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A million thanks to SusanG at Daily Kos for mentioning this:

Obamas Victory: A Consumer-Citizen Revolt

As recently as this summer, while the economy unraveled (BusinessWeek, 7/14/08), I made two trips to Silicon Valley in the hopes of finding leaders who grasped the crisis—and the opportunity—inherent in the destruction of trust. I listened to Facebook executives but found them obsessed with how to monetize the site with advertising. Their users were not individuals, but "eyeballs." I asked Google (GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt how he would develop and sustain the trust of his users. His response was to cite the provision of two classes of stock intended to insulate top management from investor pressures. I gave a talk on the crisis of trust. The response from self-described Internet court jester Esther Dyson was typical of what I had been hearing: "Personally, Im not that concerned if people dont trust large institutions."

A few weeks later economic panic gripped the stock market. I flipped on ABCs Sunday morning news show with George Stephanopoulos only to hear economist Larry Summers explaining that the surprising depth of the economic meltdown was due to the loss of trust in institutions. What he didnt say was that this loss of trust is a vast sea whose level has been rising for decades. The subprime debacle and the ensuing credit freeze simply marked the moment when the sea wall was finally breached. ...

So can we invent a business model in which advocacy, support, authenticity, trust, relationship, and profit are linked? Can I write that sentence without invoking fear, disbelief, cynicism, or peals of laughter? The ugly practices that killed trust seem intractable to most people, whether they are the ones trapped inside the money machine or on the receiving end of its operations. But after this election, the answer to these questions has irreversibly changed. The answer today would have to be not only "yes we can" but also "yes we must."

No, this is not about "science" per se, unless one considers the philosophical side of economics (rather than the quantitative side) to be a science. Rather, it is the simple observation that anyone reading the daily news with an open mind can understand: Basing a modern large-scale economy primarily on the evolutionarily ancient motivation of greed and personal self-interest is not working out very well...

The Korea Herald reports that a swathe of nuclear power plants have been cancelled or delayed in South Korea as part of the anti-nuclear backlash following the Fukushima disaster (and the Inchon tidal power project has been delayed for 3 years as well) - Plans for more power plants delayed or scrapped.

The construction of 10 nuclear power plants and one tidal power plant scheduled to be completed between 2013 and 2027 has been either put off or canceled, plant operators said, fanning concerns about power shortages.

The 11 plants, if completed, altogether could have produced about 12.7 million kilowatts of electricity, which accounts for about 6.4 percent of the nation’s power supply.

“We have postponed or canceled some plant construction deals because the government has become more careful about giving out approval after the Fukushima nuclear disaster,” said an official of the Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co.

Nuclear plant Sinuljin-1 and Sinuljin-2, originally set to be completed in June 2016 and June 2017 respectively, had their completion date postponed by at least 10 months, after failing to obtain the government approval on time.

The completion date of Sinuljin-3, Sinuljin-4, Sinkori-5 and Sinkori-6 were postponed by one year for failing to obtain the state approval, and Sinkori-7 and Sinkori-8 construction projects were canceled as the company faced difficulties in securing land for the construction site.

The KHNP decided to put off Incheon tidal power plant by about three years to June, 2020, the officials said.

Bloomberg reports that origin is looking to expand its APLNG coal seam gas export project - Origin Seeking at Least One More Buyer to Expand LNG Project.

Origin Energy Ltd., ConocoPhillips’s partner in a $20 billion Australian liquefied natural gas venture, said it aims to sell more than half the fuel from the project’s second phase before committing to an expansion.

The project in Queensland state will likely need to sell 50 percent to 75 percent of the LNG from the second stage before the partners make an investment decision, Karen Moses, executive director of finance and strategy at Sydney-based Origin, said today in a telephone interview, adding that no final decision had been made.

Origin and Conoco, the third-largest U.S. oil company, are among energy companies in Australia planning more than A$200 billion ($200 billion) of LNG projects to tap rising Asian demand for the cleaner-burning alternative to coal. The venture yesterday agreed to supply Japan’s Kansai Electric Power Co. with 1 million metric tons of LNG a year, or almost 25 percent of the capacity from the second unit, or train.

Origin and Conoco are pursuing “at least one more” buyer for the coal seam gas-to-LNG venture, with customer interest increasing since the nuclear crisis in Japan caused by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, she said.

The partners approved the first stage of their Australia Pacific LNG development in July, targeting first exports in mid-2015.