Natural Gas Nation: EIA Sees U.S. Future Shaped by Fracking

Truck stops will need restyled fuel pumps. New factories, and some old ones, will whir to life. Ports will send new tankers onto the open seas, heralding the return of the United States to the top of the global energy scene.

All these changes already are in motion, according to the new U.S. government annual energy outlook, a document that paints the clearest picture yet of the transformation being wrought by the natural gas boom.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday released projections that affirmed the trend already tracked by numerous private forecasters and the International Energy Agency: The growth of U.S. energy production, particularly oil and natural gas, will far outstrip the rise in demand, slashing imports and moderating prices for consumers. But in table after table of numbers, the government's energy analysts detail for the first time the widespread impact of the new abundance—especially the changes due to natural gas from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

EIA anticipates the production boom from Texas to Pennsylvania will ripple through every segment of the economy. But the projections, based entirely on U.S. government policy now in place and assuming no technological breakthroughs, see more evolution than revolution in the nation's energy future-an outlook still deeply dependent upon fossil energy. (See related story: "U.S. to Overtake Saudi Arabia, Russia as World's Top Energy Producer")

Trucking Inroads

EIA projects that the use of natural gas as a fuel for vehicles will rise nearly 12 percent per year through 2040, more than double the agency's outlook last year. That increase will be almost entirely due to some segments of the trucking industry changing their fueling habits, and buying new rigs equipped to run on liquefied natural gas (LNG). (See related story: "Trading Oil for Natural Gas in the Truck Lane")

Big freight haulers will be willing to fork out extra cash for this capital investment, EIA's analysts reckon, for one reason: They'll make the money back and save in the long run, as the price of LNG will remain 40 percent below the price of petroleum diesel fuel for the next three decades. That price spread, perhaps more than any other numbers in the outlook, conveys just how durable the fracking boom appears to be in the eyes of the analysts. By 2040, EIA projects that the use of natural gas in heavy-duty vehicles will be displacing 700,000 million barrels of petroleum diesel fuel a day.

But the picture painted by the government analysts is far from the vision of a natural gas superhighway touted by tycoon T. Boone Pickens and other advocates. From providing less than 1 percent of the energy used in U.S. transportation today, the EIA projects the share fueled by LNG and compressed natural gas (used in many city buses today) will reach only about 4 percent by 2040, based on current policy and technology. Some trucking companies may be able to work out the logistics of having adequate LNG fueling stations for their fleets. But average drivers will not.

"If you took 20 top scientists and put them in a room and said, 'Design the ideal fuel for light-duty vehicles, those men and women would invent gasoline, and maybe diesel fuel, because the energy density you can get in a tank for a relatively small car is tremendous," said Adam Sieminski, who took over this summer as EIA administrator after a career in energy forecasting, most recently as chief energy economist for Deutsche Bank. "What really holds natural gas back is the infrastructure to refuel, and how much energy you can put into a vehicle is limited."

Industrial Renewal

U.S. manufacturing output will increase by an average 2 percent per year over three decades, according to the EIA outlook. That's 20 percent more rapidly than the analysts projected a year ago, and it's due to the extended outlook for low-priced natural gas due to the shale-drilling boom.

Numerous petrochemical companies—Dow, Formosa Plastics, Shell, Chevron Phillips, Westlake Chemicals, and Nova Chemicals, to name a few—have announced plans to build, reopen, or expand North American production. That's because they now anticipate long-term access to low-priced natural gas, which they use as a feedstock to make thousands of plastic, adhesive, and polyester products. It's an astounding turnaround for the industry, which as recently as 2004 closed down 70 U.S. facilities as uneconomic due to high-priced natural gas.

Now, between the ramp-up in petrochemical plants and an anticipated increase in production by the energy-hungry metals, the EIA's outlook for the U.S. economy is "fairly positive in the industrial sector of the economy," Siemenski said.

But this gravy train will have its limits. After 2025, the EIA sees other nations developing and installing newer and more energy-efficient facilities that compete effectively with U.S. chemical plants and limit their output.

Export Battle

It already is clear that the chemical industry understands well the risks of this global competition for resources. That's why it is expected to be a major player in an upcoming battle in Washington over another one of EIA's projections: The rapid U.S. move into exports of natural gas. EIA projects exports of natural gas will rise to 1.6 trillion cubic feet by 2027, almost double the agency's projection of a year ago. (See related story: "With U.S. Natural Gas Booming, a Move to Send It Overseas")

Exporting natural gas by ship is no easy matter. It must be super-chilled to (-260°F/ -162.2°C) at "liquefaction" plants, shrinking it to 1/600th of its original size to be shipped in specialized insulated tankers with bubble-like domes. The facilities cost billions of dollars to build and require government approval.

