Behaviour Modification

Given that almost everyone seems to think cars a problem, how about doing with cars what was done with cigarettes - ban any advertising of cars........

Rail Transit and Busways

We need to get the public away from the irrational love affair with rail transit and recognize that we can not afford to build any sort of track based transit expect for in the dense areas of the lower mainland.

Somehow there is a large segment of the public that dislikes buses. Every city that has a subway moves huge numbers of people via buses as well. The bus is the core to transit is the mechanism that will get people out of their cars.

Right now there is a campaign in Greater Victoria for a light rail system of some sort from downtown to the western communities. The people seem to want to use the old E and N line and think that there will be the traffic to make it work. Not a chance.

The cost of building a light rail line out to Langford from downtown Victoria would cost in the order of $200 000 000 to $500 000 000. The amount of money that this entails is enough to do some amazing things in Greater Victoria to deal with climate change issues. The potential savings from the rail transit will be minimal.

Make it faster for me to get to work on a bus and I will do it. Make it cheaper as well - say sell me an annual pass for $30 a month - and I will have one and use the buses more often.

At the moment the incremental cost to me to drive downtown is about $0.75 plus parking - say a buck. The bus will cost me $2.25. Using my car is cheaper. But I can hear you say that I am not counting all the other costs of car ownership, payments and insurance. Well, I have to pay that if I use the car or bus.

Building rail and operating it will mean a huge reduction in bus service in Greater Victoria and higher fares. So more people will start to drive because the bus will no longer be an option or the price premium for transit is too high.

Most of the people taking transit in Greater Victoria do not live along any proposed rail transit route. The population of the western communities is not slated to rise that dramatically that there will ever be a large portion of BC Transit's customers on that line.

A rail transit system is likely to lead to more green house gases in Greater Victoria, not less.

Uranium Exploration

The hysteria about global warming and greenhouse gases has produced a huge boost to mining junior companies exploring for uranium. Not only are companies looking in Saskatchewan, but also in Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland. We are at the start of a new uranium rush and I am not happy about this.


COMMANDER RESOURCES LTD. : http://www.commanderresources.com/ : News Releases

	January 18, 2008 Commander Outlines Drill Targets at Troy's Pond
	Commander Resources Ltd. (CMD-TSX Venture) reports that a geophysical survey has defined a significant drill target coincident with uranium mineralization at Troy's Pond. The Induced Polarization (I.P.) survey was completed late in 2007 on the Troy's Pond, ST-129 and Quinlan uranium prospects on the wholly-owned Strickland Property, part of the Hermitage uranium project, Newfoundland. Results from back-hoe trenching and alpha-track survey work completed in the fall on other areas of the large Hermitage project are awaited. At Troy's Pond, six I.P. lines were completed to follow-up significant uranium mineralization intersected in drill holes completed in early in 2007 (previously reported in the Company's news release dated February 2nd, 2007), including a 10 metre wide uranium bearing zone assaying 0.02% U3O8, with a 4.3 m interval assaying 0.045% U3O8 (about 1 lb / t). A weak I.P. chargeability response, detected close to this uranium-bearing drill intersection, strengthens 100 metres to the west, then continues for a further 200 metres along strike of the host rock sequence to the end of the survey grid, beyond which the anomaly is open (refer to map on the Company's website). Several drill holes will be required to test this anomaly once a follow up I.P. survey has been done. The I.P. survey identified a new target in an overburden-covered area in the northwest portion of the Troy's Pond grid where no uranium prospects are known. The new target is 300 metres long and is open beyond the survey limit. An alpha-track survey, scintillometer survey, and soil sampling are required to determine if there is uranium associated with the anomaly. If the presence of uranium is indicated on this anomaly, it will be ready for drill testing. At the ST-129 uranium prospect, one kilometre east of Troy's Pond, three lines of I.P. surveying gave inconclusive results due to technical problems. Further I.P. surveying and sampling are required to develop drill targets. At the Quinlan Uranium Prospect, 10 km to the east of Troy's Pond, only three short lines of I.P. surveying were completed due to weather constraints. An anomaly on the westernmost line surveyed is clearly associated with uranium in bedrock. The I.P. anomaly is open in the direction of the uranium bearing trend which continues for several 100 metres. Uranium mineralization has been traced over a strike length of more than 800 metres in this area. If a suitable I.P. anomaly is developed, it will be drill ready. Logistically, the Strickland property is ideally located. Troy's Pond is situated only 8 kilometres from the old Hope Brook gold mine, which is 2 kilometres from tidewater where there is a useable pier. Also, an active, 150,000 volt powerline terminates at the old mine site. ABOUT COMMANDER RESOURCES LTD. Commander Resources Ltd. is a junior exploration company focused on gold and base metal exploration in Canada. The strength of Commander comes from a combination of aggressive land acquisition and strategic partnerships to increase exposure to discovery while mitigating risk to the shareholders. Diversification is the cornerstone of Commander's strategy and is reflected in its extensive property portfolio including the main projects, Baffin Island Gold, Hermitage Uranium and the South Voisey's Bay Nickel properties. On behalf of the Board of Directors, Kenneth E. Leigh President & CEO For further information, please call: Investor Relations: BMK Communications Toll Free: 1-877-489-4440 www.commanderresources.com Email: info@commanderresources.com The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Copyright © 2008 by Commander Resources Ltd. All rights reserved worldwide.

