Today, Netflix posted its third-quarter earnings, with the streaming video provider exceeding analyst projections thanks to strong subscriber growth in which it added 1.3 million domestically. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and CFO David Wells said in a letter to shareholders this afternoon that the company recently surpassed the 40 million members milestone, up from “less than 30 million just one year ago,” they said.
That’s not the only milestone Netflix checked off in the third quarter. In an earnings interview this afternoon, Hastings said that the company served up over 5 billion hours of streaming video content over the last three months. Netflix leadership last shared streaming numbers in April, when the CEO announced via Facebook that members had watched more than four billion hours of video during the first quarter of 2013.
So that means that viewership increased by 1 billion hours over the last six months, for a total of 9 billion hours streamed over the course of the two quarters (Netflix has not shared viewership numbers from Q2).
What’s behind this eager consumption of Netflix streaming content? First and foremost, Netflix is continuing full-steam ahead with the production of high-quality original content, launching House of Cards earlier this year, which it followed up with its teen thriller Hemlock Grove, the much-anticipated third season of Arrested Development and now Weeds creator Jenji Kohan’s new dramedy set in a women’s prison, Orange Is The New Black.
For Netflix, what’s likely just as important as the number of viewers these shows have been able to bring in is that it’s now able to say that, like HBO, its now producing original content that’s worthy of bringing home hardware. At this year’s Emmy Awards, Netflix became the first company of its kind to win multiple awards, as House of Cards Director David Fincher took home “Best Director,” while the show also captured awards for Casting and Cinematography.
Netflix is on a mission to compete with HBO, which has long set the standard for excellence in original content, taking home 27 Emmy Awards this year — to Netflix’s three. While it still has a long way to go in the award department, Netflix has reportedly surpassed HBO in another key area: Paid domestic subscribers. According to Netflix’s earnings report today, the company now has 29.9 million paying members, whereas SNL Kagan (via Bloomberg) reports that HBO has 28.7 million U.S. customers.
Hold onto your hats, original programming lovers, that puts Netflix in the lead for the first time. Of course, just as it is on the hardware front, Netflix still has a very long way to go when it comes to the total number of paying customers worldwide. In Q3, Netflix came in at about 38 million total paid subscribers for both the U.S. and foreign markets, whereas HBO boasts about 114 million subscribers. Netflix is making solid progress for a digital and DVD streaming rental service when compared to the wily old veteran of premium cable and satellite network television.
Yes, Netflix has a long road ahead of it, and any sign of weakness usually sends shareholders into a tizzy. However, the company’s stock is holding strong, up 6 percent in after-hours trading and up over 200 percent over the last year. But if Netflix continues to see strong domestic and international subscriber growth, keeps pumping out quality original content and securing those exclusive deals to stream popular TV shows, then the road between it and HBO may not look so gargantuan after all.
Especially if this remains true:
“We have a remarkable complete rate, which is a good leading indicator with us,” said Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos in the investor call this afternoon. “On traditional TV, typically the bail-out rate begins to pick up around the third or fourth episode of a show, but what we see is steady growth as people binge out of the gate, and then others catch up later,” he said.
“Compared to shows that lose audience week over week over week, we generally gain audience over time.” It sounds too good to be true, although admittedly David Fincher and Kevin Spacey is a pretty dynamic combination.
