Thursday, March 29, 2007

BMW's hydrogen car: a good solution to global warming



Since a little more than six months, a reporter for the BBC Jorn Madslien tried a brand new car from the BMW Company. It is called the BMW Hydrogen 7 and it is powered by liquid hydrogen. Everybody know that environment is an important issue, probably the most important as the years go by and as the planet and the atmosphere is more than tired of being so much pollute. With this new car that makes no emission of harmful gas, BMW take a stand for environment and take a step in a new technological area. That six-litre engine delivers 300bhp and is there to save the world but also to give a very good look for the company.

Of course, there is some disadvantage and la lot of advantage too but the biggest challenge is the economical problem. It is hard to find investors and companies that wil invest into something that maybe will not work. To throw in the market a car like that, you have to give the same services than on any other car. In the present time, there are only 5 fuelling stations in the world supporting BMW's technology. In Germany alone, it would cost 23 billions euros to introduce 2,000 hydrogen filling stations. That is a lot of money for any investor who is not even sure that is investment will come back in part to him.

Another alternative would be to use cars that work with hydrogen and fuel when the hydrogen tank is empty. There are a lot of solutions to decrease significantly pollution made by car but any of them are extremely expensive. The question that BMW and anyone living on this earth has to ask themselves is how much are we ready to spend for the wealth of the next generations?

Friday, March 23, 2007

Water privatization


Bob Carty
CBC Radio
Feb. 3, 2003
http://www.cbc.ca/news/features/water/business.html

Water is vital for the continuity of humankind. However, from another angle, it is considered as being ''One of the world's greatest business opportunities. It promises to be to the 21st century what oil was to the 20th'', according to Fortune Magazine. In the past decade, three giant global corporations have taken control over the water supplied to 300 million people living on each of the five continent of the world. This shows how much the US and Canada government, among the others, are very vulnerable in front of the persuasive techniques of these strong corporate giants. All this is ironic because in the past, people saw in water a poor and low-return utility. Nowadays, it had become the ultimate source to blue gold. Peter Spillet, a senior executive with Thames Water, foreshadows the water business to be the cause of many eventual world conflicts and wars in the century to come.

By analyzing the issue, we truly focus on the real meaning of this statement. Of course, water is a limited and, most importantly of all, not a renewable resource. So considering the fact that demographic statistics show how the planet will be sur-inhabited in the next centuries, we understand how this market will be in constant rise and how the most favorable countries will center their power onto this resource.
The privatization of water is imminent. However, the danger lies in the faith of it. Because it does not belong to anyone, the fact that it might become controlled by one single person affects the destiny of human. By having witnessed past history, we all have to agree that one man cannot all have the powers. Because water does not have any substitute, in the opposite of juice or pepsi, let's all act friendly towards it and stand up for our future.


Tram Dang