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This process, far less complex than competing methods, creates an oil that can be refined into gasoline, jet fuel or diesel and removes nearly all oxygen — the enemy of fuel efficiency.”It’s unique and it’s simple,” said Clay Wheeler, the University of Maine chemical engineering professor who discovered the process last year with two undergraduates. “This is important because the more complex the technology, the more expensive it’s going to be.”In heavily wooded Maine, logging produces a lot of scrap tree stumps, tops and branches that are unusable for making lumber or paper.While additional research is needed, if Wheeler’s process is ultimately able to be commercially developed, it could help forest-rich states generate their own fuel from that scrap.For a video on the process, click on: link.reuters.com/vak54sIn the first step of Wheeler’s process, wood is bathed in sulfuric acid, isolating the sugars in cellulose and producing an energy-intense organic acid mixture.That mixture is then heated with calcium hydroxide in a reactor to 450 degrees Celsius (840 Fahrenheit), a step that removes oxygen.What drips out is a hydrocarbon liquid that chemically mimics crude oil.For every ton of cellulose processed, Wheeler is able to make about 1.25 barrels of oil equivalent, a unit of energy comparable to the amount of energy produced by burning one barrel of crude oil.The acids and calcium hydroxide are recycled at the end of the process, cutting costs, he said.The most expensive part is the wood itself, Wheeler said. At current wood biomass prices, he acknowledged his process is not economically competitive with traditional crude oil refining.”But we anticipate that the value of the fuel will continue to increase as petroleum becomes more scarce,” he said.The economic viability of the project is a source of concern, said Andrew Soare, an analyst who tracks alternative fuel technologies at Lux Research, a technology advisory firm.”Further understanding of costs is key to this reaction,” Soare said. “I think this process certainly does have a chance to go somewhere.”Paul Bryan, program manager at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Biomass Program, said a project’s economics are a key factor for any future funding support.”If the outputs are a lot more valuable than the inputs, that’s the first step to success,” he said.The journal Green Chemistry plans to publish a study later this year on Wheeler’s process, which does not use catalysts or bacteria as most other alternative fuel methods do.Wheeler is now studying just what makes his process tick. He accidentally stumbled upon it 11 months ago while trying different reactions with biomass and acids.He does not know exactly what happens inside the reactor during the second phase, when the oil is actually produced, but he knows what he can make with it.During a recent tour of his Maine laboratory, Wheeler refined his fuel into gasoline that can be used in existing engines.”We’ve had independent laboratories test this, and without any upgrading, it was 82-octane gasoline,” Wheeler said.That is a lower octane rating than you find at gas stations — most are at least 87 — but traditional crude oil refining uses several steps to reach that mark.”We think we can get there,” Wheeler said of the higher octane rating.NEW INNOVATIONS AND PRODUCTSEven though the United States has 10 percent of the world’s forest land, its pulp and paper industry has slowly declined in the past 50 years due to shrinking paper demand.In August, paper shipments fell 6.4 percent from the same month last year and box production slipped 2.7 percent, according to the American Forest and Paper Association.Wheeler’s process could entice the paper industry to take a second look at Maine, Oregon and other timber-rich states.”This is the kind of stuff you could do in a pulp and paper mill,” Wheeler said. “Paper plants are already used to high temperatures.”University of Maine officials are hoping Wheeler’s process creates jobs in a state with a 7.6 percent unemployment rate.”These mills are the heart of communities in Maine and they need new innovations and products,” said Renee Kelly, director of economic development initiatives at the university. “Pulp and paper are very cyclical, commodity businesses.”

