As the Wheat Turns

Old wheat is plentiful and cheap, but new wheat is scarcer and expensive.

As the Wheat Turns

Old wheat is plentiful and cheap, but new wheat is scarcer and expensive.

Big Ideas at the Commonwealth Club

Last night (Tuesday January 26th, 2010) I gave a talk at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco to a sold-out audience. The crowd was excellent and I was thrilled to have the chance to deliver our message at this venue.

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Men’s Response to Shifting Roles after Peak Oil

This is a guest post by Sharon Astyk. This is a link to her blog.

One of the things we’re talking about right now in our “Finding Your Place” class are issues specific to men and women. The women’s issues often seem to focus on material and physical discussions – what can I do about menopause; how do I handle birth control, menstruation and other bodily issues; or about sex and love. When we have these threads about men, they invariably end up focusing on the psychological results that seem particularly acute for many, if not all, men. While all of us have anxieties and many women struggle with these issues, somehow when we get to gender-specific consideration, what comes up for many of the men in the discussion is how difficult it is to deal with shifting roles, and the prevalence of anxiety, depression and over-reliance on drugs and alchohol.

Statistics from cultures undergoing major crises seem to bear out the assumption that often, women adapt better than men to many difficult situations. The decrease in lifespans in the former Soviet Union that accompanied the collapse was in part due to loss of health care, but a lot of it had to do with a rise in the rates of suicide, stress and alcohol abuse. At one point, the division between lifespans for women in Russia and for men was more than a decade. In Studs Terkel’s “Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression” and Jeane Westin’s “Making Do: How Women Survived the 30s“, we hear story after story of men who simply couldn’t handle the strain of unemployment and dependent family, along with role destruction, and as a result left, or subsided into alcoholism.

Dmitry Orlov made the following observation in Closing the Collapse Gap:

Economic collapse is about the worst possible time for someone to suffer a nervous breakdown, yet this is what often happens. The people who are most at risk psychologically are successful middle-aged men. When their career is suddenly over, their savings are gone, and their property worthless, much of their sense of self-worth is gone as well. They tend to drink themselves to death and commit suicide in disproportionate numbers. Since they tend to be the most experienced and capable people, this is a staggering loss to society.

If the economy, and your place within it, is really important to you, you will be really hurt when it goes away.

This does not mean that every man facing a transition into a poorer, less energy rich world is doomed to crisis. But I think it is important to talk about – because just as I’ve written many times about the changes that peak oil and climate change and their economic consequences are likely to bring about for women, the ones that come for men are important and real. All men, and all of us who love husbands, fathers, brothers, friends, sons need to be aware of these issues – to be aware of the degree to which watching your world unravel seems to engender different responses. Women who turn to each other, who talk, whose identities may be more complexly built on a mix of personal and professional identities may not grasp how hard this is for the men in our lives to face unemployment and shifts in everything they’ve known. I think this is an important thing to be able to be open about, for both men and women, and also an important thing to be conscious of.

Have you had this experience, either personally or for someone you cared about? None of us want to see the rates of suicide rising. None of us want to watch the guys in our life struggling. None of us want them to turn to drugs and drink to dull a sense of loss. Of course, many men won’t. In many cases, it is the women who struggle with these issues. But overwhelmingly history suggests that the psychological trauma of watching your world transformed often strikes men, particularly men of middle age and above, harder than it does women. How do we soften the blow?

Men’s Response to Shifting Roles after Peak Oil

This is a guest post by Sharon Astyk. This is a link to her blog.

One of the things we’re talking about right now in our “Finding Your Place” class are issues specific to men and women. The women’s issues often seem to focus on material and physical discussions – what can I do about menopause; how do I handle birth control, menstruation and other bodily issues; or about sex and love. When we have these threads about men, they invariably end up focusing on the psychological results that seem particularly acute for many, if not all, men. While all of us have anxieties and many women struggle with these issues, somehow when we get to gender-specific consideration, what comes up for many of the men in the discussion is how difficult it is to deal with shifting roles, and the prevalence of anxiety, depression and over-reliance on drugs and alchohol.

Statistics from cultures undergoing major crises seem to bear out the assumption that often, women adapt better than men to many difficult situations. The decrease in lifespans in the former Soviet Union that accompanied the collapse was in part due to loss of health care, but a lot of it had to do with a rise in the rates of suicide, stress and alcohol abuse. At one point, the division between lifespans for women in Russia and for men was more than a decade. In Studs Terkel’s “Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression” and Jeane Westin’s “Making Do: How Women Survived the 30s“, we hear story after story of men who simply couldn’t handle the strain of unemployment and dependent family, along with role destruction, and as a result left, or subsided into alcoholism.

Dmitry Orlov made the following observation in Closing the Collapse Gap:

Economic collapse is about the worst possible time for someone to suffer a nervous breakdown, yet this is what often happens. The people who are most at risk psychologically are successful middle-aged men. When their career is suddenly over, their savings are gone, and their property worthless, much of their sense of self-worth is gone as well. They tend to drink themselves to death and commit suicide in disproportionate numbers. Since they tend to be the most experienced and capable people, this is a staggering loss to society.