So far, U.S. regulators have proposed nine LNG export projects, with at least seven other sites being surveyed as possible liquefaction sites. EIA's projection counts only the one project that has received approval, Sabine Pass in Louisiana, which is expected to begin operations in 2015.

But the chemical industry has raised concerns about sending its natural gas fuel and plastics feedstock overseas. "We're all for exporting natural gas," said Dow Chemical Chief Executive Andrew Liveris at the energy industry's big annual IHS Ceraweek conference in Houston earlier this year. "We just want to see it exported in solid form instead of liquid form."  Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden, incoming chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, is expected to take up the issue of limiting LNG exports, having expressed concern that exports of natural gas could raise the price of the fuel for U.S. consumers.

Charles Ebinger, director of the foreign policy and energy security initiative at the Brookings Institution, spearheaded a study earlier this year that concluded that LNG exports would be a net benefit to the U.S. economy, findings he said were echoed in an economic analysis released this week by the U.S. Department of Energy. But he anticipated a political battle: "There are people on the Hill who will fight this fight, saying we shouldn't be exporting our national patrimony."

No Revolution

But just as natural gas is not expected to unseat oil in fueling vehicles, neither is it projected to displace coal in firing U.S. electricity—at least with current policy in place. The share of electricity produced by natural gas is expected to be 30 percent by 2040, with coal at 37 percent, and nuclear at 18 percent—not too different from their shares today. Non-hydroelectric renewable energy such as solar and wind is on track to grow from just 5 percent to 11 percent of all U.S. electricity by 2040. (See related interactive: The Global Electricity Mix)

EIA's outlook contains some good news for the climate: Over the next three decades, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions are on track to remain 5 percent below their 2005 level. Even though the number of miles traveled on U.S. highways is projected to climb—40 percent for cars and 90 percent for trucks by 2040—the amount of energy used for transportation will stay flat, due to a massive shift to more far more fuel-efficient vehicles.

But the EIA projection should give pause to anyone seeking a wholesale U.S. energy transformation. The analysis sees little uptick in all-electric vehicles; even by 2040, EVs will account for less than one percent of cars sold, assuming today's policies. Advanced biofuels languish.

Wind and solar energy grow strongly, but never enough to take more than a bite out of fossil-fuel energy, which EIA projects will continue to feed 78 percent of all U.S. energy demand 28 years from now, barely down from 82 percent today.

Without new climate policy or a leap in technology, the EIA sees an energy future being shaped by the rush of new oil and natural gas.

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.

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'Fiscal Cliff' Talks: Tax Increases Seem Inevitable

Dec 7, 2012 11:51am

Another week comes to a close with seemingly little progress in the on-going “fiscal cliff” negotiations. With only 24 days left to negotiate and the House of Representatives heading out of town for a long weekend, the outlook for a deal before December 31 is looking increasingly slim, and Republicans and Democrats don’t appear to be moving away from the right and the left and toward some middle ground.

But this week, several Republicans seemed to voice a sense of inevitability on a key issue in cliff negotiations–an increase in tax rates. While Republicans continue to be staunchly opposed to raising tax rates–one of the major sticking points in the discussions–GOP House and Senate members this week shared their belief that a hike in rates is going to happen.

Get more pure politics at ABCNews.com/Politics and a lighter take on the news at OTUSNews.com

“We have no leverage on that, so whether we want taxes to go up or not they’re going to,” Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn told ABC’s Jonathan Karl on Thursday. “We can’t stop that from happening. But the real elephant in the room is entitlements.”

“The sense was that there’s a growing number of folks in our party that are saying, you know what, the president has won this round relative to the rates, but we need to you to sit down and get the second half of the deal and that’s the spending,” Ohio Republican Congressman Steve LaTourette said on CNN’s “Starting Point with Soledad O’Brien.

LaTourette’s office did not immediately respond to ABC’s inquiry for a follow-up statement.

