European Greens: Why We Must Fight Oettinger

May 25 2013

Member of European Parliament Reinhard Bütikofer comments on the recent conclusions of the European Council:

Thanks to this tweet by Alice Stollmeyer for the link.

Let’s have a look at some of the conclusions.

stepping up the role and rights of consumers, including change of suppliers, improved management of energy use and own energy generation;

It is indeed one of the main characteristics of the German renewable energy development that most of the generators are owned by citizens. It is nice to see some support at this level for that.

phasing out environmentally or economically harmful subsidies, including for fossil fuels;

Again, good news. The last thing we need on a warming planet is fossil fuel subsidies.

the presentation by the Commission of guidance on efficient and cost-effective support schemes for renewable energies and on ensuring adequate generation capacity;

Potentially bad news, since the Commission might propose some failed idea or other. But as I said when this popped up last year, let’s just wait and see what they come up with.

If the “guidance” is worthless, we can just take note of it. The Commission doesn’t have any power to decide about these questions. It is quite clear that it is for the Member States to decide how they want to support renewable energy. Earlier attempts by the Commission to get the power of deciding on these questions have all failed to get the necessary majority in Parliament and Council.

There is of course much more in these conclusions, but most of the other points are completely uncontroversial (let’s cooperate and exchange information) or delaying decisions until later. That is especially true for policy after 2020. The Heads of State have taken note of the recent Green Paper of the Commission on policy until 2030, but they don’t have any substantial conclusions on the matter right now.

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Trying To Ban Tesla Should Backfire

May 25 2013

Apparently, some car dealers in the American State of North Carolina are trying to purchase legislation that would make it illegal for Tesla to sell their award-winning cars in the State. This article at Huffington Post by a young woman race car driver called Leilani Münter describes these plans.

I think these car dealers should be ashamed. This is completely bogus legislation. How stupid to they think consumers are? Of course everybody will see through this attempt of trying to hide from the superior product of a competitor.

I hear that there are some problems with money influencing American politics. So the cowardly car dealers trying to pull this off might very well succeed in their anti-competitive legislation efforts.

The good news, however, is that there is hardly a better way to increase the popularity and the fame of Tesla cars than putting such a ban in place.

I mean, the article at Huffington Post I cited above is a wet dream for any car producer. It is hard to imagine a more effective commercial, and Tesla doesn’t need to pay a dime for having the Huffington Post run that.

And that article could obviously not have been written without the friendly help of the stupid coward car dealers trying to buy this legislation.

If that legislation project succeeds, there will be a big spike in Tesla sales in the fine State of North Carolina before it takes effect. And there will be tours organized to some other State where buying these cars is still legal, and Tesla may even be willing to pick up a part of the tab for that.

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First Physical Bitcoin Autograph

May 24 2013

I have done a physical Bitcoin autograph of my second global warming science fiction novel “Tasneem” (FREE PDF file here). It just arrived at its destination.

I have sent 0.1 Bitcoin from my address

1MXLh9u36HPRzjY7j9qJ5jDdkJexrmZBA2

to the address created for this autograph

1DgLiqUA3SL9oFhyEnNApmJHzcWH7km5WQ

I sent this before I got my address

1KfLenzmpCEjNhdNs2Y6txuaJAFLUNzfjZ

which I plan to use for all other autographs from now on. I am still developing the concept, which explains this change.

Then I put a Bitcoin paper wallet with that address into an envelope glued to the book.

For the general concept of a “Bitcoin autograph”, please refer to my previous post introducing the concept. This example shows that the same can be done with a physical book, if one is inclined to do so.

With a physical book, the value of an autograph depends on the ability of verifying that it is authentic. In some cases, they come with a “Certificate of Authenticity“.

Adding the Bitcoin element is like adding such a certificate, only stronger. If the Bitcoin spending address can be linked to the author in question, having it included rather strongly proves authenticity. In contrast a “Certificate of Authenticity” can be forged, or the certification can be done in bad faith for a forged autograph.

I am not sure myself what all of this means, since I am still in the process of developing the idea. But here are a couple of thoughts on what this means for me as an unknown author.

I can unabashedly hand out autographs, since they will always have as a minimum the value of the Bitcoin transaction involved.