A relative of 8-year-old Mariam Ashraf Meseeha who was killed late Sunday, mourns over her coffin during her funeral with others in Warraq's Virgin Mary church in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013. Egypt's Christians were stunned Monday by a drive-by shooting in which masked gunmen sprayed a wedding party outside a Cairo church with automatic weapons fire, killing several, including two young girls, in an attack that raised fears of a nascent insurgency by extremists after the military's ouster of the president and a crackdown on Islamists. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
A relative of 8-year-old Mariam Ashraf Meseeha who was killed late Sunday, mourns over her coffin during her funeral with others in Warraq's Virgin Mary church in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013. Egypt's Christians were stunned Monday by a drive-by shooting in which masked gunmen sprayed a wedding party outside a Cairo church with automatic weapons fire, killing several, including two young girls, in an attack that raised fears of a nascent insurgency by extremists after the military's ouster of the president and a crackdown on Islamists. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
An Egyptian woman weeps during the funeral of several Copt Christians who were killed late Sunday, in Warraq's Virgin Mary church in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013. Egypt's Christians were stunned Monday by a drive-by shooting in which masked gunmen sprayed a wedding party outside a Cairo church with automatic weapons fire, killing several, including two young girls, in an attack that raised fears of a nascent insurgency by extremists after the military's ouster of the president and a crackdown on Islamists. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
An Egyptian woman wipes her tears before attending the funeral of victims killed after two masked gunmen riding a motorcycle opened fire at a wedding party in Cairo's Waraa neighborhood as guests were leaving the Virgin Mary church, killing several late Sunday, Oct. 20, 2013, at the morgue in Sayeda Zeinab neighborhood, Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013. Egypt's government and religious leaders on Monday condemned the attack that killed several, including an 8-year-old girl, the latest in a rising wave of assaults targeting the country's Christian minority. (AP Photo/Mohammed Abu Zaid)
An Egyptian woman weeps during the funeral of several Copt Christians who were killed late Sunday,in Warraq's Virgin Mary church in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013. Egypt's Christians were stunned Monday by a drive-by shooting in which masked gunmen sprayed a wedding party outside a Cairo church with automatic weapons fire, killing several, including two young girls, in an attack that raised fears of a nascent insurgency by extremists after the military's ouster of the president and a crackdown on Islamists. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
An Egyptian youth takes in the scene beneath him at a Coptic Christian church in the Waraa neighborhood of Cairo late Sunday, Oct. 20, 2013 after gunmen on motorcycles opened fire, killing a man, woman and child. Egypt has been on edge since a July 3 military coup ousted the country's Islamist president. Since the coup, Coptic Christians have been killed and their churches attacked by angry mobs. (AP Photo/Mohsen Nabil)
CAIRO (AP) — The elderly, silver-haired Christian could hardly speak Monday, sitting stunned in a church where the evening before, suspected Islamic militants on a motorcycle sprayed his family's wedding party with automatic weapons fire, killing his son, his wife's sister and two granddaughters aged 8 and 12.
"It's God's will. They are always beating us down. Every other day now, they do this," the 75-year-old Fahmy Azer Abboud said as he waited for their funeral to start.
He spoke haltingly of his dead granddaughters, both named Mariam.
"They were pure angels. They had the world's kindness inside them. They helped me and shared with me everything they had," Abboud said.
The girls were waiting to enter the Church of the Virgin Mary in Cairo's Warraq district for the wedding of another of Abboud's granddaughters when the gunmen struck about 9 p.m. Sunday. The wounded included seven relatives, with his other son, Nabil, among them, he said.
The shooting deepened panic among Egypt's minority Coptic Christians, already the target of centuries of discrimination by the Muslim majority. It also raised fears that an insurgency by Islamic extremists in the strategic Sinai Peninsula and an increase in attacks in rural areas may be shifting to the capital, a city of 18 million people already beset by crime and poverty.
The violence by Islamic radicals has risen since the military deposed President Mohammed Morsi in July and cracked down on his Muslim Brotherhood and its allies. The attacks have targeted mainly security forces and Christians, whom the Islamists blame because of their strong support of Morsi's ouster. In Sinai, suspected jihadist fighters have stepped up violence against soldiers and police since the coup.
Sunday's shooting also recalled an Islamic militant insurgency in the 1980s and 1990s, when extremists waged a campaign against police, Christians and foreign tourists, trying to topple the government of now-ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak. Many fear a revival of that wave of violence.
High-profile attacks blamed on militants have already begun to creep into Cairo. In September, the interior minister, who heads the police, survived an assassination attempt by a suicide car bombing. Earlier this month, militants fired rocket-propelled grenades on the nation's largest satellite ground station, also in the capital.
Witnesses said a car blocked traffic outside the Coptic church minutes before the shooting, allowing the gunmen on the motorcycle the space they needed and giving them a relatively easy getaway.
The funeral of the four victims was attended by several thousand Christians who spelled into the street. Their grief was mixed with anger and disbelief.
"With our blood and souls, we will redeem the cross," they chanted as the four coffins were about to be brought into the church.
Addressing the mourners, a young member of the choir said: "Even in these circumstances, we can only talk of the heavens above and ask for the help of Christ."
A prayer followed: "Help us, Jesus. Forgive us. Bless us. Our eyes are filled with tears."
Women wept hysterically and the congregation joined in, "Ya Allah," — "Oh God."
When the caskets arrived, mourners rushed to touch them. Some men fell onto the coffins, also weeping, as priests pushed them away. The atmosphere was raucous, and one cleric sternly demanded silence so the service could begin.
"Those who cannot remain silent can step out for some fresh air. Let us show respect to our God and the dead," he said.