The reason for this sense of inevitability, which both LaTourette and Coburn made clear were not to be confused with a desire to raise taxes, is in large part simply a factor of time. On January 1, if a deal has not been reached, the combination of expiring Bush-era tax cuts and Obama era-tax cuts will yield an increase in tax rates. Taxes are expected to rise by more than $500 billion if this occurs–an average of about $3,500 per household, according to calculations by the Tax Policy Center. And this week the Obama administration expressed a willingness to pass that deadline and go over the cliff if Republicans don’t agree to raising tax rates on top earners.

“Oh, absolutely,” Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said in an interview on CNBC when asked if the administration was willing to accept the impending tax increases and spending cuts. “There’s no prospect for an agreement that doesn’t involve those rates going up on the top 2 percent of the wealthiest.”

It’s unclear how this reality will figure into the negotiations. Republicans and Democrats are both walking a tight rope in the negotiations, but polling indicates that Republicans are likely to bear the brunt of the blame if the country goes over the cliff.  A newly released Washington Post/Pew Poll found that 53 percent of those surveyed said that they would point the finger at Republicans if Congress and the administration fail to reach a deal, while just 27 percent would blame President Obama.

“A slew of polls have made it abundantly obvious that Republicans will take a big political hit if the country goes off the political cliff,” says Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “Yes, that won’t affect loads of GOP incumbents, but it WILL affect some, a couple dozen in more moderate states and swing districts. Plus, it influences Republican chances to make progress in the Senate in 2014.”

Despite the seemingly bleak outlook right now though, Sabato notes that the timing is actually favorable right now for both party’s to strike an agreement.

“The underlying conditions are not bad for a deal. The next election is two years away, and the president’s preferences on tax rates received something of a mandate in November,” Sabato said. ”Everyone can see the outlines of a reasonable compromise. The rates for wealthier Americans go up but not by as much as Obama wants. The Republicans acquiesce–though they let their base see that they are being dragged kicking and screaming to the rate increase. In exchange, they get some entitlement reform and spending reductions.”

SHOWS: World News

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Human eye proteins detect red beyond red

We all see red every now and again, but imagine seeing red beyond red. Researchers have altered the structure of a protein normally found in the human eye so that it can absorb a type of red light that we cannot normally see. The new protein could, in theory, give us the ability to see reds that are currently beyond our visible spectrum.

Colour vision in nearly all animals depends on specialised chemicals called chromophores, which sit inside proteins and absorb different wavelengths of light. Specific protein structures are thought to determine the absorption spectrum of the chromophores within.

To better understand the chemistry behind colour vision, Babak Borhan at Michigan State University in East Lansing and his colleagues engineered a series of mutations which altered the structure of human chromophore-containing proteins. These structural changes altered the electrostatic properties within the protein, which in turn changed the absorption spectrum of the chromophores.

The team created 11 different artificial protein structures and used spectrophotometry – a technology that compares the intensity of light going in and out of a sample – to identify which wavelengths they could absorb. Chromophores within one particular protein were able to absorb red light with a wavelength of around 644 nanometres – tantalisingly close to the wavelength of infrared light, which starts at around 750 nanometres. This was unexpected since natural chromophores have a maximum absorption of around 560 nanometres.

"We were surprised," says Borhan. "But I still don't know if we're at the upper limit of absorption yet. I've speculated about 10 times and been proved wrong."

Green tinge

If these proteins were present in the eye you would be able to see red light that is invisible to you now, says co-author James Geiger, also at Michigan State University. But since objects reflect a mixture of light, the world would not necessarily always appear more red. "Something that looked white before would now look green with your new super red vision," he says.

Marco Garavelli at the University of Bologna in Italy says that in the far future, "one could dare to foresee mutations in visual receptors that extend our ability to see colours beyond the natural spectrum". However, he points out that it is not clear how these engineered proteins would affect neural signalling in the brain.

For now, Borhan is hoping that the modified proteins might prove useful in imaging technology. To track specific cells of interest in a body, researchers can currently attach green fluorescent proteins to them that fluoresce under ultraviolet light. Replacing these proteins with those in Borhan's experiment would allow absorption of longer wavelengths of light. Since longer wavelengths can penetrate further into the body, they may give a clearer view of deeper tissues.

Journal reference: Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1226135

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Football: Mikel handed three-match ban after United race row

LONDON: Chelsea midfielder John Obi Mikel was on Thursday suspended for three matches and fined £60,000 (74,320 euros) for clashing with match officials following the controversial 3-2 defeat to Manchester United.