For more information, send questions and comments to info@commanderresources.com
This page was created on Fri Jan 18, 2008 at 10:40:51 AM Pacific Time.

Tata Motors New Car

Recently the Indian based transnational announced the one lahk car. This car will retail for about $2500 in India and make car ownership a reasonable option for a much larger portion of the Indian population.

The response in the west has been interesting. One set of people are arguing that this is a horror as the world can not sustain the Indians massively expanding car ownership. The other set are saying the developed world is sinning because it has been on top too long and is producing so much more green house gases per person. Both are small minded and backward thinking approaches to the issues.

The people of Indian want to be able drive as we do and who are we to tell them no? Frankly, the predicted problems from global warming seem to be worse for India than most of the developed world and it is the Indians that could suffer, not Canadians.

The thinking has to evolve when it comes to GHGs. Realistically the answer lies in new technologies that cause less green house gases, carbon capture and a transition time till to allow for society to shift over.

India and China, a total of 40% of the global population, are going to be very quickly shifting to a much higher standard of living and this will mean a dramatic increase in cars, air travel and meat consumption in these nations. China is now the biggest producer of green house gases and the reality is that neither nation is going to slow down or stop.

If governments were to start some sort of program carbon taxes, it would make sense for government to use the money raised to buy back carbon. Making a large market for the purchase of carbon will create a market for the technology to strip carbon from the air.

The way forward will have to be one that allows people to consume more, drive more, and lead a higher standard of living or change will not occur. People are not ready to stop eating meat or live without air conditioning. Most new cars in Canada have air conditioning and reduce the gas mileage by about 5% when in use - pure CO2 production to keep people cool in a cold nation.

The public in the developed world will not willing trade down their standard of living and people in the developing world want our standard of living. Working against these trends is at best moronic and at worst psychopathic.

Carbon Offsets

There is a lot of interest in buying carbon offsets. I can not shake the feeling that they are sort of like buying indulgences. Somehow the concept just does not sit well with me.

The idea is the you can buy carbon offsets from companies to offset the CO2 equivalent that you produce. You can buy this from companies that have made efforts to reduce their output but have a right to produce more CO2 or from projects that capture carbon.

There is no reason to buy these offsets at the moment other than guilt. The cost seems to be running in the range of $5 to $15 per tonne of CO2. Not very expensive given that I produce about 13 tonnes of CO2 equivalents per year. It would have cost me an extra $17 to $50 to have offset all my air travel and only about $130 to offset all my greenhouse gas emissions.

But what would I get for this $130? A piece of paper that I could claim less GHGs had been produced and I was allowed to claim part of that reduction by paying something to the company that made the reductions. How do I verify this? Who can be sure that there really was a GHG savings?

I know I produce less GHGs than the average Canadian, but even for the average person one should be able to buy offsets to cover 100% of their GHGs for less than $1000. Are there enough offsets for a nation of 33 000 000 to buy them?

If there is a real take off for offsets and the price rises with demand, what happens when people can no longer afford them?

I can buy offsets, but no will pay me to produce less GHGs. I already produce less than the Canadian average but I get no reward for this. Should I not be granted offsets I could sell? Say each Canadian is allowed to produce 20 tonnes and you can sell the rest. Between all of my family, we would have 30 tonnes we could sell. we should be able to get $300 for that.

I understand the concept of cap and trade and the whole idea behind offsets, I am still simply not convinced this is a route that will produce anything truly world changing.

