Pre-paid power trial in 2009

Pay first, then use. That is how all homes could be buying electricity, from their provider of choice, under the world's first proposed prepaid electronic system linked to "intelligent" meters. Gone would be the existing meter currently read manually by SP Services staff every other month. In would come a new device that would display, and refresh half-hourly, the amount of electricity you have left. Households would be able to buy credits through mobile phones, ATMs, the Internet and at convenience stores.

Besides logging your gas and water usage, the meter could also double as a home monitoring system or fire alarm, said Mr Soh Siew Cheong, senior adviser to the Energy Market Authority (EMA), at a workshop on smart energy. Giving details of the proposed electricity vending system that was revealed in Parliament last month, Mr Soh said: "Anybody can buy any amount of electricity from any retailer, anytime, anywhere and through any means."

The EMA, which is creating a prototype of the vending system, plans to conduct a trial for some 1,000 households in 2009. If this proves feasible, there could be a full-scale roll-out that could cost "hundreds of millions of dollars". The new system would do away with monthly bills and the cash deposit required to maintain an account. Households would also have real choice for the first time - with several power suppliers, not just SP Services, vying for their dollar. Consumers would get to compare prices - which would fluctuate through the day - at all points-of-sale, said Mr Soh.

Allowing households to choose their power supplier will mark the last stage of the energy market's liberalisation begun in 2001.

- Simon Tay has tipped off the small local peakoiler community about this coming thing since quite a while back. Read : Liberalisation of Electricity Market and "True" outcome of Liberalising of the Electricity Market. He has been yelling about the potential downside of it, as you can see.

What do I think? I think it might be a chance to practise some "trading skills", though probably not by choice. This might lead more people to be more, how shall I put it, "conversant" with the ins and outs of the various energy futures markets, seeing how we get 80% of our electricity from natural gas now, and how it is linked closely to crude oil prices. But, well, that's from an investor / trader / speculator point of view :)

I wonder if there's any scope in this scheme for buying/selling of "micro-generation" power - or is that even mentioned at all?

Toyota sales jump while GM, Ford fall

news.yahoo.com :

The best monthly sales performance ever for Toyota and gains by fellow Japanese automakers Honda and Nissan helped the industry in March top last year's best month for U.S. sales despite declines by GM, Ford and DaimlerChrysler. Toyota's U.S. sales jumped 11.7% in March compared with a year ago, boosted by record hybrid sales and strong overall car sales. The overall rise in U.S. sales came despite GM and DaimlerChrysler's sales falling about 4% each, and Ford posting a 9% drop.

The numbers come as the Detroit Three have seen Asian rivals led by Toyota capture growing shares of the U.S. market. Autodata's figures show GM, the world's largest automaker, had 22.4% of the U.S. market in March, with Ford holding 17.1% and Toyota with 15.7%. "This month marks a milestone eight years in the making," Jim Lentz, executive vice president of Toyota's U.S. division, said in a statement. "Record U.S. sales of Toyota and Lexus hybrids have now topped the half-million mark."

American Honda Motor Co., which includes Honda and Acura brands, said it's on track for another record U.S. sales year. It sold 143,392 light vehicles last month, up 11.3%. Like Toyota, it said it had gains in hybrid sales, but it credited the overall increase to public perception about fuel-efficiency across its line. Nissan North America Inc., which includes Nissan and Infiniti, sold 111,119 vehicles last month, up 7.8% from March 2006.

Global warming could bring hunger, melt Himalayas

news.yahoo.com :

Global warming could cause more hunger in Africa and melt most Himalayan glaciers by the 2030s, according to a draft U.N. report which also warns that the poorest nations are likely to suffer most. The U.N. climate panel, giving the most authoritative study on the regional impact of climate change since 2001, also predicts more heatwaves in countries such as the United States, and damages corals including Australia's Great Barrier Reef. "We are talking about a potentially catastrophic set of developments," Achim Steiner, the head of the U.N. Environment Programme, said of the likely impact of rising temperatures, widely blamed on greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels. "Even a half meter (20 inch) rise in sea levels would have catastrophic effects in Bangladesh and some island states."

Among the gloomy forecasts, the report predicts that glaciers in the Himalayas, the world's highest mountain range, will melt away, affecting hundreds of millions of people. And disruptions are likely to be felt hardest in poor nations, such as sub-Saharan Africa and Asia where millions more could go hungry because of damage to farming and water supplies. Still, some nations will see some benefits, according to the draft by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which draws on work by 2,500 scientists. Global farm potential might increase with a rise of 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 Fahrenheit) in temperatures, before sinking worldwide, it says. Crops might grow better in nations far from the tropics such as Canada, Russia, New Zealand or Scandinavia.

The United Nations reckons the report, together with one in February that concluded it was more than 90% likely that recent warming had a predominantly human cause, will add pressure on governments to do more to head off damaging change. "We've passed the tipping point," Steiner said, adding that the public, governments and businesses seemed convinced that global warming was a major threat and not some vague theory about which scientists disagreed. "It's no longer about whether (climate change) is happening but about how we deal with it," he said.