What colour green did you say you wanted?

To the European Chemical Industry, pondering gloomily on what the European Commission’s Reach (Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals) will mean, the Green movement must seem like a monolithic mass.

This view would be wrong.

There are divisions and many different shades of green.

There are still many, such as Frederique Ries, the European Parliament's rapporteur, who believe in the Precautionary Principle. Put bluntly this means that if there is the slightest chance of a risk, then something should be prohibited.

On page 12 of the report on the Action Plan, Frederique Ries says 'it is regrettable... that none of the actions is based on the precautionary principle.' The key word here is 'regrettable'. This means I AM VERY ANGRY ABOUT THIS! but I have been trained to say 'regrettable' in print. Frederique Ries continues in the same paragraph 'An approach that makes absolute scientific evidence the paradigm for 21st Century clearly goes against common sense: a product that is dangerous for health and the environment should not continue to be sold.' So bad news for the Tiger then, which is high in risk to human health, especially when its hungry.

Frederique Ries quotes the viridian-hued Margot Walstrom: 'There are certain areas where we cannot risk waiting until our knowledge is complete, but need to act according to the precautionary principle.

Greenpeace, on the other hand is all for scientific proof; if only because it will allow complete families of materials to be deemed dangerous and ripe for replacement. This view is more likely to win the respect of the chemicals industry, which has consistently, in Europe at least, tried to argue the indispensability of chemicals based on facts.

Take heart. The Commission and Greenpeace agree to have the debate on your terms.

Nuclear Power? No thanks!

There is an innovative, and some might say, elliptical, suggestion that French chemicals companies might like to invest in a new Nuclear power station to help them to avoid the difficulties of high energy prices.

Needless to say the idea appears to come from politicians. Not from people on the ground. France definitely dragged its feet on the road to energy de-regulation. The system adopted, according to a source in Paris is that companies can either subscribe to the spot market or have longer term contacts. Our source says there is no middle way to have their energy delivered under a range of different agreements. Were we being cynical we might think the system was designed to fail.

Energy prices in France have not reached levels that are beyond the range you would expect for Europe. But the question must be: are consumers being gouged by a government that invested heavily in nuclear power? Nuclear power which cost the same amount to produce and transmit at any time of the day or night. Nuclear power which can generate for long periods of time on a single charge of radioactive material.

But something funny has been happening with prices, it seems that French Nuclear power suppliers have been raising the price of their electricity along the same lines as electricity generated from coal or gas. It also seems to be impossible for companies to build, or commission a third party to build a combined steam-generating gas-powered power station. This is widely done in the UK where the chemicals plant buys the steam for process energy and the power is sold into the National Grid. No, instead companies are being offered the chance to buy into an asset with potentially endless environmental liabilities. Sounds balmy to me and to the French Industrialists I've spoken with.

If the polticians, Economy and Finance minister Hervé Gaymard and Industry minister Patrick Devedjian, are serious about stopping the chemical industry leaving France to pastures both cheaper and greener, then they need to address this. Lets hope they get some sense out of the round table they propose between generators and users in the next few weeks.

The chemical industry could learn from this. Its supplier is pricing on benefit to consumer and the market rather than cost to produce plus a bit.

Pip pip

What? Greenpeace and the chemical industry agree on something

Daily Notebook�:�23-02-2005

Now Here’s a funny a funny thing, here is a funny thing, as sharp-suited UK comedian Max Miller used to say.

Both Cefic, the European Trade Group which represents the Chemicals industry inside the EU, and Greenpeace are united (almost) on one aspect of the recent report on the European Commission's Environment & Health Action Plan 2004-2010.

They agree that it was wrong to single out individual chemicals, as the Rapporteur Frederique Ries has done in the report.

They agree but for different reasons.