Mikel was reported to have stormed into the officials' dressing room at Stamford Bridge after the Premier League match in October following accusations that referee Mark Clattenburg had racially abused the Chelsea midfielder.

But the FA decided there was "no case to answer" over the allegation Clattenburg said "shut up you monkey" to Mikel and the official was clear of all charges.

Mikel had admitted using threatening and/or abusive and/or insulting words and/or behaviour in the official's changing room at the end of the game at Stamford Bridge on October 28, said the Football Association.

"Chelsea's John Obi Mikel has been given a three-match suspension to begin with immediate effect and fined £60,000 following an Independent Regulatory Commission hearing today," said an FA statement.

"The Regulatory Commission's independent chairman Christopher Quinlan QC emphasised that the Independent Regulatory Commission accepted, as did The FA, that at the time he threatened the referee the player genuinely believed that the referee had racially abused him.

"But for that factor the suspension would have been significantly longer. Subsequently The FA investigated the allegation that the referee racially abused the player and found that there was not a case for him to answer."

Mikel's suspension will take effect immediately, ruling the Nigeria international out of domestic duty until December 26.

The 25-year-old, who signed a new five-year contract with Chelsea on Wednesday, will miss Saturday's trip to Sunderland, but will be available when his club compete in the Club World Cup in Japan next week.

With Mikel also likely to be absent on African Cup of Nations duty in January, Chelsea interim manager Rafael Benitez has started looking for cover for the Nigerian from within his squad.

Benitez employed David Luiz in midfield during parts of the 6-1 Champions League win over Nordsjaelland on Wednesday and admitted he was prepared to use the Brazil defender further up the pitch to provide an alternative to Ramires and Oriol Romeu in the holding role.

-AFP/ac

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Sean Parker of Spotify joins Metallic's Lars Ulrich on stage

Daniel Ek, the CEO of Spotify, now can boast that he helped make peace between Sean Parker, the Napster co-founder, and Metallica's Lars Ulrich. The three told the audience at Spotify's press event today that the fight between them was just a misunderstanding.

(Credit:
Greg Sandoval/CNET)

NEW YORK--Lars Ulrich of Metallica and Sean Parker, one of the founders of file-sharing service Napster, made peace today.

The two men joined Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify, on stage during the company's press event here. Turns out that Ulrich and Parker share a love of Spotify. Ulrich announced that Metallica is now on Spotify.

Besides offering testimonials about how much they enjoy using Spotify's service, the two shared their experiences of their now famous confrontation when Ulrich declared war on Napster, the pioneering peer-to-peer service more than a decade ago.

"Our manager told us that our [unreleased] song was playing on the radio," Ulrich recalled. "I told him 'Maybe we should go over there and...'." He pounded his hand with his fist.

By adding Metallica's catalog to its music library, Spotify gains a big boost in credibility with artists. Ulrich and the band have had the reputation since filing suit against Napster in 2000 as being against digital services.

The big criticism from the music industry is that Spotify pays very little money to artists. Ek said the company is trying to build its audience and as the audience gets bigger, the more money will come in for Spotify and for music acts. He said the company has paid over $500 million to artists so far.

Spotify announced an important benchmark, hitting 1 million paid U.S. subscribers in one year. Rhapsody, by contrast, was in business more than a decade before reaching that many subscribers.

Worldwide, Spotify now has 5 million paying customers and 20 million users overall, Ek told the audience. In addition to Spotify's paid service, the company offers a free listening experience.

More to come

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High-Voltage DC Breakthrough Could Boost Renewable Energy

Patrick J. Kiger

Thomas Edison championed direct current, or DC, as a better mode for delivering electricity than alternating current, or AC. But the inventor of the light bulb lost the War of the Currents. Despite Edison's sometimes flamboyant efforts—at one point he electrocuted a Coney Island zoo elephant in an attempt to show the technology's hazards—AC is the primary way that electricity flows from power plants to homes and businesses everywhere. (Related Quiz: "What You Don't Know About Electricity")

But now, more than a century after Edison's misguided stunt, DC may be getting a measure of vindication.

An updated, high-voltage version of DC, called HVDC, is being touted as the transmission method of the future because of its ability to transmit current over very long distances with fewer losses than AC. And that trend may be accelerated by a new device called a hybrid HVDC breaker, which may make it possible to use DC on large power grids without the fear of catastrophic breakdown that stymied the technology in the past.  (See related photos: "World's Worst Power Outages.")

