Reforma 30 Sept

Otorga contratos por yate y Ferrari

Destapa Estados Unidos cloaca en la CFE. Involucran a director de la paraestatal en cobro de sobornos a cambio de obras

Mayela Córdoba

(30 septiembre 2010).- Mientras en Estados Unidos dos mexicanos están detenidos por presunto soborno a un ex alto funcionario de la Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE), en México éste sigue libre, aunque oficialmente renunció a su cargo.

Néstor Moreno Díaz, ex director de Operación de la CFE, habría recibido un yate de 1.8 millones de dólares y un Ferrari de 297 mil dólares, más de 170 mil dólares a una tarjeta y otros pagos por 600 mil dólares, por otorgar contratos de arrendamiento de plantas de emergencia a la empresa Azusa, de California.

Los detenidos, a quienes se les sigue juicio en Los Ángeles por conspiración y corrupción en el extranjero, son los esposos Enrique Faustino Aguilar Noriega y Ángela Gómez, con residencia en Cuernavaca, quienes, de acuerdo con el Departamento de Justicia, fueron intermediarios de los pagos realizados.

El pasado 15 de septiembre, la Comisión informó en un escueto comunicado que Moreno Díaz, quien tenía a su cargo la operación de todo el sistema eléctrico, había presentado su renuncia el día anterior, aunque contaba con licencia desde el 16 de agosto precisamente para atender dichas investigaciones.

Tanto Moreno Díaz como su antecesor, Arturo Hernández, son identificados en un acta de la Corte del distrito de California de octubre del año pasado por sus cargos y las fechas en las que los detenidos trataron con ellos.

Los contratos con Azusa eran de plantas eléctricas de emergencia que se utilizan para prestar el servicio en casos de afectación eléctrica por contingencias naturales, como huracanes, las cuales se asignan sin licitación.

Pero, por si eso fuera poco, también se supo ayer que está en curso otro caso de corrupción que involucra a por los menos cuatro funcionarios de la CFE.

El Departamento de Justicia de EU informó que la filial de la empresa ABB LTD y otra llamada Sugar Land, con sede en Texas, son culpables de conspiración, y se les impuso una multa de 39.3 millones de dólares por actos de corrupción en México e Iraq, países donde gastaron 2.7 millones de dólares para obtener contratos con un valor de 100 millones de dólares.

La investigación establece que, en noviembre de 2009, Enrique Basurto y John O'Shea fueron procesados por pagos a cuatro funcionarios no identificados de la CFE para la instalación del sistema informático del despacho de electricidad del Centro Nacional de Control de Energía.

En su alegato, Basurto admitió que conspiró con otros para hacer pagos ilegales a funcionarios de la CFE y ayudó a lavar el dinero del soborno.

Consultada al respecto, la CFE declinó dar detalles de los contratos involucrados en ambas investigaciones, pero dijo que se entregó toda la documentación tanto a la PGR como a la Secretaría de la Función Pública.

"Estamos impedidos por ley porque es parte sustancial de la investigación", aseguró Estéfano Conde, vocero de la paraestatal.

REFORMA solicitó a la PGR información del estado que guarda la averiguación previa abierta contra el ex funcionario. Sin embargo, hasta el cierre de esta edición, la dependencia no había emitido ninguna respuesta.

 
 
 
En la mira
 
Nombre: Néstor Félix Moreno Díaz
 
Ingeniero en Comunicaciones y Electrónica
 
35 años en la Comisión Federal de Electricidad. Ingresó en 1975 como auxiliar de ingeniero.

Sus dos últimos cargos fueron subdirector de Generación y director de Operación.

Reside en la ciudad de Cuernavaca. Sus ex colaboradores refieren que era asiduo a las cirugías plásticas.

 

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Alista SCT entrega de la licitación 21





(30 septiembre 2010).- REFORMA / Staff

El Décimo Tribunal Colegiado de Circuito en Materia Administrativa determinó que ya no existe una orden de juez competente que obstaculice la conclusión del proceso de la licitación 21, asegró la Secretaría de Comunicaciones y Transportes (SCT) que dijo estar lista para entregar los títulos correspondientes al consorcio Nextel-Televisa.

Gerardo Sánchez Henkel, director jurídico de la dependencia, afirmó que, con esta resolución, en cualquier momento puede entregar los títulos de concesión.

"Será una decisión que tome finalmente el Secretario (Juan Molinar Horcasitas), pero considero que puede ser a más tardar en los primeros días de la próxima semana", señaló.

Fuentes de Iusacell aseguraron que Sánchez Henkel miente cuando dice que la SCT está en posibilidades de otorgar los títulos de concesión a Nextel porque siguen vigentes las medidas que impiden su entrega.

Agregaron que, si el director jurídico de la SCT o el Secretario Juan Molinar entregara los títulos de concesión, incurriría en desacato de una resolución judicial y se confirmaría con ello una operación de Estado y una licitación diseñada a modo para favorecer a Nextel.

Explicaron que Iusacell se compromete a desistirse de todos los juicios interpuestos en contra de la licitación si se fija un mecanismo público y transparente para que se paguen esos 5 mil millones de pesos, que son, dijeron, de todos los mexicanos.

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Y ahora fue Chiapas





(30 septiembre 2010).- AMATÁN. Al menos 16 muertos, 13 heridos y 3 desaparecidos dejó ayer un deslave en este Municipio chiapaneco (foto).

El Gobernador Juan Sabines calificó el hecho como "una tragedia mayor" y señaló que el alud se produjo por la deforestación.

En tanto en Santa María Tlahuitoltepec, Oaxaca, elementos de la Policía local y el Ejército recuperaron los cuerpos de cuatro personas sepultadas por el deslave ocurrido el martes. regresar a titulares












Muestra músculo la UdeG



Paulina Martínez, Francisco de Anda y Gilberto Franco

(30 septiembre 2010).- GUADALAJARA.- La Universidad de Guadalajara demostró ayer su fuerza en la marcha que organizó para exigir recursos adicionales al Gobernador de Jalisco, Emilio González, que insiste en que no hay dinero.

La marcha se desarrolló en calma gracias a que, según fuentes del Gobierno estatal, hubo un pacto entre González y Raúl Padilla, jefe político de la Universidad, la noche del martes.

Según las fuentes, el encuentro fue en la casa de Padilla. Hubo reclamos mutuos, se levantaron la voz y no llegaron a un acuerdo sobre los fondos, aunque coincidieron en mantener el diálogo.

En la que podría ser la manifestación más grande en la historia reciente de Jalisco participaron miles de estudiantes, los alcaldes priistas de Guadalajara, Tonalá y Tlaquepaque y diputados locales del tricolor.

El Rector general de la UdeG, Marco Antonio Cortés, advirtió que podrían parar labores.

Pero el Secretario de Finanzas local, José Luis de Alba, insistió en que no hay de dónde sacar los mil 200 millones de pesos.

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Dan menos a educación básica

Reducen presupuesto 2.1% en términos reales

Claudia Salazar

(30 septiembre 2010).- La Cámara de Diputados detectó que el proyecto presupuestal del Ejecutivo para 2011 incluye una caída de 2.1 por ciento en términos reales para la función de la educación básica.

Esto afectará las asignaciones de diversos programas educativos, según un análisis del Centro de Estudios de las Finanzas Públicas de la Cámara baja.

"El gasto federal propuesto para la educación básica de 2011 no contempla en ningún sentido mayores recursos para los programas presupuestales enfocados a mejorar la calidad de la educación en términos de niveles de aprendizajes, habilidades y capacidades de los estudiantes.

"El Presupuesto plantea una reducción de los recursos asignados a varios programas dedicados a la atención educativa de poblaciones vulnerables (educación especial, telesecundaria, indígenas, entre otras)", señala un informe.

Destaca que, para el próximo año, el Gobierno federal presentó una propuesta global de gasto en educación básica de 318 mil millones de pesos.

El centro de estudios calcula, en otro documento, que el gasto de 2010 para este rubro, sumada la inflación, será de 325 mil 254 millones de pesos.

Así, el programa más afectado es el de Fortalecimiento del Servicio de la Educación Telesecundaria, que, de acuerdo con el análisis, tendrá una disminución de 63.5 por ciento en su presupuesto en relación con este año.

Lo sigue el de Fortalecimiento de la Educación Especial y de la Integración Educativa, al cual se le reducen las asignaciones en 31.1 por ciento.

El programa de Producción y Edición de Libros, Materiales Educativos y Culturales, junto con el Programa Nacional de Inglés en Educación Básica, también tendrá reducciones; el primero, de 19.7, y el segundo, de 18.4 por ciento de sus recursos en comparación con los obtenidos en 2010.

El centro de estudios pone también como ejemplos de decrementos reales el Programa Nacional de Lectura con menos 3.8 por ciento, el de Prestación de Servicios Educativos del DF, con 3.1 por ciento, y el de Atención Educativa a Grupos en Situación Vulnerable, que baja 2.2 puntos.

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Exigen desterrar atraso educativo

Anuncian cumbre de líderes por la educación. Llaman empresarios a impulsar proyecto transexenal al margen de intereses políticos

Susana Moraga

(29 septiembre 2010).- Frente a los malos resultados del País en materia educativa, activistas por la educación, el sector empresarial y padres de familia convocaron ayer a una verdadera revolución en la materia a través de una política transexenal que lleve a México a la competitividad y saque de la mediocridad a la sociedad.

Marinela Servitje, presidenta de Compromiso Social por la Calidad de la Educación, dijo que la baja competitividad hace que el País tenga ciudadanos mediocres y lamentó que, aunque la educación es el sector que más presupuesto recibe, simplemente no se ven resultados.

"Es la quinta vez que se aplica (la prueba) ENLACE, y vemos los mismos resultados: 70 por ciento de los niños de primaria están en (niveles) insuficiente y elemental, y en secundaria, el 90.

"No puede ser que nada más tengamos un 6 por ciento de alumnos en excelencia.

"Como país, no podemos aspirar a nada si solamente tenemos en educación básica al 6 por ciento de nuestros alumnos con calificaciones de excelente", aseveró.

"Siempre ha habido buenas intenciones. Sin embargo, llegamos al siglo 21, al 2010, y nos encontramos con unos resultados muy mediocres y muy lamentables a pesar de todo el presupuesto que hay", dijo Servitje al dar a conocer los detalles de la Cumbre de Líderes en Acción por la Educación Clase 2010, que se celebrará los próximos 25 y 26 de octubre.

Gerardo Gutiérrez Candiani, presidente de la Confederación Patronal de la República Mexicana (Coparmex), urgió a afianzar en el País una visión de largo plazo en materia educativa que supere las barreras que significan los intereses políticos.

Insistió en la urgencia de que México tome un impulso extraordinario en la materia, como el que se ha visto en países de Europa y Asia o como en Chile y Brasil en Latinoamérica.

"Es necesaria una visión de largo plazo, (un) proyecto transexenal soportado con consenso social que supere las barreras de los intereses políticos", dijo.

Consuelo Mendoza, presidenta de la Unión Nacional de Padres de Familia, expresó que, detrás de cada profesor o director, hay por lo menos 500 padres, por lo que pidió también un cambio que lleve al sistema educativo hacia la verdadera calidad.

Karen Kovacs, directora general de la oficina regional en México de la Organización de Estados Iberoamericanos (OEI), indicó que el País debe enfrentar el reto de transformar el sistema de enseñanza y que lo importante ya no sea que los alumnos aprendan, sino que aprendan a aprender y a pensar conceptos nuevos.



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Promueven transparencia en salarios



Armando Estrop

(29 septiembre 2010).- La fracción parlamentaria del PAN en la Cámara de Diputados promueve una iniciativa para reformar la Ley de Coordinación Fiscal con el fin de que el presupuesto destinado al pago de salarios al magisterio se transparente para evitar el mal uso de los fondos.

El vicecoordinador de la bancada albiazul, Julio Castellanos, autor de la iniciativa, aseguró que, por el gasto que representan los salarios de los maestros, no se tiene un correcto uso del Fondo de Aportaciones a la Educación Básica.

"La transparencia en el ejercicio de estos recursos es prácticamente nula debido a las prácticas recurrentes de desvíos de recursos por parte de los gobiernos estatales (...) ¿Quién detiene a los gobiernos estatales ante este asalto en despoblado de la hacienda pública federal? Al parecer, hasta ahora, nadie", advirtió.



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Apoyan a UdeG Alcaldes priistas



Andrés Martínez y Paulina Martínez

(29 septiembre 2010).- CORRESPONSALES

GUADALAJARA.- Después de un mes de conflicto declarado entre la Universidad de Guadalajara y el Ejecutivo de Jalisco por más recursos para la UdeG, tres Alcaldes de la zona metropolitana se unirán hoy a estudiantes y maestros en una marcha que, según los organizadores, reunirá a 50 mil personas.

La Universidad tiene asignados recursos por más de 7 mil 400 millones de pesos para este año.

Hasta ayer, los universitarios habían realizado 13 protestas con alrededor de mil participantes cada una. Sin embargo, la de hoy, que llegará hasta el Palacio de Gobierno, se espera que se convierta en la más concurrida en la historia de Jalisco.

Los Alcaldes de Guadalajara, Tlaquepaque y Tonalá, los priistas Aristóteles Sandoval, Miguel Castro y Antonio Mateos, respectivamente, se sumarán a la marcha.

"Soy universitario, egresé de ahí y por supuesto que a lo único que aspiro es a que más jóvenes tengan la oportunidad que yo tuve", comentó el Alcalde tapatío.

El Gobierno del Estado se deslindó de la seguridad de la marcha y dijo que le corresponderá a la Policía de Guadalajara.

La Universidad exige 520 millones de pesos adicionales al presupuesto de 2010, los cuales, asegura, utilizaría en la construcción de preparatorias y la Biblioteca Pública del Estado, entre otros proyectos.