The attack drew condemnations from senior officials, something many Christians have grown to see as too little, too late.
Interim Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi pledged the attack would "not succeed in sowing divisions between the nation's Muslims and Christians," and he promised that the culprits would be brought to justice. Sheik Ahmed el-Tayeb, top Muslim cleric at Al-Azhar, the world's primary seat of Sunni Islamic learning, called the shooting "a criminal act that runs contrary to religion and morals."
Pope Tawardros II, spiritual leader of Egypt's Coptic Christians, remained publicly silent. However, Anba Rafael, a top church official who led the funeral Mass, called for an end to what he called lax security and for justice.
In a brief statement, an umbrella group of Islamist parties, including Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, also condemned the attack.
"Places of worship are sacred," said the National Alliance for Supporting Legitimacy and Rejecting the Coup. The group includes hard-line clerics who often engaged in anti-Christian rhetoric and radical groups of Morsi allies that have a history of violence.
A Coptic youth group, known as The Association of Maspero Youth, called for the dismissal of Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim over the attack.
"If the Egyptian government does not care about the security and rights of Christians, then we must ask why are we paying taxes and why we are not arming ourselves," said the group, formed in 2011 after more than 20 Christians were killed by army troops cracking down on their protest outside Cairo's Nile-side state TV building, known as Maspero.
Christians, mostly from the Coptic Orthodox Church, make up about 10 percent of Egypt's population of 90 million. Attacks in August destroyed about 40 churches, mostly in areas south of Cairo where large Coptic communities and powerful Islamic militants make for a combustible mix.
The August attacks were seen by police and Christians as retaliation for security forces in Cairo crushing two protest camps of Morsi supporters after the coup, killing hundreds of Islamists.
The Coptic community is demanding more protection from the military-backed authorities.
"Churches were torched, Christians kidnapped and now gunned down, and there is no security guarding the churches. I believe there is collaboration," said Ishaq Ibrahim of the Cairo-based Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.
Sunday's attack, he said, showed "a change and possible expansion of the attacks targeting Christians in Egypt, and it could leave more victims."
At the Church of the Virgin Mary, witnesses to the shooting spoke of what they said amounted to criminal negligence.
Ameer Shafiq, an 18-year-old computer science student, said he and others helped take the wounded to hospitals, flagging down taxis, minibuses and private cars. An ambulance, he said, arrived about an hour after the shooting and the police even later. At the closest hospital, emergency treatment was slow and most of the wounded had to be moved elsewhere, he added.
"Mariam still had a pulse when I carried her to hospital," he said of the 8-year-old. "She could have lived."
Shafiq described a bloody scene of "panic and hysteria" at the church.
"People were screaming. Some ran back into the church to escape," he said. "Then, there was anger, mostly by the women. They were shouting: 'May God kill them one by one!' or 'What have we done to deserve this?'"
Maurice Helmy, another relative of the victims, appealed to the head of the military, Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, to take action.
"I want to tell el-Sissi that I love him, but he should stop forgetting us. I know that you know who did this. We have reached the limit. Beware of the patient when he becomes angry," Helmy said.
___
Associated Press writer Maggie Michael contributed to this report.
Photo by Barry Marsden/Retna Pictures via Getty Images
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Morrissey’s Autobiography, which Penguin published in the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe last Thursday, is that it exists at all. It has been rumored roughly forever. As recently as September, the Atlantic put together a convincing case that its imminent publication was a hoax. In fact, the British pop icon’s memoir was merely delayed, reportedly over his insistence on a Penguin Classics designation—a black-border badge of literary immortality assigned, in this exceptional case, before the book’s actual birth, which is rather a royalist attitude for someone who once made a great record called The Queen Is Dead. What links other Penguin Classics authors is death and veneration; Morrissey has always longed for both, first as lead singer of the Smiths—the greatest band to emerge from the extraordinary British postpunk renaissance of the 1980s—and then in his resilient solo career. If the reports are true that he held Penguin to ransom over the Classics imprimatur and won, then Autobiography is an act of hubris at once appalling, hilarious, and diabolically brilliant, much like the writer himself.
