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Pastimes : The New Qualcomm - write what you like thread. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (5423)	10/17/2002 7:16:12 AM
From: Jon Koplik	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12231

Cocoa prices decline. (Good news for chocolate lovers !) Wall Street Journal COMMODITIES Prospect of Ivory Coast Truce Leads to Cocoa Price Plunge By CLAIRE GRIERSON OsterDowJones Commodity News NEW YORK -- Cocoa prices sank on the Coffee, Sugar and Cocoa Exchange as news of a possible truce in Ivory Coast, the world's largest cocoa producer, sparked a heavy selloff. Rebels may be ready to sign a cease-fire agreement following the liberation by the Ivorian government of Daloa, a southwestern town in the heart of the cocoa belt and which had been under rebel control since Sunday. President Laurent Gbagbo's administration has been attempting to quash the rebels, who have taken a large part of the country since an attempted coup Sept. 19. The December contract fell $86 to $2,212 a metric ton, having shed $113 at one stage, with more than half the day's losses occurring in the final minute of the session. "The market is giving up its war premium," said Luis A. Rangel, vice president with brokerage firm Fimat USA Inc. in New York. Since the uprising in the Ivory Coast began, December cocoa futures have been rallying, extending an existing 13-month bull run, analysts said. Prices hit a new 17-year high of $2,405 a metric ton on Oct. 11, a $315 climb since the failed coup in that nation. Ivory Coast accounts for 40% of the world cocoa supply and with the country's main crop harvest season just beginning, the uprising has caused concerns that the flow of cocoa from the nation could be disrupted. In the past two days, as tensions in the Ivory Coast eased, the market has started to retrace. Boyd Cruel, senior soft commodities analyst at brokerage firm Alaron Trading Corp. in Chicago, said the market has been extremely overbought since the coup began. "We've built in over 300 points of tension premium on the Ivory Coast and with the possibility of a cease-fire, the market's giving it back," he said. The selloff was driven largely by speculators and by commercial participants who were dumping futures they had bought when Ivorian political tensions were most fraught. The activation of sell-stops -- preplaced orders to sell futures when the market hits a certain level -- accelerated the pullback in prices. One physical cocoa trader said the easing of tensions in Ivory Coast was taken as a signal by some market participants that the threat to exports has been partially relieved. Traders said cocoa beans and financing within Ivory Coast appear to be moving easily, and in addition the port cities of San Pedro and Abidjan were operating "business as usual." Analysts, though, cautioned that with the political situation so volatile, another flare-up in tensions easily could add back the premiums. In other commodity markets: WHEAT: Chicago Board of Trade futures soared again, on heavy buying from speculative funds. The rally followed a limit gain Tuesday after news that Egypt had bought a large quantity of U.S. soft wheat, the kind traded at the CBOT. The December future rose 15 cents to $4.0825 a bushel. COFFEE: Arabica coffee futures fell on the Coffee, Sugar & Cocoa Exchange as forecasts of rain in Brazil alleviated concerns that recent hot, dry weather would damage the flowering crop. The December future fell 2.60 cents to 67.10 cents a pound. Write to Claire Grierson at cgrierson@osterdowjones.com Updated October 16, 2002 9:24 p.m. EDT Copyright © 2002 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (5423)	10/17/2002 10:17:24 AM
From: Dexter Lives On	Respond to of 12231

Thanks for the invite Maurice. I've bookmarked the thread but I won't be able to contribute for a while as I'm pursuing other business at the moment. I hope to have more free time by December. It sounds interesting and I'll be monitoring from time to time - you may want to post an invite on "The Last Mile..." thread since there are very knowledgeable posters over there who could help with the technical issues RoamAD may be facing. One thing's clear, this sector is being driven as a populist-style movement with very entrepreneurial approaches; it'll be interesting to see what effect bigger players coming into the field will have... Cheers! Rob

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (5423)	10/17/2002 2:33:21 PM
From: hiker90	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12231

Hi Maurice, I thought you'd be interested in the following fuel cell story. At minimum, it's entertaining. Best, hiker newscientist.com Food scraps could help power homes By Duncan Graham-Rowe A battery that runs on scraps of food could fuel a battery providing electricity to top up your home's supply, say UK researchers. Although such "microbial fuel cells" (MFCs) have been developed in the past, they have always proved extremely inefficient and expensive. Now Chris Melhuish and technologists at the University of the West of England (UWE) in Bristol have come up with a simplified MFC that costs as little as £10 to make. Right now, their fuel cell runs only on sugar cubes, since these produce almost no waste when broken down, but they aim to move on to carrot power. "It has to be able to use raw materials, rather than giving it a refined fuel," says Melhuish. Inside the Walkman-sized battery, a colony of E. coli bacteria produce enzymes that break down carbohydrates, releasing hydrogen atoms. The cell also contains chemicals that drive a series of redox, or reduction and oxidation reactions, stripping electrons from the hydrogen atoms and delivering them steadily to the fuel cell's anode. This creates a voltage that can be used to power a circuit. Robot power To prove the MFC works, the researchers are using it to power a small light-sensitive robot. And when a number of the cells are connected in series, they could power domestic appliances, running a 40-watt bulb for eight hours on about 50 grams of sugar. Earlier MFCs were inefficient because they relied on energy-hungry filters and pumps. By experimenting with different anode materials, the UWE team have figured out how to make their system work: they dump the bacteria and redox chemicals directly into the cell. In its current form, the UWE team says its organic battery can produce eight times as much power as any previous MFC. But Melhuish wants to improve this, both by scaling it up and finding a better mix of redox chemicals. Related articles Sewage turned into hydrogen fuel Your clothes could soon power your palmtop