for natural gas in compressed-air systems, although hydrogen or biofuels could displace that, too. When fuel savings are factored in, the cost of solar would be a bargain in coming decades. But we cannot wait until then to begin scaling up. Critics have raised other concerns, such as whether material constraints could stifle large-scale installation. With rapid deployment, temporary shortages are possible. But several types of cells exist that use different material combinations. Better processing and recycling are also reducing the amount of materials that cells require. And in the long term, old solar cells can largely be recycled into new solar cells, changing our energy supply picture from depletable fuels to recyclable materials. The greatest obstacle to implementing a renewable U.S. energy system is not technology or money, however. It is the lack of public awareness that solar power is a practical alternative?and one that can fuel transportation as well. Forward-looking thinkers should try to inspire U.S. citizens, and their political and scientific leaders, about solar power?s incredible potential. Once Americans realize that potential, we believe the desire for energy self-sufficiency and the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions will prompt them to adopt a national solar plan.

07 March 2007 How many baht is a dollar worth today? 32.7986 - www.xe.com/ucc/convert.cgi 32.63 - www.thailandfriends.com/index.php?name=Portal 34.88-35.53 - www.bangkokbank.com 35.20-25 - www.bangkokpost.com 35.53 - 32.63 = 2.9 baht per dollar difference depending on where you are buying and selling This is totally ridiculous. There needs to be one exchange rate. Somebody in the Thai government or central bank is doing some major skimming in front of the eyes of the international community. I wouldn't mention this out loud if I could get a piece of that action.

Hello ! Just wondering about one thing, what trade area in Thailand generates the most income for the country. Most people here in the west would say the tourist industry, i am not sure that is true. Tourism is without doubt a important industry for Thailand, but i'm not sure that it is generating most income. I am guessing agriculture, seefood or export of gem's Am i right or wrong ??? Dilbert...