I can offer PDF files or books with a negative price attached, which makes for more interesting giveaways. Actually, with a PDF file this seems to be the only way to have a meaningful giveaway. Note that Goodreads giveaways only are possible for physical books right now.

I can promote Bitcoin as well. People need to be familiar with the Bitcoin basics to understand this, so I can explain these basics in the process.

Anyway, I am not sure where to go with this. The main purpose of this post was, again, guarding against someone filing a patent for this rather obvious idea.

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Get Lost, IEA

May 24 2013

The International Energy Agency seems to have prepared a “Policy Review” of German energy policy, and “Executive Director” Maria van Der Hoeven has given a speech at the German Ministry of Economy to introduce some of their ideas.

For people not so familiar with the details of German energy policy, let’s recall that the Minister of Economy is a member of the FDP. The FDP is hostile to renewable energy. It needs to get kicked out of the Bundestag (Parliament) in the coming elections. If that does not happen, the transition to renewable energy will be much slower and more costly than with a SPD and Green government in charge.

So having the IEA speaking there is already a very bad sign.

And then, I read this absolutely infuriating statement in the speech, helpfully underlined for emphasis:

The rapid, uncontrolled deployment of PV has become a major policy concern and represents a significant cost for consumers.

This clearly shows that the IEA is hostile to solar energy. It also removes the need to look at the rest of the speech, or any policy document the IEA might come up with.

You write this kind of stuff, my only comment is, GET LOST, IEA.

But while I am at it, here is another gem from the the rest of the speech.

On page six she actually supports the paper by Ministers Altmaier and Rösler of February this year. Hasn’t she heard that that paper has been defeated by the opposition parties? Doesn’t she know that it has failed?

Fortunately, the IEA doesn’t get to decide German policy. Their advice is relevant only as much as people are inclined to listen to them. I will certainly not be listening.

And fortunately, the “Policy Review” paper on Germany is hidden behind a paywall. That will limit the damage somewhat. People are expected to shell out EUR60 for the privilege of reading the IEA anti-renewable propaganda. Count me as not interested in that.

Instead, I have removed the link from this blog to the IEA home page. I am not linking to anti-renewable propaganda organisations, and I have realized that the IEA qualifies under that category. I regret the error I made in linking to them in the first place.

The first order of business for a new SPD/Green government after the upcoming elections should be to get Germany out of the IEA.

For more on how the IEA is wrong on everything and a propaganda outfit for the fossil fuel industry, I recommend reading this recent paper at German Green Party Member of Parliament Hans-Josef Fell’s website, titled “The partiality of international energy institutions as exemplified by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris”.

 

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Bitcoin not E-money Under the EU Electronic Money Directive

May 22 2013

One of the strategic questions for Bitcoin is how it will interact with regulation. I recall that E-gold has been shut down by the American government under allegations of money laundering and operating a Money Transferring Business without the necessary licenses.

In contrast to E-gold, Bitcoin lacks a single issuer. No government can just shut down one related business and get rid of Bitcoin that way.

But still, for Bitcoin to grow into the mainstream, it would obviously be desirable to get the necessary licenses.

The problem is, it is not entirely clear right now what licenses are necessary. I expect it will take a couple of years before the regulators have figured out what licenses they want to require, and some of the startup businesses in the Bitcoin space have acquired those licenses.

For the time being, it is much easier to say what Bitcoin is not.

This post will just point out that Bitcoin is not “E-money” under the 2009 European Union Electronic Money Directive.

There have been voices asserting the contrary. For example this blog post at Technollama in 2011 said that Bitcoin falls under the Directive. It actually even asserted that Bitcoin is illegal in the EU because no one bothered to get a license under the Directive.

Another example would be more recent. Jon Matonis just posted at Forbes about differences between the US and EU regulations, and wrote this:

The dichotomy between EU and U.S. approaches to e-money becomes even more apparent when one looks at the uniformity of the EU e-Money and Payment Services Directives versus the almost hostile FinCEN guidance on virtual currencies and the incomprehensible patchwork of state money transmitter laws. Because of this, I estimate that the EU currently enjoys at least a five-year head start over its U.S. brethren in accommodating evolving payments efforts.

That sounds a lot like he thinks that the E-money Directive is in some way relevant to Bitcoin, just like Andrés Guadamuz at Technollama quite clearly does.