El Gobierno estatal rechaza la petición bajo el argumento de que el presupuesto es desviado a los negocios de Raúl Padilla, ex Rector y jefe político de la UdeG.



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Tenía Padilla a 'fichitas'



Luis Brito

(29 septiembre 2010).- Raúl Padilla, ex Rector y jefe político de la UdeG, tuvo en su entorno de empleados más cercanos a dos individuos señalados en investigaciones ministeriales como homicidas y traficantes de influencias y de droga.

Los hermanos Gustavo y Richard Mancilla Valdez, ex escoltas de Padilla hasta hace unos meses, son para la Procuraduría de Jalisco los principales sospechosos del asesinato de Fernando González Sandoval, ex director de la Preparatoria 7 de la UdeG.

Las pesquisas realizadas por la PGR han llevado, además, a relacionar a los hermanos Mancilla con una red de venta de drogas en la que también están involucrados ex agentes policiacos.


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Consigue Nava ofertón en Polanco



Susana Moraga

(29 septiembre 2010).- El líder nacional del PAN, César Nava, encontró una superoferta en Polanco, una de las zonas residenciales y comerciales más exclusivas del DF.

REFORMA publicó ayer información de la revista Nueva que afirma que Nava adquirió un departamento de 335 metros cuadrados para su prometida, Patricia Sirvent, con un costo de 15 millones de pesos.

El PAN aseguró ayer en una carta que el inmueble tuvo un precio de 7 millones 250 mil pesos y que fue comprado a crédito por los futuros esposos.

Sin embargo, información de la empresa Fundición Residencial, propietaria del edificio, indica que los departamentos tienen un precio de un millón 792 mil dólares (más de 20 millones de pesos) y que el penthouse se cotiza en más de 4 millones de dólares (unos 48 millones de pesos).

Especialistas y un reporte de la "bolsa inmobiliaria" de la Asociación Mexicana de Profesionales Inmobiliarios confirmaron a REFORMA que el departamento tiene un precio de entre 15 y 17 millones de pesos.

La nueva propiedad de Nava y Patylú está en Rubén Darío esquina con Lamartine, frente al bosque de Chapultepec.



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Denuncia Nextel 'chicanada' de Iusacell





(29 septiembre 2010).- REFORMA / Staff

Los juicios de amparo interpuestos por Iusacell para evitar la entrega de los títulos de concesión de la licitación 21 al consorcio Nextel-Televisa no defienden intereses legítimos y entorpecen la competencia, afirmó Nextel.

"Los juicios de amparo, específicamente los interpuestos para bloquear la Licitación 21, se utilizan (...) para 'chicanear' y entorpecer la apertura en la cobertura, convergencia y competencia de las telecomunicaciones", indica la empresa en un comunicado.

Agregó que, ante la escasez de espectro disponible, el modelo de negocios de Iusacell se ha basado en la especulación y ha abusado del derecho en perjuicio de la competencia.

Señaló que, con la suspensión de la jueza cuarta de distrito en materia administrativa del DF, Guadalupe Rivera González, suman ya 67 recursos legales interpuestos por Iusacell.

Francisco Borrego, director jurídico de Grupo Salinas, replicó que todos los procesos legales están justificados.

"Quieren su regalito de 180 millones y les incomoda que alguien se interponga a ellos", dijo.

En tanto, el Noveno Tribunal Colegiado de Circuito en Materia Administrativa declaró válido el recurso que interpusieron la SCT y la Cofetel contra la suspensión provisional que otorgó la jueza Rivera para frenar la entrega de títulos a Nextel-Televisa.



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Causa alud terror





(29 septiembre 2010).- OAXACA. Las intensas lluvias que han caído en el Estado de Oaxaca provocaron el aislamiento del Municipio de Santa María Tlahuitoltepec, en la Sierra Norte, y el desgajamiento de un cerro.

Muchas versiones corrieron a lo largo del día sobre una tragedia. Por la noche, el Secretario de Gobernación, Francisco Blake, aseveró que sólo contabilizaron 11 desaparecidos. La dependencia desactivó la alerta a los grupos de brigadistas convocados para el rescate.


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Indagan robo en asesinato de Edil





(29 septiembre 2010).- MORELIA. Luego de un homenaje que se le rindió en Tancítaro, el féretro del Alcalde asesinado Gustavo Sánchez fue trasladado ayer a Uruapan para ser sepultado. Sánchez fue encontrado el lunes con la cabeza destrozada, y una de las líneas de investigación es que el crimen fue... ¡un robo!

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TEMPLO MAYOR



F. Bartolomé

(30 septiembre 2010).- POCOS se enteraron de que hace unos días sostuvieron una reunión secreta Marcelo Ebrard, René Bejarano y Jesús Ortega.

ESTO, ooobviamente, ha producido un shock al interior del PRD, porque -según se sabe- el encuentro fue para negociar los plazos de la elección del nuevo dirigente nacional perredista.

LA IDEA ORIGINAL era que el relevo se diera en diciembre, sin embargo, ahora la intención es moverlo hasta marzo, como una manera de aplacar las ansias de las tribus opuestas a "Los Chuchos".

LA CLAVE del cónclave fue la asistencia de Bejarano, que ya ni perredista es pero sigue siendo el más poderoso operador dentro de ese partido.

PERO, a pesar de la encerrona en la oficina particular de Ebrard, hasta hoy siguen sin acuerdo sobre los tiempos para dicho relevo.

QUIENES SABEN de estas cosas dicen que, en el fondo, Marcelo lo que busca es tener cerca a Bejarano, para cuando llegue el momento de las definiciones de cara al 2012.

¿Ya se habrá enterado Andrés Manuel? Es pregunta que no pretende amarrar navajas.



AL MEJOR estilo de los camaleones, el bajacaliforniano Leonel Cota, después de haber sido tricolor y hasta ayer amarillo, pasará al color verde tucán.

SEGÚN SE DICE, el ex gobernador y ex dirigente del PRD, ahora quiere ser alcalde de Los Cabos, pero por el PVEM.

PERO no se crea que es por un repentino viraje hacia lo ecológico, nada de eso. Lo que pasa es que los perredistas lo rechazaron como abanderado y, según parece, pa' pronto encontró cobijo entre los verdes.

'ORA SÍ que como diría el filósofo: ¿de a cómo estuvo... perdón, cómo estuvo ese arreglo?

¡UPS! Todo parece indicar que el presidente Felipe Calderón nomás no encuentra cómo llevarse bien con los empresarios de Monterrey.

LUEGO de la exhibida que les pegó ayer, se nota que tiene una espina regiomontana muy clavada en el corazón.

RESULTA QUE hace tres semanas, el Presidente tuvo una comida privada con industriales, quienes le habrían reclamado el que México se haya comprometido a reducir sus emisiones de carbono.

ESE RECLAMO lo reveló ayer ¡el propio Calderón! al regresar de una visita a la capital de Nuevo León.

PERO FUE más allá: al hablar del cambio climático, dijo que no se vale que, por un lado, le exijan dinero del Fonden para reparar las vialidades que dañó el huracán "Alex" y, por el otro, le pidan que no se tomen medidas contra la emisión de contaminantes, so pretexto de que eso pararía la actividad económica.

YA ENCARRERADO, Calderón también les reprochó a los empresarios querer ganar dinero a costa de la ecología, sin darse cuenta de que las tragedias como la de "Alex" son consecuencia, precisamente, del calentamiento global.

COMO QUIEN DICE, Calderón y los regiomontanos ni se quieren ni se odian, sino todo lo contrario. ¡Ah, raza!



SI SIENTEN que el coahuilense Humberto Moreira anda como que más calladito... están en lo correcto.

LUEGO DE QUE anduvo cacareando sus ganas de tomar las riendas del PRI nacional, le jalaron las orejas en un desayuno que encabezó la mismísima Beatriz Paredes.

SEGÚN ESTO, le dijeron que le bajara a sus aceleres, pues la sucesión en el PRI se vería a su tiempo y no antes.

Y QUE fueron testigos del regaño Enrique Peña, Manlio Fabio Beltrones, Jesús Murillo, Francisco Rojas y Emilio Gamboa. Nomás.

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AGENDA CIUDADANA / Narcoinsurgencia, la guerra sin utopía

Desafortunadamente el concepto de narcoinsurgencia es válido porque en esta guerra los rebeldes sí tienen un objetivo político: controlar la vida pública local

Lorenzo Meyer

(30 septiembre 2010).- Concepto cargado

El domingo pasado en Indiana, Estados Unidos, el senador republicano por ese estado Richard G. Lugar abordó el tema del narcotráfico en México y afirmó ante un auditorio compuesto por mexicanos que asistían a un curso para fiscales, jueces y agentes, que en nuestro país los cárteles de la droga se han convertido "en una forma de narcoinsurgencia" (Reforma, 26 de septiembre). Algo muy similar había dicho ya el 8 de septiembre en Washington la secretaria de Estado, Hillary Clinton, al asimilar la actual situación de México a la de Colombia hace 20 años. La reacción negativa del gobierno de Felipe Calderón por la comparación de la señora Clinton llevó a que el propio presidente norteamericano, Barack Obama, corrigiera de inmediato a su secretaria. Sin embargo, esta vez lo dicho por el siempre mesurado senador Lugar ya no produjo una reacción tan airada en "Los Pinos", quizá por considerar que resultaría contraproducente.



Quién lo dice

Antes de analizar lo dicho en Indiana vale la pena hacer hincapié en quién lo dijo. El senador Lugar es el republicano con más antigüedad en el Senado; empezó su carrera en 1976 y en 2006 -su reelección más reciente- reafirmó lo sólido de su base política: ganó el 87% de los votos. Su posición en el Comité de Relaciones Exteriores del Senado es sólida como roca. Esa circunstancia más lo generalmente moderado e informado de sus posiciones lleva a que con frecuencia éstas tengan un apoyo bipartidista, de ahí la importancia de sus pronunciamientos.



Lo dicho

El corazón del argumento de Lugar está contenido menos en el concepto de narcoinsurgencia y más en esta afirmación: "Las organizaciones que desde México llevan a cabo el tráfico internacional de drogas representan la amenaza más inmediata a la seguridad nacional de Estados Unidos en el Hemisferio Occidental".

No es la primera vez que alguien en tiempos recientes considera que en México se está incubando un peligro para Estados Unidos. Quizá la posición más radical la formuló el ya desaparecido politólogo de Harvard Samuel P. Huntington, que vio en la migración masiva a Estados Unidos de hispanos, en particular de mexicanos, un peligro para la preservación de los valores que hicieron grande a ese país: los de la cultura anglosajona (¿Quiénes somos?: los desafíos a la identidad estadounidense, Paidós, 2004). El enfoque más imaginativo corresponde a George Friedman, un analista que supone la posibilidad de una guerra entre México y Estados Unidos al final del siglo XXI y cuyas raíces estarían también en la migración (The next 100 years: a forecast for the 21st century, Cap. 13, Stratfor, 2009).



La amenaza

El senador Lugar considera que los cárteles de la droga de México pueden ser una amenaza para la seguridad norteamericana porque esas organizaciones ya han logrado construir una verdadera infraestructura en Estados Unidos para la introducción y distribución de la droga y el lavado de dinero. El senador le propone al presidente Obama reaccionar con un aumento de los recursos que se dan al gobierno mexicano para enfrentarse a los "narcoinsurgentes" y un aumento de las acciones de inteligencia de parte del gobierno norteamericano -acción de agencias militares y civiles- en la frontera para detener el paso de drogas a Estados Unidos y el de armas a México.



El problema: de quién y para quién

De acuerdo con lo dicho por el senador de Indiana, "el problema ya está dentro de Estados Unidos", implicando que éste se generó en México y migró al norte del Río Bravo. Sin embargo, desde la perspectiva mexicana bien se puede decir lo opuesto: que "el problema" se originó en Estados Unidos y que ahora es una amenaza mayúscula para la seguridad nacional de México. Y es que justamente el que en nuestro poderoso vecino esté la principal fuente de la demanda de drogas ilícitas y la principal fuente de armas para los narcoinsurgentes permite decir que la seguridad mexicana está en un peligro mayor que la norteamericana -esto lo reconoce Lugar- como resultado de los efectos negativos que en un país como México, con instituciones políticas y jurídicas muy débiles, producen los miles de millones de dólares que ingresan como resultado de la adquisición de drogas por varios millones de norteamericanos.

Es aquí donde conviene recordar que antes de que la Comisión de Shanghai propusiera en 1909 declarar ilícito el tráfico de opio, los grandes fomentadores del comercio y consumo de esa droga en China -de donde se extendió a otros países-, fueron no sólo los británicos sino también prominentes comerciantes norteamericanos de Boston y Nueva Inglaterra que acumularon fortunas enormes que luego trasladaron a campos más respetables. Como sea, el tiro que salió por la culata del comercio imperial del opio también terminó por pegarnos a nosotros, que nada tuvimos que ver en su gestación.



¿Qué hacer?


En México el tráfico de sustancias ilícitas ha adquirido la dimensión monstruosa que hoy tiene debido a la vecindad con Estados Unidos. Sin embargo, a estas alturas, resulta un tanto académico insistir en dónde se originó el actual problema del narcotráfico. La asimetría de poder y recursos entre la nación consumidora y la nación proveedora ha llevado a hacer crecer de manera extraordinaria el cáncer binacional del narcotráfico, pero finalmente la forma de definir y de actuar sobre ese mal la dicta de manera unilateral la nación fuerte. La propuesta del senador Lugar es bien intencionada, sin duda, pero no deja de mostrar lo de siempre: que Estados Unidos es quien puede y debe actuar en relación a México pero sin que exista la posibilidad inversa.

La política esbozada por el senador Lugar no es muy diferente de las que Washington hizo y llevó a cabo durante la Guerra Fría para enfrentar a las guerrillas que amenazaban a sistemas proamericanos: auxiliar al gobierno bajo asedio con armas, equipo y asistencia técnica, pero sin revisar ni reformar el trasfondo social del que se nutrían quienes desafiaban al orden existente.