Samsung was ambushing Apple at a temporary “pop up” store offering its new Samsung Galaxy S II smartphone for just A$2 to the first 10 customers each day in the run-up to the rival iPhone launch.The guerrilla marketing tactic is the latest flare-up in the intensifying competition between two of the biggest players in the mobile devices industry that has also seen them battle in courts across the world over patents.What makes the battle so captivating is that the two companies are such contrasts. Apple is known for innovation and big ideas that create whole new markets. What Samsung lacks in ideas, it makes up for with a sleek production system that is lightning fast in bringing new products to market.Still, Samsung Electronics delayed the unveiling of its latest smartphone, the Nexus Prime, by a week to Wednesday as a sign of respect following the death of Apple’s co-founder Steve Jobs — Apple is Samsung’s biggest customers for microprocessors.The Nexus Prime has been much anticipated because it is based on the latest version of Google’s Android operating system, named “Ice Cream Sandwich” after previous versions also named after foods, such as Gingerbread and Honeycomb.But the war for smartphone dominance is one Samsung appears to be winning for now, just. Third-quarter figures are expected to show it has overtaken Apple as the world’s biggest smartphone vendor in terms of units sold.Apple, the world’s largest technology company with a market value of $391 billion, is counter-punching hard as the holiday sales season approaches.It is expected to present a positive short-term picture — sparked by roaring sales of its iPhone and iPad — when it reports results for the July-September period on Tuesday. The company moved 4 million iPhone 4S units in three days — more than double its predecessor — despite lukewarm reviews.”The quarter we are focusing on is the holiday quarter,” said Channing Smith, co-manager of the Capital Advisors Growth Fund, which owns Apple shares. “We expect Apple to absolutely blow the doors off during Christmas.”The battle between Samsung and Apple is being waged not just in malls and stalls across the world, but in courtrooms as well.On the same day Samsung was luring away potential Apple customers in Sydney with the Galaxy promotion, an Australian court slapped a temporary ban on the sale of Samsung’s computer tablet, named the Galaxy Tab, in the country, saying Samsung infringed on Apple patents.Apple has also scored preliminary injunctions against some Samsung products in Germany and the Netherlands, and seeks to block sales of Samsung models in the United States, the key smartphone battleground.Samsung is trying to counter with lawsuits of its own, unsuccessfully so far, accusing Apple of infringing its technologies.FAST EXECUTIONERAnalysts who follow the company say Samsung may not have the next big idea but it does have world-class marketing chops.The world’s biggest maker of flat screens and memory chips and the second-biggest mobile phone maker after Nokia can bring a product to market faster than anybody. Samsung can leverage costs by using the chips and screens from its other divisions in its products. It has unrivalled product differentiation, offering different phones for different market segments.But while Samsung has shown it can beat Apple in the market, few are convinced it has the innovative corporate culture to be the next Apple.The conglomerate’s legendary founder Lee Byung-chull set up Samsung Electronics in 1969, producing black-and-white TVs that he supposedly learned how to make by tearing apart a Sony. Apple claims in its lawsuits that the Galaxy lineups using Google’s Android platform copied the look and feel of its iPhone and iPad.”Koreans are great at reverse engineering,” says John Strand, founder of Danish telecoms consultancy Strand Consult.Samsung’s corporate culture values speed and adaptability, aspiring to be what they call in Korea the “fast executioner.”“But to capture the imagination of the public in the way the iPhone or iPad have done, Samsung will need to take risks and produce something unique that has a true ‘wow’ factor and be first to market,” said Tim Shepherd, an analyst at Canalys, a technology focused research firm.TECHNOLOGY AGNOSTICSamsung doesn’t just rely on Android. It is technology neutral, jointly developing software with Intel, using Microsoft’s Windows, free software Linux and its own operating system, Bada, in its phones. Its vertically integrated supply chain of chips and displays also helps it better control production costs.”With eggs in all baskets, Samsung is poised to be the long-term winner regardless of how the dynamics play out between technologies and standards,” analysts at Bernstein said in a report. “Samsung is unique among leading manufacturers of being extremely ‘OS-agnostic’,” they said referring to operating systems.One