However, after some discussion at Twitter, the last I read from Matonis before it was too late in Japan for me to answer was this Tweet:

I am referring to preamble sections 7,8 & 12 with service providers issuing e-money based on receipt of bitcoin funds

Well, yes. Obviously, if someone is running an electronic money institution under the Directive, they will fall under the Directive. They will do so whether they accept Bitcoin or not. Accepting Bitcoin doesn’t change anything.

Anyway, let’s just note for further reference that the Directive does definitely not regulate Bitcoin. This runs somewhat counter to intuition, so I expect many people getting it wrong, like Guadamuz did.

The Directive has this definition of electronic money in its Article 2:

“electronic money” means electronically, including magnetically, stored monetary value as represented by a claim on the issuer which is issued on receipt of funds for the purpose of making payment transactions as defined in point 5 of Article 4 of Directive 2007/64/EC, and which is accepted by a natural or legal person other than the electronic money issuer;

That means there needs to be an “issuer” to qualify. For example, with E-gold you had a company named Gold&Silver Reserve issuing e-gold. There is no company issuing Bitcoin. If a customer had e-gold in their account, they had a claim on the issuer (Gold&Silver Reserve) for the equivalent amount of gold (monetary value). With Bitcoin, no one can claim monetary value. All the value a Bitcoin has now comes from the fact that other people are prepared to pay money for a Bitcoin. None comes from an issuer promising to take back Bitcoin at some value or other.

At that point, the whole Directive is not applicable to Bitcoin. Someone wanting to build a Bitcoin exchange in Europe with regulatory approval will need to find some other framework than that of the Directive.

It is an interesting question what that might be. It is an even more interesting question if an exchange located in Japan (*ahem* MtGox *ahem*) could just go ahead and start Mutum Sigillum Germany and apply for a license from BaFin, the German financial regulator, once people have figured out what license to apply for.

Unfortunately, these questions are not easily answered.

In contrast, it is very easy to see that the Electronic Money Directive is, at is stands right now, not the regulatory framework Bitcoin could use in the European Union.

Maybe the EU could amend the Directive and build a new framework for Bitcoin exchanges at some time in the future.

 

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IAEA Finally Stops Hiding Bad Nuclear Numbers

May 21 2013

I recall that I tried without success in February to find out how much nuclear energy was produced in 2012 from various nuclear lobby sites. Apparently it was more than they can manage to call up the less than 400 remaining electricity producing reactors and find out their numbers.

Now, finally, IAEA has found the time to do those phone calls. They just published numbers until 2012. Thanks to this tweet by Jan Berenek for the link.

The number for 2012 was 2346.19 TWh, a level last seen in 1998. It is down around 283 TWh compared to 2010.

These numbers confirm me in my opinion that it is not a good idea to count on the nuclear bailout. Renewable energy will have to do the job of displacing fossil fuel alone.

 

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The “Pump Six” Antinuclear Argument

May 21 2013

“Pump Six” is a story by Paolo Bacigalupo, which is part of the collection published under the same name. I have reviewed this collection here.

The basic theme of “Pump Six” is a world full of lazy and stupid people. They depend on technology developed by previous generations. But they don’t understand it anymore. The “Pump Six” in question is used to pump sewage, but it finally breaks down, and no one can do a thing about it.

Nuclear power plants require operators that understand what they are doing. Making mistakes will lead to costly accidents.

I recall that there were some incredible mistakes that have caused the Fukushima accident. And made it worse.

Locating all the backup power generators in basements that were flooded. Shutting down an emergency cooling system because that was what the manual said. Leaving dealing with the accident to TEPCO, a civilian company, instead of going all in with at least 50,000 military personnel, as the Russians did at Chernobyl, to name only the most glaring feats of stupidity.

German Chancellor Merkel concluded that if even the Japanese, which have a reputation for being smart in Germany, were unable to handle nuclear power safely, there was no way nuclear could be safe.

It would be really nice if nuclear, a fairly large source of low carbon energy, could be counted on in the fight against global warming.

But that would require, among many other things, that humans refrain from becoming too goddam lazy and stupid to operate these power plants safely in the long run. I am not sure if we can count on that. Actually, I am not sure if humans are not already too stupid to handle nuclear safely. Fukushima has not helped my confidence.

