A visitor looks at a ten-piece set paper screenprint of Mao Zedong by Andy Warhol, which is part of Warhol's series of the late Chinese leader, displayed at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre during Christie's 2008 Spring Sales May 26, 2008.

LONDON | Wed Mar 13, 2013 8:33pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Chinese spending on art and antiques shrank by nearly a quarter in 2012, ending a streak of spectacular growth that helped drive up global prices and made China the biggest player in the market by 2011, a report said on Thursday.

The study, commissioned by the European Fine Art Foundation which organizes The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF), estimated the worldwide art and antiques market contracted by seven percent last year to 43 billion euros ($56 billion).

The study, compiled by academic Clare McAndrew, founder of the consulting firm Arts Economics, estimated Chinese art sales fell 24 percent to 10.6 billion euros in 2012.

Auction sales in China dropped an even steeper 30 percent, pushing it into second place in the art market rankings with a 25 percent share behind the United States, which regained its position as market leader with 33 percent.

Britain remained the world's third most important art market at 23 percent, according to the study released to coincide with this year's TEFAF which opens in Maastricht on March 15.

"The main reasons for the deceleration in (Chinese) growth were both demand factors (including a slowdown in economic growth and continuing liquidity constraints) and a reduced amount of high quality, high priced works coming onto the market," said the report.

"Many art funds and other speculative investors also reduced their participation in the market during the year."

The study added that collectors were increasingly focusing on works by so-called "blue chip" artists.

"Many art buyers are minimizing risk by opting for the best-known artists at the top end of the market with post-war and contemporary art performing strongly," it said.

That helped boost auction sales of post-war and contemporary art by five percent in 2012 to almost 4.5 billion euros and took that sector's overall market share to 43 percent.

Modern art was the next biggest sector with auction sales of 3.2 billion euros, representing 30 percent of the fine art auction market but a fall of 17 percent from its 2011 peak of 3.8 billion.

Private retail and dealer sales, as opposed to the auction room, fell four percent to 22.2 billion euros, with the lower end of the market recording the weakest performance.

Several art analysts have voiced concerns over what they say is a growing divide between the top end of the market, where ultra-wealthy buyers snap up rare treasures for staggering sums, and mid- to lower-tier sales which have been more susceptible to broader economic pressures.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

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Thu Feb 14, 2013 11:26am EST

n">(Reuters) - Inventors based in the United States led the world in nanotechnology patent applications and grants in 2012, according to a new study by law firm McDermott Will & Emery.

Nanotechnology involves manipulating matter that's measured at the tiny "nanometer" length level. The diameter of a human hair is between 40,000 and 60,000 nanometers, said Valerie Moore, a patent agent and one of the authors of the study.

Nanotechnology patents come into play in everything from aerospace to medicine to energy, the study noted. For example, the technology can be used to incorporate antibacterial material into wound dressings, to increase the strength of car parts while decreasing their weight, and to enhance paint colors.

U.S.-based inventors accounted for 54 percent of the nanotechnology patent applications and grants reviewed in the study, followed by South Korea with 7.8 percent, Japan with 7.1 percent, Germany with 6.2 percent and China with 4.9 percent.

The study also looked at the geographic location of the owner of the nanotechnology patents and proposed patents. If an inventor works in the Silicon Valley office of South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co, for instance, the U.S. is home to the invention, but the South Korean employer might own the patent.

McDermott's intellectual property practice includes more than 200 attorneys and patent agents, and is one of the top ten law firms for nanotech patent and applications filings, according to information provided by the firm.

McDermott partner Carey Jordan noted that the percentage of patents issued to U.S.-based entities is not quite as high as the 54 percent of nanopatents with U.S.-based inventors. About 45 percent of the nanotechnology patents in the study were assigned to U.S.-based entities.

The study examined published U.S. patent applications, patents granted by the U.S. Patent and Trade Office, and published international patent applications that had the term "nano" in the claims, title, or abstract. Nanopatent applications were included to best quantify innovation occurring in nanotech, the study's authors said.

The number of nanotechnology patents has grown continuously since the early 2000s, the study said. Between 2007 and 2012 the total number of U.S. patent applications, U.S. granted patents and published international patent applications grew from about 14,250 to almost 18,900.

