Eideard

Creil, the Netherlands — Modest farms, 90 acres or less, dot the region here, most of them raising grains and vegetables, some the occasional sheep or cow.

In the midst of this idyllic scene a few years back there appeared what residents now call “the pink invasion,” three huge hog barns each with 10,000 or more pigs in the fields that skirt the dike that protects the region from the Ijsselmeer, once known as the Zuiderzee.

“Some people don’t like the idea,” said Dick van Leeuwen, 65, who walks his dog Thor along the roads leading to the largest of the barns. Local people feared that the pig farms would stink, while bringing an unwanted increase in truck traffic, he said, delivering feed for the thousands of pigs or hauling away manure or grown hogs for slaughter. But their complaints fell mostly on deaf ears.

The Netherlands, a country of almost 17 million people, is home to a pig population of 14 million. Despite its status as one of the smaller countries in the European Union — about half the size of the state of Maine — the Netherlands has long been Europe’s leading exporter of pork and pork products, though that ranking has been contested in recent years by wurst-loving Germany.

Like pork producers everywhere, Dutch farmers are fighting rising costs by resorting to ever bigger herds and barns, a trend that is reinforced by the petite size of the Netherlands…As the big barns become more common, the government has begun to respond to public complaints about industrial farming and cruelty to animals. Officials are now discussing ways to curb the size of barns like those in tiny Creil, with its 1,600 people in trim brick homes, much to the chagrin of the new generation of farmers who see industrial-scale husbandry as their only means to compete…

Critics of the pork industry argue that enormous pig barns damage the environment because of the immense amounts of manure they produce, threaten people’s heath because of the antibiotics used liberally to avoid sickness among the animals and disregard the welfare of the animals by confining them to barns…

Pig farmers like Mr. Vowinkel insist that they can compete only if they keep costs and the price of their pork down. “Some disappear, others get bigger, to lower production prices,” he said. A fellow farmer, Sietse van der Meer, agreed. “You grow bigger, or you stop,” he said.

Politicians feel the pressure of the environmentalists and animal rights groups. In December, Parliament will begin discussing a possible restriction on the size of farms and a ban on antibiotics, two steps the farming region of Noord-Brabant, in the south, has already taken on its own.

RTFA. The arguments of the Pig Farmers Association seem specious to me. They argue that the diminishing number of pig farmers is proof of their inability to compete because of regulation. They sound like Wall Street Republicans. But, the enormous expansion of the size of farms, number of pigs produced at lower prices is as likely to be the cause for small farmers being forced out of business.

They’ll never be able to compete with pork produced in nations with an excess of arable land – from China to Brazil – and their natural market is the citizens of the Netherlands and Europe. The rest – especially reliance on antibiotics – is the same sort of propaganda we get from members of every greed-driven guild in the world.

 
Thanks, Ursarodina

We had a post about the economics and politics of the Paris Show a little earlier, today. Here’s a peek at the tech.

Prius V – American name for Toyota’s Prius station wagon

File this one under the category of unexpected. According to Integrity Exports, Toyota logged an outrageous 52,000 orders for its Prius Alpha hybrid over in Japan since the vehicle launched on May 13th. That’s astronomical considering that Toyota set a monthly sales target of just 3,000 units for the gas-electric MPV.

Toyota says that it will ramp up production of the Prius Alpha in response to soaring demand, but boosting output from 3,000 to 5,000 vehicles per month (Toyota’s modified production levels) by summer’s end still doesn’t seem like it’ll be enough.

Despite Toyota promising that the enormous demand for the Prius Alpha won’t affect the launch of the Prius V here in the States, Integrity Exports begs to differ…

Even my barely functional remembrance of things mathematical tells me this critter ain’t landing on time in the United States. Unless Toyota decides to [1] stop taking orders in Japan, right now, and [2] decides to screw some of the people with orders already in-house in Japan.

A Canadian nuclear reactor is set to resume producing medical isotopes after being shut for 15 months of repairs.

The National Research Universal reactor in Chalk River, Ontario, was closed in May 2009 after a leak of heavy water within the reactor. It had been producing about a third of the world supply of medical isotopes.

The disruption to supply caused delays and cancellations of diagnostic tests that use the isotopes, including scans for cardiovascular disease and cancer…

Medical officials welcomed the 53-year-old reactor’s return to service…

The shortage caused by the Chalk River reactor’s closure was exacerbated by the shut-down for maintenance of another major isotope-producing reactor in Petten, in the Netherlands.

The isotopes produced at the Chalk River plant are used for medical imaging and diagnostic scans for fractures, cancer and heart conditions.

Phew!

The U.S. government agency that prints passports has for years failed to resolve persistent concerns about the security risks involved in outsourcing production to foreign factories.

“On a number of levels this is extremely troubling,” said Clark Kent Ervin, a former inspector general at the Department of Homeland Security. “Something like that ought to be produced only in the United States, under only the most rigorous security standards.”