If the economy, and your place within it, is really important to you, you will be really hurt when it goes away.

This does not mean that every man facing a transition into a poorer, less energy rich world is doomed to crisis. But I think it is important to talk about – because just as I’ve written many times about the changes that peak oil and climate change and their economic consequences are likely to bring about for women, the ones that come for men are important and real. All men, and all of us who love husbands, fathers, brothers, friends, sons need to be aware of these issues – to be aware of the degree to which watching your world unravel seems to engender different responses. Women who turn to each other, who talk, whose identities may be more complexly built on a mix of personal and professional identities may not grasp how hard this is for the men in our lives to face unemployment and shifts in everything they’ve known. I think this is an important thing to be able to be open about, for both men and women, and also an important thing to be conscious of.

Have you had this experience, either personally or for someone you cared about? None of us want to see the rates of suicide rising. None of us want to watch the guys in our life struggling. None of us want them to turn to drugs and drink to dull a sense of loss. Of course, many men won’t. In many cases, it is the women who struggle with these issues. But overwhelmingly history suggests that the psychological trauma of watching your world transformed often strikes men, particularly men of middle age and above, harder than it does women. How do we soften the blow?

Haiti’s Energy Problems

We hear a lot about Haiti’s problems with its recent earthquakes, but we don’t hear much about its underlying energy problems. It seems to me that these underlying energy problems were a big part of its difficulties before the earthquake, and will make finding a long term solution difficult. In this post today, I would like to offer some energy background to the Haiti story.

Figure 1. Total Per Capita Energy Consumption for a group of selected countries, based on the EIA’s International Energy Statistics.

In Figure 1, I compare Haiti’s total per capita energy consumption to that of a number of other countries. I included China and India because these are large and well known. I included Jamaica and the Dominican Republic because they are other Caribbean nations, and the Dominican Republic occupies the other half of the island where Haiti is located. I included Afghanistan because it uses even less energy than Haiti. I didn’t include “developed” countries, because their consumption is so high in comparison, it would be hard to read the chart.

When one looks at Figure 1, one can see that Haiti’s per capita energy consumption is about one fifth as much as India’s and about 1/17 as much as China’s. It is about 1/22 as much as the world average. I didn’t include the USA in the chart, but Haiti’s per capita energy consumption is about 1/100 that of the USA. Total per capita energy consumption is relatively flat, both on a world average basis and for Haiti.

Figure 2. Per capita electrical consumption for a group of selected countries, based on EIA’s International Energy Statistics

As badly as Haiti does compared to other countries on a total energy basis, it does much worse when one looks only at electricity. Haiti’s electricity consumption is so closely tied with that of Afghanistan on Figure 2 that one cannot see much of the line for Haiti. In 2007, Haiti had only 1/84 as much electricity per capita as the world, 1/40 as much as the Dominican Republic, and 1/16 as much as India.

World per capita electrical consumption (Figure 2) has been growing much more rapidly than total per capita energy consumption (Figure 1)-perhaps because of energy efficiency. (It may also be that Figure 1 “undercounts” electricity.) I would expect that this growth in world electrical supply is a major contributor to world economic growth. Unlike the world, Haiti’s per capita electricity consumption has not been growing. Its per capita electrical consumption is now less than half of the level it was in the mid 1980s.

There is an article in Wikipedia about the electricity sector in Haiti. These are a few quotes:

“The largely government owned electricity sector in Haiti is facing a deep, permanent crisis characterized by dramatic shortages and the lowest coverage of electricity in the Western Hemisphere with only about 12.5% of the population (25% if illegal connections are accounted for) having regular access to electricity. In addition, Haiti’s large share of thermal generation (70%) makes the country especially vulnerable to rising and unstable oil prices.”

“Most of the generation infrastructure in Haiti is very old and costly to maintain and operate. In 2006, total installed capacity was only 270 MW, of which about 70% was thermal and 30% hydroelectric.”

“The Haitian electricity sector has a national installed capacity that is largely insufficient to meet a demand of 157 MW in Port au Prince and of 550 MW at the national level. This electricity shortage has created a situation in which tens of thousands of households and institutions (e.g. hospitals, schools) have to rely on their own diesel generators and as a result spend large portions of their income on fuel to run those generators.”

“Service quality in Haiti is very poor. Those who have access received on average 10 hours of electricity a day, with very large disparities among the areas covered.”

“The public utility Electricité d’Haïti (EDH) suffers from high inefficiencies, with more than 55% estimated technical and non technical losses. This high percentage results from improper maintenance due to lack of financing; triggering incidents (e.g. fires); obsolescence of information systems, which prevents proper identification of customers, billing and accounting and in turn impacts quality of service and losses. The ratio of energy unpaid to energy produced is among the highest in the world, with 35% of the energy produced being stolen.”