The United States, the European Union, as well as Japan and South Korea, have increased funding for nanotechnology education and research since 2000, the study said.

Computer and electronics companies garnered the most patents, with International Business Machines Corp and Samsung topping the list. The fields of chemistry and biological sciences, which include medicine and agriculture, were next in terms of the number of nanotechnology patents.

Other leaders in technology patent innovation include the University of California, Xerox Corp, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and 3M Co.

(Reporting By Erin Geiger Smith; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

(This story was corrected to fix dateline and name of law firm in the first paragraph)

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LIMA | Thu Jan 24, 2013 11:17am EST

LIMA (Reuters) - Climate change has shrunk Andean glaciers between 30 and 50 percent since the 1970s and could melt many of them away altogether in coming years, according to a study published on Tuesday in the journal The Cryosphere.

Andean glaciers, a vital source of fresh water for tens of millions of South Americans, are retreating at their fastest rates in more than 300 years, according to the most comprehensive review of Andean ice loss so far.

The study included data on about half of all Andean glaciers in South America, and blamed the ice loss on an average temperature spike of 0.7 degree Celsius (1.26 degrees Fahrenheit) over the past 70 years.

"Glacier retreat in the tropical Andes over the last three decades is unprecedented," said Antoine Rabatel, the lead author of the study and a scientist with the Laboratory for Glaciology and Environmental Geophysics in Grenoble, France.

The researchers also warned that future warming could totally wipe out the smaller glaciers found at lower altitudes that store and release fresh water for downstream communities.

"This is a serious concern because a large proportion of the population lives in arid regions to the west of the Andes," said Rabatel.

The Chacaltaya glacier in the Bolivian Andes, once a ski resort, has already disappeared completely, according to some scientists.

(This story was refiled to insert "The" at the end of the first paragraph)

(Reporting By Mitra Taj; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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A dead wild pine tree is seen behind a pile of eucalyptus logs in Arganil, central Portugal April 28, 2008.

OSLO | Mon Jan 7, 2013 4:35am EST

OSLO (Reuters) - Green schemes to fight climate change by producing more bio-fuels could actually worsen a little-known type of air pollution and cause almost 1,400 premature deaths a year in Europe by 2020, a study showed on Sunday.

The report said trees grown to produce wood fuel - seen as a cleaner alternative to oil and coal - released a chemical into the air that, when mixed with other pollutants, could also reduce farmers' crop yields.

"Growing biofuels is thought to be a good thing because it reduces the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere," said Nick Hewitt, who worked on the study with colleagues from England's Lancaster University.

"What we're saying is 'yes, that's great, but biofuels could also have a detrimental effect on air quality'," he added.

The report, in the journal Nature Climate Change, looked into the impact of a European Union scheme to slow climate change by producing more biofuels.

Hewitt told Reuters there would be a similar impact wherever biofuels were produced in large quantities in areas suffering air pollution, including the United States and China.

Poplar, willow or eucalyptus trees, all used as fast-growing sources of renewable wood fuel, emit high levels of the chemical isoprene as they grow, the study said. Isoprene forms toxic ozone when mixed with other air pollutants in sunlight.

"Large-scale production of biofuels in Europe would have small but significant effects on human mortality and crop yields," said Hewitt.

"As far as we know, no one has looked at the air quality of growing biofuel crops before," he added.

The report estimated that ozone from wood-based energy to meet the European Union's 2020 goal would cause nearly 1,400 premature deaths a year, costing society $7.1 billion.

The European plan would also would reduce the annual value of wheat and maize production by $1.5 billion since ozone impairs crop growth, the study added.

LUNG PROBLEMS

Siting new biofuel plantations far away from polluted population centres would help limit ozone formation, the study suggested. Genetic engineering might be used to reduce isoprene emissions, it said.

Ozone can cause lung problems and is blamed for killing about 22,000 people a year in Europe. Overall air pollution, mainly from fossil fuels, causes about 500,000 premature deaths in Europe a year, according to the European Environment Agency.