El gobierno mexicano, por su parte, rechaza el concepto de narcoinsurgencia empleado por la secretaria Clinton y el senador Lugar porque, asegura, al crimen organizado que opera en México lo que le interesa es simplemente aumentar sus ingresos ilícitos y no tiene las características de los insurgentes clásicos: un proyecto político nacional alternativo. Lo anterior es cierto, pero Lugar y otros consideran que los criminales organizados sí tienen objetivos políticos como parte de su obvio proyecto económico. Además, conviene añadir que las filas del crimen organizado se nutren, como las de las insurgencias clásicas, de las clases dominadas, de esas que tienen poco que perder y mucho que ganar en el enfrentamiento.

La política del narco o narcopolítica es tan clara como brutal. El asesinato reciente de un candidato a gobernador y de un creciente número de alcaldes y funcionarios locales en las regiones donde el narcotráfico es más activo muestra que sus dirigentes buscan controlar la estructura de autoridad formal que está a ras del piso social. De acuerdo con cálculos de Edgardo Buscaglia, en 2008 el narcotráfico ya controlaba el 8% de los municipios y había infiltrado sus células en el 63% (Proceso, 21, de septiembre, 2008).

Hasta mediados del siglo pasado el narcotráfico en México era un problema que el régimen priista mantenía bajo control, pero cuando la importancia de su mercado externo aumentó y el antiguo régimen perdió vigor, los narcotraficantes se sacudieron ese control y hoy los papeles se han invertido y son los cárteles de la droga los que buscan ser el actor dominante y subordinar a la clase política. Y van muy de prisa en su empeño. En 2007 los asesinatos relacionados con el narcotráfico fueron 2 mil 275 pero en lo que va de este año ya suman alrededor de 8,500; un aumento del 373% por ciento. Si se sigue por ese camino, México simplemente va a ser un país donde la lucha sea de todos contra todos, esa que Thomas Hobbes imaginó para caracterizar algo que no existía: el estado de naturaleza.

La demanda de drogas ilícitas es un fenómeno cuyas causas primeras y más fuertes se encuentran fuera de México. Esa demanda ha dado lugar a un problema que afecta nuestra seguridad, nuestra forma de vida y la soberanía nacional misma. Urge un enfoque nuevo, realmente binacional y que vaya más allá de la acción armada.

Nuestra crisis nacional debería desem- bocar en una reforma del Estado y de la sociedad mexicana que generase los elementos mínimos de utopía que sirvieran para neutralizar las raíces y las razones de la narcoinsurgencia.

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PLAZA PÚBLICA / Sainete a patadas

Castigados como colegiales por parranderos (si bien lo fueron en horario y lugar en que no infringieron norma alguna), miembros de la Selección Nacional se han rebelado contra los de pantalón largo

Miguel Ángel Granados Chapa

(30 septiembre 2010).- En el sórdido ambiente del futbol mercantil, el que fuera de las canchas decide la suerte de los jugadores y directores técnicos, está ocurriendo un sainete, divertido por la exhi- bición de hipocresía y autoritarismo, y del que puede, aunque la posibilidad sea remota, surgir la dignificación de un negocio que se parece demasiado a la trata de personas.

El 8 de septiembre, después del juego amistoso de la Selección Mexicana contra la de Colombia, en Monterrey, los jugadores mexicanos organizaron una juerga en el hotel donde habían estado concentrados. Estaban ya liberados de su compromiso y pudieron comportarse como adultos que festejan hasta el límite que cada quien se impone. Supongo que el desfogue que sucede a un encuentro adquiere más de una vez las dimensiones de una parranda entre amigos o compañeros de equipo. Pero esta vez, probablemente por delación de un miembro de la Federación Mexicana de Futbol, la bacanal trascendió a los medios y se generó un escándalo, artificialmente azuzado porque de la pachanga no se derivaron daños y perjuicios para el equipo, como hubiera ocurrido si el convivio se hubiera realizado antes de un encuentro.

Ante el escándalo fabricado, la Federación Mexicana de Futbol, una asociación civil que actúa como si fuera un poder autónomo dentro del Estado mexicano, resolvió sancionar a los juerguistas, atribuyéndoles faltas a la disciplina. En proceso oscuro, que juzgó en bloque a los deportistas pero produjo sanciones diferenciadas, a dos de ellos, Carlos Vela y Efraín Juárez, los echó fuera de la Selección durante seis meses, y al resto de los acusados (Rafael Márquez, Guillermo Ochoa, Francisco Javier Rodríguez, Carlos Salcido, Andrés Guardado, Gerardo Torrado, Giovanni Dos Santos, Javier Hernández, Enrique Esqueda, Pablo Barrera y Héctor Moreno) se les multó con 50 mil pesos a cada uno. En un acto de falsa filantropía, la Federación dispuso que el monto, los 550 mil pesos resultantes, fueran donados a una obra en Ciudad Juárez (donde se realizará el próximo partido de la Selección, contra Venezuela) o a los damnificados de Veracruz. No quedó claro cómo se haría efectivo el pago de la sanción. Salvo tres de los afectados (Ochoa, Torrado y Esqueda) todos los demás juegan en el extranjero, en las ligas de Gran Bretaña, Holanda, Estados Unidos y España.

Organizados por Márquez, capitán del equipo en la cancha, los afectados reaccionaron vivamente contra la sanción, o por lo menos el modo de darla a conocer. En una carta, sin firmas, enviada por correo electrónico a Justino Compeán y Decio de María, presidente y secretario general de la Federación, solicitan no ser convocados a próximos juegos de la Selección (es decir, anuncian que no acudirán al llamado) en tanto permanezca a cargo de los equipos nacionales el señor Néstor de la Torre. Contra él personalmente dirigen su argumentación los jugadores, y le imputan no pocos defectos e insuficiencias en el desempeño de su responsabilidad.

En congruencia con varios juicios severos y aun agrios contra la prensa deportiva, los no firmantes pero presuntamente autores de la comunicación, pidieron a los destinatarios que esa carta no fuera dada a conocer a los medios. Pero el documento, fechado al día siguiente de anunciadas las sanciones en su contra, apareció el martes en el diario deportivo Récord. Se percibe en él enojo y molestia no tanto por las sanciones que, por otra parte, consideran injustificadas, sino porque se les expuso al escarnio público, a diferencia de otras veces en que, dicen, la ropa sucia se ha lavado en casa.

Será hasta octubre, al reunirse los dueños de los clubes de futbol, cuando se adopte una decisión sobre la actitud de los jugadores, que en general han sido condenados en la prensa especializada, que los acusa de soberbia. Al contrario, me parece que entre los tufos que suele despedir el ambiente del negocio futbolero, la carta de los Trece es una bocanada de aire fresco, un rapto de dignidad de los jugadores lastimados en su reputación, que por primera vez rehúsan ser tratados como cosas. Habrá que esperar cuántos se sostienen en esa posición. Es posible que más de uno cambie de opinión, ante las presiones que su conducta ha suscitado, y alegue no haber suscrito la carta. Sería una lástima que dejaran en la estacada a Márquez y abandonaran la defensa de su buen nombre, lastimado por una organización que se arroga capacidades que el derecho nacional no puede admitir.

El régimen autoritario de la FMF está a prueba en estos días en los tribunales de amparo. Está por dilucidarse el caso de Salvador Carmona, un jugador que fue declarado reincidente por el uso de tóxicos y al que se le vedó de por vida participar en equipos de futbol profesional. Carmona ha pretendido defenderse demandando por daño moral a la Federación, que no únicamente lo exhibió como vicioso ante la opinión pública, sin pruebas adicionales a las internas de la Federación, sino que también contrarió la libertad de trabajo estipulada en el artículo quinto de la Constitución.

En un caso más la Federación se com- porta al margen del derecho, esta vez del derecho mercantil, o corporativo como se le llama ahora. El señor Ricardo Henaine, castigado por un año por un exabrupto contra un árbitro, adquirió la mayoría de acciones del club Puebla, pero debe esperar ser reconocido como titular de la propiedad del equipo angelopolitano por el poderoso club de dueños, el verdadero foco de decisiones de una Federación que actúa como mampara de sus intereses, no sólo futboleros.



Cajón de Sastre

El desgajamiento en un cerro en el municipio de Santa María Tlahuiltoltepec, Oaxaca, que tuvo un lamentable saldo todavía no precisado de personas muertas (si bien por debajo del que originalmente se temió) atrajo la atención pronta de los gobiernos federal y estatal, en la persona del gobernador Ulises Ruiz y el secretario de Gobernación José Francisco Blake Mora. Las autoridades han detectado otras zonas de riesgo en varias agencias municipales del propio Santa María Tlahuiltoltepec y en seis municipios más del distrito mixe y han llamado a los ayuntamientos a realizar "monitoreos constantes, tanto de los cerros como de las casas habitación". Piden que, al detectar alguna anomalía, conminen "de inmediato a las familias para que se trasladen a refugios seguros, para lo cual se han ubicado albergues en los edificios municipales y escuelas".


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José Woldenberg / Yo también hablo de la UNAM



José Woldenberg

(30 septiembre 2010).- La UNAM ha sido para mí un espacio privilegiado de formación profesional, un centro de trabajo estimulante, una institución para entrar en contacto con diversas disciplinas, lenguajes, actividades artísticas, un observatorio inigualable de la vida nacional, un centro de forja y encuentro de amistades que duran a través de las décadas, un nicho de libertad cuando las libertades se encontraban restringidas en otros ámbitos, una plataforma para la investigación sistemática.

No me extraña su celebración y comparto el ánimo festivo. A lo largo de 100 años ha sido un centro irradiador de cultura, de formación de profesionales y un espacio para la creación científica y artística. Generaciones de egresados se sienten orgullosas y satisfechas de haber pasado por sus aulas, porque en ellas encontraron conocimientos, destrezas, habilidades para una formación especializada y quiero pensar que también para contar con una visión más abierta y sofisticada de la vida social.

Pero la UNAM tiene problemas. Y no puede ser de otra manera. Sólo los organismos y las instituciones muertas viven en paz consigo mismas. Algunas de esas dificultades son derivadas de lo que sucede en su entorno y otras propias de una entidad compleja, desigual, cargada de retos a los que no se les puede (debe) dar la espalda.

Durante varias décadas la UNAM fue una plataforma eficiente para colocar a sus egresados en el mercado de trabajo. Era una institución que con el despliegue de sus potencialidades coadyuvaba a la movilidad social ascendente. Era un eficaz "elevador social". Entrar a la UNAM no representaba solamente adquirir el conocimiento necesario para desempeñar una profesión, sino una oportunidad de mejoramiento económico importante. Pero hoy el entorno resulta más adverso. No sólo porque se han multiplicado las instituciones de educación superior, tanto públicas como privadas (en buena hora), sino porque la economía del país no ha crecido con suficiencia en las últimas décadas, lo cual ha contraído el mercado de trabajo y las oportunidades de empleo de los egresados de todas las universidades (y no sólo de ellos).

Enrique Quintana escribía hace unos días: "De 1970 a 1990, la población económicamente activa (PEA) en México creció a una tasa anual de 3.1 por ciento en promedio... en ese mismo lapso, la economía creció a una tasa anual promedio de 4.3 por ciento. Es decir, tuvo la capacidad para generar los puestos de trabajo necesarios para absorber el crecimiento de la PEA... A partir de 1990 llegaron a la edad laboral quienes nacieron en la década de los 70, cuando el crecimiento demográfico era cercano al 3 por ciento. Además, fue una etapa en la que se aceleró la incorporación de la mujer al mercado laboral... La PEA de la década de los 90 creció a una tasa media anual de más del 4 por ciento. En contraste, el crecimiento de la economía se vino para abajo y sólo alcanzó una tasa media de 3.4 por ciento al año. Desde hace 20 años, muchos jóvenes no pudieron acceder al mercado laboral formal" (Reforma, 24-09-10).

Entiendo que es ese ambiente adverso para los jóvenes del país -no sólo los universitarios- lo que lleva al rector José Narro a insistir en la necesidad de revisar y reorientar la política económica, porque el crecimiento suficiente de la economía se ha convertido en una necesidad apremiante si no queremos ver cómo nuestro de por sí maltrecho "tejido social" se nos convierte en un paño desgarrado.

Pero la UNAM tiene también problemas internos. Me refiero sólo a uno: el envejecimiento de su planta docente, lo que en muchos casos le impide su puesta al día. A fines de la década de los setenta las autoridades de la UNAM decidieron que la institución no podía seguir creciendo en su matrícula. En los años inmediatos anteriores se había expandido de manera sobresaliente: las nuevas Escuelas Nacionales de Estudios Profesionales y el Colegio de Ciencias y Humanidades. Para ello se necesitaron profesores y se incorporaron cientos -si no es que miles- de académicos jóvenes. Pero al congelarse la expansión, la necesidad de "sangre nueva" cesó.

Han pasado más de 30 años y los jóvenes de entonces -que ocupamos las plazas de maestros e investigadores- hemos envejecido. Y la opción de la jubilación a (casi) nadie le resulta satisfactoria. Dado que no somos mineros ni carteros -oficios para los que se requiere una condición física excepcional-, que para ser académico el paso del tiempo parece ser una ventaja y que la pensión suele representar menos de un tercio del ingreso, hemos taponado la incorporación a la UNAM de nuevos profesores. El problema en términos académicos -no laborales- es que ello impide la asimilación de nuevos enfoques, bibliografías, autores, de los que serían portadores los cientos de estudiantes que se han preparado en las universidades del país y el extranjero y que no tienen una vía de acceso como profesores porque los que hoy realizamos esa labor no nos queremos morir.

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JAQUE MATE / Michoacanazo



Sergio Sarmiento

(30 septiembre 2010).- "Aquí no hubo ningún error, ninguna falla; nos inventaron un delito".