Cefic's ire at the report is apparent it 'deplores the use of a list of discriminated chemicals' and criticises a blacklist of substances because it 'sets a dangerous precedent for future policy making by effectively ignoring the established European science based-regulatory process.' The list 'arbitrarily discriminates against individual substances.' http://www.cefic.be/Files/NewsReleases/1829_SCALE.pdf

Speaking on the phone yesterday, Greenpeace's Nadia Haiama, a chemicals campaigner based in Brussels, one of the homes of the European Parliament, said the report's adoption was 'definitely great news, especially on phthalates, to see parliament pass such a report. But so long as we focus chemical by chemical we'll not get very far.'

Both Greenpeace and CEFIC want scientific evaluation of the risk of chemicals. Greenpeace believes this approach will give it the ammo to blast whole families of chemicals into oblivion. http://eu.greenpeace.org/issues/chem.html
Cefic wants it because it thinks this approach will allow for serious issue fudging and will take a long time.

Could this be the start of a beautiful friendship...

For the record: the chemicals named in the report on the Plan are:

Phthalate plasticizers for PVC including DEHP, used in medical devices… and which are of most danger to children in neo-natal intensive care . I’d feel more impact from this argument if it wasn’t tied up with babies.
DINP, DEHP, DBP, DIDP, DNOP and BBP, which the report on the action plan says are harmful to reproduction and development. Perhaps they are, perhaps they aren’t let’s have the evidence from a proper scientific investigation please
Chlorinated Solvents, these are used to make paints, coatings and polymers. Yes but these products aren’t saturated with them.
Lead in Soldering. Ah lead vapour, I inhaled it at my grandfather’s knee as we soldered black-and-white TV sets back together. But, seriously, its probably worth reining in. .
Organophosphate pesticides. Perhaps these are different from nerve-gas-type agents.

Save our Soda Ash

You can't fault the American Chemical Industry when it comes to looking at the world and spotting things it doesn't like, such as competition from overseas.

This last week we've seen a congresswoman from Wyoming (Barbara Cubin, a Republican) and a senator from the same state (Craig Thomas, also a Republican) pressing for the kind of protectionist advantages in their home-state that would be ruled illegal in the European Union. Cubin and Thomas are asking for tax breaks for corporations that mine Trona, an ore that helps make Soda Ash (Sodium carbonate if you're interested and it helps make glasses glassy and in detergents, which help keep them clean).

Wyoming produces around 12m tonne/year of the world's total 34m tonne/year production. China overtook the US as the world's largest producer in 2003.

The trouble is for the possibly inefficient and possibly uneconomic Trona miners of the great wilds of Wyoming is that their Trona is more expensive than Chinese Trona. Its a simple story of supply, demand and price. I guess the guys (and I'll bet a pound to a penny that they're almost all men) who run these companies know this.

But for the Senator and Congresswoman, here we go. If there is more of something than the market wants, the price will fall until it reaches the level that the market begins to find the product attractive. You can try selling at the lower price, or players can leave the market when they decide the returns are not good enough. How would you react if the Chinese started trying to tip the paying field in their direction?

Take the hard message back to your constituents and approach this positively. Get government help for retraining and accept the possibility that the 3000 people working in the Trona mines of Southern Wyoming, could possibly be happier doing something else. 800 of them have been given that opportunity recently. I bet they're not all lining the highway looking for Wily Coyote.

Ineos, Basell: bids and beyond

Those who know (or think they do) don't believe Ineos is in with a snowflakes chance in Hades of getting Basell. That's a polyethylene joint venture between a large clam and a venerable (and wealthy) German.

The front runner's got to be National Petrochemical Company of Iran. Iran makes it difficult to do a deal, but look at all the gas sitting there, look at the implicit state backing from the Iranian Government, which controls NPC, and look to the future. Both Shell and BASF are interested in natural gas, and NPC is keen on technology and large production sites in the heart of Europe. Ineos' strategy of offering a low priced, but quick to close deal looks thin, now that Oil majors are generating more cash than Croesus dreamt of.

The bid from a consortium involving Halida Petrochemicals, which seems to be based on "what shall we do with that large pile of cash sitting under the bed then" could be in with a shout, if the sums add up.