Despite repeated assurances they would move production to the U.S., a key government contractor has continued to assemble an electronic component of the nation’s new, more sophisticated passport in Thailand…

The Thai factory was one of several concerns raised in an inspector general’s audit earlier this year that looked into the way the GPO is producing the new e-passport – a passport that is supposed to be impenetrable to counterfeiters because it stores information on an embedded computer chip that is tucked into the cover.

Experts agree that passport production is a critical homeland security concern, given that possession of an American passport can help a traveler bypass some of the stringent reviews conducted of those entering the U.S. from abroad. Ervin described the document as an EZ-pass into the United States, something officials say terrorists know all too well.

GPO’s inspector general has warned that the agency lacks even the most basic security plan for ensuring that blank e-Passports — and their highly sought technologies – aren’t stolen by terrorists, foreign spies, counterfeiters and other bad actors as they wind through an unwieldy manufacturing process that spans the globe and includes 60 different suppliers.

RTFA – and face up to the reality that years of incompetent management by fools like Bush and creeps like Cheney will take forever to unravel and get sorted. Outsourcing the components for something as significant as passport production to 60 companies around the world is the ultimate in corporate cronyism.

We probably need a special agency established just to investigate and correct the economic crimes and corruption the current administration inherited from the days of Republican control of our government.

Less than nine months after beginning production at its new Albuquerque facility, Schott Solar this week announced the expansion of its photovoltaic (PV) module production line. PV production will double, from two shifts to four shifts on a rotating schedule, effectively creating a 24 hour-a-day, 7 days-a-week production capacity at Schott Solar’s flagship facility.

In order to meet this increased production schedule, Schott Solar has been hiring up to 10 new employees per week since the first of November. The majority of the new positions have been PV Production Technicians.

These 60 new employees will bring the PV production lines to full capacity of 160 employees by the end of December.

“Creating jobs in today’s economic environment is a tremendous achievement for any company,” said Dr. Gerald Fine, CEO & President, Schott Solar, Inc. “To be able to almost double our PV workforce in such a short time is a testament to the hard work and dedication of the people who have been with us from the start. They put in the work that allows us to grow.”

In industrial states this wouldn’t be a big deal. But, this reflects first of all a process that started with a Democrat governor who isn’t anything more than liberal – but, has enough of a brain, enough foresight, to see what committing to alternative energy solutions, green energy means to our economy.

I think we’re the poster child – on the small scale that reflects our population size and, frankly, mediocre education level – for what Obama’s jobs and green energy program means to America.

Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

The big three U.S. automakers will receive at least half of 2.4 billion U.S. dollars in battery and electric vehicle grants that the White House announced Wednesday.

Five auto research teams in the state of Michigan will receive 966 million dollars of the 1.5 billion dollars in battery manufacturing grants.

General Motors will receive about 241 million dollars in grants, including 106 million dollars for its planned battery pack assembly factory in Brownstown Township, about 20 kilometers south of the U.S. auto city of Detroit. Ford will get nearly 100 million dollars, while Chrysler will get 70 million dollars.

Meanwhile, A123 Systems, with facilities in Romulus and Brownstown, will receive 249.1 million dollars for the manufacturing of nano-iron phosphate cathode powder and electrode coatings, fabrication of battery cells and modules, and assembly of complete battery pack systems for hybrid and electric vehicles.

GM also will receive 105 million dollars for electric drive component manufacturing facilities. Ford will receive 62.7 million dollars for producing a Ford electric-drive transaxle with integrated power electronics.

The government funds come from the 787-billion-dollar federal stimulus bill approved in February. About 70 percent of the battery research funds must be spent by next year.

Bravo! Something else for teabaggers and other flavors of Republican lynch mobs to whine about.

It’s frustrating enough for them to see money spent on transport technologies which aren’t oil-driven; but, seeing jobs rolling out for blue-collar workers in northern tier states? UnAmerican ain’t it?

Wages and employment increased for legal workers after raids on six Swift & Co. meat-packing plants in several U.S. states in 2006.

Noting that the plants raided were back in production within five months, Jerry Kammer of the Center for Immigration Studies said there was “good evidence” that the number of U.S.-born workers increased, concluding that the plants “could operate without the presence of illegal workers,” The Hill reported.

The non-partisan center examined what happened after raids on Swift & Co. facilities in Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Texas and Utah, in which 1,300 undocumented workers were arrested. Another 400 workers without authorization to work in the United States were found through company screening.

“At the four facilities for which we were able to obtain information, wages and bonuses rose on average 8 percent with the departure of illegal immigrants,” Kammer said.

In fact, over the course of the last decade of employers in meat-packing bringing in illegals as scabs, average wages dropped at least 40%. Did they give you any price cuts at the supermarket?

Click on photo to see a series around the Western world

Thanks, Mr. Justin