Ignacio Mendoza Jiménez


Miguel García Hurtado es una de las víctimas del "michoacanazo". Procurador de justicia de Michoacán cuando se produjo el operativo del 26 de mayo de 2009 en el que se detuvo a decenas de funcionarios y ex funcionarios estatales y municipales, se presentó voluntariamente a declarar al día siguiente, pero fue detenido y acusado de tener vínculos con el narco.

Cuatrocientos ochenta y cinco días más tarde, el 24 de septiembre, ya con su empleo perdido, habiendo gastado fuertes cantidades de dinero en su defensa legal, tras haber sido exhibido en los medios como narcotraficante, con la carga de la angustia personal y familiar por su prolongado encarcelamiento, el juez lo dejó en libertad porque las pruebas en su contra no demostraban su culpabilidad. No es el único caso. Treinta y cuatro de los 35 detenidos en el michoacanazo están ya en libertad.

¿Cuáles fueron las pruebas que llevaron a la PGR a consignar a García Hurtado y a los otros acusados? En el caso del ex procurador, la inclusión de su nombre en una supuesta narcolista -tres hojas blancas impresas con nombres y cantidades- así como los testimonios de tres testigos "protegidos", identificados en los juicios como Emilio, Ricardo y Paco, ex policías convertidos en delincuentes a quienes la Procuraduría les prometió beneficios a cambio de sus declaraciones.

El problema con la narcolista es que cualquiera pudo haberla elaborado. De los testigos, uno ofreció un testimonio de oídas sin validez jurídica. Otros dijeron que miembros de La Familia entregaban dinero al procurador, pero los datos que aportaron se contradicen con otras pruebas.

Los testigos lógicamente declararon lo que les convenía a cambio de los beneficios que se les ofrecieron. Ni ellos ni la autoridad se preocuparon demasiado por que sus historias fueran posibles o congruentes. Uno de ellos, de hecho, se ha fugado ya.

Mucho se ha señalado que las autoridades mexicanas detienen para investigar en lugar de investigar para detener. Este caso, sin embargo, parece ser todavía peor. El ex subprocurador de Michoacán Ignacio Mendoza Jiménez, detenido en el michoacanazo y liberado en enero de este 2010, acusa a la PGR de haber actuado con dolo y por razones políticas. La afirmación, que en otras circunstancias parecería uno de tantos intentos de un criminal por evadir su responsabilidad, adquiere fuerza ante el rotundo fracaso de todos los casos surgidos del michoacanazo.

Quedan en el aire varias preguntas. ¿Qué ocurrirá con el único detenido que aún permanece en la cárcel? Se trata de Armando Medina Torres, ex presidente municipal de Múgica, detenido en septiembre pero acusado con las mismas pruebas inconsistentes y testigos falsos que los demás. ¿Seguirá tratando la PGR de detener al diputado Julio César Godoy, quien enfrenta acusaciones que son al parecer tan endebles como las de las demás víctimas del michoacanazo?

Por otra parte, ¿serán las pruebas contra Greg Sánchez, el ex candidato del PRD al gobierno de Quintana Roo, también falsas? ¿Habrá sido su detención realmente producto de su colaboración con los cárteles de las drogas o sólo una maniobra para quitar de enfrente a un candidato incómodo?

Cuando un operativo en que se detiene a 35 resulta en 34 absoluciones (hasta ahora), hay motivos de preocupación. ¿Son tan ineptos los ministerios públicos y fiscales que no pueden ganar estos casos? ¿O se ha convertido la PGR en una institución que inventa acusaciones por razones políticas?



Contra natura

Los mexicanos hemos tratado de construir asentamientos en desafío a las reglas más elementales de la naturaleza. Las consecuencias pueden ser desastrosas. El deslave de Santa María Tlahuitoltepec en la sierra Mixe de Oaxaca es un ejemplo, pero también las inundaciones de Veracruz y Tabasco, muchas de las cuales han ocurrido en cauces de ríos que nunca debieron albergar viviendas.


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Jorge G. Castañeda / Justicia es sólo justicia



Jorge G. Castañeda

(30 septiembre 2010).- Del desenlace del "michoacanazo" podemos extraer por lo menos tres lecciones ilustrativas del estado que guardan las cosas en México. La primera tiene que ver con la procuración de justicia; la segunda con la administración de justicia; y la tercera con la comentocracia y la justicia.

El que 34 de los 35 inculpados por la PGR -funcionarios municipales y estatales, electos y designados- tuvieran que ser liberados, y que incluso un diputado electo pudiera finalmente tomar posesión a pesar de la Policía Federal (obligando ahora al gobierno federal a intentar su desafuero), muestra que el Ministerio Público federal no hizo una labor espléndida de investigación e integración de las averiguaciones pertinentes. El Poder Judicial rechazó, en los hechos, todos los cargos para los detenidos por falta de pruebas, por vicios de origen, o por otras razones que claramente revelan la inoperancia de la procuración de justicia, o de las leyes existentes para combatir al crimen organizado o de la probidad de los jueces, si es que la responsabilidad es de ellos. Es un evidente fiasco de alguien: del gobierno, de las leyes o de los juzgadores.

Sólo me pregunto si esto último es cierto, pues podría uno ver todo el episodio como algo muy positivo en un sentido muy preciso. Si hace algunos años la PGR y el MP federal hubieran actuado contra alcaldes, regidores, un procurador estatal y asesores de un gobernador de un partido de oposición (suponiendo que todo esto fuera posible), difícilmente habríamos encontrado un juez en México que se negara a acatar las indicaciones jurídicas y, por qué no decirlo, también políticas del presidente de la República. Esta vez, por las razones que se quieran (por la ineptitud del MP, por la audacia o la fuerza del narco, por la ambigüedad de los casos, por lo que se quiera), una operación de esta magnitud fracasó de cabo a rabo. No creo que se pueda considerar como un retroceso de la justicia en México, sino que incluso puede ser visto como parte del proceso de la consolidación de la independencia del Poder Judicial en México. Independen- cia que, quizás, implique también el estar sujeto a muchas presiones y ya no sólo a la del gobierno federal. De ser culpables algunos de los 34 lamento, por supuesto, que no sean encarcelados, pero me congratulo de que ya exista un Poder Judicial en México a nivel federal que no acepte los dictados del Ejecutivo.

¿Eran culpables? Aquí interviene la discusión en el seno de la comentocracia. Muchos colegas han lamentado que personas acusadas de ligas con el narco sean liberadas. El presidente Calderón en Monterrey hace unas semanas, hablando en general, y en abstracto, se lamentó de que un altísimo porcentaje (como 75%) de los detenidos en su guerra terminen libres por deficiencias en la ley o por el desempeño del MP. Amigos en Chihuahua, por ejemplo, nos dijeron a Héctor Aguilar Camín y a mí hace unos meses, que resultaba preferible abandonar el esfuerzo de los juicios orales, ya que, según ellos, gracias ese procedimiento un culpable de homicidio y/o violación fue exonerado por vicios de forma y de origen en su juicio. Y, obviamente, la inmensa mayoría de la opinión pública considera que Florence Cassez debe permanecer eternamente encerrada por su complicidad con los secuestros de los que se le acusa, con independencia del llamado montaje de García Luna.

Huelga decir que yo no sé si esta gente es culpable o no. Pero mis amigos comentócratas tampoco. Lo que es más, sólo hay una persona que puede saber y decidir si alguien es culpable o no: un juez. Mientras eso no suceda son inocentes, no sólo porque la Constitución mexicana ya lo estipula explícitamente, sino que es el espíritu de cualquier sistema judicial. Lamentar la liberación de un culpable por un juez es un contrasentido: si el juez lo libera, por definición no es culpable. Sé bien que esto en México no se entiende; pero también sé que de otra forma no se entiende que es la justicia.


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GReader

...

rnational cyber-terrorism isn’t easy, but it’s a mission on which we can all agree, right? Not so fast.

Russia has been pushing a proposal in The United Nations agency for information technology, which describes the greatest cyber-threat not as hacking or stealing but as using the Internet to spread ideas that might undermine a country. Russia wants any such use of the Internet classified as “aggression,” and hence illegal under the UN Charter.

Sounds like China right? Yes, but check out this awfully teal map of countries that agree. It seems that a lot of the world seems more aligned with the Chinese view of controlling any information that may be considered subversive than they’re aligned with the high-minded Western ideals of freedom of speech and access to information. Most notably they include the other BRICs: India, Brazil and Russia. In fact, it’s Brazil that has asked Google to remove more content from the Web than any other nation this year. Brazil made more than double the requests of the next closest country, Libya.

NPR covered the story this morning, but it’s not a new shift in thinking. Russia has actually tried to introduce this information-arms-control-like agreement every year since 1998. So why do we only jump up and down about China? Presumably, under Russia’s proposition, Iran could hold Twitter accountable for giving people the ability to change their avatars to green or any Middle Eastern country could hold Facebook accountable for providing a platform by which people de-radicalize potential suicide bombers.

It’s a delicate issue for the US diplomatically and inside the US– way bigger than “Googlegate” because, well, I refer you again to the map. The issue doesn’t seem to be about different political systems, but rather different levels of stabilization in more chaotic emerging markets. Near-unfettered Internet freedoms aren’t always as high a priority in these countries, not because they’re evil, but because there are more pressing problems of gun violence, terrorism, or a paucity of food, water, jobs and basic infrastructure.

I usually try not to get into a lather about protecting Internet freedoms in other countries, because I don’t think it’s the job of private sector tech companies who are supposed to be international to act as tools to enforce Western-style democracy. Freedom and democracy are two different things. Some “democratic” countries I’ve reported in are more repressive in day-to-day life than other authoritarian countries. In addition, I believe that Google would have done more good by staying in China and working within the system than pulling out with a pouty “We don’t like their laws” as Eric Schmidt said on the Colbert Report this week. (To which Colbert astutely asked how long did it took for Google to start disliking China’s laws.)

But this is something different. It’s not about whether other countries should be allowed to control what happens within their borders and whether US companies simply chose to do business there or not, based on local laws. At stake are new rules that would bring international United Nations justification to draw sovereign boundaries around many different Internets. At stake is making it OK to build powerful new Web 2.0 technologies like Facebook and Twitter at the borders of the Western world– not with an easy-to-circumvent Great Firewall but with internationally-accepted rules against freedom of information and expression. Talk about unintended consequences in a debate we thought was about identity theft and hacking.

On a more crass, business note, this could have a chilling impact on US Internet companies expansion into lucrative emerging markets. So far China is the only country that’s developed larger audiences for its own homegrown Internet companies than US versions in almost every category. That makes not only political sense but business sense because China is so culturally and linguistically different and the market is so much more advanced in terms of entrepreneurship, venture capital and the wild-west IPO markets of Shanghai, Hong Kong and the new Startup Board in Shenzhen.

But so far, US companies do better in many categories in India and Indonesia– because the Internet has grown slower giving less opportunity for locals to build big companies and more challenges with monetization. When the percentage of the population online is this small, frequently the people online are city-dwelling, affluent multinational employees or office workers who also speak English, making the need for, say, a local-grown Hindi Facebook a lot less immediate. And on a platform like Twitter, there are even fewer cultural and language restrictions because the site is so simple, how people use it localizes it.

But comparatively isolationist countries like Russia and Brazil could easily fork off with a more local versions of sites dominating as their markets grow. It’s not hard to see how local, business pressures could drive this diplomacy around blocking ideas on Western sites– they way some people allege it already has in China. And–on a more banal level than the future of freedom in the world–that would be disastrous for older Web companies in the US counting on emerging markets to grow.

This problem is not going to go away– and not just because Russia appears to introduce it every year. By 2050, the US will be the only G7 nation that is still one of the largest nations in the world. Its testament to the sheer size and resilience of the “world’s only Superpower” that we’ll still be no. 2. At least we’ll still have a strong say in the way the world runs. But sharing power with modern, emerging markets that have had a totally different history and experience with the 20th century will likely take the bulk of the 21st century to figure out– especially when it comes to border-less technology issues like the environment and the Internet.

I criticized Groupon last week for running too fast with its international strategy before it had stabilized its lock on the US market. But the flipside of that argument is that at least Groupon executives are getting a better picture of what the Internet will look like in this new world.
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Sept. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Japan’s economy may be hurt by its political dispute with China, Economy Minister Banri Kaieda said today, signaling widening concern at the consequences of tensions with the nation’s biggest trading partner.

“Given that our growth strategy has been to incorporate Asian demand into our own demand, the current rare-earth, rare-metal problem that has been reported in the press is becoming a very big obstacle,” Kaieda told reporters in Tokyo today. “I hope for the earliest possible resolution to this problem.”

Kaieda spoke after a spat erupted this month over Japan’s detention of a fishing-boat captain. The Chinese sailor was detained after his vessel collided with two Japanese Coast Guard vessels.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku said separately that there’s no confirmation of a Chinese embargo on so- called rare-earth elements. The New York Times reported yesterday that it put an embargo on exports of the products, which are used in items including cars and weapons, to Japan. Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesman Chen Rongkai said yesterday that “China does not have a trade embargo on rare earth exports to Japan.”

A deterioration in the relationship between China and Japan would be negative for the global economy as a whole, Japan’s finance minister, Yos

How come my husband gets to let himself go?
His weight goes up and down. He can't stick to a diet or fitness plan. Am I the only one who has to stay in shape?
BY HYLA SABESIN

iStockphoto
"I need you!" my husband yells from the hotel bedroom.

I fly out of the bathroom to find him face down on the floor.

"What happened?" I ask, attempting to remain calm but already annoyed that he appears to have injured himself, yet again, in the midst of an all-too-rare vacation.

"Back spasm," he groans, his cheek pressed against highly suspect hotel carpeting.

"I guess we're not going to the gym," I accidentally say out loud.