Samsung executive helpfully suggested that Apple might want to copy the Korean company.”What Apple might want to pursue is ironically what Samsung is doing right now: Keep introducing differentiated products to cater to the very low end of the market to the very top,” said a senior Samsung official, who declined to be named because he was not authorised to speak to the media.”We may have looked foolish by not focusing on just one mobile platform and instead spreading our resources for the time- and labor-consuming work of making phones with various platforms, but it showed patience eventually pays off.”Samsung’s speedy ascent to the smartphone summit came after the company was sent reeling by the storm Apple created over the launch of the iPhone 4 and the iPad early last year. Profit halved in the second quarter last year because it didn’t have products to compete with the iPhone 4 and the iPad.But it caught up fast. Samsung released an upgraded version of its Galaxy S smartphone with improved processing power in April, less than a year after it was first introduced, making it also bigger but lighter. Months later, it unveiled upgraded versions of the Galaxy smartphone, running on the fast 4G network with a high-resolution display.The company was also first to challenge the iPad with different sizes and is now the No. 2 tablet vendor.Samsung sold nearly 20 million smartphones in the second quarter, about one million fewer than Apple. Its market share gap was less than 1 percentage point.But Samsung is expected to sell 95 million smartphones this year, higher than Apple’s 81 million, and raise sales to 136 million versus Apple’s 89 million units next year, JPMorgan analysts forecast.By comparison, Apple’s latest iPhone followed 15 months after its previous model and had no facial changes, disappointing investors and fans who had hoped for a fancy and thinner product with a bigger screen and 4G connection.”If users are concerned about being ‘future-proof’ from a network technology point of view, Samsung clearly has a marketing edge at the moment … Samsung has a strong ability to release competitive new smartphones on a timely basis,” Fitch analyst Alvin Lim said.CLEAN, CLEAR, COLOURSJust listen to Michael Santos, an iPhone user for the last two years. The 22-year-old is about to abandon his iPhone after spending the past half-hour in a Samsung store in Singapore playing with the new Galaxy S II.”The screen on the Galaxy is high resolution, much clearer, cleaner and the colors are brighter,” said Santos, a student on a holiday in Singapore.The Galaxy S II uses Samsung’s own dual-core application processors, cutting costs there. It is slimmer and has a bigger display than the iPhone 4S and is being sold through around 140 operators in more than 100 countries.Choice, and lots of it, has been key to its success.”The secret to Samsung’s success is strength in depth,” said Geoff Blaber, analyst at London-based mobile consultancy CCS Insight. “Samsung is competing aggressively — from pre-pay right up to the high-tier, where the Galaxy S II has arguably gained most from Nokia’s slide in market share.”“Words once solely used to describe Nokia are now applicable to Samsung. Scale, distribution and supply chain are interdependent elements that Samsung has mastered to drive both profit and volume,” he said.Analysts say smartphones now account for one-third of Samsung’s handset portfolio, up from 26 percent in the second quarter and 12 percent a year ago, lifting the profit margin of its overall handset business to around 14 percent.The iPhone, introduced in 2007 with the touchscreen template now adopted by its rivals, is still the gold standard in the smartphone market.But phones based on Android, which is available for free to handset vendors such as Samsung, HTC, LG Electronics, Motorola Mobility and Sony Ericsson, have come to dominate the market.Consumers of Android-powered smartphones tout its customization, price and also the fact that they do not need to synchronize their devices with a computer like users of Apple’soperating system.Samsung may not have come up with the concept but it has adapted Apple’s breakthrough smartphone idea perhaps better than any other handset maker. It tries to offer the Apple experience at a better price with better functionality.That was why Cho Su-ah, a college student in Seoul, picked Samsung over Apple.”I was attracted to the iPhone 4 more since many of my friends have it and I could get a lot of help from them if I needed. Also, as a girl, I was attracted to the cute design of Apple,” she said.”But my thoughts on Galaxy changed after a few days of using it. Since it’s a Korean phone I could get technical help much more easily than I would have with an iPhone. And although people said the Android market has fewer applications, I didn’t have any trouble finding applications I wanted.”