We have heard that environmental degradation is a major problem in Haiti, with less than 1.5% of the tree cover remaining intact. The reason for this degradation seems to be a lack of other sources of energy:

The primary cause of Haiti’s environmental degradation has been caused by Haitian’s need for energy. With an electricity sector that only covered 10% of Haiti’s population in 2006, chronic energy shortages have contributed to Haitian’s search for alternative sources of energy. Unfortunately for Haiti’s natural environment, wood became and continues to be the principal energy source in Haiti, accounting for 70 percent of energy consumption in 2006. This resulted in the steady deforestation of Haiti, with an estimated 6,000 hectares of soil lost each year to erosion.

From the CIA World Fact Book, we read that there is widespread unemployment and underemployment; more than two-thirds of the labor force do not have formal jobs. Its industries are listed as sugar refining, flour milling, textiles, cement, light assembly based on imported parts. It consumes 12,000 barrels of oil a day in 2008, all of which is imported-no natural gas or coal. It exports manufactured goods, apparel, oils, cocoa, mangoes, and coffee, with the US accounting for a little over 70% of its exports.

There is a major imbalance between export and imports. Exports amounted to $490 million in 2008; imports amounted to $2,107 million in 2008, or about 4.3 times exports. If Haiti imports 12,000 barrels a day of finished oil products, these by themselves would seem to amount to something like $450 million dollars of value, if finished oil products average something like $100 barrel in cost.

There is at least some possibility of natural gas production in the future. Recently, there have been reports that the earthquake may have exposed potential natural gas resources. According to Bloomberg:

The earthquake that killed more than 150,000 people in Haiti this month may have left clues to petroleum reservoirs that could aid economic recovery in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation, a geologist said.

The Jan. 12 earthquake was on a fault line that passes near potential gas reserves, said Stephen Pierce, a geologist who worked in the region for 30 years for companies including the former Mobil Corp. The quake may have cracked rock formations along the fault, allowing gas or oil to temporarily seep toward the surface, he said yesterday in a telephone interview.

So what are Haiti’s options?

Haiti’s economy was doing very badly, even before the earthquake and its aftershocks. Getting Haiti back to the state it was in before the earthquake won’t really fix its problems. These would appear to be some options:

1. Develop a tourist trade. Tourist trade seems to be a principal source of income for other Caribbean nations. In the past, tourists have been willing to pay a high enough price for accommodations so that the high price of oil-generated electricity hasn’t been too much of a problem. (Island nations tend to use oil for electricity generation, because it is easy to transport.) But it is hard to see Haiti getting into the tourist trade for the first time now. In a post-peak oil world, there is going to be less tourism in general, so this is not a good new business to get into. Also, with all environmental degradation and now the earthquake damage, it is hard to see tourists wanting to come to sightsee.

2. Sell more crops (mangos, sugar, cocoa, coffee) on the world market. The amount being sold is probably close to a maximum level today, at least with current energy inputs. World market prices are so low, the effort is hardly worthwhile. More fertilizer probably wouldn’t be a fix-prices for crops are so low that it is hard to believe that they would pay for the higher yields. And with higher oil prices, the cost of transporting the crops makes them more expensive for buyers, likely reducing demand.

3. Increase manufacturing capability. There really needs to be more electricity for more manufacturing. There doesn’t seem to be an option for adding hydro-electric-the streams dry up except in the rainy season. Adding electricity generated by oil will be very expensive-not only will the oil for fuel be expensive, but building the facilities for power generation and transmission lines will be expensive. A new manufacturer might have its own diesel generator, but electricity costs based on diesel generation are likely to be prohibitively high-certainly much higher than in areas which have access to coal or natural gas generated electricity. Wind turbines might be added, if someone else would pay for the up-front costs and the cost of upgraded transmission lines. But oil backup would still need to be added, and the cost still would be very high compared to coal or natural gas.

4. Add financial services. Financial services, like those offered by Bermuda and the Cayman Islands and Dubai, really need nice resorts areas to supplement them, so that the people involved in the transactions can visit nice places while attending meetings. It is hard to see Haiti competing in this arena. It is also difficult to see financial services expanding on a world-wide basis, now that oil production has plateaued.

5. More aid on a continuing basis. Sending food and other aid on a continuing basis is a problem because then local farmers have to compete with a price of $0, so there is no point in raising food. If the aid doesn’t include assistance with family planning (or perhaps even if it does), population keeps rising. According to the CIA World Factbook, an average of 3.81 children are born per woman in Haiti.

6. Develop the natural gas resources that might be available. This will take a few years, even in the best of circumstances, and won’t last indefinitely. The development of natural gas resources might make lower priced electricity available for manufacturing or for other purposes. All of this is iffy at this point. Even if natural gas is available, the cost of extraction may still be quite expensive, yielding expensive natural gas, rather than cheap natural gas.