"Too bad. I was really on a roll," he says, referring to yesterday's workout -- his first in a year and the promised kickoff to a much-procrastinated lose-25-pounds-eat-right exercise initiative.

"Yeah, you were," I say, my voice drifting off along with my perennial dream of jogging on the beach, hiking or treadmilling in tandem with a fit, healthy husband.

A work crisis. A restless night's sleep. An aching pinkie. When it comes to exercise excuses, my husband is unrivaled. Leave it to him to sabotage his comeback with an over-zealous, injury-inevitable performance in the gym yesterday.

"Give me a hand," he says. "We need to find a doctor."

A hand? How about a kick in the derriere?

"I love working out," he said when we first met. He was a buff, 21-year-old first-year law student. I was a naive, 17-year-old college freshman. I assumed he'd have those rock-solid abs forever. Forever lasted one semester. By the second, trips to the gym ceased and sweats replaced his size 32 jeans. Struggling to shed my own freshman 19 and too infatuated with him to really care, I assumed his condition, like mine, was temporary.

It was. If by temporary you mean the two years that passed before he rediscovered his passion for fitness. Seemingly overnight, hours on the couch became hours at the gym. His cheekbones returned. His six-pack reappeared. His pants zipped. He became sanctimonious -- chomping raw vegetables at the movies while eyeing my popcorn disdainfully. ("Do you have any idea what's in that?") Smug. ("Can you believe the way people let themselves go?") Superior. ("It's not like working out regularly is that hard.") So what? The abs were back.

And then, without warning, they vanished -- along with gym visits, broccoli florets and the self-righteous attitude. How, I wondered, could he throw away all that hard work? Was it my fault? Had I not sufficiently praised his determination? His well-defined pecs? His stir-fry? Crushed as I was, I didn't panic. I'd seen tangible proof that transformation was possible. He'd done it once. He'd do it again.

I was still repeating that mantra two years later on our honeymoon. Distressed by the love handles (in retrospect so relatively small and insignificant) spilling over the top of his bathing suit, I sent subliminal "get thee to the gym" signals to him as he circled the breakfast buffet loading his plate with eggs, waffles and pastries. Petty? Yes. Superficial? Absolutely. Justified? Definitely. Was I the only one who had to stay in shape?

"Let's join a gym," he said when we returned home. My messages miraculously received, I immediately signed us up at a nearby health club. He went religiously, returning home each evening exuberantly pontificating on proper push-up technique, the distinction between fast and slow twitch muscles and the delicate balance between carbs and protein. Life was good. New marriage. New apartment. New gym-going husband. Until, one day, he left his workout bag at home. And again the next day. And the next.

"Who has time?" he said, overwhelmed by the reality of a get-there-early-leave-late career. "Exercising at home is more efficient." Skeptical that the short stroll to and from the gym was a major time-sucker, I feigned enthusiasm as free weights overwhelmed our living room and an Arnold Schwarzenegger bodybuilding bible monopolized his attention.

"Squat deeper," he called from the couch, where he'd taken up residence once the thrill of the home gym wore thin -- leaving me and my guilt-ridden conscience (I felt compelled to use not only the gym membership but the new equipment) to bear the burden of the barbell.

"An exercise bike would be good cardio," he said a few months later. "Weights alone aren't going to cut it." Not when you don't use them.

A disturbing pattern was emerging. While I got cranky if I missed a day of exercise, he enjoyed extended periods of slackerdom until inspiration struck -- perhaps initiated by a favorite shirt that wouldn't button, a "you ate that entire veal parmigiana?" remark from me or, more likely, a riveting late-night "fit in 30 days" infomercial. An academic pursuit (research gyms, evaluate fitness equipment, compare and contrast diets) would commence. Next up, the never-small financial investment. ("You can't skimp on equipment. It has to last.") Finally, the physical endeavor would ensue. Duration? Predictably unpredictable.

My husband, as I eventually acknowledged, was an all or nothing man. I was his reluctant accomplice. Although I longed for a "normal" husband who kept his weight in check, satisfied his sweet tooth with a small daily serving of frozen yogurt and maintained a non-anxiety-provoking cholesterol level, I was intoxicated by his bursts of arm-flailing enthusiasm -- whether for a rice cooker, heart-rate monitor or Bosu ball -- and ever-hopeful that eventually his "all" would stick.

I charted our life together not by new cities, jobs or homes but by the fitness bandwagons he embraced. There was a rowing machine (remember those?). A recumbent bike. A treadmill. Another set of free weights (the first donated to movers who hardly needed them) and a bench press. A second gym membership (close to work). A third gym membership (close to home). An ab roller (an infomercial must-have). A city bike. A mountain bike. A personal trainer. Spinning. Yoga. Martial arts. A bright red punching bag hanging from the basement ceiling that bopped me on the head each time I did laundry as if trying to knock some sense into me.

In between the gym memberships and equipment purchases, there were carb-loading, gluten-free, juicing and high-protein diets. There were mesmerizing monologues on the power of exercise and holier-than-thou rants about the less holier-than-thou. There were "I don't eat bread" pronouncements to bread-basket-waving waiters. There were pants size downgrades. And upgrades. Declarations of determination. Final Sunday pizza dinners. Countless Monday fresh starts. Refrigerator purges. Trips to produce stores. Fish markets. Vitamin shops. Twenty pounds lost. Twenty-five gained. The ecstasy of the endorphin high. The agony of starting from scratch. Again. And again.

There was frustration. As my husband's nothing periods expanded, so did his waist size. Lusting over six-packs had morphed into obsessing about his health. And my sanity. Five, 10, 15 years into our marriage, I still couldn't crack his code. He couldn't be charmed, cajoled or shamed into dieting or gym-going. Where was his sense of panic, guilt, vanity? My mind raced. Didn't he love me enough to take care of himself? Didn't he want to be around for our daughters? Why was he the one who got to let himself go?

"I'm hungry all the time," whined Mark, the brawny, 6-foot tall boyfriend of my über-fit friend Courteney, during my first visit to their apartment. "Courteney won't let me eat," he said, when I noted their sleek but barren refrigerator. Nearly drooling, Mark pointed out the window to the new hamburger place on the corner and sadly said, "I'm not allowed to go."

"For you," Courteney said, handing him a sample-size sliver of pear topped with a speck of cheese. Watching him savor it with the intensity of someone unsure of his next meal, I felt sorry for him but in awe of Courteney's power.

Clearly, I was no Courteney. I could no more carry on a conversation while stair-climbing than convince my man to trade a muffin for a hundred-calorie snack bag. But each time I was ready to accept my impotence and embrace a fuller-figured husband, he'd suddenly shift into "all" mode. Despite myself, I'd get caught up in the excitement. We were a low-fat-cooking, complaining-about-aching-muscles team. This time it would last. I could already picture us as one of those obnoxiously fit, clean-eating, dessert-declining couples. Then, a bad night's sleep, an elbow injury or a too-tempting takeout menu would send him down the slippery slope. Protein powder was chucked. Vegetable juice soured. Lettuce wilted. I was left holding the bag, the weights, the yoga blocks.

Often, I blamed myself. Although I kept a steady exercise routine -- interrupted only by the sporadic supplementation of his equipment castoffs -- I wasn't perfect. An offhand, "How 'bout pizza?" from him, and I'd cave. Why, I'd silently scream as I clutched my bloated post-pizza belly, wasn't I stronger? By indulging my weakness, I'd opened the door to his next downward spiral.

During a prolonged "nothing" spell, a friend encouraged my husband to run a marathon. Uncharacteristically, he followed the slow and steady training protocol. Characteristically, he bought "the best" running shoes, a moisture-wicking wardrobe and countless packs of Gu, an aptly named "energy gel." Raving relentlessly about the race, he was happier than I'd ever seen him. Then, two months before the marathon, he became debilitated by pain and learned that running had destroyed a hip. The marathon was history. Malaise usurped exuberance. Months after a hip-replacement operation and subsequent rehabilitation, he remained disheartened. Dropping even the breeziest of "thinking of exercising" hints seemed cruel.

Old habits, unlike hips, die hard. Poof! My husband woke one day ready to roll. Before I could protest, a giant elliptical trainer arrived -- eclipsing the Zen-like atmosphere of our bedroom. Each night he set the alarm for an early morning workout.

Each morning, when the alarm went off, I mumbled, "Time to use the machine."

"Not happening," he replied before dozing back off. Rolling away from him in anger, my gaze fell on that monstrous machine and my blood boiled. Twelve monthly interest-free payments later, he had used the elliptical three times. Had the "all" morphed into almost nothing?

My patience depleted, I did what any loving, caring and exhausted wife would do: I recruited my young twin daughters into the battle. With little prompting, they pleaded with their father to exercise, gave him the nickname "Fluffy" and suggested he stop eating "Fluff size" portions. When they encouraged him (far from thin but hardly contestant caliber) to join the cast of "The Biggest Loser," it was obvious the students had surpassed their master. "When we're on vacation, I'll start over," he said, finally succumbing to pressure from his progeny. That familiar flutter of hope returned.

-------

"Are you going to help me up or what?" he says from the floor of the hotel room, shaking me out of my walk-down-fitness-lane reverie.

Still tempted to kick some sense into him, I refrain. Instead, I grab my camera and shoot a picture -- "My husband, prone on vacation" -- for posterity. Then, I lie down next to him. Staring at dust balls and UCO (unidentified carpet objects), we laugh hysterically about being floor- not beach-bound, about his endless string of unsolved "injuries" and his museum-worthy collection of exercise paraphernalia. What's the alternative? Give up? Throw in the gym towel? Impossible. My husband might not be the biggest loser, but he's the loser I love. Besides, the 90-day extreme fitness DVD workout he ordered should be waiting for us when we get home. I've got a good feeling about it.




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eories. If the New York Times' ace China correspondent Keith Bradsher is to be believed, China has has halted exports of rare earth elements to Japan, in protest of its neighbor's detention of a Chinese fishing boat captain.

A spokesman for China's Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economics is denying that any such trade embargo exists, but Bradsher's article makes a convincing case that some kind of message has come down from on high to restrict the flow of minerals. Regular readers of HTWW will understand the significance of the move. Rare earth elements play an extraordinarily important role in the high tech, clean energy economy -- as well as advanced military technology such as missile guidance systems.

The Prius, for example, depends heavily on the rare earth elements neodymium and lanthanum. Last year Reuters reported that each Prius motor "requires 1 kilogram (2.2 lb) of neodymium, and each battery uses 10 to 15 kg (22-33 lb) of lanthanum." China controls 90 percent of the production and processing of neodymium.

Japan, Bradsher writes, is sensitive to blockades of key industrial resources, harking back to the U.S. oil embargo that played such a critical role in Japan's decision to attack Pearl Harbor. But the U.S. is also bound to pay close attention. At a time when the U.S. government is stepping up criticism of China for artificially depressing the value of the yuan, and concern about how the country may be flouting international trade rules to grab market share for its solar panel and windmill industries is growing, the indication that China is prepared to use its rare earth dominance as a diplomatic club is alarming. The panda is throwing its weight around.
--


How G.M. helped China to world magnet domination
To get a piece of the Chinese market, the automaker sacrificed important technology and American jobs
BY ANDREW LEONARD

Steven Milne / CC BY 3.0
Can't get enough of those rare earth elements! David Cay Johnston, former New York Times reporter and ace exposer of tax law shenanigans, writes in to remind HTWW that chapter four of his book, "Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (And Stick You With The Bill)," includes the interesting, if disturbing, story about how China ended up with a monopoly on the neodymium-boron magnet industry.

(Readers will recall that neodymium is one of the rare earth elements that the United States no longer has the capacity to process. Neodymium magnets are used in computer hard drives, smart bombs, wind turbines, and hybrid car engines.)

Once upon a time, the U.S. did make neodymium magnets. A subsidiary of General Motors called Magnequench pumped them out, and employed 260 people to do so.

Then in 1995 the automaker decided to sell the division. Because the deal was for only $70 million it attracted little attention. The buyer was a consortium of three firms led by the Sextant Group, an investment company whose principal was Archibald Cox Jr., the son of the Watergate special prosecutor whom President Richard M. Nixon famously fired.

In the few press reports Sextant got most of the notice, but the real parties behind the purchase were a pair of Chinese companies -- San Huan New Material High-Tech Inc. and China National Nonferrous Metals. Both firms were partly owned by the Chinese government. The heads of these two Chinese companies are the husbands of the first and second daughters of Deng Xiaoping, then the paramount leader of China.

Johnson portrays the deal as a quid pro quo. General Motors wanted access to the domestic Chinese auto market, while China wanted to get its hands on militarily significant technology. The new owners were originally required to keep magnet production and technology in the United States for five years after the deal closed, but shortly after the term expired, the U.S. facilities were closed. Now China has an effective monopoly on the production of the raw ore from which neodymium is derived, the processing technologies that produce neodymium, and the manufacturing of neodymium magnets.

Johnston uses this tale as a launching point for how U.S. tax law encourages American corporations to offshore jobs and manufacturing production. HTWW supports vigorous international trade, but Johnston's reporting on how U.S. companies have manipulated tax laws to increase their own profits at the expense of American workers and the U.S. manufacturing base is appalling. And while the nepotistic corruption hinted at by the presence of Deng Xiaoping's family in an immensely important strategic sector of the Chinese economy definitely should give pause to anyone who thinks economic growth in China will lead to more openness, its hard to avoid the conclusion that the Chinese are playing the game of capitalism a lot more adroitly than the U.S.


--
THURSDAY, SEP 23, 2010 18:33 ET
Meg Whitman sees the writing on the Proposition 23 wall
The candidate says she won't vote for the attempt to suspend California's global warming law. But there's a catch
BY ANDREW LEONARD

AP
California Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman
The No on Proposition 23 campaign is trumpeting the news that Meg Whitman, the Republican candidate for governor of California, has announced that she will not endorse the out-of-state oil-company-funded ballot initiative aimed at suspending AB 32, California's Global Warming Solutions Act.

