Dutch coalition MPs back gas-free homes to speed up energy transition

DutchNews, January 26, 2018

Income from gas was down considerably. Photo: Depositphotos.com

MPs from the four coalition government parties – VVD, D66, CDA and ChristenUnie – plan to introduce draft legislation which will remove the requirement that all new homes be connected to a gas supply from the statute books. 

Instead, new homes should be connected to alternative sources of heating, such as geothermal systems or city heating schemes using warmth generated by industry, the parties say. 

The aim is to speed up the switch to alternative sources of energy and reduce reliance on gas from Groningen, in an effort to reduce the risk of earthquakes. 

The MPs say that new homes should only be connected to the gas grid if there are ‘heavyweight reasons’ for doing so, such as the cost to residents. City heating schemes have come under fire in the past for being expensive. 

The new coalition wants to ensure that all six million homes in the Netherlands are cut off from the gas supply by 2050. 

The MPs hope the draft legislation would come into effect in 2019.

NAM ordered to pay Groningen home owners compensation now

DutchNews, January 23, 2018

A condemned and shored-up cafe in Zeerijp. Photo: Graham Dockery

Gas production company NAM has been ordered by judges in Leeuwarden to immediately start compensating home owners in Groningen for the loss of value caused by the earthquakes. 

NAM had said it is only willing to pay the difference once the property has been sold but the appeal court judges agreed with an earlier court ruling which said compensation should be paid now. 

Research bureau Atlas voor Gemeenten said last year that between 2012 and 2017 homes in the earthquake zone in Groningen have fallen in value by an average of 2.2% because the region’s reputation has been damaged. 

The researchers focused their attention on areas in which at least 20% of the homes were damaged by earthquakes and found that homes that were not physically damaged also went down in value. 

Homes in Loppersum, a centre of many of the quakes, lost an average of 8% of their value, while homes in the city of Groningen are now between 0.9% and 2.9% cheaper. 

A foundation representing 4,000 home owners said it now wanted to get round the table with NAM as soon as possible to start fleshing out the compensation deal. ‘Four years after we started legal action, it is about time,’ chairman Lolke Weegenaar told broadcaster NOS.

Related Article:

Minister tells big firms to stop using Groningen gas by 2020

JCI Closes Higher on Monday Despite Collapse of Floor in IDX Building

Jakarta Globe, Sarah Yuniarni, January 15, 2018

The Jakarta Composite Index closed higher on Monday, bouncing back from
Friday despite the collapse of a mezzanine floor in the Indonesia Stock Exchange
building, shortly after the end of the day's first trading session. (JG Photo/Yudha Baskoro)

Jakarta. Indonesia's benchmark stock index closed higher on Monday (15/01), bouncing back from Friday despite the collapse of a mezzanine floor at the local bourse in Jakarta, shortly after the end of the day's first trading session.

The Jakarta Composite Index (JCI) closed 0.19 percent higher at 6,382.

Nafan Aji, an analyst at brokerage firm Binaartha Sekuritas, said the JCI opened higher at 6,379 on Monday due to strong gains in Asian stocks, spurred by an improvement in global commodity prices.

The index reached 6,389 at around 10 a.m., but dropped during the second session.

"The country's index weakened slightly during the second trading session, likely due to negative sentiment from a deficit in Indonesia's trade balance, and the collapse of a first-floor corridor in the Indonesia Stock Exchange [IDX] building, but it bounced back and [still] closed higher than Friday," Nafan said.

Indonesia recorded a $270 million trade deficit in December, but the country still had a cumulative $11.84 billion trade surplus for 2017, Central Statistics Agency (BPS) data shows.

Foreign investors, who accounted for 37 percent of Monday's trading, bought Rp 1.96 trillion ($147.4 million) more in shares than they sold, while local investors sold Rp 1.96 trillion more than they bought.

Some indexes rose during Monday's trading, led by a 1.53 percent gain in the one that tracks mining stocks, including Vale Indonesia and Medco Energi Internasional.