Whether as the sneering wraith twirling gladioli during the Smiths’ first appearance on Top of the Pops in 1983 or in his beefed-up, rockabilly-mechanic guise of today, Morrissey, now 54, has held fast to the mindset of late-20th-century pop music’s great object and subject: the existentially bewildered adolescent. It’s a state of morbid petulance and persecution, of sensational narcissism and wild emotions keenly felt, of Eros and Thanatos fumbling eternally in the backseat. It’s a state of mind that produces lyrics such as “If a double-decker bus crashes into us/ To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die” and “I wear black on the outside/ Because black is how I feel on the inside.” It’s also the state of mind of Autobiography. Alone and misunderstood, his passions unrequited or confused, the mopey teen in his bedroom carves out a jealously guarded sanctuary of rebellious beauty and sullen wit—and for this one mopey teen, emotional penury becomes a life force, straight through to middle age. Autobiography has no dedication page, which is one of the many very Morrissey things about it.
Steven Patrick Morrissey is a legendary control freak, which reinforces the impression that Autobiography had no editor. It has no chapters or index; its chronology is linear except when it isn’t; its first paragraph is 4 ½ pages long. Early on, the apparent lack of a guiding hand isn’t a drawback—it’s sometimes even a virtue. Morrissey writes with fondness and fierce loyalty of his Irish Catholic family, but with terrified revulsion of their hometown, “forgotten Victorian knife-plunging Manchester, where everything lies where it was left over one hundred years ago.” He renders his childhood with a mordant wit reminiscent of his hero Oscar Wilde; his entry into the world is a perfect egomaniac’s epigram (“Naturally my birth almost kills my mother, for my head is too big”), while his only sibling whets his appetite for paranoid melodrama (“My sister Jackie, older by two years, is interrupted four times as she tries to kill me; whether this be rivalry or visionary no one knows”).
An editor may have compressed Morrissey’s operatic eviscerations of 1960s and ’70s Manchester and its ghastly state school system, one powered by beatings, privation, and occasional sexual predation. (Lest one might think Morrissey is exaggerating for effect, a complementary account of St. Mary’s Secondary Modern can be found in Tony Fletcher’s excellent recent Smiths biography A Light That Never Goes Out.) An editor may have trimmed the 13 pages of summaries of Morrissey’s favorite poets (birth and death dates helpfully included), or hacked away at the five-page disquisition on British children’s television of the 1960s. But all of these passages are more moving for being so voluminous and obsessive. “Television flickers and fleets, and must be watched closely lest what you see is never seen again,” says Morrissey, who writes as incisively on his heroes David Bowie, Iggy Pop, and Patti Smith as he does on Lost in Space, “where all the secrets of masculinity are meted out in the ping-pong clash between Dr. Smith and Major West.”
We can thank St. Mary’s for shaping Morrissey’s lyrical temperament (“Its wearisome echo of negativity exhausts me to a permanent state of circumstantial sadness”) and for rendering him unfit for further schooling or gainful employment; we can also thank Sounds magazine and his local postal office for turning him down for jobs and intensifying his fruitful malaise. Then one day in 1982, 18-year-old guitarist and songwriting prodigy Johnny Marr knocks on the door of an eccentric loner he barely knows and, improbably, asks him to start a band. With or without Morrissey, Johnny Marr would have been a star; but without Marr, Morrissey still would be in his bedroom, writing spec scripts for soaps and Instagramming his vinyl collection. (That Morrissey clearly recognizes this but can’t fully bring himself to admit it is also very Morrissey.)
The miracle of the Marr visitation is the moment that Autobiography begins to curdle, and when the dearth of editorial supervision begins to show. It’s here that Morrissey’s account of the Smiths necessarily begins to compete with other, more reliable narratives, and here that his miserablism turns out to be congenital instead of contextual. A scant two years after the first Morrissey-Marr meeting, the Smiths’ self-titled debut album, released on seminal postpunk label Rough Trade, hits the U.K. charts at No. 2, but because it is not No. 1, Morrissey writes, “My life sinks.” He launches endless ad hominem attacks on Rough Trade founder Geoff Travis and newspaper journalist Julie Burchill (the latter for the unanswerable crime of writing the following sentence: “Morrissey lives with his boyfriend in Santa Monica”). He devotes some 45 ragged, repetitive pages to an astonishingly bitter and self-serving account of Smiths drummer Mike Joyce’s successful 1996 suit for a higher percentage of the band’s recording royalties. He touches a few times on the charges of racism and nativism that have dogged him back to his Smiths days, but only by railing against the stupidity and mendacity of his accusers. And his rendition of the Smiths’ 1987 breakup is incongruously Zen and completely at odds with the established story—not to mention cruelly devoid of gossip.