However, Whitman is still calling for a one-year "moratorium" on the implementation of AB 32, which she remains determined to keep calling a "job killer."

"While Proposition 23 does address the job killing aspects of AB 32, it does not offer a sensible balance between our vital need for good jobs and the desire of all Californians to protect our precious environment. It is too simple of a solution for a complex problem. I believe that my plan to fix AB 32 strikes the right balance for California. I will vote "no" on Proposition 23."

Talk about trying to have it both ways! Whitman's campaign has obviously concluded that Proposition 23 is a loser. Ever since she won the Republican primary she's been steering toward the center, and in a tight election in a state where voters take environmental issues seriously, you just don't want to be seen on the same side as out-of-state petrochemical companies.

At the same time, a majority of California Republicans support overturning AB 32. So she's aiming for the best of both worlds -- rejecting Prop. 23, and avoiding getting caught in the crossfire of the millions of dollars that the No on 23 campaign is marshaling for an advertising blitz, but at the same time pledging to protect the state from a "job-killing" law while unemployment hovers at 12.4 percent.

We'll find out whether California voters will buy that classic demonstration of political flimflam in a couple of months. But in the meantime, it seems safe to say that Prop. 23's chances of passing just took a big hit.
--
SL, Now Offering Speeds of 700 Mbps
BY STACEY HIGGINBOTHAM
Huawei, the telecom gear maker, today said it has achieved speeds of 700 Mbps over DSL using a prototype shown in Hong Kong: the fastest DSL we’ve seen. Earlier this year, Alcatel-Lucent showed off 300 Mbps over DSL that could travel for 400 meters one kilometer, because with copper, it’s not just speed, but how far an ISP could deliver those speeds. Huawei has managed its top speed for 400 meters as well.

The race for faster copper may fly in the face of my own personal desire for a fiber-to-the-home connection, but is necessary because of both the prevalence of existing copper networks around the world and the cost of upgrading all of those networks to fiber. Verizon has spent up to $19 billion transitioning to fiber-to-the-home, but it too has halted further expansion to wait for customer demand to keep up. Contrast that with AT&T strategy of upgrading its copper networks with fiber-to-the node, (where it brings fiber to the equipment in the neighborhood, then uses the existing copper to connect to the home.) I’ve called it the slow road to fast broadband, but it’s certainly less risky and much, much cheaper.

Given that many ISPs are content to use their copper until customers are ready to rip it out of the ground and dig their own fiber trenches, Huawei’s advances are a boon to it and to the end consumer who may well be using DSL for the next several decades at this rate. To reach the 700 Mbps speeds, Huawei is relying on what it calls SuperMIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) technology that uses four twisted pairs to achieve its downstream speeds. This technology addresses crosstalk among multiple twisted pairs and increases DSL bandwidth by 75 percent, from an average of 100 Mbps per twisted pair to approximately 175 Mbps.
---

Adds total value of offering in first paragraph.)

Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Petroleo Brasileiro SA, the state- controlled oil company, raised 120.4 billion reais ($70 billion) from the Brazilian government and other investors in the world’s largest share sale.

Petrobras, based in Rio de Janeiro, priced its Brazilian common shares at 29.65 reais each, according to a regulatory filing from the company today. The company’s preferred shares are being priced at 26.30 reais each.

The company is selling stock to fund development of offshore oil fields such as Tupi, the largest discovery in the Americas in three decades, and to preserve its investment grade credit rating. As part of the share sale, Petrobras issued about $42.5 billion of stock to Brazil’s government in exchange for the rights to develop 5 billion barrels of oil reserves.

The company sold 1.87 billion preferred shares and 2.4 billion common stock in the offering today. Including supplementary and additional over-allotments, Petrobras had said it would sell as many as 1.98 billion preferred shares and 2.72 billion common shares.

Before the offering, Brazil’s government owned a 32 percent stake in Petrobras and controlled the company through 55.6 percent of voting shares. The sale will probably lead to an increase in the government’s stake, the company said in a Sept. 3 prospectu
--



olar Power: Brighter Long-Term Investment Outlook
Energy standards requiring U.S. utilities to use solar power could drive growth for companies ranging from inverter makers to installation financiers

By David Bogoslaw

With utilities adopting standards to increase the amount of solar-generated electricity in coming years, the U.S. could bolster its presence in the global solar-power market. The quickening growth pace could present attractive opportunities for investors, according to some professionals.

At the end of 2009, the U.S. ranked fourth in total solar capacity, with 2.09 gigawatts installed, behind Germany with 9.79Gw, Spain with 4.01Gw, and Japan with 2.68Gw, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. With U.S. installed capacity growing at a faster pace than that of the international market, the country may be on track to become a more dominant market by 2014, according to Larry Sherwood, an analyst at the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC).

Some 23Gw of solar capacity are under development in the U.S., enough to provide electricity for 4.4 million households, according to the Solar Energy Industries Assn. (SEIA). Solar demand in the U.S. is expected to grow 75 percent in 2011, compared with 2010. About 1.5Gw to 2.0Gw of capacity—1.36Gw in California alone—is scheduled to be installed next year.

One factor could snarl that time line: the expiration of federal incentives, specifically the Treasury Dept.'s cash grant program, which currently covers 30 percent of a project's costs, as long as construction has begun by the end of 2010. SEIA and other groups are pushing to have the qualifying construction start date extended by two years, to the end of 2012. Members of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee didn't return calls asking when they would vote on extending the program. Kaufman Brothers said in an Aug. 17 research note that the firm didn't expect a major decision on solar incentives until after the fall U.S. elections.

U.S. FOCUS ON UTILITY-SCALE SOLAR
The diversion of $3.5 billion from the Energy Dept.'s Loan Guarantee Program to other stimulus projects—and uncertainty as to whether any of the money will be restored—is also delaying some projects. Indeed, the main reason the U.S. solar market lags Europe's is that the federal government has consistently failed to commit to a long-term policy offering financial incentives to power providers, without which solar can't yet compete with such cheaper sources of electric generation as coal and natural gas.

While Europe is moving toward smaller rooftop installation, utility-scale projects are fast becoming the focus in the U.S. and are the most likely way for the U.S. to catch up with the leading solar markets. Photovoltaic panel makers FirstSolar (FSLR) and SunPower (SPWRA) have large pipelines of utility-scale projects and will be dominant players in the U.S., starting in 2011, says Matthew Page, one of the managers of the Guinness Atkinson Alternative Energy Fund (GAAEX).

With so much uncertainty surrounding incentives at home and overseas, the fact that more countries are adopting renewable energy standards and planning to build solar plants has analysts and some fund managers feeling more confident about the industry. "I'm bullish on solar because the market is no longer dominated by two or three countries," says Jeff Osborne, an analyst who covers clean energy stocks at Stifel Nicolaus (SF). "Morocco said in 2009 that it wanted to build 2Gw of solar." Utilities in Eastern Europe, he adds, are eager to diversify their energy sources to reduce their exposure to periodic supply disruptions from Russia's Gazprom (OGZPY:US), which provides roughly 25 percent of Europe's natural gas needs.

Solar's brighter future has some investment pros seeking opportunities beyond manufacturers of photovoltaic solar panels. Page at Guinness Atkinson recommends investing in stocks likely to benefit, no matter where solar demand is strongest. Page likes SMA Solar (S92:GR), a German producer of inverters, which convert the direct current produced by solar and wind into alternating current that can be used on the grid.

SATCON'S UTILITY-SCALE INVERTERS
The bigger the installation, the more important the inverter that enables a connection to the grid, says Osborne at Stifel Nicolaus.

While SMA Solar dominates the inverter market, Satcon Technology (SATC) is the largest manufacturer of utility-scale inverters, whose importance is sure to grow as the U.S. market moves toward utility-scale systems. While Satcon continues to report net losses, its revenue tripled from a year earlier, to $27.6 million in the second quarter. Some 45 percent of that volume derived from Europe, vs. nearly all its demand coming from North America a year earlier. The company's "geographic diversification is also reflected in its record backlog of $111 million," 20 percent of which comes from Europe, with another 33 percent coming from Asia, according to an Aug. 6 research note by Raymond James & Co. (RJF). The total backlog has grown 35 percent since June 30. Satcon has announced plans to build annual production capacity from 1Gw now, to 1.25Gw by the end of 2010, and to 1.75Gw in 2011.

Much of Satcon's revenue growth and gross margin expansion, bolstered by a recent shift to lower-cost manufacturing in China, is being offset by higher fixed costs necessitated by international expansion and a bigger workforce, said Raymond James, which still expects the company to post net losses through 2011. The red ink didn't stop Osborne at Stifel from upgrading the stock on July 27 to buy, from hold, citing improving margins and prospects for market share expansion.

The transformation of the U.S. market from rooftop to utility-scale systems is also expected to benefit Power-One (PWER) and Advanced Energy Industries (AEIS), which also make inverters. Dougherty & Co. estimated in a July 30 research note that Power-One's total renewable energy backlog increased by more than $500 million, compared with the first quarter, and is now over $900 million, the equivalent of 3.2Gw to 3.5Gw in shipments. The fast-growing inverter business introduces "a compelling growth aspect to an otherwise cyclical semiconductor capital equipment stock," giving the company more potential than other semiconductor makers to branch into adjacent segments such as solar over the long term, Pacific Crest Securities said in an Aug. 12 note.

KEY ROLE FOR CAPITAL EQUIPMENT MAKERS
Another company that is expected to do well regardless of where demand is strongest is STR Holdings (STRI), which makes adhesive encapsulants, the ethylene vinyl acetate sheets used to weatherproof solar panels and prevent yellowing. Demand for STR's products is strong, with half the world's solar panel makers signed up to use them, says Page at Guinness Atkinson. The company's net sales for the second quarter rose 126 percent from a year earlier, to $67 million, and were up more than 22 percent from the first quarter.

Capital equipment makers are also a fairly safe bet, with attractive returns on invested capital, says Osborne. Applied Materials (AMAT) and GT Solar (SOLR) both make the semiconductor equipment that deposits chemicals on large polysilicon cell surfaces. Applied Materials also makes equipment that cuts silicon wafers, while GT Solar makes polysilicon and wafers. Osborne sees them as "the arms merchants to the sector," which is attracting new customers in such countries as Korea and India.

If utility-scale installations grow as analysts expect, photovoltaic technologies will in time be outshone by concentrated solar thermal power, or CSP, which uses rotating mirrors to reflect the sun toward parabolic troughs carrying a liquid heat conductor or to so-called "power towers" with hot water boilers on top. The concentrated sunlight superheats the liquid heat conductor or the water, producing steam that drives turbines and generates electricity.

The companies that make materials for solar thermal installations such as mirrors and receiver tubes are now privately held. Turbines are made by public companies, however, and Siemens (SI) is one manufacturer whose turbine orders may increase as solar thermal power gets commercialized. BrightSource Energy, the privately held developer of Ivanpah, a 392-megawatt complex consisting of three CSP plants in California, is using Siemens turbines; the first of those plants is scheduled to begin operation in 2012.

BY 2020, 6GW OF SOLAR CAPACITY
Still, photovoltaic systems are the backbone of the U.S. market, now and for the foreseeable future. In the U.S., 29 states and Washington now have mandatory Renewable Portfolio Standards, while a further six states have set voluntary goals. Most of the solar development is occurring in the 16 states that have "carve-outs," which establish a minimum percentage of electricity that retailers must provide from solar or distributed generation by a certain date, says Justin Barnes, a policy analyst for the Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency (DSIRE).

Total capacity for grid-connected PV installations was 1.26Gw at the end of 2009. Total solar capacity must reach 6Gw by 2020, and 9.5Gw by 2025, in order for the 16 states with solar carve-outs to meet their targets, according to projections by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which is part of the U.S. Energy Dept. That's expected to be a key driver of revenue growth for manufacturers of PV panels and related materials.

Apart from companies that serve the PV panel market, there isn't yet much of a solar industry for retail investors to buy into. That will change in the next couple of years, says Nancy Pfund, a managing partner at DBL Investors, a San Francisco venture capital firm that was spun out of a JPMorgan equity fund in 2008 and which has invested in the Ivanpah complex. "There's going to be a lot more choice very soon," she says, citing the coming of gigawatt-sized solar projects by 2016.

Eventually, manufacturers of solar mirrors used in CSP plants will either go public or be acquired by public companies, she says. She foresees the same trajectory for makers of concentrated photovoltaics, which boost the efficiency of energy conversion from silicon on the panels by focusing on how the silicon is arranged alongside glass.

SOLAR FINANCING OPTIONS
Solar installation financing is another potentially big area for investment, Pfund believes. She sits on the board of SolarCity, the only full-service solar installation company in the U.S. In January, SolarCity signed a deal with Pacific Gas & Electric (PCG) under which the California utility will provide $60 million in tax equity financing for solar installations in U.S. homes and businesses in exchange for lease revenue from SolarCity customers, as well as federal investment tax credits and local rebates. SolarCity's financing options let homeowners and businesses switch to solar power with no up-front investment, so they can start saving on energy costs right away. The company's goal is to be a national brand and become publicly traded, although that's a few years away, says Pfund.

Banks such as Rabobank have also begun to establish tax equity funds. As solar energy becomes more prevalent, Pfund believes more utilities will be attracted to the financing model in order to avoid losing some of their biggest customers, who will move to solar because of how much power they consume.

Investors need to maintain a lengthy time horizon in betting on the growth of the solar industry, says Mark Burger, a principal at Kestrel Development, a consulting firm for renewable energy policy, markets, and technologies.

Solar is "the new 30-year Treasury bond," Burger says. "It's a nice, conservative investment. And you'll get a better return than owning a Treasury bond."
--
O GUIDE TO TECHNOLOGY July 6, 2010, 11:56PM EST
Apple's iPad Wins Corporate Converts at Wells Fargo, SAP
The tablet computer, designed for video and book-reading, is making inroads at companies as varied as SAP and Mercedes-Benz

By Rachael King

Wells Fargo (WFC) spent two years studying the iPhone before letting bankers use the device at work. Apple's (AAPL) iPad, released in April, took just weeks to get cleared.