The index that tracks financial stocks, including Bank Mandiri and Bank Central Asia, gained 0.67 percent.

Gainers beat decliners by 168 to 175 on Monday.

IDX Floor Collapse

At least 77 people were injured when a mezzanine floor in the second tower of the IDX building collapsed shortly after 12 p.m. on Monday.

The tower, which is also home to the offices of the World Bank, International Finance Corporation, property consultants and several local lenders, was built in 1998.

The IDX said in a statement that the building management was still investigating the cause of the incident. Police have ruled out an explosion as the cause.

The second trading session started at 1:30 p.m. as normal, despite the incident.

The collapse of a mezzanine floor of the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) building 

on Monday (15/01) was not caused by a bomb. (Antara Photo/Elo)

Related Article:

Building Collapse Injures 77 at Indonesia Stock Exchange, Bomb Ruled Out
Floor Collapses at Indonesia Stock Exchange Building

Bitcoin fever hits US real estate market

Yahoo – AFP, Leila MACOR, January 14, 2018

View of a beach from a condo building in Florida, where bitcoin fever has hit
 the real estate market (AFP Photo/Jose ROMERO, RHONA WISE)

Miami (AFP) - Bitcoin fever has hit the US real estate market, especially that of Florida, offering foreign investors a way to dodge currency controls at home and US economic sanctions.

As of the end of last year, the digital currency was listed as a way to pay for some 75 properties for sale, especially in south Florida and California, according to the real estate firm Redfin.

"Bitcoin accepted" is a message now seen in the description of homes for sale in the Miami area.

One seller is going even farther, saying he will take only bitcoin (33 of them to be exact) for his half-million-dollar downtown condo in the Florida metropolis.

Bitcoin has been on a roller coaster ride of late, shooting up to nearly $20,000 a piece in mid-December and then dropping sharply around Christmas. It started the year at around $14,000.

Its use in real estate transactions is novel, and agents are wary because of its high volatility.

"I'd be blown away if a year from now we see hundreds of real estate transactions in bitcoins," said Jay Parker, Florida CEO for the Douglas Elliman brokerage agency.

Still, such transactions can be useful for foreigners who want to invest in the United States and cannot otherwise do so, said economist and bitcoin expert Charles Evans of Barry University.

"This seems to be driven by international investors who are circumventing inefficient banking and currency controls at home, and by US cryptocurrency enthusiasts," Evans told AFP.

"The governments in those countries restrict the amount of money that their residents are allowed to transfer abroad through the banking system. Bitcoin enables individuals there to bypass such restrictions," he added.

This could be a draw for investors, who even before the bitcoin rage were already hot on the real estate market in south Florida.

Nearly half of all foreign buyers of property in south Florida are from Latin America.

According to the National Association of Realtors, over the past five years, investors from Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina -- in that order -- have led purchases in this part of the state.

Money laundering?

Bitcoin offers another advantage for some foreign investors: it lets them dodge US economic sanctions.

Evans cited the example of Venezuela, which imposes strict currency controls and is enduring runaway inflation that surpassed 2,600 percent in 2017.

What is more, many senior officials in the government of Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro have been hit by sanctions imposed by Washington, which considers his administration a dictatorship.

Evans said there is also a lot of interest in bitcoin among Iranians, whom he described as "doubly hit" with restrictions in Iran and international sanctions.

It is an open secret that money laundering fuels the real estate market in south Florida. But instead of hiding the practice, bitcoin could have the opposite effect.

The crypto currency "is a terrible medium for large-scale money laundering, because all bitcoin transactions are recorded in the publicly available transaction record known at the Blockchain," said Evans.

Although bitcoin has been associated with the drug trade and cyber attacks, Blockchain "leaves a lot of fingerprints," former Florida representative Jose Felix Diaz told Politico.

"So if you're using it for illegitimate reasons, the state and the federal government should have every tool at their disposal to go after you," Diaz said.