Swiss-based power technology and automation giant ABB, which developed the breaker, says it may also prove critical to the 21st century's transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, by tapping the full potential of massive wind farms and solar generating stations to provide electricity to distant cities.

So far, the device has been tested only in laboratories, but ABB's chief executive, Joe Hogan, touts the hybrid HVDC breaker as "a new chapter in the history of electrical engineering," and predicts that it will make possible the development of "the grid of the future"—that is, a massive, super-efficient network for distributing electricity that would interconnect not just nations but multiple continents. Outside experts aren't quite as grandiose, but they still see the breaker as an important breakthrough.

"I'm quite struck by the potential of this invention," says John Kassakian, an electrical engineering and computer science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "If it works on a large scale and is economical to use, it could be a substantial asset."

Going the Distance

The hybrid HVDC breaker may herald a new day for Edison's favored mode of electricity, in which current is transmitted in a constant flow in one direction, rather than in the back-and-forth bursts of AC. In the early 1890s, DC lost the so-called War of the Currents mostly because of the issue of long-distance transmission.

In Edison's time, because of losses due to electrical resistance, there wasn't an economical technology that would enable DC systems to transmit power over long distances. Edison did not see this as a drawback because he envisioned electric power plants in every neighborhood.

But his rivals in the pioneering era of electricity, Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse, instead touted AC, which could be sent long distances with fewer losses. AC's voltage, the amount of potential energy in the current (think of it as analogous to the pressure in a water line), could be stepped up and down easily through the use of transformers. That meant high-voltage AC could be transmitted long distances until it entered neighborhoods, where it would be transformed to safer low-voltage electricity.

Thanks to AC, smoke-belching, coal-burning generating plants could be built miles away from the homes and office buildings they powered. It was the idea that won the day, and became the basis for the proliferation of electric power systems across the United States and around the world.

But advances in transformer technology ultimately made it possible to transmit DC at higher voltages. The advantages of HVDC then became readily apparent. Compared to AC, HVDC is more efficient—a thousand-mile HVDC line carrying thousands of megawatts might lose 6 to 8 percent of its power, compared to 12 to 25 percent for a similar AC line. And HVDC would require fewer lines along a route. That made it better suited to places where electricity must be transmitted extraordinarily long distances from power plants to urban areas. It also is more efficient for underwater electricity transmission.

In recent years, companies such as ABB and Germany's Siemens have built a number of big HVDC transmission projects, like ABB's 940-kilometer (584-mile) line that went into service in 2004 to deliver power from China's massive Three Gorges hydroelectric plant to Guangdong province in the South. In the United States, Siemens for the first time ever installed a 500-kilovolt submarine cable, a 65-mile HVDC line, to take additional power from the Pennsylvania/New Jersey grid to power-hungry Long Island. (Related: "Can Hurricane Sandy Shed Light on Curbing Power Outages?") And the longest electric transmission line in the world, some 2,500 kilometers (1,553 miles), is under construction by ABB now in Brazil: The Rio-Madeira HVDC project will link two new hydropower plants in the Amazon with São Paulo, the nation's main economic hub. (Related Pictures: "A River People Await an Amazon Dam")

But these projects all involved point-to-point electricity delivery. Some engineers began to envision the potential of branching out HVDC into "supergrids." Far-flung arrays of wind farms and solar installations could be tied together in giant networks. Because of its stability and low losses, HVDC could balance out the natural fluctuations in renewable energy in a way that AC never could. That could dramatically reduce the need for the constant base-load power of large coal or nuclear power plants.

The Need for a Breaker

Until now, however, such renewable energy solutions have faced at least one daunting obstacle. It's much trickier to regulate a DC grid, where current flows continuously, than it is with AC. "When you have a large grid and you have a lightning strike at one location, you need to be able to disconnect that section quickly and isolate the problem, or else bad things can happen to the rest of the grid," such as a catastrophic blackout, explains ABB chief technology officer Prith Banerjee. "But if you can disconnect quickly, the rest of the grid can go on working while you fix the problem." That's where HVDC hybrid breakers—basically, nondescript racks of circuitry inside a power station—could come in. The breaker combines a series of mechanical and electronic circuit-breaking devices, which redirect a surge in current and then shut it off.  ABB says the unit is capable of stopping a surge equivalent to the output of a one-gigawatt power plant, the sort that might provide power to 1 million U.S. homes or 2 million European homes, in significantly less time than the blink of an eye.