Sunday's study did not compare the potential damage caused by biofuels to the impact on human health from producing coal, oil or natural gas as part of policies to slow global warming. "We're not in a position to make that comparison," Hewitt said.

He noted that the main reason to shift to biofuels was to cut emissions of carbon dioxide, mainly from fossil fuels, that U.N. studies project will become ever more damaging this century.

The United Nations' World Health Organization estimates global warming has caused more than 140,000 deaths annually worldwide since the 1970s.

The biggest impact was recorded in developing nations where the floods, droughts and other disasters blamed on climate change left millions suffering from diarrhea, malnutrition, malaria and dengue fever.

Burning biofuels is viewed as neutral for climate change because plants soak up carbon when they grow and release it when they burn or rot. Fossil fuels, on the other hand, add carbon to the atmosphere from underground stores millions of years old.

Biofuels are often blamed for causing food price spikes by competing for cropland. Responding to such criticisms, the European Commission said last year it aimed to limit crop-based biofuels - such as from maize or sugar - to five percent of transport fuels.

(Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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LONDON | Thu Jan 31, 2013 4:21am EST

LONDON (Reuters) - Growing palm oil trees to make biofuels could be accelerating the effects of climate change, new research showed on Wednesday, adding further weight to claims the crop is not environmentally sustainable.

In a paper published in the journal Nature, an international team of scientists examined how the deforestation of peat swamps in Malaysia to make way for palm oil trees is releasing carbon which has been locked away for thousands of years.

Microbes then penetrate the carbon and the harmful greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is released, which is thought to be the biggest contributor to global warming.

Unsustainable methods of growing crop-based biofuels have come under fire as environmentalists question the emissions savings they make, the agricultural land they occupy and whether the growth of certain crops contribute to deforestation.

More than 80 percent of palm oil is grown in Indonesia and Malaysia. According to some estimates, an area the size of Greece is cleared every year for palm oil plantations.

As governments and companies look to biofuels to provide a low-carbon alternative to fossil fuels in transport, the industry has expanded rapidly.

Palm oil is especially attractive because it is cheaper than rapeseed oil and soybean oil for biodiesel.

However, leaked European Union data has shown palm oil biodiesel to be more polluting than conventional gasoline when the effects of deforestation and peatlands degradation is taken into account.

In their study, the research team measured water channels in palm oil plantations in the Malaysian peninsular which were originally peatland swamp forest.

They found ancient carbon came from deep in the soil, then broke down and dissolved into nearby streams and rivers as deforestation occurred.

"We have known for some time that in South East Asia oil palm plantations were a major threat to biodiversity (..) and that the drainage could release huge amounts of carbon dioxide during the fires seen there in recent years," said Chris Freeman, one of the authors of the report and an environmental scientist at the University of Bangor in Wales.

"But this discovery of a 'hidden' new source of problems in the waters draining these peatlands is a reminder that these fragile ecosystems really are in need of conservation," he added.

There are approximately 28,000 sq km of industrial plantations in Malaysia, Sumatra and Borneo and there are even more planned, making them a major contributor to peat swamp deforestation in the region, the paper said.

"Our results are yet another reminder that when we disturb intact peat swamps and convert them to industrial biofuel plantations, we risk adding to the very problem that we are trying to solve," said Freeman.

The research team included scientists from the British universities of Leicester and Bangor, the Open University, the Met Office Hadley Centre, the Natural Environment Research Council Radiocarbon Facility in Scotland, the University of Palangka Raya in Indonesia and water research institute Deltares in the Netherlands.

(This story has been refiled to add Open University in last paragraph)

(Editing by James Jukwey)

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The sun rises behind Fiddlers Ferry coal fired power station near Liverpool, northern England, December 15 2008.

OSLO | Thu Jan 3, 2013 7:15am EST

OSLO (Reuters) - An agreement by almost 200 nations to curb rising greenhouse gas emissions from 2020 will be far more costly than taking action now to tackle climate change, according to research published on Wednesday.

Quick measures to cut emissions would give a far better chance of keeping global warming within an agreed U.N. limit of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6F) above pre-industrial times to avert more floods, heatwaves, droughts and rising sea levels.

