OriginOil, Inc. (OOIL.OB) is pleased to announce that the company’s CEO, Riggs Eckelberry, will participate in a panel alongside other industry leaders at the Algae Biofuels Summit on March 24, 2009. As much of the world’s oil and gas sources are made up of ancient algae deposits, scientists worldwide are focused on finding methods of producing “new oil” from algae. OriginOil has developed technology that transforms algae into an alternative fuel source that is comparable to petroleum.

The Algae Biofuels World Summit will gather top scientists from around the globe in the first major event focused on algae biofuels. Representatives from the US Department of Agriculture, US Department of Entergy, the National Algae Association, and others will be present at the Marines’ Memorial Club & Hotel in San Francisco. The goal of the summit will be to provide an open forum for discussion and to build links between those

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With food prices on the rise, the price of gold will drive. Martin Hutchinson of Money Morning says, “As gold goes up, it gets more popular and investors start piling into it…” Here are five ways to play bottom-basement gold.This from Mike Cagesso:

Gold hit two historic milestones in 2008. First, it hit its all-time high of $1,030 an ounce in early March.

Just three months later, the price of gold for December delivery fell to $681 an ounce, a 21-month low and 33.9% drop from its record high.

Most gold bugs were equal parts heartbroken and puzzled. Global stock markets tanked alongside the world’s biggest economies. But so did gold, which is widely considered to be a safe haven investment when everything else in spiraling south.

However, Money Morning Contributing Editor Martin Hutchinson- an investment banker with more than 25 years’ experience on Wall Street and

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A significant piece of legislation that is part of President Obama’s stimulus package could open parts of the U.S. to new high-speed Internet services – giving local economies a boost. If so, we’ve identified one company that investors should consider buying in anticipation of a key piece of legislation that was passed last week.

High-speed Internet can exert a profound impact on how local businesses and consumers improve their own personal productivity and expand their entertainment venues. Our thinking here is very much along the lines of our “Cell Phone Indicator” that we use in emerging markets – improved communications boost the local economy.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved $6 billion in rules for billions in government funds to spur high-speed Internet networks in unserved and underserved areas.

The Internet funding portion of the stimulus bill — a potential huge boon to phone, cable, and wireless companies – helps fulfill President

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January 14, 2009 ndash; Yesterday Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold introduced S. 222 to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to increase the national limitation on qualified energy conservation bonds and to clarify that certain programs constitute a qualified conservation purpose, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Finance. We expect to see further legislation supporting energy efficiency and alternative energy development. Here is the text from Feingoldrsquo;s comments on the floor:nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, over the past few days I have introduced a series of bills that are part of my E4 Initiative, dubbed E4 because of its focus on economy, employment, education, and energy. Today I am introducing two bills that are part of this effort: the Community Revitalization Energy Conservation, CREC, Act of 2009 and the Energy and Technology Advancement, ETA, Act of 2009.nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; The newest among my E4 bills is the Community Revitalization Energy Conservation, CREC, ...

Gold hit two historic milestones in 2008. First, in early March, the “yellow metal” hit its all-time high of $1,030 an ounce. Just three months later, the price of gold for December delivery had plummeted to $681 an ounce, a 21-month low and 33.9% drop from its record high. Most gold bugs were equal parts puzzled and broken-hearted.

The world’s stock markets tanked, as did some of its biggest economies. In such an environment, they thought, gold should have risen. After all, gold is widely considered to be a safe-haven investment when everything else is spiraling south.

However, Money Morning Contributing Editor Martin Hutchinson – an investment banker with more than 25 years’ experience on Wall Street and a leading expert on the international financial markets – understood perfectly what other investors did not.

“Gold is not a safe haven against recession,” said

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Gold demand increased by 45% from the second quarter to the third. So why are gold prices falling? Mike Caggeso says frantic de-leveraging by hedge funds outweighed record retail demand for the precious metal. But he says the inflationary impact of the government’s bailout bonanza will be the catalyst for soaring gold prices in 2009.

This from Money Morning:

“Gold’s universal role as a store of value has shone through during this quarter helping attract investors and consumers to all forms of gold ownership,” James E. Burton, chief executive officer of the World Gold Council.

However, if you’d just looked at gold’s performance alone, you’d never be able to tell demand was so strong. Indeed, in the third quarter alone, gold prices tumbled almost 6% – and were actually down as much as 20%, until a mid-September rebound narrowed that loss.

Then came “Black October.”

The worldwide financial crisis continued to

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If automakers are lining up at the trough, why not Big Agra?

Scott Irwin alerts me to this story from DomesticFuel.com:

Ethanol plants that have been hurt by dramatic fluctuations in commodity prices this year could be eligible for assistance from the US Department of Agriculture.

Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer told reporters after an address to the World Food Prize breakfast in Des Moines Friday that "some plants are under pressure because they've been speculating on corn."

Schafer said there are USDA programs that could, for example, help the companies refinance and reduce their interest rates on operating expenses such as corn purchases. USDA's Rural Development Program can lend up to $25 million to refinance or loan guarantees. "We have several ways we can help with dollars in rural areas," Schafer said.

Some ethanol companies, most notably VeraSun, speculated on corn prices during the summer and locked in prices when

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Xethanol Corporation is a diversified renewable energy company dedicated to the production of ethanol and related products. They produce these products in manufacturing facilities close to major urban markets, using raw materials readily available in those areas. The company also produces distiller’s wet grains, a byproduct of the corn-to-ethanol process.

Founded in 2000, Xethanol Corporation trades on the American Stock Exchange (AMEX) as part of the Waste Management industry in the Industrial Goods sector. Their current market capitalization is $9.16 million. The company takes a different business approach when it comes to ethanol production. Corn is the primary raw material for ethanol. Most of the production of ethanol occurs in the Corn Belt, far from the high-demand ethanol areas of the coasts, including the Gulf coast. Xethanol instead uses locally available biomass, rather than corn, as their main material to produce their ethanol. This biomass is in the form of organic

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Brazil's state-owned National Supplies Co. will auction 55,000 metric tons of rice today, the country's ministry of agriculture said yesterday. The government currently has a stock of 1.4 million tons of rice, equivalent to 10 percent of Brazil's annual consumption. The stocks to be auctioned are held in Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina states.The measure is an attempt to keep prices down and establish a reference price for rice, the statement said, citing Paulo Morceli, basic foods manager of Conab, as the supplies company is known. According to information on the Conab Web site, the rice will be auctioned at 28 reais ($16.98) for a 50-kilogram bag.The most recent decision of the Brzilian government is just one more example of the way national governments are coming under pressure to offer a response to what is now a global problem: the rising demand for energy ...

Roel Landingin and Javier Blas writing in the Financial Times:The Philippines failed to buy enough rice on Tuesday to boost its inventories and faced prices more than 40 per cent high­er than two months ago in the latest sign of a rapid tight­­ening of the global rice market.The failure underscores the risk that rice could be in short supply in south-east Asia countries, where the grain is a staple food. It also signals further food inflation pressures in the region, where consumer prices are rising quickly.The world’s largest rice exporters, including Vietnam, India and Egypt, have imposed foreign sales restrictions to keep their domestic markets well supplied, tightening further the global market. More curbs are likely in the coming months as the rice market faces strong demand and lagging supplies, the US Department of Agriculture has warned. Global rice stocks are set to ...