I found this survey of late that goes someway towards measuring different carbon offset programs, but none of them are in Canada.

Can I be Greenhouse Gas Neutral?

We are hearing a lot about being carbon neutral at the moment, but I believe that the term should Greenhouse Gas Neutral. We focus much too much on carbon and avoid the gases that are much more damaging - ones like methane.

I am going to look at all GHGs to see what it would take for me to be GHG neutral.

What are my sources of GHGs?

The car - we use about 2500 litres in a year, so that is 500 litres I use. This is about 5500 kg of CO2

The house - I use hydro power for my home. Large scale Hydro does produce some CO2, for this house the total would be about 900 kg, or 180kg for me.

Airplane flights - I have taken two in the last year for total of 20 000 km. The flights were effectively full and the places were new, so the fuel used for myself was about 300 liters or 3300kg

Other transit - I use the bus from time to time and the BC Ferries. About 200kg of CO2

Food - I have no idea how to calculate this. One Japanese study put the cost of a kilo of beef at 36 kg of CO2 equivalent - I will use this number for all meat. In a year I ate about 75 kg a year of meat which has a CO2 value of 2700kg.

Food transport - I can not be certain of this number, but my best calculation is that the average CO2 emission related to fresh produce is about 400 grams per kg. With packaging included, I use about 400kg of food stuffs per year. This has a CO2 value of 16okg.

Production of other foods - I am not sure how to measure this, the best I can see is that there is only a minimal impact through farm machinery, I will presume this is neglible.

Other consumer goods - I use about 400kg of consumer goods a year. The transport CO2 is about 160kg. The cost of production, very, very hard to judge, though I am using some rough numbers from the EPA in the US. I am going to call it 1.5 kg of CO2 per kg of consumer goods for a total of 600kg.

So where am I at?

• Air travel 3300
• Car travel 5500
• Other transit 200
• Meat 2700
• Other food 160
• Electricity 180
• Consumer goods 760

TOTAL 12.8 tonnes of CO2 equivalent

In looking around the 'net, my calculation adds in sources that are ignored. Meat consumption alone would seem to be a major source of GHGs - close to 21% of my total.

It would not take a lot for me to reduce my GHGs to about 6 tonnes a year. No long haul flights, drive less and eat a lot less meat. If I do not fly in the next year, I will fall below 10 tonnes a year. If I were to eat only 100 grams of meat a day, this would save another 1.4 tonnes. Finally, if I were to drive less this should save another 2 tonnes.

I am somewhat horrified at home much air travel creates CO2. I did fly about 20 000 km and at .015 litres per km, the numbers are there. That was only two trips.

It is the meat that really gets me. The GHGs from the meat in a quarter pounder is about 4kg of CO2 equivalent.

If I lived elsewhere I would have have much higher GHGs from home heating and electricity - another 3.5 tonnes.

Innovative solutions from BC's forest industry

While so many people are focusing on all manner of ways to regulate reductions in CO2 emissions, BC's forest industry is doing some rather amazing things that will have significant impacts.

Our of Port McNeil there is a company call Sea Soil. They take wood waste and mix it with fish waste to produce a composted soil/fertilizer. Not a huge reduction in CO2, but a very innovative use of waste. It is this area of waste where the forest industry does the best.

There are conferences for people in the industry to discuss what can be done to reduce waste, how to use waste and how to make more money. In the industry it is called residual material. First of, producing less waste means that there is more product to sell. More product, more money. Second, waste is only waste if there is no way to make a buck from it. Sea Soil is one example of how to do this.

There is a lot of bark material and sawdust produced in any mill. This material needs to find a home. One way to deal with the waste is to produce power with it. There are two basic approaches to this. First is co-generation - burning the material and producing electricity. There is also the option to make petroleum products out of the waste material. There is a company called Advanced BioRefinery Inc (ABRI) based in Ontario that is working on an economical model for producing bio-oil. The prototype can process about 50 tonnes of forest biomass into about 30 tonnes of bio-fuel - a value of about $15 000.

What is really interesting about their pyrolysis unit is that it is portable. You can take out into the woods and process waste material on site. The process they use produces fuel oil, charcoal and synthetic gas. The charcoal and gas are used in the unit to dry the material before the conversion process. All that is left behind is ash.

It is through innovation that we are going to see any real shift in gasses being emitted. Through people finding ways to make money from what they have to dispose of at the moment is where the real solutions lie.