"If you delay action by 10, 20 years you significantly reduce the chances of meeting the 2 degree target," said Keywan Riahi, one of the authors of the report at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria.

"It was generally known that costs increase when you delay action. It was not clear how quickly they change," he told Reuters of the findings in the science journal Nature based on 500 computer-generated scenarios.

It said the timing of cuts in greenhouse gases was more important than other uncertainties - about things like how the climate system works, future energy demand, carbon prices or new energy technologies.

The study indicated that an immediate global price of $30 a metric ton on emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas, would give a roughly 60 percent chance of limiting warming to below 2C.

Wait until 2020 and the carbon price would have to be around $100 a metric ton to retain that 60 percent chance, Riahi told Reuters of the study made with other experts in Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia and Germany.

And a delay of action until 2030 might put the 2C limit - which some of the more pessimistic scientists say is already unattainable - completely out of reach, whatever the carbon price.

"The window for effective action on climate change is closing quickly," wrote Steve Hatfield-Dodds of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia in a separate commentary in Nature.

Governments agreed to the 2C limit in 2010, viewing it as a threshold to avert dangerous climate change. Temperatures have already risen by 0.8 degree C (1.4F) since wide use of fossil fuels began 200 years ago.

ECONOMIC SLOWDOWN

After the failure of a 2009 summit in Copenhagen to agree a worldwide accord, almost 200 nations have given themselves until 2015 to work out a global deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions that will enter into force in 2020.

Amid an economic slowdown, many countries at the last U.N. meeting on climate change in Qatar in December expressed reluctance to make quick shifts away from fossil fuels towards cleaner energies such as wind or solar power.

Each U.S. citizen, for instance, emits about 20 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year. There is no global price on carbon, only regional markets - in a European Union trading system, for instance, where industrial emitters must pay off they exceed their CO2 quotas, 2013 prices are about 6.7 euros ($8.83) a metric ton.

The report also showed that greener policies, such as more efficient public transport or better-insulated buildings, would raise the chances of meeting the 2C goal.

And fighting climate change would be easier with certain new technologies, such as capturing and burying carbon emissions from power plants and factories. In some scenarios, the 2C goal could not be met unless carbon capture was adopted.

($1 = 0.7585 euros)

(Scientist corrects carbon price to $30 a tonne from $20 in paragraph 6)

(Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

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OSLO | Sun Dec 23, 2012 1:02pm EST

OSLO (Reuters) - West Antarctica is warming almost twice as fast as previously believed, adding to worries of a thaw that would add to sea level rise from San Francisco to Shanghai, a study showed on Sunday.

Annual average temperatures at the Byrd research station in West Antarctica had risen 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.3F) since the 1950s, one of the fastest gains on the planet and three times the global average in a changing climate, it said.

The unexpectedly big increase adds to fears the ice sheet is vulnerable to thawing. West Antarctica holds enough ice to raise world sea levels by at least 3.3 meters (11 feet) if it ever all melted, a process that would take centuries.

"The western part of the ice sheet is experiencing nearly twice as much warming as previously thought," Ohio State University said in a statement of the study led by its geography professor David Bromwich.

The warming "raises further concerns about the future contribution of Antarctica to sea level rise," it said. Higher summer temperatures raised risks of a surface melt of ice and snow even though most of Antarctica is in a year-round deep freeze.

Low-lying nations from Bangladesh to Tuvalu are especially vulnerable to sea level rise, as are coastal cities from London to Buenos Aires. Sea levels have risen by about 20 cms (8 inches) in the past century.

The United Nations panel of climate experts projects that sea levels will rise by between 18 and 59 cms (7-24 inches) this century, and by more if a thaw of Greenland and Antarctica accelerates, due to global warming caused by human activities.

GLACIERS

The rise in temperatures in the remote region was comparable to that on the Antarctic Peninsula to the north, which snakes up towards South America, according to the U.S.-based experts writing in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Parts of the northern hemisphere have also warmed at similarly fast rates.

Several ice shelves - thick ice floating on the ocean and linked to land - have collapsed around the Antarctic Peninsula in recent years. Once ice shelves break up, glaciers pent up behind them can slide faster into the sea, raising water levels.