This time around, safeguards against security breaches are stronger from the start, according to Megan Minich, a senior vice-president at the San Francisco-based bank. Her colleagues used two of the first shipment of 15 iPads to demonstrate financial products at an investor conference in May. More are on the way, Minich says. "We've got a bunch ordered that we can't get yet," she says in an interview.

Apple, known for courting consumers with sleek designs and easy-to-use software, is making inroads with corporations that say the iPad can make workers more productive without putting sensitive customer information at risk. SAP (SAP), Tellabs (TLAB), and Daimler's (DAI:GR) Mercedes-Benz are using the tablet-style computer for tasks as varied as accessing work e-mail, approving shipping orders, and calling up on-the-spot auto-finance options.

Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs announced the iPad in January, touting its ability to deliver games, video, music, Web access, and digital versions of books and magazines. Yet companies say it's widely applicable at work, too. "This iPad thing has taken the world by storm," says Ted Schadler, vice-president and principal analyst at Forrester Research (FORR) and author of Empowered, which explores how employees use new technologies. "It came in as a consumer product and very quickly the people who actually bought them were businesspeople."

BUSINESS "EXPERIMENTATION"
Last month, Apple said it sold 3 million iPads within 80 days of its release. The company may sell 9.7 million iPads in 2010, says Shaw Wu, an analyst at Kaufman Brothers in San Francisco. More than half—52 percent—of 770 smartphone users surveyed by Zogby International said they would most likely use a tablet device like the iPad to do work. The study, commissioned by Sybase (SY), was released Mar. 23. "A lot of businesses right now are in experimentation with these devices," says Dan Shey, practice director for enterprise at ABI Research, which is based in Oyster Bay, N.Y.

Many companies may keep their distance from tablet-style computers, which boast smaller screens and won't let businesspeople switch back and forth between tasks as quickly as bigger machines. Apple rivals including Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Cisco Systems (CSCO) are getting into tablets, too—so the iPad maker's lead may narrow.

For now, workplace adoption of the iPad stands to benefit Apple while undermining rival makers of computers that run Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows operating system. Many companies initially chafed at letting employees use iPhones for business amid concerns that it may not keep corporate data secure. That resistance ebbed after Apple in 2008 released a version of iPhone software with beefed-up security and better support for corporate e-mail. Similarly, a growing number of companies have begun letting employees use Apple's Macintosh computers in addition to, or in place of, Windows-based PCs. Apple spokesman Simon Pope declined to comment, referring instead to remarks by Jobs, who said on May 31 that "customers around the world are experiencing the magic of iPad."

With their smaller screens, inability to multitask, and lack of keyboards, tablets may not soon replace bigger computers for many work-related tasks. The iPad's display, for example, is 9.7 inches (25 centimeters). By 2015, less than one-fourth of personal computers sold will be tablet-style, Forrester says.

COMPETITION'S COMING
As popular as the iPad may be for businesses now, it may soon face competition from rivals including Hewlett-Packard, Dell (DELL), LG Electronics (066570:KS), and Samsung Electronics (005930:KS), which plan their own tablet computers. Cisco said on June 29 it too will release a tablet that will be able to handle high-definition videoconferencing and may be available in early 2011.

Some companies may also be reluctant to entrust their data to the iPad after a breach on the AT&T (T) website revealed the e-mail addresses of as many as 114,000 iPad users. Apple takes pains to keep its products secure in part by carefully vetting the applications that can be downloaded onto it. Still, the process is "not foolproof, it will be subverted eventually," says Mikko Hyppönen, chief research officer of Helsinki-based security firm F-Secure.

Reservations aside, Wells Fargo saw early on how quickly the iPad might take hold among business clients the weekend the device was released. Finance executives of large companies—those that generate more than $50 million in revenue—accessed corporate Wells Fargo accounts with iPads, says Amy Johnson, a Wells Fargo vice-president who works on the company's online portal and mobile strategy. A finance official or account representative could use a mobile device like the iPad to approve multimillion-dollar wire transfers, she explains.

Johnson used one of the iPads bought by Wells Fargo to demonstrate financial products during a May 13-14 conference. She says she now carries the iPad with her everywhere.

VERSATILE TOOL
The same goes for Rob Enslin, North America president at SAP, the world's largest maker of business-management software. Enslin says that when he travels, the only device he carries besides a Research In Motion (RIMM) BlackBerry is the iPad. "It's allowed me to almost run a paperless office," says Enslin, who uses it to access business applications, briefing documents, customer information, and other data.

SAP, based in Walldorf, Germany, also works with clients to put its products on mobile devices including the iPad. Tellabs, for instance, collaborated with SAP and Sybase on an iPad application that lets managers more quickly approve shipping of customer orders. "We also have three or four different applications lined up behind this that will help us with better inventory control," says Jean Holley, chief information officer at Tellabs, based in Naperville, Ill.

Other companies using the iPad at work include Daimler's Mercedes-Benz. Sales representatives in 40 U.S. dealerships in late May began using iPads on showroom floors to order on-the-spot financing options for customers, says Andreas Hinrichs, vice-president of marketing at Mercedes-Benz Financial. In October, Mercedes-Benz had released an application for the iPhone that lets customers manage accounts and make payments. Up to now, customers have made $5 million in car payments through the application, Hinrichs says. The company now is considering doling out iPads to all of its 350 U.S. dealerships.

At Wells Fargo, Minich is waiting for an iPad after her boss made off with the one she expected to be assigned to her.
--
ple's iPad Wins Corporate Converts at Wells Fargo, SAP
The tablet computer, designed for video and book-reading, is making inroads at companies as varied as SAP and Mercedes-Benz

By Rachael King

Wells Fargo (WFC) spent two years studying the iPhone before letting bankers use the device at work. Apple's (AAPL) iPad, released in April, took just weeks to get cleared.

This time around, safeguards against security breaches are stronger from the start, according to Megan Minich, a senior vice-president at the San Francisco-based bank. Her colleagues used two of the first shipment of 15 iPads to demonstrate financial products at an investor conference in May. More are on the way, Minich says. "We've got a bunch ordered that we can't get yet," she says in an interview.

Apple, known for courting consumers with sleek designs and easy-to-use software, is making inroads with corporations that say the iPad can make workers more productive without putting sensitive customer information at risk. SAP (SAP), Tellabs (TLAB), and Daimler's (DAI:GR) Mercedes-Benz are using the tablet-style computer for tasks as varied as accessing work e-mail, approving shipping orders, and calling up on-the-spot auto-finance options.

Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs announced the iPad in January, touting its ability to deliver games, video, music, Web access, and digital versions of books and magazines. Yet companies say it's widely applicable at work, too. "This iPad thing has taken the world by storm," says Ted Schadler, vice-president and principal analyst at Forrester Research (FORR) and author of Empowered, which explores how employees use new technologies. "It came in as a consumer product and very quickly the people who actually bought them were businesspeople."

BUSINESS "EXPERIMENTATION"
Last month, Apple said it sold 3 million iPads within 80 days of its release. The company may sell 9.7 million iPads in 2010, says Shaw Wu, an analyst at Kaufman Brothers in San Francisco. More than half—52 percent—of 770 smartphone users surveyed by Zogby International said they would most likely use a tablet device like the iPad to do work. The study, commissioned by Sybase (SY), was released Mar. 23. "A lot of businesses right now are in experimentation with these devices," says Dan Shey, practice director for enterprise at ABI Research, which is based in Oyster Bay, N.Y.

Many companies may keep their distance from tablet-style computers, which boast smaller screens and won't let businesspeople switch back and forth between tasks as quickly as bigger machines. Apple rivals including Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Cisco Systems (CSCO) are getting into tablets, too—so the iPad maker's lead may narrow.

For now, workplace adoption of the iPad stands to benefit Apple while undermining rival makers of computers that run Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows operating system. Many companies initially chafed at letting employees use iPhones for business amid concerns that it may not keep corporate data secure. That resistance ebbed after Apple in 2008 released a version of iPhone software with beefed-up security and better support for corporate e-mail. Similarly, a growing number of companies have begun letting employees use Apple's Macintosh computers in addition to, or in place of, Windows-based PCs. Apple spokesman Simon Pope declined to comment, referring instead to remarks by Jobs, who said on May 31 that "customers around the world are experiencing the magic of iPad."

With their smaller screens, inability to multitask, and lack of keyboards, tablets may not soon replace bigger computers for many work-related tasks. The iPad's display, for example, is 9.7 inches (25 centimeters). By 2015, less than one-fourth of personal computers sold will be tablet-style, Forrester says.

COMPETITION'S COMING
As popular as the iPad may be for businesses now, it may soon face competition from rivals including Hewlett-Packard, Dell (DELL), LG Electronics (066570:KS), and Samsung Electronics (005930:KS), which plan their own tablet computers. Cisco said on June 29 it too will release a tablet that will be able to handle high-definition videoconferencing and may be available in early 2011.

Some companies may also be reluctant to entrust their data to the iPad after a breach on the AT&T (T) website revealed the e-mail addresses of as many as 114,000 iPad users. Apple takes pains to keep its products secure in part by carefully vetting the applications that can be downloaded onto it. Still, the process is "not foolproof, it will be subverted eventually," says Mikko Hyppönen, chief research officer of Helsinki-based security firm F-Secure.

Reservations aside, Wells Fargo saw early on how quickly the iPad might take hold among business clients the weekend the device was released. Finance executives of large companies—those that generate more than $50 million in revenue—accessed corporate Wells Fargo accounts with iPads, says Amy Johnson, a Wells Fargo vice-president who works on the company's online portal and mobile strategy. A finance official or account representative could use a mobile device like the iPad to approve multimillion-dollar wire transfers, she explains.

Johnson used one of the iPads bought by Wells Fargo to demonstrate financial products during a May 13-14 conference. She says she now carries the iPad with her everywhere.

VERSATILE TOOL
The same goes for Rob Enslin, North America president at SAP, the world's largest maker of business-management software. Enslin says that when he travels, the only device he carries besides a Research In Motion (RIMM) BlackBerry is the iPad. "It's allowed me to almost run a paperless office," says Enslin, who uses it to access business applications, briefing documents, customer information, and other data.

SAP, based in Walldorf, Germany, also works with clients to put its products on mobile devices including the iPad. Tellabs, for instance, collaborated with SAP and Sybase on an iPad application that lets managers more quickly approve shipping of customer orders. "We also have three or four different applications lined up behind this that will help us with better inventory control," says Jean Holley, chief information officer at Tellabs, based in Naperville, Ill.

Other companies using the iPad at work include Daimler's Mercedes-Benz. Sales representatives in 40 U.S. dealerships in late May began using iPads on showroom floors to order on-the-spot financing options for customers, says Andreas Hinrichs, vice-president of marketing at Mercedes-Benz Financial. In October, Mercedes-Benz had released an application for the iPhone that lets customers manage accounts and make payments. Up to now, customers have made $5 million in car payments through the application, Hinrichs says. The company now is considering doling out iPads to all of its 350 U.S. dealerships.

At Wells Fargo, Minich is waiting for an iPad after her boss made off with the one she expected to be assigned to her.
--

Tim Markley recently ordered three Apple (AAPL) iPads for his warehouse. He put them on the forklift and the carts that workers push down aisles while they pull items off the shelves to fill orders. Previously, employees would carry lists (on paper) and once they completed an order they'd find a computer on the 20,000-square-foot warehouse floor to update the inventory database. That meant a lot of time spent walking around looking for a computer, then entering data—not filling orders. "In a warehouse, your travel time to pick orders is 50 percent of an employee's time," says Markley, president of Elkhart (Ind.)-based Markley Enterprise, a 75-person firm that designs marketing displays for stores and trade shows. "We put pedometers on our people and we actually saw steps decrease by 30 percent with the iPad," he says. Another benefit: Markley now e-mails orders to each iPad, eliminating the need for paper.

Markley isn't the only small business owner to embrace the iPad. Others have begun experimenting with the lightweight tablet computer, using it to outfit delivery staff and salespeople, as well as to dramatically reduce the amount of paper used. At the Rydges Hotel in Sydney, Australia, diners are handed iPads instead of more traditional menus. In New York City, De Berardinis Salon gives clients iPads rather than magazines to keep them entertained during beauty treatments.

As a device to cut down on paper costs, there's certainly a large market for the iPad. In the U.S., companies spent about $8 billion on paper in 2007, not counting costs for ink or toner, according to John Maine, an analyst with RISI, which tracks the global forest products industry. Copier giant Xerox (XRX) estimated that for every dollar spent on printing documents, companies pay an additional $6 in handling and distribution costs.

DELIVERY DEVICE
No wonder going paperless can save a small company a small fortune—if they use a lot of paper. Arhaus Furniture estimates it will save $100,000 in paper costs annually when it gives its 50 drivers iPads to use when delivering furniture from its stores. Arhaus uses software from TOA Technologies to track drivers on their routes and to predict within a one-hour window when they will arrive at a customer's home. TOA is now creating an iPad app for Arhaus.

"The unique features of the iPad are the ability to use the built-in GPS function and the ability to collect electronic signatures," says Irad Carmi, co-founder of TOA Technologies, adding that the size of the device is just right for drivers to carry. TOA may add a piece to the app that lets Arhaus drivers show customers photos from the catalog so they can sell accessories during the delivery process. Arhaus wants to have its drivers equipped with iPads in time for the holiday season.

Some small business owners say that the combination of the device's ease of use, always-on capabilities, and large screen size could help them improve business processes. That is, if there's an app—or someone willing to write one—that will let them streamline current operations.