And how does Autobiography rate on gossip? The enigma of Morrissey’s sexuality, such as it is, remains mostly intact: He suffers through what he derides as “cupcake encounters” with girls in his early teens, falls in love for the first time with a man in the mid ’90s, and briefly considers “producing a mewling miniature monster” (!) with a woman (!?!) at the turn of the millennium. But it’s all pretty vague, as are the celebrity anecdotes. Tom Hanks shows up backstage but doesn’t complete a sentence. Visionary British filmmaker Derek Jarman, who directed three Smiths videos, is introduced solely so that Johnny Marr can be glimpsed vomiting in front of him. The closest we come to an action-packed set piece is when our militant vegan narrator coaxes David Bowie away from a buffet spread of cold cuts.
Autobiography is at times so relentlessly whiny and misanthropic that it’s startling when Morrissey shares a flash of sober self-awareness. “Undernourished and growing out of the wrong soil,” he writes of himself circa 1984, “I knew at this time that a lot of people found me hard to take, and for the most part I understood why. Although a passably human creature on the outside, the swirling soul within seemed to speak up for the most awkward people on the planet.” That was once true—exhilaratingly true, true enough to save a life. But Autobiography only speaks up for its author, and never more than in his next line. “Somewhere deep within,” he confesses, “my only pleasure was to out-endure people’s patience.”
The potential of straw for the energy mix has been underestimated
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
21-Oct-2013
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Contact: Tilo Arnhold presse@ufz.de 49-341-235-1635 Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ
Study: Straw could supply energy to several millions of households in Germany
This news release is available in German.
Leipzig. Straw from agriculture could play an important role in the future energy mix for Germany. Up until now it has been underutilised as a biomass residue and waste material. These were the conclusions of a study conducted by the TLL (Thueringian regional institute for agriculture), the DBFZ (German biomass research center) and the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ). According to them, from a total of 30 million tons of cereal straw produced annually in Germany, between 8 and 13 million tons of it could be used sustainably for energy or fuel production. This potential could for example provide 1.7 to 2.8 million average households with electricity and at the same time 2.8 to 4.5 million households with heating. These results highlight the potential contribution of straw to renewable sources of energy, scientists state in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Applied Energy.
For their respective study, scientists analysed the development of residual substances resulting from German agriculture. Accounting for 58 per cent, straw can be regarded as the most important resource, and yet so far it has hardly been used for energy production. From 1950 to 2000 there was a noticeable rise in the cultivation of winter wheat, rye and winter barley in Germany which then remained relatively constant. To remove any bias from weather fluctuations, the average values were taken from 1999, 2003 and 2007. On average, approx. 30 megatons of cereal straw per year were produced in these years. Due to the fact that not all parts of the straw can be used and the fact that straw also plays an important role as bedding in livestock farming, only about half of these 30 megatons are actually available in the end.
Sustainable use
It must be taken into consideration that cereal straw plays an important role in the humus balance of soils. For this reason some of the straw must be left scattered on the agricultural land to prevent nutrients from being permanently extracted from the soil. To calculate the humus balance of soils three different methods of calculation were tested by the team of scientists. Depending upon the method of calculation used, 8, 10 or 13 megatons of straw can be used sustainably every year for energy production i.e. without causing any disadvantages to the soils or other forms of utilisation. "To our knowledge this is the first time that a study like this has been conducted for an EU country, demonstrating the potential of straw for a truly sustainable energy use, while taking into account the humus balance", stresses Prof. Daniela Thraen, scientist at the DBFZ and the UFZ.
Greenhouse gas balances depend on utilisation forms
It can thus be said that straw can contribute to the future energy mix. The degree to which it will contribute to greenhouse gas reduction however will depend on how the straw is used. A reduction compared to fossil fuels can be somewhere between 73 and 92 percent when using straw for the generation of heat, combined heat and power generation or as second-generation biofuel production. The different greenhouse gas balances cast a differentiated light on the EUs goal of covering ten percent of transportation sector's energy use by using biofuels. Once again the study emphasizes how the use of bioenergy needs to take into account various factors. Given the conditions prevalent in Germany, the use of straw in combined heat and power generation would be best for the climate. "Straw should therefore primarily be used in larger district heating stations and/or combined heat and power stations, but technology must be developed for an environmentally-friendly utilisation", stresses Dr. Armin Vetter from TLL, who has been operating a straw-fuelled power station for 17 years.