While ABB's new breaker still must be tested in actual power plants before it is deemed dependable enough for wide use, independent experts say it seems to represent an advance over previous efforts. (Siemens, an ABB competitor, reportedly also has been working to develop an advanced HVDC breaker.)

"I think this hybrid approach is a very good approach," says Narain Hingorani, a power-transmission researcher and consultant who is a fellow with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. "There are other ways of doing the same thing, but they don't exist right now, and they may be more expensive."

Hingorani thinks the hybrid HVDC breakers could play an important role in building sprawling HVDC grids that could realize the potential of renewable energy sources. HVDC cables could be laid along the ocean floor to transmit electricity from floating wind farms that are dozens of mile offshore, far out of sight of coastal residents. HVDC lines equipped with hybrid breakers also would be much cheaper to bury than AC, because they require less insulation, Hingorani says.

For wind farms and solar installations in the Midwest and Rocky Mountain regions, HVDC cables could be run underground in environmentally sensitive areas, to avoid cluttering the landscape with transmission towers and overhead lines. "So far, we've been going after the low-hanging fruit, building them in places where it's easy to connect to the grid," he explains. "There are other places where you can get a lot of wind, but where it's going to take years to get permits for overhead lines—if you can get them at all—because the public is against it."

In other words, whether due to public preference to keep coal plants out of sight, or a desire to harness the force of remote offshore or mountain wind power, society is still seeking the least obtrusive way to deliver electricity long distances. That means that for the same reason Edison lost the War of the Currents at the end of the 19th century, his DC current may gain its opportunity (thanks to technological advances) to serve as the backbone of a cleaner 21st-century grid. (See related story: "The 21st Century Grid: Can we fix the infrastructure that powers our lives?")

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.

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Wash. Pot Smokers Celebrate as Feds Stand Back

Marijuana smokers breathed a puff of relief today as they lit up legally for the first time in Washington state and were not cited, ticketed, or arrested for what is still a federal offense.

"There are no federal agents out there busting people," Seattle police Sgt. Sean Whitcomb said today, hours after a new state law legalizing pot went into effect.

Seattle police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the department's blog, "The police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a Lord of the Rings marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."

Voters in the state overwhelmingly pushed through a bill on November's ballot legalizing the possession of marijuana, putting state law in direct contrast with federal law, under which marijuana is still an illegal substance.

Read ABC's Coverage of the "Tipping Point" of Pot Legalization

The U.S. Attorneys Offices in Washington released statements Wednesday, before the law took effect, reminding residents that possessing marijuana was still a federal crime.

California University Launches Marijuana Institute Watch Video

Marijuana Legalization Group Launches TV Ad Watch Video

"Regardless of any changes in state law, including the change that will go into effect on December 6th in Washington State, growing, selling or possessing any amount of marijuana remains illegal under federal law," read a statement released by the Department of Justice. "The Department's responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged."

Today, however, no federal agents were out pursuing charges against people celebrating the new state law by enjoying a toke, according to Seattle police.

"We have a great relationship with federal law enforcement in Seattle, and we're not going to be jeopardizing that in any way. We recognize that federal law says it's prohibited... but our primary area of concern is making sure we're enforcing the law our bosses want us to, and our bosses are the general public of Seattle," Whitcomb said.

Calls to the U.S. Attorneys Offices in Seattle and Spokane were not returned today.

Washington's new law, known as I-502, went into effect at midnight, and drew large crowds of smokers to Seattle's Space Needle to celebrate with joints. Officers on the scene did not ticket any participants, despite the fact that smoking in public is still against the law.

Police in Seattle announced that for the first few days of the new law's enactment, officers would only remind users to smoke indoors.

"In the meantime, in keeping with the spirit of (the new bill), the department's going to give you a generous grace period to help you adjust to this brave, new, and maybe kinda stoned world we live in," department spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the department's blog.

"Does this mean you should flagrantly roll up a mega-spliff and light up in the middle of the street? No. If you're smoking pot in public, officers will be giving helpful reminders to folks about the rules and regulations under I-502 (like not smoking pot in public)."

The legislatures in Washington and in Colorado, where legalization will go into effect in January, will still have to decide how to license and tax growers and sellers of pot in the state. The U.S. Department of Justice has not yet said whether it will pursue criminal charges against growers and sellers in those states.