Renewable will have to do the job alone. Don’t count on the nuclear bailout.

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Virtual Autograph Using Bitcoin

May 20 2013

I started this blog in January 2003. One of my first posts ever, published on 7 January 2003, had this to say under the title “Virtual Autograph”:

Anyone can buy PGP 8.0 Personal Edition from Phil Zimmermann, the original author.

I don’t know if there is a market for the idea, but instead of selling exactly the same file PGP Corp is selling, he might add his autograph to some metadata associated with the file, signing a short text of the buyers choosing with his private key, and adding a serial number. Sort of a personal version. Maybe personal versions with a one-digit serial number would have some rarity value on Ebay.

At the time, Bitcoin was not yet around.

Now, with the functionality available with Bitcoin, I have developed this idea somewhat further.

Let me explain this with my second global warming science fiction novel “Tasneem” as a test case.

What I have done, I have paid 100 Millibitcoin (around $12 at present prices) from my main address at

1KfLenzmpCEjNhdNs2Y6txuaJAFLUNzfjZ to the address 1KfL1PSScrJ8HJovfLeoChZABV37Km2CW that I use only for this autograph. Note that the second address begins with “KfL1″. The first three digits designate my name, and the fourth one is the number one, since this is the first digital Bitcoin autograph ever.

In the public note included in the Blockchain I wrote “first autograph ever”.

Then I added information to this effect to a special autographed version PDF file, which is now available at the blog post for “Tasneem” (right at the very end).

What this means, everyone can download this autographed version. But only the holder of the private key for the address 1KfL1PSScrJ8HJovfLeoChZABV37Km2CW can claim to be the owner of the autograph.

At the moment of this writing, I am holding the private key myself. That’s because there is no one who would want my autograph right now anyway.

Note that the autograph always has the value of the 100 Millibitcoin I used to produce it in the first place. Again, that’s about $12 right now. That’s an interesting difference to traditional autographs.

 Setting this up this way also means that the holder of the autograph can transfer this autograph to one (and only one) new holder. In Bitcoin terms, the fact that Bitcoin solves the double spending problem means that this problem is also solved for the secondary market in autographs.

I hear that patents were requested for the simple idea of incorporating a simple picture of a signature into electronic books. The people at autography.com claim to have developed this idea.

In contrast I claim that I had that idea 10 years before, as is easily proven with my blog post referenced above. That should be prior art enough to blow any patent protection for this kind of simple scheme away.

The main purpose of this post is to disclose my new idea of using Bitcoin as a method to solve the double spending problem for autographs. I would hate to see someone filing another patent for this, since it is fairly obvious for anyone familiar with Bitcoin, and it seems to be the obvious way to go for autographing e-books.

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12.2 GW of New Solar Approved Until February in Japan

May 17 2013

The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Industry, and Trade just published figures for renewable energy under the new feed-in tariff law in force since last July. Thanks to this tweet by Hiro Matsubara for the link.

To state the result in very short terms, wind is struggling even with the very high tariffs in place, and solar is headed for the “rocket start” former Prime Minister Noda called for last October.

The Japanese figures come in two flavors. One set is for installations that have started producing electricity, and the other one is for installations that have received approval from the Ministry. The latter one is the higher one, it includes capacity that will come online shortly, but is not yet commissioned.

Using those latter figures, solar recorded 12.2 GW until February. That’s not bad, considering that Japan had only about 5.3 GW of solar installed at the end of 2011. Adjusting for the larger population of Japan this is comparable to the German records of the last couple of years. Not bad at all.

On the other hand, the rocket for wind energy is still firmly planted on the ground. The Ministry reports a measly anemic 0.6 GW of approved capacity. The problem with wind is, you need much more time from starting a project to getting it to the approval stage. Anyway, it will take some time for wind to get up to speed  in Japan. The numbers are still very disappointing.

The new solar capacity is spread rather evenly all over the country. The interesting thing is that the biggest chunk is located in Hokkaido, the most northern island. It certainly does not have the best solar resources. But I assume it is easier to find the land for megasolar projects there. Hokkaido has about 1.13 GW, with 0.97 of that coming from projects with over 1 MW capacity.