Role model Denmark
According to the summary of the new study, straw-based energy applications should be developed in Germany in particular in those regions with favourable conditions and appropriate power plants. Even if we wouldn't be spinning straw into gold in the foreseeable future, it would still make an important contribution to the energy turnaround. Looking across the border shows us what is feasible when the course is optimally set: currently Denmark is still considered to be the world leader in straw-based energy applications. 15 years ago a master plan was introduced there, ensuring in the meantime in Germanys northern neighbouring country that over 5 billion kilowatt hours of energy per year is generated from straw.
Tilo Arnhold
###
Publications:
Christian Weiser, Vanessa Zeller, Frank Reinicke, Bernhard Wagner, Stefan Majer, Armin Vetter, Daniela Thraen (2013): Integrated assessment of sustainable cereal straw potential and different straw-based energy applications in Germany. Applied Energy, Available online 30 July 2013
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2013.07.016
The study was funded by the BMU the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety within the program Promoting projects to optimise biomass energy use".
Conference:
Five years BMU funding program "Promoting projects to optimise biomass energy!" 14. - 15.11.2013 in Leipzig
Basic information on the sustainable use of residual substances from agriculture for generating energy (Series of articles within the BMU-funding program Biomass energy use"):
The potential of straw in the federal states and administrative districts in Germany:
http://strohpotenziale.dbfz.de/
TLL (Thueringian regional institute for agriculture) is responsible as a specialized authority on agriculture for the sovereignty and enforcement of agricultural law. Beyond that, it offers various services as a competence center for agricultural and food production in the form of consultation based on applied and practice-oriented research. The focus thereby is on an efficient and environmentally-friendly production of food-, feed- and non-food-products.
http://www.thueringen.de/de/tll
The DBFZ (German biomass research center) works as a central and independent mastermind in the field of the energetic use of biomass on the question of how limited available biomass resources can contribute sustainably and most efficiently to the existing and above all to a future energy supply. In the context of its research work the DBFZ identifies, develops, follows up, assesses and demonstrates the most promising fields of application for bioenergy and particularly outstanding and positive examples together with partners in research, economics and the community.
http://www.dbfz.de
At the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) scientists are interested in the wide-ranging causes and impacts of environmental change. They conduct research on water resources, biodiversity, the impacts of climate change and adaptation strategies, environmental and biotechnologies, bioenergy, the behaviour of chemicals in the environment and their effects on health, modelling and sociological issues. Their guiding motto: our research serves the sustainable use of natural resources and helps towards long-term food and livelihood security in the face of global change. The UFZ has over 1100 employees working in Leipzig, Halle und Magdeburg. It is funded by the federal government, as well as by the State of Saxony and Saxony Anhalt.
http://www.ufz.de/
The Helmholtz Association contributes to finding solutions for large and pressing issues in society, science and the economy through excellence in the following six areas of research: energy, earth and the environment, health, key technologies, structure of matter, transport and aerospace. With almost 35,000 employees and coworkers in 18 research centres and an annual budget of approx. 3.8 billion Euros the Helmholtz Association is the largest scientific organization in Germany. Work is conducted in the tradition of the renowned natural scientist Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894). http://www.helmholtz.de/
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The potential of straw for the energy mix has been underestimated
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
21-Oct-2013
[
| E-mail
]
Share
Contact: Tilo Arnhold presse@ufz.de 49-341-235-1635 Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ
Study: Straw could supply energy to several millions of households in Germany
This news release is available in German.
Leipzig. Straw from agriculture could play an important role in the future energy mix for Germany. Up until now it has been underutilised as a biomass residue and waste material. These were the conclusions of a study conducted by the TLL (Thueringian regional institute for agriculture), the DBFZ (German biomass research center) and the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ). According to them, from a total of 30 million tons of cereal straw produced annually in Germany, between 8 and 13 million tons of it could be used sustainably for energy or fuel production. This potential could for example provide 1.7 to 2.8 million average households with electricity and at the same time 2.8 to 4.5 million households with heating. These results highlight the potential contribution of straw to renewable sources of energy, scientists state in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Applied Energy.
For their respective study, scientists analysed the development of residual substances resulting from German agriculture. Accounting for 58 per cent, straw can be regarded as the most important resource, and yet so far it has hardly been used for energy production. From 1950 to 2000 there was a noticeable rise in the cultivation of winter wheat, rye and winter barley in Germany which then remained relatively constant. To remove any bias from weather fluctuations, the average values were taken from 1999, 2003 and 2007. On average, approx. 30 megatons of cereal straw per year were produced in these years. Due to the fact that not all parts of the straw can be used and the fact that straw also plays an important role as bedding in livestock farming, only about half of these 30 megatons are actually available in the end.
