People asked me a few times during the past few weeks about what is happening with the feared construction of the HAZCO sulphur-storage, -forming and -shipping facility that HAZCO so eagerly and urgently wanted to build not quite two miles east of Bruderheim, at the junction of Highway 45 and RR 202.

Well, the NRCB hearing last year decided to give HAZCO the go-ahead on that; against the wishes of many opponents.

It seems that HAZCO’s sense of urgency that drove their application evaporated in consequence of the collapse of the sulphur-price-bubble that had emerged in 2007 and popped by the end of 2008.

For most of 2009 plant-gate sulphur prices were below $0.00/LT and even as as low as -$29.52/LT. That means that sulphur sources would have paid as much as $28.52/LT to selected “purchasers” just to have excess sulphur taken off their hands.

In other words, for as long as sulphur requires a subsidy to be leaving plant gates, to which then still the cost of forming and shipping the sulphur to Vancouver must be added before it can be injected into the saturated world market, it is not likely that producers or HAZCO will make a profit on selling, forming and shipping of sulphur.

It seems that common sense in standard business practices applies. For now the sulphur business that HAZCO wanted to engage in at a profit is a bust and will not generate the revenues required for the cost of constructing the HAZCO sulphur facility, aside from the cost of forming and shipping of sulphur.

However, I am not the expert. Perhaps it is possible to obtain better information from HAZCO or from the Lamont county planners who are busy having the infra-structure built from our tax money with which they hope to attract industries that will pay back what they invest.

Mind you, losses are not a great concern for the county planners or for the NRCB. Whatever losses they cause will be paid for by the taxpayers. It’s a no-risk business for planners and for the NRCB, although the taxpayers will lose a great deal even if the HAZCO facility will not be built.

The whole deal is not worth it to me to spend more time on. I am through worrying about bubbles, and it likely that another bubble will not pop up for quite some years. The last bubble we had pop up in the same place, before this one, popped up about 40 years ago. Perhaps it will now be another 40 years before the next one pops up and then bursts.

Posted in Taxes, Town of Bruderheim, Community & Industry, World Sulphur Glut, Sulphur Logistics, Sulphur-Related Construction Costs | Print | No Comments »

Solar Cycle 24: Implications for the United States

July 3, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

The implications for the US identified in the following apply just as much to Canada. It would be well and good if the Canadian politicians and bureaucrats who jumped on the politically-correct band-wagon of climate alarmism based on anthropogenic global warming were to stop the AGW-driven deconstruction of our economy and engage in launching more practical programs for adapting to the accelerating cooling trend that began in 1998 and will continue for the next 30 years or perhaps even longer.

An overview of David Archibald’s findings about the correlation between solar activity trends and climate trends is contained in the record of a slide presentation he gave:

Solar Cycle 24: Implications for the United States

David Archibald
International Conference on Climate Change
March, 2008

He makes no bones about that,

AGW Proponents are Exactly Wrong

The Earth is getting colder and this will accelerate.

Carbon dioxide has a minuscule warming effect.

Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide will increase agricultural productivity.

The ideal atmospheric carbon dioxide level is a minimum of 1,000 ppm

He states in the last slide of his presentation:

Implications for the United States

The climate-driven reduction in agricultural production should be planned for.

Coal-fired power generation should be increased.

Coal to liquid fuels capacity should be installed.

It would be a good thing for anyone who doubts that those assertions are correct to look through the whole presentation and the comments David Archibald provided. Understand the evidence and reasoning (that will only take a few minutes). After all, some of the most eminent climate scientists in the world agree with David Archibald .

Posted in Climate Change | Print | No Comments »

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Solar Cycle 24: Implications for the United States