"In the long term, it [the success of the iPad as a small business tool] is going to be very dependent on the availability of apps," says Dan Shey, an analyst with ABI Research, which forecasts trends in communications and emerging technology. "Some of these devices are going to be designed so they are specific to a worker's task, almost like an appliance," he adds.

To make the iPad work, Markley needed an application that would properly display data from an online order-management service on the iPad's large screen. He didn't want to create his own app, so after a thorough search of Apple's App Store he finally found one for $1.99 written by a Japanese developer. "For years, we've used Apple products and that's put us at a disadvantage because most [business software] is written for PCs," says Markley. The iPad may be changing that.

--
SMART GRID TECHNOLOGY October 5, 2009, 7:28PM EST
Making Meters Smarter, Home by Home
California's PG&E is installing two-way meters in 5 million homes, but consumers aren't yet convinced it will save them money

By Rachael King

A sweeping overhaul is coming to the 157,000 miles of high-voltage electric transmission lines that crisscross the U.S., delivering energy to 130 million homes. But the changes are happening one laptop-sized machine at a time.

These small computers, being installed in homes and businesses around the country, will essentially create a two-way line of communication between energy consumers and the utility providers that dispense power. Known as smart meters, they're designed to give users greater control over electricity bills while helping power companies better manage fluctuating electricity demand. But the verdict remains out on just how much they're helping end users trim bills.

In the most ambitious deployment yet, California utility Pacific Gas & Electric (PCG) has installed 3.6 million smart meters across its territory in the northern part of the state. PG&E is spending $2.2 billion to install a total of 5 million advanced digital electric meters from Silver Spring Networks in its operating territory, the northern and central part of the state, by 2012. Each day the company installs 12,000 to 15,000 meters.

CONSUMERS: SMART METERS, HIGHER BILLS
Unlike conventional residential meters that let utilities charge a single rate regardless of the time of day, smart meters let power companies charge varying rates, based on demand. For example, demand peaks between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. when people return from work and start to make dinner, so utilities could charge a higher rate to give customers an incentive to run appliances such as clothes dryers at a different time of day. "Right now the only reason you would not use electricity between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. is because you're being a good citizen; there's no economic incentive," says Andrew Tang , senior director of PG&E's smart-energy Web division.

Smart meters and variable pricing would give consumers the added incentive of saving money, PG&E says. Yet some customers have complained that they've seen only markedly higher bills since they had smart meters installed, according to California State Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez. To that end, Florez held a hearing on Monday, Oct. 5, in Bakersfield to hear from concerned consumers, utilities PG&E and Southern California Edison, and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) about complaints since the devices were installed.

After looking into thousands of accounts, PG&E says it found that most customers in Bakersfield who contacted the utility this summer with concerns about bills are suffering the combined effects of exceptionally hot weather and two rate increases that took effect in March and last October, says PG&E spokesman Paul Moreno.

ENERGY CRISIS PUT PG&E IN BANKRUPTCY
The utility has come a long way in the past decade when it comes to energy-efficiency programs that give consumers incentives to use less energy. PG&E learned some hard lessons during the electricity shortage of 2000-2001, which left hundreds of thousands of California residents without power. "The need to put in smart meters stemmed from the energy crisis in the 2001 time frame," says PG&E's Tang.

The California energy crisis had several causes. Primarily, there weren't enough power plants to keep up with demand that had surged amid strong economic growth and unusually warm weather. To meet demand, PG&E and other utilities had to buy electricity from outside suppliers at high rates. But thanks to consumer rate freezes imposed by the state, utilities couldn't pass along those increased costs, according to a report by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Skyrocketing wholesale prices led PG&E to file for bankruptcy protection on Apr. 6, 2001. The company exited Chapter 11 three years later.

Since then, PG&E and the CPUC have been looking for ways to promote energy efficiency and conservation. PG&E has started so-called demand-response programs that give corporate customers financial incentives to use less energy during the 15 hottest days of the year, Tang says. Those programs require sophisticated meters that can read energy consumption in time increments as small as 15-minute blocks. Since the meters are expensive, they were initially used only by corporations.

ENERGY- AND COST-SAVING DEVICE APPS
Five years ago, the CPUC asked PG&E to see whether it could build a business case for installing these meters in consumers' homes. PG&E started with a technology called automated meter reading, which was a way for the company to simply read customer meters remotely, without dispatching employees to travel door-to-door each month. That has since evolved to something known as advanced metering infrastructure—essentially smart meters capable of two-way digital communication with the utility.

These smart meters will serve as a bridge to home networks that will eventually include dishwashers, washing machines, air conditioners, and other appliances. A chip in the smart meter will let third-party developers create software to build products and services that take advantage of that two-way communication with the utility—such as dishwashers that can be programmed to run only when rates are below a certain threshold, Tang says.

For example, there are already electric-based clothes dryers that can respond to a price signal, says Tang. When prices are high, they turn off the heating cycle and increase the spin cycle. By doing so, "they eliminate 95% of the electricity consumption," he says.

But first, advanced appliances will need to be more widely available—and before that, smart meters more broadly deployed.
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The Smart Grid Needs Smart Regulations
Coming federal stimulus billions meant to spark the power grid's overhaul will miss their mark without state incentives to boost efficiency

By David J. Leeds

It's the night before Christmas in the energy sector, with the Energy Dept. expected to announce $4.5 billion in federal stimulus awards soon for projects aimed at ushering in the smart grid. The aim of the money is a far-reaching upgrade of the system that distributes energy to homes and businesses across the U.S., adding two-way communications and control technologies throughout the newly networked grid.

But those investments may have little impact if they're not accompanied by new state-level regulations that give both utilities and customers strong incentives to better manage and reduce their electricity consumption.

The first area in need of change is how utilities are compensated. An electric utility's revenue is tied primarily to the amount of power it sells. That was fine 50 years ago, in a world with seemingly unlimited resources and little evidence of climate change, but not today. As it stands, utilities have little motivation, if any, to encourage customers to find ways to reduce demand or to practice energy efficiency themselves—two core tenets of the smart-grid vision.

To encourage utilities to foster energy efficiency, we'll need regulations that establish new rate structures and business models. These will create incentives for utilities to earn revenue in ways that are not entirely linked to additional sales. Otherwise, asking a utility to sell less power is analogous to asking Starbucks (SBUX) to sell less coffee. Furthermore, since utilities are granted monopolies at regulated rates, a reduction in sales is equivalent to demand (and profit) destruction.

FROM DEMAND DESTRUCTION TO DEMAND RESPONSE
Smart grids aim to replace demand destruction with a practice called demand response. Utilities intentionally reduce overall demand by sending signals to customers to turn down energy use in exchange for financial rewards. For example, a utility might offer a discount to users who run their dishwashers in other than peak-demand hours.

The second challenge is overcoming the user's passive relationship to energy. In the U.S., customers have long been numb to energy costs because prices were dirt cheap. This resulted from flat rates that didn't really express the true, variable costs of energy generation and delivery. However, significant increases in the cost of electricity are coming, and fast. According to the Energy Dept., electricity prices are forecast to rise 50% over the next seven years, while the Energy Information Administration, which compiles energy statistics for the government, expects nationwide demand for electricity to grow by 30% by 2030.

The reform needed to encourage consumer energy management: eliminating the single fixed retail rate for electricity. Until dynamic rates that reflect current market conditions are implemented, smart-grid technologies such as smart meters and smart appliances, and home-energy management systems like those being developed by Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT), will have little effect in altering consumer power usage. Customers will have no impetus to shift their consumption to off-peak hours. A smart meter without a smart rate schedule is not smart at all.

Just because the cost of electricity per kilowatt-hour will jump doesn't mean a customer's bill has to rise. If a single customer is willing to shift demand from peak to off-peak (when more, and thus cheaper, supply is available), that change can cut costs for all parties, including the utility and every other customer. But today those savings are not passed on, providing no incentive to curb energy use. The win-win-win (for the utility, the consumer, and society at large) will not be created until dynamic prices are introduced.

FIFTY PUBLIC UTILITY COMMISSIONS
The elephant in the room in initiating what will be a paradigm shift in the electric power market is that the federal government can't currently address these regulatory issues. The fact is that each state's public utility commission (PUC) regulates the retail price of electricity and rate of return a utility will earn. Therefore, these changes cannot be made with the stroke of one pen but will need approval by 50 different PUCs. The good news is that PUCs are responding to the Energy Dept.'s statements about the need to explore dynamic pricing and new business models that reward demand-response initiatives. As an example, the Ohio PUC recently announced it will give Duke Energy (DUK) incentives to put energy-efficiency programs in place.

This is the promise of the smart grid: moving from demand destruction to value creation. While utilities may be loath to reinvent a business model that has served them for decades, the revolution in information technology that has transformed other industries—such as desktop computing, enterprise networking, and wireless communications—will have a similar effect on the electric-power business. The smart grid, which in large part sits at the intersection of energy, IT, and telecommunications, is a market that, according to John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems (CSCO), "may be bigger than the whole Internet."

At Greentech Media, we interact every day with startups and utilities that envision energy marketed less as a commodity and more as a suite of services. Just as cell-phone plans now bundle voice, SMS, and data, the smart grid will lead to energy-pricing plans that include basic service plus add-ons such as smart charging of electric vehicles during off-peak hours, distributed renewable energy services, and countless other new services and applications. The Energy Dept. stimulus represents a massive investment in the smart grid, but technology can only take us so far. There's plenty of money to be made, but we can't go from iPhone to iHome, from Facebook to Gridbook, without the right state policies.
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labNet Fosters Group Innovation in the 'Cloud'
From corporations to the U.S. Defense Dept., organizations are embracing a new software tool that facilitates remote collaboration and communication

By Jennifer L. Schenker

Open-source software pioneer Brian Behlendorf, who sports a ponytail and organized an online music site called SFRaves, is the unlikely architect of a new technology being embraced by the U.S. Defense Dept.

The DOD has started using technology from CollabNet, a Brisbane, Calif., company that Behlendorf co-founded with Bill Portelli, another open-source veteran, to provide an online meeting place in the Internet "cloud" for U.S. military agencies to build software through "crowdsourcing".

Parceling out computing tasks and storage to remote servers across the Internet, rather than to local desktop PCs or an organization's own servers, is referred to as "cloud. The emerging technology—as well as the groupthink open-innovation model called "crowdsourcing—is catching on not only with corporations such as Deutsche Bank (DB) but also with even more staid customers such as the DOD.

The Pentagon's most active CollabNet project is a new military meeting place in the cloud called Forge.mil. It's an online service that will let the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other senior defense officials use Web 2.0 mash-up tools in times of crisis to confer quickly and share a common picture of a situation. The service brings together Web conferencing, instant messaging, geospatial mapping information, and data feeds from intelligence agencies, the Homeland Security Dept., and other sources. Think of it as a souped-up portal for generals, with a decidedly unsexy name: the National Senior Leader Decision Support System (NSLDSS).

BEHLENDORF LED APACHE SERVER PROJECT
CollabNet is one of 26 companies named on Dec. 3 by the World Economic Forum as 2010 Tech Pioneers that have dreamed up new technologies or business models that could advance the global economy and have a positive impact on peoples' lives.

Software development has been moving for some time away from a traditional "silo" approach, in which companies acted on their own to build standalone systems, toward a more distributed and shared model. Indeed, one secret of CollabNet's success can be found in the Apache open-source Web server project in the 1990s that Behlendorf is credited with having led. The free software was developed by a very small set of software programmers—most of whom never met each other—collaborating around the world. It managed to quickly seize the leading Web server market position away from giants IBM (IBM) and Microsoft (MSFT). (CollabNet itself is also competing in a sense with collaboration tools from both companies, IBM's Lotus Notes and Microsoft's Sharepoint.)

When Behlendorf and Portelli started CollabNet in 1999, they aimed to harness the same open-source model. It turned out that the success of Apache wasn't due so much to its low cost as to the fact that its development (and continued improvement) tapped into the collective intelligence of a global community of mainly volunteer developers. So they set out to create a set of tools for companies and governments that would facilitate a similar sort of collective software development. Behlendorf served as CollabNet's chief technology officer until 2007, and now maintains an active role on the company's board.

Today, CollabNet has more than 800 customers, with over 2 million users in more than 100 countries. The company generates subscription revenue through software licensing, as well as fees earned for support, services, and add-ons for its software.

FORGE.MIL: 3,700 USERS, 160 PROJECTS
The Pentagon started talking to CollabNet about building this sort of system in 2002. Progress was slow until about 15 months ago, when two things changed, says CollabNet chief executive Portelli. First, the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), the Defense Dept. agency responsible for providing IT and communications services to the White House and the military, was encouraged to move in this direction under the Obama Administration, says Portelli. Secondly, the "notion of centralized cloud computing has became an accepted and understood way of doing software development and deployment," he says. "So the path to reducing the cost of developing defense weapons and supporting IT systems in DOD became clear."

Portelli is no stranger to the Defense Dept. In a previous job he helped streamline the economics of building F-22 fighter planes in the 1980s by introducing the DOD to the benefits of simulation software.

The Pentagon contracted with CollabNet to build Forge.mil in order to build better software faster and cut costs, says Rob Vietmeyer, project director of Forge.mil, which is operated by DISA. The secured site, accessible by DOD personnel and supporting contractors, has 3,700 registered users involved in some 160 projects.

Forge.mil not only helps software developers collaborate, it also aims to cut down on duplication of IT efforts in military branches. Services can check to see if a component has already been developed elsewhere before commissioning it, says Vietmeyer. What's more, it can serve as a hub for software that was developed for the U.S. government and can be legally reused. Until now, different government departments were often unaware of the availability of such programs.

"Major software programs for the DOD took too long and cost too much, and we couldn't rapidly adapt new technologies to mission needs," says Vietmeyer. CollabNet's tools, he says, "give us greater speed and greater agility."

CollabNet says that in general it can offer productivity improvement of 10% to 50% and reduce the cost of software development by up to 80%. That's bound to be welcome news for a military fighting wars on two fronts.
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