As a result of the Alabama and German massacres of this week I asked Joaquin Mirkin of my foundation to put together for me what I call the Shortened Life Index.  This index is the addition of the murder rate and the suicide rate of a country.  Now what is interesting about this index is that there clearly is an inverse correlation between suicide rates and homicide rates around the world.  Countries with very high suicide rates tend to have very low homicide rates and viceversa.  I don´t know why.

Some curious data. Islamic countries, known for suicide terrorists, are the countries with the lowest Shortened Life Index. Suicide terrorists are a really small percentage and the Shortened Life Index for Iran and Saudi Arabia suggest they are very safe countries to live in.

It’s safer to live in Mexico or Argentina with their frequent homicides then in Switzerland, a country with so many suicides that its Shortened Life Index is higher then the index of countries well know for being dangerous. In the US, a country known for its history of homicides, it’s actually more likely to die committing suicide then killed by somebody else.

Spain is one of the safest non Islamic countries in the world. Few homicides and few suicides. Italy, well known for its mafia and criminality, has one of the lowest homicide rates in the world. Israel has a very low Shortened Life Index as well, even if Israel is a country of immigrants coming from countries, like Russia, with high suicide and homicides rates.

Here are graphs showing the suicide rates, the homicide rates and the Shortened Life Index for a select group of countries.

Eolia Renovables, the renewable energy company founded by my friend Miguel Salis and in which I’m an early investor, has reported great results for 2008, despite the recession. The Eolia was started out of the offices of Jazzya, my holding company as Miguel Salis transitioned from being the Managing Director of Jazzya to the CEO of this extremely successful start up. Surprisingly Eolia was not started as a company itself but due to Miguel´s roots as a banker it was started as the first investment fund in Spain in renewable energies with financing from the investment bank Nmás1, Bankinter, BBK and Fonditel. In October last year Eolia completed the roll up of over 22 independent wind and solar development companies into a new company, which has resulted in the creation of the largest Spanish independent wind and solar electricity generation company, Eolia Renovables de Inversiones.

According to a recent Clean Energy Trends report, global revenues from the solar photovoltaics, wind power and biofuels sectors increased 53% in 2008, to $115.9 billion from $75.8 billion in 2007, with one sector alone, wind, exceeding $50 billion revenues.

Eolia’s revenue growth for 2008 outpaced the industry, reporting sales for almost 70 million euros, a 134% increase over the previous year. The consolidated EBITDA for 2008 reached 52 million euros, a 96% increase compared to 2007. If we included revenues from three companies acquired by Eolia in 2008 (Renergys, Deca and Asetym), sales for the past year would amount to 81 million euros, with a 62 million euros EBITDA. Eolia recently acquired 100% of Renergys, a paneuropean group dedicated to the construction and operation of wind farms in Germany, France, Poland and Portugal, and Asetym, a company I used to own that operates 35 solar plants in Murcia, Spain. In 2008 Eolia also acquired 45% of Deca, a company operating a 20 megawatts (MW) wind farm in Spain.

Wind energy amounts to 64% of Eolia’s total sales, while solar energy revenues add up to the remainder 36%, with the latter growing substantially from 2007, when solar energy sales were 29% of total revenues.

Wind capacity installed in Spain in 2008

Capex for 2008 grew to 659 million euros, on account of a 160% increase in installed capacity from 167 MW to 434 MW, an investment that gave Eolia the 4th ranking in Spain for new wind capacity installed during 2008. Last year the company started 5 wind farms in Spain, adding 141 MW to its total capacity, and 4 solar plants with a 35.8 MW capacity. As mentioned, the company also acquired two wind farms for 89 MW additional capacity and a 3.5 MW solar plant.

Eolia will keep growing in 2009, thanks to seven new wind farms being built in Spain, France and Poland, for an additional 171 MW. The company expects its total capacity to reach 553 MW by the end of the first quarter, three times the total capacity at the end of 2007.

The financial crisis is of course affecting the alternative energy industry, making it harder for companies to finance their projects. The horrible conditions of the stock markets render IPOs impossible and fewer IPOs in turn make it harder for venture capital firms to exit their investments and finance new companies. Last year Eolia was expected to go public on the Madrid stock market at a valuation between 800 and 900 million euros, but due to the market conditions the company had to postpone its listing plans.

Nonetheless, according to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), strong policy support for wind power will continue to drive growth in China, Europe and the United States, bringing global wind power capacity to nearly triple in the next five years, although growing slower then in the past.

While 2009 will definitely be a tough year, the future looks bright for Eolia and alternative energy, despite the current economic conditions.