Sustainable use
It must be taken into consideration that cereal straw plays an important role in the humus balance of soils. For this reason some of the straw must be left scattered on the agricultural land to prevent nutrients from being permanently extracted from the soil. To calculate the humus balance of soils three different methods of calculation were tested by the team of scientists. Depending upon the method of calculation used, 8, 10 or 13 megatons of straw can be used sustainably every year for energy production i.e. without causing any disadvantages to the soils or other forms of utilisation. "To our knowledge this is the first time that a study like this has been conducted for an EU country, demonstrating the potential of straw for a truly sustainable energy use, while taking into account the humus balance", stresses Prof. Daniela Thraen, scientist at the DBFZ and the UFZ.
Greenhouse gas balances depend on utilisation forms
It can thus be said that straw can contribute to the future energy mix. The degree to which it will contribute to greenhouse gas reduction however will depend on how the straw is used. A reduction compared to fossil fuels can be somewhere between 73 and 92 percent when using straw for the generation of heat, combined heat and power generation or as second-generation biofuel production. The different greenhouse gas balances cast a differentiated light on the EUs goal of covering ten percent of transportation sector's energy use by using biofuels. Once again the study emphasizes how the use of bioenergy needs to take into account various factors. Given the conditions prevalent in Germany, the use of straw in combined heat and power generation would be best for the climate. "Straw should therefore primarily be used in larger district heating stations and/or combined heat and power stations, but technology must be developed for an environmentally-friendly utilisation", stresses Dr. Armin Vetter from TLL, who has been operating a straw-fuelled power station for 17 years.
Role model Denmark
According to the summary of the new study, straw-based energy applications should be developed in Germany in particular in those regions with favourable conditions and appropriate power plants. Even if we wouldn't be spinning straw into gold in the foreseeable future, it would still make an important contribution to the energy turnaround. Looking across the border shows us what is feasible when the course is optimally set: currently Denmark is still considered to be the world leader in straw-based energy applications. 15 years ago a master plan was introduced there, ensuring in the meantime in Germanys northern neighbouring country that over 5 billion kilowatt hours of energy per year is generated from straw.
Tilo Arnhold
###
Publications:
Christian Weiser, Vanessa Zeller, Frank Reinicke, Bernhard Wagner, Stefan Majer, Armin Vetter, Daniela Thraen (2013): Integrated assessment of sustainable cereal straw potential and different straw-based energy applications in Germany. Applied Energy, Available online 30 July 2013
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2013.07.016
The study was funded by the BMU the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety within the program Promoting projects to optimise biomass energy use".
Conference:
Five years BMU funding program "Promoting projects to optimise biomass energy!" 14. - 15.11.2013 in Leipzig
Basic information on the sustainable use of residual substances from agriculture for generating energy (Series of articles within the BMU-funding program Biomass energy use"):
The potential of straw in the federal states and administrative districts in Germany:
http://strohpotenziale.dbfz.de/
TLL (Thueringian regional institute for agriculture) is responsible as a specialized authority on agriculture for the sovereignty and enforcement of agricultural law. Beyond that, it offers various services as a competence center for agricultural and food production in the form of consultation based on applied and practice-oriented research. The focus thereby is on an efficient and environmentally-friendly production of food-, feed- and non-food-products.
http://www.thueringen.de/de/tll
The DBFZ (German biomass research center) works as a central and independent mastermind in the field of the energetic use of biomass on the question of how limited available biomass resources can contribute sustainably and most efficiently to the existing and above all to a future energy supply. In the context of its research work the DBFZ identifies, develops, follows up, assesses and demonstrates the most promising fields of application for bioenergy and particularly outstanding and positive examples together with partners in research, economics and the community.
http://www.dbfz.de
At the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) scientists are interested in the wide-ranging causes and impacts of environmental change. They conduct research on water resources, biodiversity, the impacts of climate change and adaptation strategies, environmental and biotechnologies, bioenergy, the behaviour of chemicals in the environment and their effects on health, modelling and sociological issues. Their guiding motto: our research serves the sustainable use of natural resources and helps towards long-term food and livelihood security in the face of global change. The UFZ has over 1100 employees working in Leipzig, Halle und Magdeburg. It is funded by the federal government, as well as by the State of Saxony and Saxony Anhalt.
http://www.ufz.de/
The Helmholtz Association contributes to finding solutions for large and pressing issues in society, science and the economy through excellence in the following six areas of research: energy, earth and the environment, health, key technologies, structure of matter, transport and aerospace. With almost 35,000 employees and coworkers in 18 research centres and an annual budget of approx. 3.8 billion Euros the Helmholtz Association is the largest scientific organization in Germany. Work is conducted in the tradition of the renowned natural scientist Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894). http://www.helmholtz.de/
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It might sound like a very 2010 question, but the other day I was at a coffee shop and watched someone with a Nexus 7 struggle to get comfortable in an over-stuffed armchair for more than an hour.