"The stakes would be much higher if a similar event occurred to an ice shelf restraining one of the enormous West Antarctic ice sheet glaciers," said Andrew Monaghan, a co-author at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research.

The Pine Island glacier off West Antarctica, for instance, brings as much water to the ocean as the Rhine river in Europe.

The scientists said there had been one instance of a widespread surface melt of West Antarctica, in 2005. "A continued rise in summer temperatures could lead to more frequent and extensive episodes of surface melting," they wrote.

West Antarctica now contributes about 0.3 mm a year to sea level rise, less than Greenland's 0.7 mm, Ohio State University said. The bigger East Antarctic ice sheet is less vulnerable to a thaw.

Helped by computer simulations, the scientists reconstructed a record of temperatures stretching back to 1958 at Byrd, where about a third of the measurements were missing, sometimes because of power failures in the long Antarctic winters.

(Reporting By Alister Doyle; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

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A natural gas well is drilled near Canton, in Bradford County, Pennsylvania January 8, 2012. Bradford County is currently ground zero for fracking the Marcellus shale in the Northeastern United States.

WASHINGTON | Fri Dec 21, 2012 1:57pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration issued the framework on Friday of a long-term study on whether fracking for natural gas pollutes drinking water, but will not make conclusions until 2014 about the controversial technique that is helping to fuel a domestic drilling boom.

Critics of the Environmental Protection Agency study, called for by Congress in 2010, complain it does not closely examine the impact of drillers' injecting waste water deep underground, a practice that has been linked to small earthquakes.

The progress report outlined case studies at drilling sites in states including North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Texas that will inform the final study. For a link to the study click here r.reuters.com/jec84t

It also explained the scientific methods the EPA is using to understand how drinking water supplies are affected by the lifecycle of water used fracking. That cycle ranges from withdrawing the water from ground and surface supplies to treating it in wastewater plants.

Although conclusions are more than a year away, power utilities, chemical companies and other big consumers of natural gas fear the study could lead to more regulations and raise costs as a result. Power generators, including American Electric Power and Southern Co, have been enjoying rock bottom prices for natural gas in recent years.

Fracking involves forcing large volumes of water laced with chemicals and sand deep underground to crack rock and free oil and natural gas. Critics of fracking, including many environmentalists, worry drilling operations near schools and homes can pollute water and air.

The drilling industry and some Republicans in Congress have said the EPA study is overkill because fracking is safe.

The EPA's long-term study will examine the large volumes of water sucked up by fracking operations, surface spills of fracking fluids on well pads, and the drilling itself.

The study will also look at spills of so-called "flowback" water that rushes up from wells when they start producing gas, and how well wastewater treatment plants operate.

But the study does not closely look at the effects of injecting waste water deep underground, a practice environmentalists worry could become a dormant threat to water supplies.

Drillers say they are recycling more and more water used and produced in fracking. But some of the waste is still injected underground.

Ben Grumbles, a former assistant administrator for water at the EPA, said injection of the waste is "legitimate and important concern."

Ohio recently linked the disposal method to a series of small earthquakes and placed a moratorium on the injections but lifted it in November.

Grumbles, who is now president of the U.S. Water Alliance, said the omission of examining the practice was "not a fatal flaw" of the study because he believes a different arm of the EPA is doing research on waste water injection.

"They really do need to look at the issue," he said. "I would hope the offices were coordinating and efforts to review potential risks of large volumes of waste water being injected ... will be looked at, " he said.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick and Sofina Mirza-Reid)

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new photo of  Curiosity Rover

Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover Animation

A boat fishes for sharks off the beach at Boucan Canot on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion, September 27, 2011.

ORLANDO, Florida | Thu Aug 9, 2012 11:27am EDT

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - Survivors of shark attacks - now trying to save the animals that took their limbs and, in some cases, nearly their lives - want U.S. restaurant-goers to know they may be eating a threatened species in their shark fin soup.

Out of 32 samples taken across the country of the Chinese delicacy with identifiable shark DNA, 26 bowls, or 81 percent, contained fins from sharks listed as endangered, vulnerable or near threatened, according to a report released on Thursday by the Pew Environment Group.

