Home Author: John Richardson

Asian Chemical Connections

I wish the energy game were as simple as this…..

Click on the link here for a virtual way of boosting your green credentials without having to recycle one actual plastic bag, being knocked into the gutter by a gargantuam-bellied white van driver while cycling to work or cancelling one flight to the other side of the world to broaden your dinner party conversation – […]

Will the next World War be over water?

Please read this – http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/world/asia/28water.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin Don’t worry, just keep concentrating on the short term – after all, all you have to do is keep your boss happy and make it through to retirement with loads of money in the bank. Or let’s assume you are worried. What can the chemicals industry do to address this […]

A load of bull or rational exuberance?

I was in India this week as the Times of India carried a front page cartoon of a bull dressed in a Superman outfit with an ‘S’ on his shirt to mark the Sensex surging past 20,000. All the talk was of the index taking 20 years to reach its first 10,000 with the second […]

Is the world heading for a naphtha crisis?

Quite possiby says International e-Chem and Wood Mackenzie in a new study which predicts that by 2015, China could have a deficit of as much as 35m tonnes. When you consider that total global output is around 300m tonne/year, this is quite staggering. On paper, China should be balanced on naphtha because of a huge […]

The idiocy and hypocrisy of biofuels

I am having a go at the US here (see article below) – a pretty big target – but don’t worry, Asia is the next in line on this blog: the opportunistic, shallow and downright unpleasant palm oil-based biodiesel industry deserves similar treatment. As for ethanol, Rex Tillerson has a point. The CEO of ExxonMobil […]

How clean are coal-to-liquids? Does it really matter?

Paul Hodges, in his excellent chemicals and the economy blog, talks about the recent Shenhua Energy listing on the Shanghai stock exchange and how it shares jumped by 93% following the IPO. Now it has ample cash to pursue its ambitions. Shenhau is just one of numerous companies involved in coal-to-liquids projects in China which […]

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