7. Attempt to build a self-sufficient economy, with no more fossil fuels than can be paid for by exports. This would seem to be one possible direction to go. Haitians would need to figure out what foods they can grow for themselves, and how much fishing in small boats that they can do. They may also want crops that can be used for clothing, and crops added to the rotation to enhance soil fertility. At least part of the forests will need to be planted back, so as to prevent further erosion, and to prevent landslides.

It seems to me that a self-sufficient economy using little fossil fuels would support some Haitians-say 2 or 3 million, but it is hard to see that it would support the whole 9 million Haitians. The issue then would be, “What happens to the rest of the Haitians?” I expect it would be difficult to get other countries to accept the large number of Haitians needing new homes. Nearly all adults would all need jobs; many would be illiterate.

8. Other supplemental approaches. Solar ovens would be great, if donation of a large number could be obtained, so as to cut back on the need for wood for charcoal for cooking. Perhaps some donations of solar PV would help provide charging capability for radios and telephones, and would provide some source of electricity besides generators for hospitals and schools.

General

What ideas do others have for solving the problems of Haiti? I expect that what in fact will happen is that more aid will be provided on a continuing basis-at least for a while, until other countries become too poor, or manage somehow to forget Haiti’s problems. Then the people of Haiti will be left to fend for themselves, and there won’t be enough to go around.

The reason I am not suggesting ramping up fossil fuel imports is because the exports generated by the use of fossil fuels (really only oil) seem not to be generating enough of a payback to pay for their cost. Without a good plan, adding more oil imports would seem only to make the out-of-balance worse. Perhaps there is a way around this issue that I don’t see.

One thing that Haiti doesn’t need is more loans. It needs the loans that are currently outstanding forgiven.

The world is going to run into the problem of a natural disaster hitting an already impoverished nation again and again in the next 20 years, I expect. Such countries will need to be bailed out in some way by others. When everything is sliding downhill to begin with, countries with low energy consumption, like Haiti, are especially vulnerable.

One issue I see as one gets to lower and lower energy consumption is political stability. It is one thing to govern a country which is held together by radio and television stations carrying the speeches of the leaders of the country and with roads carrying cars and trucks. It is another when there really is very little means of communication beyond word of mouth, and transportation is mostly by walking.

We are used to having rather large countries now, but I am wondering if as energy becomes less available, and portable phones become increasingly out of reach, local governments will become more important and governments for the nation as a whole will fade away. The countries I see most at risk of this are ones with very low energy use today-Somalia, Afghanistan, Haiti, Ethiopia, and Congo-Kinshasa, for example.

Trying to figure out how to deal with Haiti is a major challenge. I am hoping these thoughts will add a little background to the news stories that one sees so often.

Haiti’s Energy Problems

We hear a lot about Haiti’s problems with its recent earthquakes, but we don’t hear much about its underlying energy problems. It seems to me that these underlying energy problems were a big part of its difficulties before the earthquake, and will make finding a long term solution difficult. In this post today, I would like to offer some energy background to the Haiti story.

Figure 1. Total Per Capita Energy Consumption for a group of selected countries, based on the EIA’s International Energy Statistics.

In Figure 1, I compare Haiti’s total per capita energy consumption to that of a number of other countries. I included China and India because these are large and well known. I included Jamaica and the Dominican Republic because they are other Caribbean nations, and the Dominican Republic occupies the other half of the island where Haiti is located. I included Afghanistan because it uses even less energy than Haiti. I didn’t include “developed” countries, because their consumption is so high in comparison, it would be hard to read the chart.

When one looks at Figure 1, one can see that Haiti’s per capita energy consumption is about one fifth as much as India’s and about 1/17 as much as China’s. It is about 1/22 as much as the world average. I didn’t include the USA in the chart, but Haiti’s per capita energy consumption is about 1/100 that of the USA. Total per capita energy consumption is relatively flat, both on a world average basis and for Haiti.

Figure 2. Per capita electrical consumption for a group of selected countries, based on EIA’s International Energy Statistics

As badly as Haiti does compared to other countries on a total energy basis, it does much worse when one looks only at electricity. Haiti’s electricity consumption is so closely tied with that of Afghanistan on Figure 2 that one cannot see much of the line for Haiti. In 2007, Haiti had only 1/84 as much electricity per capita as the world, 1/40 as much as the Dominican Republic, and 1/16 as much as India.

World per capita electrical consumption (Figure 2) has been growing much more rapidly than total per capita energy consumption (Figure 1)-perhaps because of energy efficiency. (It may also be that Figure 1 “undercounts” electricity.) I would expect that this growth in world electrical supply is a major contributor to world economic growth. Unlike the world, Haiti’s per capita electricity consumption has not been growing. Its per capita electrical consumption is now less than half of the level it was in the mid 1980s.