The study was based on tests of the soup in 14 U.S. cities, and shark attack survivors collected the soup samples.

The survivors hope the study will help convince the public that the ultimate price of shark fin soup is more than the typical $100 listed on menus.

Nearly one-third of shark species are in danger of extinction, and up to 73 million sharks are killed each year for their fins, Pew said.

President Barack Obama signed a law last year to tighten a ban on the practice of removing sharks' fins and throwing the fish back into the ocean to die. Fins also can come from legal, regulated fishing.

"What better voice is there than ours?" said Mike Coots, 32, of Kauai, Hawaii, a surfer whose right leg was ripped off by a tiger shark in 1997.

The survivors group has lobbied Congress to close loopholes in the shark fin ban. It also works through the United Nations to encourage the establishment of shark sanctuaries around the world.

Their efforts began after Debbie Salamone, a competitive ballroom dancer, had her Achilles tendon severed by a shark off Florida's coast in 2004.

The shark encounter eventually lead her to refocus her life's work on protecting the animals from extinction and recruiting other shark attack survivors around the globe to help with her mission.

"Most of us have forgiven," said Salamone, 46, who is now a Pew spokeswoman. "If you care about the ocean, you need to care about sharks."

SECRET SOUP SAMPLES

For the shark fin soup study, shark attack survivors fanned out to a total of 51 restaurants in New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Houston, Las Vegas, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco, the Washington, D.C., area, Fort Lauderdale and Orlando in Florida, and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Krishna Thompson, 46, whose leg was stripped to bone by a shark during a 2001 wedding anniversary trip to the Bahamas and later amputated, said he collected soup samples from six or seven different restaurants in New York.

"I would always take the soup to go," Thompson said.

Once outside the restaurants, Thompson said he would label the soup containers for submission to DNA testers at Stony Brook University.

"Hating sharks helps no one," said Thompson, who nearly died from blood loss and organ shutdown after his shark attack.

The most egregious soup sample, from a restaurant in Boston, contained the endangered scalloped hammerhead shark, according to the report.

DNA from sharks listed as vulnerable was found in seven soup samples from Orlando, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Albuquerque.

Another 18 soup samples contained shark considered near threatened, according to the findings.

The remaining samples contained shark meat that could not be specifically identified due to the quality of the DNA or the lack of useable DNA. In three cases, the only identifiable meat came from chicken or other fish, according to the report.

John Breall, a San Francisco lawyer who represents Asian-American restaurateurs, importers and civic leaders, is fighting a new California ban on the possession or sale of fins, which he calls "anti-Chinese." Breall told Reuters he was surprised by the Pew group's findings.

"There are major shark fisheries on the east and west coasts, sustainable fisheries, and these supply the vast majority of shark meat and shark fins," Breall said.

Breall said most of the shark from the sustainable fisheries is spiny dogfish, which "are reproducing at a huge rate." The Pew study lists spiny dogfish as vulnerable.

(Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Vicki Allen)

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The Virgin Galactic SpaceShip2 (VSS Enterprise) glides toward Earth on its first test flight after being released from its WhiteKnight2 (VMS Eve) mothership over Mojave, California October 10, 2010.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Wed Aug 1, 2012 8:20pm EDT

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Commercial suborbital spaceflights should bring in between $600 million and $1.6 billion in revenue in their first decade of operations, according to a study commissioned by the U.S. and Florida governments and released on Wednesday.

Tourism drives about 80 percent of the demand for suborbital flights, which reach about 63 miles above the planet's surface before plunging back through the atmosphere.

The thrill ride gives fliers a few minutes to float in microgravity and a view of the Earth set against the blackness of space.

Virgin Galactic, an offshoot of Richard Branson's London-based Virgin Group, is one of six firms developing reusable suborbital spaceships, an analysis by The Tauri Group of Alexandria, Virginia, found.

Prices currently range from $200,000 for a ride on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, a six-passenger, two-pilot vehicle currently undergoing testing, to $95,000 for a flight on privately held XCOR Aerospace's planned two-seater Lynx vehicle.