Last year, Diaz sponsored a bill-turned-law that includes bitcoin in Florida's laws for fighting money laundering.

Real estate agent Parker also said money laundering via bitcoin is far from posing a risk because "the beneficial owners of the real estate are always going to be able to be traced."

Parker said the fad of doing real estate deals in bitcoin could be as volatile as the currency itself.

"I think it's a gimmick. There's not much risk. The only risk is if the currency crashes before you can liquidate it," said Parker.

"I think the people that are using bitcoins to try to market their properties are doing it with the very purpose of getting you to write about it, getting their properties exposure," said Parker.

Knot a problem: Thai capital tackles street cables

Yahoo – AFP, Joe Freeman, January 11, 2018

Bangkok's Wireless Road is festooned with electrical and telecom cables, a black
 web that hangs menacingly overhead like dystopian Christmas decorations.
(AFP Photo/LILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA)

Bangkok's Wireless Road may soon live up to its name.

Like many streets in the Thai capital, the thoroughfare is festooned with electrical and telecom cables, a black web that hangs menacingly overhead like dystopian Christmas decorations.

But Bangkok authorities are now untangling the cables and moving them underground as part of an urban renewal pushed by the Thai junta that seized power in 2014.

The aim is to make Bangkok not only safer, but easier on the eyes and less prone to blackouts.

Frayed cables -– often live -- dangle at head-height onto Bangkok's streets, making safe navigation of the already treacherous pavements even harder. Other wires are left to bunch up near pylons, creeping hazardously across the narrow walkways of the city centre.

Exposure to the elements has also meant the cables are easily damaged, which can cause problems for the city's electrical system.

Wireless Road, which got its name from hosting one of Thailand's first radio transmitting stations, is among dozens of streets targeted in the early phase of the de-cluttering campaign.

Large stretches of Sukhumvit Road, a central artery that cuts through high-end neighbourhoods and tourist hotspots, have already been cleared since November.

"This is a commercial road. We see hotels and foreigners living around here. When they see the beautiful road, they will spread the word," Prasonk Kumpradit, an official with Bangkok's Metropolitan Electricity Authority, told AFP.

The project has been planned for years, but many suspect it received an unexpected jolt after Microsoft founder Bill Gates visited Bangkok in 2016 and took a disapproving photo of one street's wiry web.

The billionaire later deleted the Facebook post, which blamed the cluster of wires on people illegally tapping into the grid.

Wireless Road, which got its name from hosting one of Thailand's first radio

transmitting stations, is among dozens of Bangkok streets targeted for de-cluttering 

(AFP Photo/LILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA)

'No more disorderly stuff'

Netizens quibbled with his diagnosis of the cable bunches, which include both telecom connections and power supply wires, but less than a week later the government announced that cleanup was moving forward.

So far 1,184 utility poles have been removed from three of the city's biggest roads.

Over the next five years authorities plan to strip cables from 39 more streets totalling 127 kilometres, reinstalling the new connections under the road.

While there are no hard figures, Bangkok authorities say that is just a fraction of the city's cables but is still a mjor improvement on the status quo.

"The main advantage we get is the security of the electrical system," said Prasonk.

"When the cables are underground, the problem with disturbances that can cause blackouts will be gone."

Thailand's military rulers have launched a flurry of campaigns to impose some order on their chaotic capital in recent years, including clearing away many of Bangkok's famous street-food stalls.

But while that decision caused dismay in some quarters, few will shed a tear when the cable clusters disappear.

"Taking the wires away is really great. It makes the city clean, clear and pleasant to look at," Sukanya Phuangdech, a 45-year-old Bangkokian, told AFP from a newly-cleared Sukhumvit Road.

"No more disorderly stuff. I feel like people are happier."

Martin Fletcher, a 30-year-old teacher from England, agreed.

"Bangkok's very famous for having all the electrical wires -- and it's a bit like spaghetti, and they've been cleared... it's a lot nicer now," he said.