* Fighting continues in Sirte, no sign of NTC advanceBy Barry MaloneBANI WALID, Libya, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Fighters with Libya’s interim government have captured the town of Bani Walid, firing their guns into the air and hoisting the country’s new flag over the centre of one of the final bastions of Muammar Gaddafi’s loyalists.A Reuters team that drove into the heart of Bani Walid, in desert hills 150 km (90 miles) south of Tripoli, saw no signs of resistance from supporters of the deposed leader who have been holed up inside the town for more than six weeks.”Bani Walid is completely free. It is liberated, 100 percent,” said Mohammed Shakonah, a military commander with the National Transitional Council (NTC).The apparent capture of Bani Walid brought Libya’s new rulers a step closer to being in full control of the vast, oil-producing North African country almost two months after rebels entered Tripoli and ended 42 years of one-man rule by Gaddafi.Along with Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte, Bani Walid was one of Libya’s last sources of armed resistance to the NTC.Bursts of gunfire, fireworks and car horns merged into a cacophony on streets littered with empty bullet casings and lined with buildings damaged or destroyed by the fighting.Some buildings were still ablaze just before sundown on Monday, others were flattened by NATO air strikes. Several shops looked like they had been looted. Thick black smoke billowed in the distance.An NTC fighter in camouflage fatigues and with an AK-47 assault rifle hanging from his shoulder, embraced a medical worker and both men wept in joy.”If Gaddafi could see this, he would give up,” said Abdelfattah, another NTC fighter in the central square.There was no evidence of civilians joining in the street celebrations in Bani Walid, home to the Warfalla, Libya’s biggest tribe, whose members are traditional supporters of Gaddafi.”This is a very important day because it now means Gaddafi doesn’t have even one town in Libya,” said Ayad Sayed al Russi, a senior NTC commander. “We hope that the residents who fled will come back now that the town is free.”The town had been under siege for weeks, with hundreds of Gaddafi loyalists dug into its steep valleys and hills resisting advancing interim government forces.NTC officials had been negotiating with Bani Walid’s tribal leaders for its surrender.SIRTE FIGHTS ONIn Sirte, where Gaddafi loyalists have been under siege for weeks, there was little or no indication of the often disorganised NTC forces making any progress on Monday. Chaos and confusion forced them to retreat in some places.A doctor for the medical aid charity Medecins Sans Frontieres in Sirte has estimated that 10,000 people remain trapped in the city of 75,000. Many are women and children, some are sick or injured.NTC tanks and rockets bombarded a small area of central Sirte where they have boxed in the remaining Gaddafi loyalists. Libya’s new leaders say they will only begin the transition to democracy after they capture the city.Frustration is growing on the front line. Some fighters are irritated that their commanders have not ordered a big push to take the rest of the city.There is also anger between NTC forces from Misrata to the west and from Benghazi to the east, who have accused each other of hitting their allies in “friendly fire” incidents.”What we are trying to do is to limit attacks from the east and west to avoid friendly fire, and instead attack from the south,” said Mohammad Al Sabty, a field commander.”We have lost a lot of martyrs in recent days,” said Mustafa Salim from a Misrata brigade. When Misrata units get close to Benghazi units “it gets harder,” he said. “They fire at us and we fire at them.”Government forces captured 15 Gaddafi loyalist fighters on Monday, all of them black, a Reuters witness said. Gaddafi armed many sub-Saharan Africans to fight for him and black people have been subject to arbitrary reprisals by the NTC forces.Some government fighters present tried to hit the newly captured prisoners, but were held back by more senior officers and the 15 men were marched off to the rear as NTC forces laid down suppressing fire at nearby snipers.The new government’s forces have been accused of mistreating prisoners and Amnesty International said in a report last week it was in danger of repeating some of the abuses of Gaddafi’s rule, particularly through the use of arbitrary detention.The often chaotic struggle for Sirte has killed scores of people, left thousands homeless and laid waste to much of what was once a showpiece Mediterranean city where Gaddafi entertained foreign leaders.