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Gay 'conversion therapy' enters the courtroom

FROM condemnation to the courts. Gay "conversion therapy", the controversial counselling for gay people who wish to change their sexuality, is now in the dock.

Last week, four men in New Jersey filed a civil suit under the state's Consumer Fraud Act against a counselling centre called Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing. The men claim that they spent thousands of dollars in therapy fees, only to be told that their continued same-sex attraction was "their own fault".

Meanwhile, advocates for the counselling are trying to block a new California state law that has banned its use with minors.

Helen Killaspy of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in London says that there is no scientific evidence that sexual orientation can be changed. "'Treatments' of homosexuality create a setting in which prejudice and discrimination flourish," she says.

"Sexuality is so hardwired that trying to convert somebody is set up for failure," says psychologist Mark Griffiths at Nottingham Trent University, UK.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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Dublin unveils sixth austerity budget

DUBLIN: Bailed-out eurozone member Ireland on Wednesday launched its sixth austerity budget aimed at raising 3.5 billion euros via painful taxation hikes and public spending cuts.

Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan, unveiling his latest budget before parliament, said however that there were clear signs that the worst of the nation's financial crisis was over.

"There are manifest signs that the country is emerging from the worst of the crisis," Noonan told lawmakers.

He added: "The economy grew last year, will grow this year, and will grow again next year. The effort of the Irish people, despite the hardship, was leading to success."

Noonan revealed that the big-spending departments of health and social welfare would bear the brunt of the cuts.

Other austerity measures included higher levies on alcohol and cigarettes, and hikes for motor tax and capital gains tax.

In addition, he confirmed the introduction of a politically sensitive property levy, with an added "mansion tax" for houses valued over one million euros ($1.3 million).

And the minister also announced a 10-point tax reform plan to encourage small and medium-sized enterprises, a key driver of employment in Ireland.

However, Noonan repeated his pledge to keep corporation tax -- which is levied on company profits -- at a eurozone low of 12.5 percent, despite international pressure to raise it.

Debt-plagued Ireland was bailed out with an 85-billion-euro EU-IMF rescue package in November 2010 after it was devastated by the global financial crisis and a domestic property market meltdown.

As part of the rescue deal, Ireland agreed to painful austerity measures including spending cutbacks, state asset sales and tax hikes.

This week's budget is the latest aimed at bringing the deficit down to less than the EU ceiling of 3.0 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2015.

Dublin aims to reduce the deficit to 7.5 percent of GDP in 2013. This year, Noonan said it would come in at 8.2 percent, well within the 8.6-percent target set by the bailout programme.

Ireland has won praise as a "poster boy" of the eurozone crisis on how best to enact convincing reforms to make a return to the markets.

However, official figures released by the Central Statistics Office on Wednesday revealed that Ireland's unemployment rate remains stubbornly high at 14.6 percent in November -- but had eased from 14.7 percent in October.

"The Irish financial crisis could be summarised in one word: debt, national debt and personal debt," Noonan said on Wednesday.

"The government is committed with dealing with both national and personal debt. Continuing to borrow large amounts to fund our day-to-day services is simply not sustainable."

He added: "The reality is that stable public finances are an essential prerequisite to long-term economic growth and job creation.

"We will only be able to successfully access the markets in the long-term if the markets believe we've a credible fiscal strategy and agree that our debt is sustainable."

On the eve of the budget, the Department of Finance announced weaker tax revenue growth in the second half of the year continued in November, with tax revenues now 171 million euro behind target for the first 11 months in 2012.

-AFP/ac

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RIP, rear-projection TV

CNET Senior Editor Scott Stein poses in front of a 92-inch Mitsubishi TV. It's one of the last of its kind.

(Credit:
Sarah Tew/CNET)

Rear-projection TV is dead, and there's little reason to think the technology will pull a Lazarus anytime soon.

On Monday Mitsubishi confirmed it has already ceased production of its last RPTVs, and told TWICE that inventory is almost gone.

"The decision to exit the category was based on lack of profitability in the big-screen TV business," according to Max Wasinger, executive VP at Mitsubishi Electric Video Sales America. "MEVSA will honor all product warranties. Consumer relations will continue to support consumers and dealers' product service related needs." He added that there are no plans for special closeout pricing to sell off remaining inventory.