Disclosure: I am a shareholder in Eolia.

I guess one of the casualties of the Great Recession is inequity. And that is not bad. So far the biggest casualties of the economic crisis are the world´s richest people. According to Forbes in only one year The net worth of the world’s billionaires fell from $4.4 trillion to $2.4 trillion, while the number of billionaires was down to 793 from 1,125.
. Another positive impact of the crisis is the biggest decline in carbon emissions. I am trying to get information on that but last night I had dinner with one of the largest toll highway operators in the world and traffic is down from 10 to 20 per cent.

And this is a senseless coincidence. But I could not resist that on March 11th the top three stories I see in Reuters are:

# Gunman kills at least 11 people at German school
# Madoff faces life in prison on 11 criminal charges
# Eleven killed in Alabama shooting spree

What is it with 11???

This is a great example of the new Fonera 2.0 can do. Thank you Jamendo Team!

In 2004 Spain´s on the aftermath of the bloody March 11th Madrid train bombings that left over 200 dead and 1000 injured, President Zapatero and his administration came up with the concept of the Alliance of Civilizations between Islamic civilization and Western Civilization. The idea, not a bad one in my view, is that rather than fight each other moderates on both sides should get closer to each other. Along those lines, Club de Madrid (the organization of the former presidents) and Safe Democracy, my foundation, organized the largest conference ever hosted centered on the issue of global terrorism. And last year in January this was followed by the first conference of the Alliance of Civilizations. Unfortunately it was not particularly well attended to the point that the opposition leader Mariano Rajoy made a mockery of the meeting mainly due to the insufficient international relevance of those who attended. Personally I always thought this was a great idea in the sense that if I have to choose between clash and alliance I go for alliance. And the movement went on with the leadership of the United Nations to organize a second meeting set to take place in Istanbul. Now the surprise of the day is that Obama has just said that he will attend the Istanbul meeting and this gives a whole new relevance to the concept of Alliance of Civilizations. For Zapatero this will be the first big win of his troubled foreign policy. Now being Jewish myself I just wonder on which side of the alliance “we” are in. I hope that there is a little room left for Jewish civilization in the whole project and the future of the State of Israel in this project alongside with the creation of the Palestinian State along the lines of the Oslo Treaty.

Jazztel, the second largest publicly traded Telecom operator in Spain that I founded in 1999 has recently turned cash flow positive. It was a long struggle but it finally happened. And growth was significant with 140K new customers for ’08 to a total of around 375K by year-end 2008, and revenues of 350 million euros. Moreover for ’09 Jazztel expects revenue to grow to 450 million euros and EBITDA to grow from 6 million to 40 million. It seems that not all news is bad in times of crisis as customers are looking more and more for better Telco offers and Jazztel has one that consumers in Spain like. Other than congratulating the management team led by Jose Miguel Garcia that achieved these results, I would like to mention a key part of Jazztel´s new strategy is a new focus on uploading. When I used to run Jazztel, everything was about downloading speeds but with the rise of the social web activity now is all about communities and sharing and uploading has become particularly important. Anexo M, Jazztel´s new offer provides up to 20MB of download speeds and an impressive 2.5MB of uploading speed. So Jazztel has made it its objective to the the fastest operator with whom to upload pictures or videos and this offer is being very well received over here.

Disclosure: I do not own Jazztel shares or bonds.

After nine years as the owner of Aphrodite, today I was, for the first time, at the helm. And it felt good. What happened to me sailing is the same as what happened to me flying. I could not stand not to be piloting. I have this pathetic need to be in charge. With flying, after a few years of owning my plane, I started asking so much about flying that one pilot recommended me to take flying lessons. And I did. I had time then as I had sold Jazztel and Ya.com, and had left Einsteinet unsuccessfully. This was in 2004. And, I became a pilot. But sailing is something I have been doing since I was 14. And I know how to sail. But Aphrodite is so much more complicated than any boat I had ever handled before that I always had a professional crew. But the tension was there. I felt like a guest in my own boat. Many skippers felt that it was their job to make me feel like a pampered passenger. And with 99% of the owners they would be right. But not in my case. So last year I took more sailing classes. And today I had my trial, my first day of sailing as a skipper. Here are some pictures of a day of sailing around Minorca (not all of today).

The day went well except that we had a serious mishap. The engine died at one point. But the 2 crew members discovered the failure. It was the pump that fed the day fuel tank. And we manually pumped fuel until we had enough to restart the engine and made it safely to port.

I take this opportunity to thank the many skippers over the years who helped me learn how to sail in my own boat.