LONDON (Reuters) - Expectations the Federal Reserve will keep its stimulus in place for longer following the confidence-sapping U.S. fiscal impasse pushed world shares to a five-year high and the dollar to an eight-month low on Friday.
An acceleration of China's giant economy provided a further boost for stock markets, as well as growth-linked commodities such as oil and copper, as the prospect of an extended spell of super-easy money and improving growth buoyed investors.
European shares <.fteu3> opened 0.3 percent, with broadly even gains for most of the region's major bourses leaving them on course for a weekly gain of 1.75 percent and hovering at their highest since mid-2008.
It followed a record close for the S&P 500 on Wall Street and solid gains across most of Asia overnight. <.n/>
As the U.S. debt drama faded, speculation grew over whether the likely hit to growth from the recent wrangling would see the Federal Reserve further delay cutting back its stimulus - supporting riskier assets but weighing on the dollar.
"The debate on the timing of QE tapering by the Fed is quickly moving to whether it will be Q1 2014 or Q2," said Derek Halpenny, European head of global markets research for Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi.
"The dollar has been left vulnerable by this uncertainty especially in circumstances of growth stabilizing in China."
The knock-on effect for Europe was a stronger euro and pound. The euro zone's shared currency hit an 8-1/2 month high of $1.3690 in early trading as its recent strong run following signs of a pick-up in the bloc continued.
CHINA BULLS SHOP
Investors were relieved by data showing China's economy grew 7.8 percent in the third quarter, its fastest pace this year and in line with expectations, as firmer foreign and domestic demand lifted factory production and retail sales.
China's CSI300 index <.csi300> climbed 0.7 percent, while Australian shares <.axjo> jumped to their highest level since June 2008. Australian exports are closely linked to China's economic fortunes.
"The Q3 GDP figure is in line with market expectations but the uncertainty is whether the current recovery is sustainable," said Shen Jianguang, chief China economist with Mizuho Securities in Hong Kong.
After Thursday's record close, U.S. S&P E-mini futures pointed to further gains of around 0.2 percent when Wall Street opens later in the day, though investors are likely to retain some caution following Wednesday's last-minute debt deal.
While it pulled the world's largest economy back from the brink of an historic default, it only funds the government until January 15 and raises the borrowing limit through to February 7, meaning another political showdown could be on cards.
Markets are bracing for a deluge of delayed U.S. data that will pour out over the next week.
A simple estimate suggested the direct and indirect impact of this month's shutdown would weigh on annualized fourth-quarter gross domestic product growth by 0.4 percentage point, analysts at Morgan Stanley wrote in a note to clients.
Following hefty gains this week, German Bunds were steady in early trading, while in the euro zone periphery it was only Portugal that was in the red, along with its main share market <.psi20>, as its debt concerns continued.
Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasuries were trading with a yield of 2.5667 percent by 0745 GMT, a two-week low. Yields move inversely to prices.
In commodity markets, China's stronger growth helped copper climb 0.6 percent to 7,273 a tonne and Brent oil futures to hold above $109 a barrel after a build-up of crude stocks in the United States pushed oil prices down overnight.
Meanwhile, gold took a breather after rallying almost 3 percent overnight - its biggest one-day rise in a month - as the dollar weakened. It was steady at about $1,316 an ounce and not far off a more-than one-week high reached on Thursday.
Amazon set out to makes our lives a tiny bit easier when it launched its cloud-based video transcoder back in January, and now, it's expanding the service to audio as well. In addition to converting media files into mobile-friendly formats, the platform will also allow users to turn their videos into audio-only streams, which might just come in handy if you plan on turning a video into a podcast. The Elastic Transcoder lets you create output using AAC, MP3 or Vorbis audio codecs, and can attach relevant metadata like track names and album art to your files. In an effort to reel new users in, Amazon is offering a free usage tier capped at 20 hours of converted audio content each month. After that point, you pay for what you use, so each minute of audio will cost the princely sum of $0.0045 to transcode. To see how it all works, check out the video after the break.
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