* Fighting continues in Sirte, no sign of NTC advanceBy Barry MaloneBANI WALID, Libya, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Fighters with Libya’s interim government have captured the town of Bani Walid, firing their guns into the air and hoisting the country’s new flag over the centre of one of the final bastions of Muammar Gaddafi’s loyalists.A Reuters team that drove into the heart of Bani Walid, in desert hills 150 km (90 miles) south of Tripoli, saw no signs of resistance from supporters of the deposed leader who have been holed up inside the town for more than six weeks.”Bani Walid is completely free. It is liberated, 100 percent,” said Mohammed Shakonah, a military commander with the National Transitional Council (NTC).The apparent capture of Bani Walid brought Libya’s new rulers a step closer to being in full control of the vast, oil-producing North African country almost two months after rebels entered Tripoli and ended 42 years of one-man rule by Gaddafi.Along with Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte, Bani Walid was one of Libya’s last sources of armed resistance to the NTC.Bursts of gunfire, fireworks and car horns merged into a cacophony on streets littered with empty bullet casings and lined with buildings damaged or destroyed by the fighting.Some buildings were still ablaze just before sundown on Monday, others were flattened by NATO air strikes. Several shops looked like they had been looted. Thick black smoke billowed in the distance.An NTC fighter in camouflage fatigues and with an AK-47 assault rifle hanging from his shoulder, embraced a medical worker and both men wept in joy.”If Gaddafi could see this, he would give up,” said Abdelfattah, another NTC fighter in the central square.There was no evidence of civilians joining in the street celebrations in Bani Walid, home to the Warfalla, Libya’s biggest tribe, whose members are traditional supporters of Gaddafi.”This is a very important day because it now means Gaddafi doesn’t have even one town in Libya,” said Ayad Sayed al Russi, a senior NTC commander. “We hope that the residents who fled will come back now that the town is free.”The town had been under siege for weeks, with hundreds of Gaddafi loyalists dug into its steep valleys and hills resisting advancing interim government forces.NTC officials had been negotiating with Bani Walid’s tribal leaders for its surrender.SIRTE FIGHTS ONIn Sirte, where Gaddafi loyalists have been under siege for weeks, there was little or no indication of the often disorganised NTC forces making any progress on Monday. Chaos and confusion forced them to retreat in some places.A doctor for the medical aid charity Medecins Sans Frontieres in Sirte has estimated that 10,000 people remain trapped in the city of 75,000. Many are women and children, some are sick or injured.NTC tanks and rockets bombarded a small area of central Sirte where they have boxed in the remaining Gaddafi loyalists. Libya’s new leaders say they will only begin the transition to democracy after they capture the city.Frustration is growing on the front line. Some fighters are irritated that their commanders have not ordered a big push to take the rest of the city.There is also anger between NTC forces from Misrata to the west and from Benghazi to the east, who have accused each other of hitting their allies in “friendly fire” incidents.”What we are trying to do is to limit attacks from the east and west to avoid friendly fire, and instead attack from the south,” said Mohammad Al Sabty, a field commander.”We have lost a lot of martyrs in recent days,” said Mustafa Salim from a Misrata brigade. When Misrata units get close to Benghazi units “it gets harder,” he said. “They fire at us and we fire at them.”Government forces captured 15 Gaddafi loyalist fighters on Monday, all of them black, a Reuters witness said. Gaddafi armed many sub-Saharan Africans to fight for him and black people have been subject to arbitrary reprisals by the NTC forces.Some government fighters present tried to hit the newly captured prisoners, but were held back by more senior officers and the 15 men were marched off to the rear as NTC forces laid down suppressing fire at nearby snipers.The new government’s forces have been accused of mistreating prisoners and Amnesty International said in a report last week it was in danger of repeating some of the abuses of Gaddafi’s rule, particularly through the use of arbitrary detention.The often chaotic struggle for Sirte has killed scores of people, left thousands homeless and laid waste to much of what was once a showpiece Mediterranean city where Gaddafi entertained foreign leaders.