Mitsubishi and Samsung were the last manufacturers of the big, usually boxy televisions, and Samsung exited the market in 2008. As the only manufacturer of RPTVs left, Mitsubishi seems to have held on as long it could, but eventually the popularity--and profit margins, slim as they might be--of flat-panel LCD and plasma TVs won the day.

A look back at the big black box

A typical DLP seen from the side.

Rear-projection has been around for decades. RCA made one in 1947, but the 1970s saw the first mass-market examples. Up until the early 2000's, the predominant RPTV technology was cathode-ray tube (CRT), where a mini-projector housed in the bottom of the box lit up a the screen from behind via a mirror. They offered large screens but fuzzy video quality compared to traditional tube TVs.

Over the years they got a lot better. The best CRT-based models from the likes of Pioneer Elite and Hitachi Ultravision were the darlings of videophiles and calibrators, and often required special attention because the three tubes had to be manually converged. They had video quality that could rival and in many ways surpass today's best flat panels.

Hubris? Epson builds a printer into an RPTV.

(Credit:
Epson)

Ten years ago, around the time I first started reviewing TVs myself, those tubes began to give way to light engines based on bulbs and fixed-pixel chips utilizing DLP, LCD and LCoS technology. The chips improved light output and resolution and, more importantly, allowed the cabinets of large-screen rear-projectors to get slimmer and lighter; some could even hang on the wall.

Since plasma and LCD TVs remained relatively expensive, the mid-2000's were the heyday of rear-projection, with numerous manufacturers competing for share and innovations in design, technology and reliability happening yearly. RPTVs were the first with 1080p resolution and 3D, and were available in sizes from 40 up to more than 90 inches.

Here's a few of the products and trends I most remember from that period.

Memorable trends and products from RPTV's heyday

Growing bigger and less popular

Since the late 2000's RPTVs have faded into obscurity. As flat panels have gotten larger and cheaper, RPTVs have had to almost comically large, yet still remain less expensive for the most part than similarly-sized LCDs and plasmas.

Competition is fierce among TV makers, and RPTV has been on life support for awhile. Last year Mitsubishi had about a 1% share in the North American TV market, and relied on size rather than volume in its bid to remain on sales floors. It abandoned LCD in 2010.

The smallest TV in Mitsubishi's 2012 lineup measured 73 inches diagonal. The company's cheapest 2012 RPTV, the 73-inch WD-73C12, costs around $1100. The cheapest comparable flat-panel I've seen is Vizio's 70-inch E701i-A3 at $1700. A $600 difference isn't chump change, but many TV buyers are probably willing to pay it to avoid getting a rear-projector.

The bulkiness of RPTVs also makes them more difficult manufacturers and retailers to ship, inventory and/or display. I remember walking into my local Best Buy a couple of years ago and realizing that the wall of Mitsubishi's at the back of the store was gone, replaced by LCDs and plasmas.

A user-replaceable lamp for a DLP TV.

Then there's the spectre of bulb replacement. Most DLPs run on user-replaceable lamps (about $40 and up) that fade and eventually fail after a few thousand hours of TV watching. The time-frame varies quite a bit, however. My father-in-law, who still loves the Samsung DLP I told him to buy in 2007, has never had to replace his bulb after more than five years of heavy use. Others report the bulb going in a year or less.

In terms of picture quality, a modern DLP-based RPTV can actually hold up pretty well against the cheap big-screen flat panels in its class, with good light output, decent viewing angles (at least compared to LCD) and acceptable screen uniformity. Black levels are relatively light, but all told my father-in-law's DLP still looks pretty good.

Check out Geoff Morrison's excellent Rear projection vs. LCD vs. plasma for more on how the TV technologies stack up.

What's next? Plasma?

The moment a technology category goes extinct (HD DVD, anyone?) seems a good time to wonder what dinosaur is next take a meteorite of progress to the dome. I hate to say it, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's plasma TV.

When Panasonic, Samsung and/or LG stop making plasma TVs, I'll be a lot more miffed than I am today at the passing of RPTV. But the writing is on the wall. Global plasma TV sales were down 20% year-over-year in the third quarter this year. Meanwhile Panasonic, which unlike the other two has bet big on plasma, experienced a 30% decline during the same period, and along with other Japanese companies is facing serious financial problems.

I wouldn't be surprised if
CES next month saw significantly fewer plasma TV introductions from all three makers than 2012 did. If I had to put money down, I wouldn't bet on plasma surviving another three years. RPTV is just the latest TV technology to go, but it certainly won't be the last.

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