There is an article in Wikipedia about the electricity sector in Haiti. These are a few quotes:

“The largely government owned electricity sector in Haiti is facing a deep, permanent crisis characterized by dramatic shortages and the lowest coverage of electricity in the Western Hemisphere with only about 12.5% of the population (25% if illegal connections are accounted for) having regular access to electricity. In addition, Haiti’s large share of thermal generation (70%) makes the country especially vulnerable to rising and unstable oil prices.”

“Most of the generation infrastructure in Haiti is very old and costly to maintain and operate. In 2006, total installed capacity was only 270 MW, of which about 70% was thermal and 30% hydroelectric.”

“The Haitian electricity sector has a national installed capacity that is largely insufficient to meet a demand of 157 MW in Port au Prince and of 550 MW at the national level. This electricity shortage has created a situation in which tens of thousands of households and institutions (e.g. hospitals, schools) have to rely on their own diesel generators and as a result spend large portions of their income on fuel to run those generators.”

“Service quality in Haiti is very poor. Those who have access received on average 10 hours of electricity a day, with very large disparities among the areas covered.”

“The public utility Electricité d’Haïti (EDH) suffers from high inefficiencies, with more than 55% estimated technical and non technical losses. This high percentage results from improper maintenance due to lack of financing; triggering incidents (e.g. fires); obsolescence of information systems, which prevents proper identification of customers, billing and accounting and in turn impacts quality of service and losses. The ratio of energy unpaid to energy produced is among the highest in the world, with 35% of the energy produced being stolen.”

We have heard that environmental degradation is a major problem in Haiti, with less than 1.5% of the tree cover remaining intact. The reason for this degradation seems to be a lack of other sources of energy:

The primary cause of Haiti’s environmental degradation has been caused by Haitian’s need for energy. With an electricity sector that only covered 10% of Haiti’s population in 2006, chronic energy shortages have contributed to Haitian’s search for alternative sources of energy. Unfortunately for Haiti’s natural environment, wood became and continues to be the principal energy source in Haiti, accounting for 70 percent of energy consumption in 2006. This resulted in the steady deforestation of Haiti, with an estimated 6,000 hectares of soil lost each year to erosion.

From the CIA World Fact Book, we read that there is widespread unemployment and underemployment; more than two-thirds of the labor force do not have formal jobs. Its industries are listed as sugar refining, flour milling, textiles, cement, light assembly based on imported parts. It consumes 12,000 barrels of oil a day in 2008, all of which is imported-no natural gas or coal. It exports manufactured goods, apparel, oils, cocoa, mangoes, and coffee, with the US accounting for a little over 70% of its exports.

There is a major imbalance between export and imports. Exports amounted to $490 million in 2008; imports amounted to $2,107 million in 2008, or about 4.3 times exports. If Haiti imports 12,000 barrels a day of finished oil products, these by themselves would seem to amount to something like $450 million dollars of value, if finished oil products average something like $100 barrel in cost.

There is at least some possibility of natural gas production in the future. Recently, there have been reports that the earthquake may have exposed potential natural gas resources. According to Bloomberg:

The earthquake that killed more than 150,000 people in Haiti this month may have left clues to petroleum reservoirs that could aid economic recovery in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation, a geologist said.

The Jan. 12 earthquake was on a fault line that passes near potential gas reserves, said Stephen Pierce, a geologist who worked in the region for 30 years for companies including the former Mobil Corp. The quake may have cracked rock formations along the fault, allowing gas or oil to temporarily seep toward the surface, he said yesterday in a telephone interview.

So what are Haiti’s options?

Haiti’s economy was doing very badly, even before the earthquake and its aftershocks. Getting Haiti back to the state it was in before the earthquake won’t really fix its problems. These would appear to be some options:

1. Develop a tourist trade. Tourist trade seems to be a principal source of income for other Caribbean nations. In the past, tourists have been willing to pay a high enough price for accommodations so that the high price of oil-generated electricity hasn’t been too much of a problem. (Island nations tend to use oil for electricity generation, because it is easy to transport.) But it is hard to see Haiti getting into the tourist trade for the first time now. In a post-peak oil world, there is going to be less tourism in general, so this is not a good new business to get into. Also, with all environmental degradation and now the earthquake damage, it is hard to see tourists wanting to come to sightsee.

2. Sell more crops (mangos, sugar, cocoa, coffee) on the world market. The amount being sold is probably close to a maximum level today, at least with current energy inputs. World market prices are so low, the effort is hardly worthwhile. More fertilizer probably wouldn’t be a fix-prices for crops are so low that it is hard to believe that they would pay for the higher yields. And with higher oil prices, the cost of transporting the crops makes them more expensive for buyers, likely reducing demand.

3. Increase manufacturing capability. There really needs to be more electricity for more manufacturing. There doesn’t seem to be an option for adding hydro-electric-the streams dry up except in the rainy season. Adding electricity generated by oil will be very expensive-not only will the oil for fuel be expensive, but building the facilities for power generation and transmission lines will be expensive. A new manufacturer might have its own diesel generator, but electricity costs based on diesel generation are likely to be prohibitively high-certainly much higher than in areas which have access to coal or natural gas generated electricity. Wind turbines might be added, if someone else would pay for the up-front costs and the cost of upgraded transmission lines. But oil backup would still need to be added, and the cost still would be very high compared to coal or natural gas.