 

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Seizure Warrant Against Mutum Sigillum

May 16 2013

The United States District Court in Maryland has issued a Seizure Warrant against a company called Mutum Sigillum (which seems to be Latin and mean something like “silent seal”). The Warrant authorizes to seize funds of Mutum Sigillum stored at the Dwolla account No. 812-649-1010.

Dwolla operates an online payment service that is open only to residents of the United States. See their Terms of Service, which state:

Dwolla may only be used in connection with United States Financial Institutions: User funds must originate at a United States Financial Institution, and Dwolla will only instruct Veridian to transfer funds to a United States Financial Institution associated with the appropriate Dwolla User.

Mutum Sigillum is an American company owned by Mark Karpeles, who also owns the World’s largest Bitcoin exchange Mt.Gox, located in Japan right next door to my university.

The warrant is accompanied by an affidavit (a sworn statement of facts) by a Special Agent of “Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement”. This Affidavit is not only a statement of fact, but it also explains some legal theories behind the application for the Seizure Warrant.

The Affidavit establishes that a “Confidential Informant (CI-1)” residing and banking in Maryland was able to send some funds to himself, with Mutum Sigillum and Mt.Gox involved in the process.

In detail: CI-1 opens accounts at Dwolla and at Mt.Gox. CI-1 funds his Mt.Gox over Dwolla. CI-1 buys some Bitcoins at Mt.Gox. CI-1 sells Bitcoins on Mt.Gox, getting back to dollars at his Mt.Gox account. CI-1 directs Mt.Gox to send these dollars to his Dwolla account, where they are right now.

So, the Affidavit has shown that CI-1 was able to send these dollars to himself over this elaborate process.

But, unless I am missing something here, that is not what one could reasonable describe as “transmitting money”. You would need some other party that actually receives funds for that.

This is similar to sex. You are supposed to do it with someone else involved.

The relevant American statute, 18 USC § 1960, helpfully provides a definition of “money transmitting”.

(2) the term “money transmitting” includes transferring funds on behalf of the public by any and all means including but not limited to transfers within this country or to locations abroad by wire, check, draft, facsimile, or courier;

“Transfer funds” means getting them to someone else. The only one doing that in this case is Dwolla. Both CI-1 and Mutum Sigillum are just normal users of the money transmitting service Dwolla provides.

The recent FinCen Guidance of March 2013 makes in principle the same point:

The term “money transmission services” means “the acceptance of currency, funds, or other value that substitutes for currency from one person and the transmission of currency, funds, or other value that substitutes for currency to another location or person by any means.” (Emphasis added).

CI-1 transferred the funds to himself. No other person involved. And he transferred them from Maryland to Maryland. No other location involved.

The above analysis is just common sense. Mt.Gox is a user of money transfer services, not a provider. If they were still dealing in “Magic the Gathering” cards that would be even more evident. But the fact that they are operating an exchange in Bitcoin doesn’t change that fact.

The March FinCen “Guidance” has some more specific language on Bitcoin, which is rather confusing. Here it is:

A person that creates units of this convertible virtual currency and uses it to purchase real or virtual goods and services is a user of the convertible virtual currency and not subject to regulation as a money transmitter. By contrast, a person that creates units of convertible virtual currency and sells those units to another person for real currency or its equivalent is engaged in transmission to another location and is a money transmitter. In addition, a person is an exchanger and a money transmitter if the person accepts such de-centralized convertible virtual currency from one person and transmits it to another person as part of the acceptance and transfer of currency, funds, or other value that substitutes for currency.

One could indeed read this as meaning that in the opinion of FinCen, operating an exchange (like Mt.Gox) does, means that they are also in the business of transmitting money.

If so, such an opinion is entirely without merit.

Sure, if CI-1 buys a Bitcoin from some other third party (TP), then Mt.Gox transfers that Bitcoin from TP to CI-1, and the dollars in CI-1′s account to TP.

But that is an exchange of things of equal value, at the market price when that exchange happens. It transfers exactly zero funds from CI-1 to TP, and exactly zero funds from TP to CI-1.

Even if it was possible to somehow get away with this overly broad construction of 18 USC § 1960 the Application for the Seizure Warrant seems to assume, there is the added question why a Japanese company operating in Shibuya, Tokyo, would be obliged to follow this American law. Didn’t the American occupation of Japan end in 1952?

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