* Liikanen says ECB’s bond-buying programme is temporary* Liikanen echoes other ECB policymakers’ growth concernsBy Paul Carrel and Terhi KinnunenFRANKFURT/HELSINKI, Oct 14 (Reuters) - The European Central Bank’s outgoing president laid the onus firmly on governments to resolve the debt crisis on Friday, saying the bank had done “all it could”, although analysts said the door was still open to a cut in interest rates this year.At a time when the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve are taking further emergency steps to bolster the economy, President Jean-Claude Trichet’s ECB has indicated that it wants to return to a narrower focus on pure inflation-fighting.There are questions over whether that will remain the case when Trichet is replaced by Italy’s Mario Draghi next month, with a broader effort to end the euro zone’s debt crisis in the offing and the bank’s role still in question.”The ECB has done all it could to be up to its responsibilities in exceptional circumstances,” Trichet told the Financial Times.”The ultimate backstop is, of course, the governments. To do anything that would let governments off their responsibilities would be a recipe for failure.”Trichet made the comments on the eve of a meeting of G20 finance officials in Paris, piling pressure on the euro zone’s leading economies to act to end the crisis that is unnerving markets and threatening to tip the bloc into recession.Fellow ECB policymaker Erkki Liikanen echoed Trichet’s view, stressing that the ECB will not intervene indefinitely with its bond-buy plan — a major part of its contribution to fighting the crisis which it has used to ease government borrowing costs.”The ECB has stated it is temporary in nature,” Liikanen said of the bond-buying programme.That was the same language that the bank has used throughout the past year on the programme, but also comes at a time when the ECB is engaged heavily in propping up Italian and Spanish bond markets.Trichet’s refusal to take additional non-standard measures worried Berenberg bank economist Holger Schmieding.”I find that a little scary,” Schmieding said.”Trichet has made it plain he does not want to do much more and that leaves us in a potentially dangerous situation,” he added. “I’m afraid it would take another wave of severe financial tensions to get a different response from the ECB.”If Greece is pushed into default, the ECB could no longer accept its government bonds as collateral from Greek banks reliant on the ECB for funds, the FT reported Trichet as saying, meaning other euro zone governments would have to backstop Greece’s financial system.GROWTH WORRIES DOMINATETrichet’s final meeting as president earlier this month failed to deliver an interest rate cut to bolster growth that most analysts had seen as a long shot.But policymakers speaking this week have tended to focus on risks that growth will be even worse than currently thought, and could even drive the euro zone into recession, bolstering expectations that the ECB could still cut interest rates this year from 1.5 percent.Liikanen said euro area growth is slowing.”The uncertainty related to growth prospects is high, and a substantial weakening in economic activity cannot be ruled out,” he said in a statement.Economists read Trichet’s remarks as referring exclusively to the “non-standard” measures like bond-buying and pumping extra liquidity into the banking system which it has used to tackle the financial and sovereign debt crises.Schmieding expected the bank to cut rates by 25 basis points in December, and again in March in response to weakening growth and easing price pressures.That is in line with latest polling by Reuters, which shows most economists expect a cut before the end of the year, and a total of 50 basis points shaved off its main rates by the end of March.

Sources did not state the purpose of the loan, whose net debt stood at $12.45 billion as of the second quarter. Rosneft declined to comment.Rosneft is joining Russia’s top lender Sberbank and metals giant Norilsk Nickel , who are also looking to raise up to a combined $3.5 billion in separate loans.Sberbank was looking to price the new deal of up to $2 billion at a margin similar to Russia’s second-biggest lender, VTB’s record $3.13 billion deal signed in July.That carried a margin of 130 basis points (bps), at parity with Russian state development bank Vnesheconombank’s (VEB) three-year, $2.45 billion deal in April.But sources said on Wednesday that Sberbank is unlikely to get such a price given weak markets, especially when European lenders are trying to avoid deals as they need cash themselves to prepare for worst-case scenarios related to Eurozone debt problems.

Christie, who dashed speculation just last week that he would jump into the race himself, was traveling to New Hampshire, where he was to appear at a news conference with Romney at 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT), the spokesman said.The event will be a big boost for Romney only hours before a debate between the eight contenders for the Republican nomination in which Romney will seek to solidify his status as Republican front-runner in opinion polls.A person close to Christie confirmed the planned endorsement.A rising star in the Republican ranks, Christie, 49, had said repeatedly he would not run for president in 2012, but reconsidered based on a flood of entreaties from members of the Republican establishment and major donors who were concerned about the strength of the Republican field.Christie has a moderate record on social issues and a strong fiscal record as governor of New Jersey.