Virgin Galactic, which is aiming to begin commercial service around 2014, already has $70 million in deposits from 536 people, Chief Executive George Whitesides said at a related congressional hearing on Wednesday.

The Tauri Group believes there are about another 7,500 wealthy people waiting in the wings.

"?Our analysis indicates that about 8,000 high-net-worth individuals from across the globe are sufficiently interested and have spending patterns likely to result in the purchase of a suborbital flight - one-third from the United States," the report said.

"?We estimate that about 40 percent of the interested, high-net-worth population, or 3,600 individuals, will fly within the 10-year forecast," it added.

The study, which included surveys of 200 people with a net worth of least $5 million, valued the fledgling industry at $600 million in its first decade, based on current market conditions and interest.

The market could be worth nearly three times that if marketing and consumer interest grows in the wake of successful flights, the study said.

"?Further potential could be realized through price reductions and unpredictable achievements such as major research discoveries, the identification of new commercial applications, the emergence of global brand value, and new government (especially military) uses for suborbital reusable vehicles," the study said.

After tourists, the next biggest group of potential users are in the research community. Other potential markets include technology flight demonstrations, media and public relations, education, satellite launching, remote sensing and suborbital travel from one destination to another, a technology that is likely beyond the study's 10-year time frame.

The $277,000 study, titled ?"Suborbital Reusable Vehicles: A Ten-Year Forecast of Market Demand," was paid for by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees commercial spaceflight, and the state of Florida, which is home to NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

(Editing by Jane Sutton and Cynthia Osterman)

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* Tourism is driving demand for suborbital thrill flights

* First commercial suborbital flights could start by 2014

* Advance fares range from $95,000 to $200,000 per seat

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Aug 1 (Reuters) - Commercial suborbital spaceflights should bring in between $600 million and $1.6 billion in revenue in their first decade of operations, according to a study commissioned by the U.S. and Florida governments and released on Wednesday.

Tourism drives about 80 percent of the demand for suborbital flights, which reach about 63 miles (100 km) above the planet's surface before plunging back through the atmosphere.

The thrill ride gives fliers a few minutes to float in microgravity and a view of the Earth set against the blackness of space.

Virgin Galactic, an offshoot of Richard Branson's London-based Virgin Group, is one of six firms developing reusable suborbital spaceships, an analysis by The Tauri Group of Alexandria, Virginia, found.

Prices currently range from $200,000 for a ride on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, a six-passenger, two-pilot vehicle currently undergoing testing, to $95,000 for a flight on privately held XCOR Aerospace's planned two-seater Lynx vehicle.

Virgin Galactic, which is aiming to begin commercial service around 2014, already has $70 million in deposits from 536 people, Chief Executive George Whitesides said at a related congressional hearing on Wednesday.

The Tauri Group believes there are about another 7,500 wealthy people waiting in the wings.

"“Our analysis indicates that about 8,000 high-net-worth individuals from across the globe are sufficiently interested and have spending patterns likely to result in the purchase of a suborbital flight - one-third from the United States," the report said.

"“We estimate that about 40 percent of the interested, high-net-worth population, or 3,600 individuals, will fly within the 10-year forecast," it added.

The study, which included surveys of 200 people with a net worth of least $5 million, valued the fledgling industry at $600 million in its first decade, based on current market conditions and interest.

The market could be worth nearly three times that if marketing and consumer interest grows in the wake of successful flights, the study said.

"“Further potential could be realized through price reductions and unpredictable achievements such as major research discoveries, the identification of new commercial applications, the emergence of global brand value, and new government (especially military) uses for suborbital reusable vehicles," the study said.

After tourists, the next biggest group of potential users are in the research community. Other potential markets include technology flight demonstrations, media and public relations, education, satellite launching, remote sensing and suborbital travel from one destination to another, a technology that is likely beyond the study's 10-year time frame.

The $277,000 study, titled “"Suborbital Reusable Vehicles: A Ten-Year Forecast of Market Demand," was paid for by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees commercial spaceflight, and the state of Florida, which is home to NASA's Kennedy Space Center. (Editing by Jane Sutton and Cynthia Osterman)

View the original article here