4. Add financial services. Financial services, like those offered by Bermuda and the Cayman Islands and Dubai, really need nice resorts areas to supplement them, so that the people involved in the transactions can visit nice places while attending meetings. It is hard to see Haiti competing in this arena. It is also difficult to see financial services expanding on a world-wide basis, now that oil production has plateaued.

5. More aid on a continuing basis. Sending food and other aid on a continuing basis is a problem because then local farmers have to compete with a price of $0, so there is no point in raising food. If the aid doesn’t include assistance with family planning (or perhaps even if it does), population keeps rising. According to the CIA World Factbook, an average of 3.81 children are born per woman in Haiti.

6. Develop the natural gas resources that might be available. This will take a few years, even in the best of circumstances, and won’t last indefinitely. The development of natural gas resources might make lower priced electricity available for manufacturing or for other purposes. All of this is iffy at this point. Even if natural gas is available, the cost of extraction may still be quite expensive, yielding expensive natural gas, rather than cheap natural gas.

7. Attempt to build a self-sufficient economy, with no more fossil fuels than can be paid for by exports. This would seem to be one possible direction to go. Haitians would need to figure out what foods they can grow for themselves, and how much fishing in small boats that they can do. They may also want crops that can be used for clothing, and crops added to the rotation to enhance soil fertility. At least part of the forests will need to be planted back, so as to prevent further erosion, and to prevent landslides.

It seems to me that a self-sufficient economy using little fossil fuels would support some Haitians-say 2 or 3 million, but it is hard to see that it would support the whole 9 million Haitians. The issue then would be, “What happens to the rest of the Haitians?” I expect it would be difficult to get other countries to accept the large number of Haitians needing new homes. Nearly all adults would all need jobs; many would be illiterate.

8. Other supplemental approaches. Solar ovens would be great, if donation of a large number could be obtained, so as to cut back on the need for wood for charcoal for cooking. Perhaps some donations of solar PV would help provide charging capability for radios and telephones, and would provide some source of electricity besides generators for hospitals and schools.

General

What ideas do others have for solving the problems of Haiti? I expect that what in fact will happen is that more aid will be provided on a continuing basis-at least for a while, until other countries become too poor, or manage somehow to forget Haiti’s problems. Then the people of Haiti will be left to fend for themselves, and there won’t be enough to go around.

The reason I am not suggesting ramping up fossil fuel imports is because the exports generated by the use of fossil fuels (really only oil) seem not to be generating enough of a payback to pay for their cost. Without a good plan, adding more oil imports would seem only to make the out-of-balance worse. Perhaps there is a way around this issue that I don’t see.

One thing that Haiti doesn’t need is more loans. It needs the loans that are currently outstanding forgiven.

The world is going to run into the problem of a natural disaster hitting an already impoverished nation again and again in the next 20 years, I expect. Such countries will need to be bailed out in some way by others. When everything is sliding downhill to begin with, countries with low energy consumption, like Haiti, are especially vulnerable.

One issue I see as one gets to lower and lower energy consumption is political stability. It is one thing to govern a country which is held together by radio and television stations carrying the speeches of the leaders of the country and with roads carrying cars and trucks. It is another when there really is very little means of communication beyond word of mouth, and transportation is mostly by walking.

We are used to having rather large countries now, but I am wondering if as energy becomes less available, and portable phones become increasingly out of reach, local governments will become more important and governments for the nation as a whole will fade away. The countries I see most at risk of this are ones with very low energy use today-Somalia, Afghanistan, Haiti, Ethiopia, and Congo-Kinshasa, for example.

Trying to figure out how to deal with Haiti is a major challenge. I am hoping these thoughts will add a little background to the news stories that one sees so often.

Drumbeat: January 30, 2023

China Leading Race to Make Clean Energy

TIANJIN, China — China vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States last year to become the world’s largest maker of wind turbines, and is poised to expand even further this year.

China has also leapfrogged the West in the last two years to emerge as the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels. And the country is pushing equally hard to build nuclear reactors and the most efficient types of coal power plants.

These efforts to dominate the global manufacture of renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China.

“Most of the energy equipment will carry a brass plate, ‘Made in China,’ ” said K. K. Chan, the chief executive of Nature Elements Capital, a private equity fund in Beijing that focuses on renewable energy.

U.S. speeding up arms sales, defenses with Gulf allies

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES — The Obama administration is quietly working with Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf allies to speed up arms sales and rapidly upgrade defenses for oil terminals and other key infrastructure in a bid to thwart future military attacks by Iran, according to former and current U.S. and Middle Eastern government officials.

The initiatives, including a U.S.-backed plan to triple the size of a 10,000-man protection force in Saudi Arabia, are part of a broader push that includes unprecedented coordination of air defenses and expanded joint exercises between the U.S. and Arab militaries, the officials said. All appear to be aimed at increasing pressure on Tehran.

Kazakhs protest government’s burgeoning ties with Beijing

ALMATY: Kazakh protesters scuffled with police yesterday at a rally against their government’s burgeoning ties with neighboring China. Many in Kazakhstan, a vast but thinly populated nation, are suspicious of China’s growing influence in resource-rich Central Asia and accuse the government of selling out oil riches to their giant, energy-hungry neighbor. President Nursultan Nazarbayev said last month China had proposed renting a million hectares of Kazakh land to grow soya and other crops. The government later denied any plans to lease land to China.

Political Uncertainty Grips a Russian Republic

Dagestan, one of the most heavily subsidized of Russia’s regions, should be able to support itself. It has oil and gas reserves, like neighboring Azerbaijan, and once lucrative vineyards and fisheries. The sandy coastline itself, stretching 250 miles along the Caspian Sea, should be a moneymaker in a beach-starved colossus like Russia.

But the beaches around Makhachkala (pronounced ma-HACH-ka-la), a city of 466,000, offer a primer in what has gone wrong. Tycoons have chopped up much of the coast for private mansions, and local residents complain that the public beaches that remain are too dirty and ill kept to enjoy. As for tourists, Makhachkala’s mayor, Said D. Amirov — who now uses a wheelchair as a result of an assassination attempt — put it this way: “You can’t develop tourism when you have a murder every day.”

Peak Oil Confusion

Although the issue of peak oil has gained attention over the last several years (due mainly to oil prices skyrocketing to $147 per barrel in 2008), it’s simply amazing that most opponents have no idea what “peak oil” means.

Fighting Starvation, Haitians Share Portions

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Maxi Extralien, a twig-thin 10-year-old in a SpongeBob pajama top, ate only a single bean from the heavy plate of food he received recently from a Haitian civic group. He had to make it last.

“My mother has 12 kids but a lot of them died,” he said, covering his meal so he could carry it to his family. “There are six of us now and my mom.”

For Maxi and countless others here in Haiti’s pulverized capital, new rules of hunger etiquette are emerging. Stealing food, it is widely known, might get you killed. Children are most likely to return with something to eat, but no matter what is found, or how hungry the forager, everything must be shared.

…“The whole food supply chain has been trashed by the earthquake,” said David Orr, a spokesman for the World Food Program. “The port, the roads, the trucks, the whole commercial life of the country has been disrupted.”

It is not, after all, just homes that fell when the earth shook on Jan. 12. Supermarkets have collapsed to rubble. Butchers and bakers are dead.

The Fateful Geological Prize Called Haiti

The vast oil reserves of the Persian Gulf and of the region from the Red Sea into the Gulf of Aden are at a similar convergence zone of large tectonic plates, as are such oil-rich zones as Indonesia and the waters off the coast of California. In short, in terms of the physics of the earth, precisely such intersections of tectonic masses as run directly beneath Haiti have a remarkable tendency to be the sites of vast treasures of minerals, as well as oil and gas, throughout the world.

Notably, in 2005, a year after the Bush-Cheney Administration de facto deposed the democratically elected President of Haiti, Jean-Baptiste Aristide, a team of geologists from the Institute for Geophysics at the University of Texas began an ambitious and thorough two-phase mapping of all geological data of the Caribbean Basins. The project is due to be completed in 2011. Directed by Dr. Paul Mann, it is called “Caribbean Basins, Tectonics and Hydrocarbons.” It is all about determining as precisely as possible the relation between tectonic plates in the Caribbean and the potential for hydrocarbons—oil and gas.

Russia and Antarctica

It is impossible to name a specific timeline for a possible “War for the Antarctic.” But conjecture is possible based on the following factors - for example, the appearance of technology allowing rapid and cost effective supply of fresh water from Antarctic glaciers to arid and tropical regions; a new increase in oil prices and growing demand for crude, which will make oil extraction on the Antarctic shelf economically viable or an increase in demand for food because of the growing global population, which would require fishing in the south seas, etc.

Obama Acts to Ease Way to Construct Reactors

When President Obama said in his State of the Union address on Wednesday that the country should build “a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants,” it was one of the few times he got bipartisan applause.

China Insists That Its Steps on Climate Be Voluntary

BEIJING — As a Sunday target date approaches for countries to submit to the United Nations their plans for fighting climate change, China is banding together with other major developing nations to stress that only the wealthier countries need to make internationally binding commitments.

Carbon Market Could Grow 33% This Year

The global carbon market is expected to total $170 billion this year, a 33 percent jump from 2009, driven mostly by higher prices in Europe and a growth in the nascent carbon market in the United States, according to a new report from Point Carbon, a market analysis firm.

Chris Martenson: Big Ideas at the Commonwealth Club

Five years ago the audiences were all ‘of an age’ and now they include many more younger people and represent a much broader cross section of society, beliefs, professions and income levels.

My impression is that the tide is shifting, powerfully, and yesterday’s response proved to me that ideas matter, that people care, and that getting our collective act together is a rapidly ascending priority for a growing group of people. Whoever says that there’s no interest anymore in big ideas is flat-out wrong.

Analysis: Major Offshore Project Start-Ups to Watch in 2010

As we look at the year ahead, OPEC is predicting a world crude demand of at least 85.1 MMb/d. Specifically, the cartel’s forecast calls for world oil demand to grow modestly (by about 0.8 MMb/d) this year, a view they have maintained since late-2009. Though there is no shortage of oil supply, the following projects, due to come onstream in 2010, can only help in supplying this demand.

Mexico shuts Gulf oil port due to bad weather

Mexico, a major oil supplier to the United States, shut the Dos Bocas oil export terminal in the Gulf, the communications and transport ministry said in a statement.

Alaska Pipeline Project Files Open Season Plan

The Alaska Pipeline Project has filed its plan with the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to obtain approval to conduct the first natural gas pipeline open season to develop Alaska’s vast natural gas resources. The project is a joint effort between TransCanada Corporation and Exxon Mobil Corporation to develop a natural gas pipeline under the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA).

Seoul’s path to nuclear power

South Korean business leaders are proud that they have built a powerful, energy-intensive economy in a land with almost no natural resources. If Ulsan were its own country, its GDP per capita would be among the world’s highest, and it has created that wealth in large part by efficiently converting imported energy from the Middle East into products sold around the world.

But a steady rise in oil and gas prices has put increasing pressure on the country’s old economic model.

Is aid without climate adaptation a waste of time?

Aid agencies are well resourced and quick to act, but not enough of them appear to be using their power to tackle the long term problems posed by climate change.

Straw Homes That Would Have Foiled the Wolf

At Quail Springs, days are spent perfecting greywater systems, creating food forests and building bio-swales to keep the limited rainwater from eroding the topsoil. But what’s really capturing attention are the buildings constructed with natural products like straw bale, adobe and bamboo.

But don’t expect to see this eco-village-in-the-making take final form in your lifetime — or your children’s or your grandchildren’s — and certainly not in the lifetime of the farm’s founders, husband-and-wife team Warren Brush and Cynthia Harvan.

Brush says the undertaking will take 200 years.

5 Unique Ways to Go Green if You’re Living in a Dorm

College is often termed the best years of your life. Now, recent trends suggest that it is also becoming pretty green. A growing number of colleges and universities are seeking ways to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, many with energy-efficient facilities and construction projects. A wind turbine at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, for example, provides 33 percent of campus electricity and saves more than $250,000 annually in utility costs. Richard Stockton College in New Jersey is heated and cooled using one of the country’s largest closed-loop geothermal systems, and students living in a new green-themed dorm at Dartmouth College use, on average, about 60 percent less energy than other students on campus. Plans for the dorm, named the Sustainable Living Center, call for it to be a waste-free, energy-neutral student residence.

Welcome To The Soft Apocalypse

By now, the apocalypse story – which goes back at least as far as the ancient Hebrews – has fractured into numerous sub-genres. Our favorite, these days, is the soft apocalypse, where the end has come but life goes on.
<P
Sometimes, things are rough. Not everybody plays fair. Nobody drives Beemers any more. The of the soft apocalypse fits somewhere between the uber-violent “hard apocalypse” (The Book of Revelation, The Clash’s “London Calling,” Cormac McCarthy’s The Road) and the “happy apocalypse” (Noah’s Arc, Asimov’s Foundation books, or the ’70s novel Ecotopia), where civilization falls but is replaced by something better. Sometimes, of course, it’s just a matter of tone: Road Warrior shows us humanity surviving after devastation, but it’s hard to call anything there “soft.”

The Perfect Near-Future Novel To Get You Through The Recession

Need a book to get you through another year of unemployment, glacier melts or maybe even another oil crisis? World Made By Hand could do the trick.

Energy prices fall so far in 2010

NEW YORK (AP) — For the past several months, oil prices have soared on the expectation that China would soon lead a new race for natural resources.

But government data released so far this year has told a different story, and oil has tumbled nearly $10 a barrel in the first month of 2010.

Americans are burning less gasoline than they did a year ago, according to a report this week from the Energy Information Administration. The EIA says the country’s appetite for petroleum products has dropped every week this month. And while China should expand petroleum consumption this year, a decision to rein in risky bank loans and cool down its economy may curb China’s energy appetite.

“What’s been driving oil prices is the promise of Chinese economic growth,” said Phil Flynn, an analyst with PFGBest. “But its demand numbers are very suspect right now.”

Crude Oil Falls to Five-Week Low as Dollar Rises Against Euro

(Bloomberg) — Crude oil fell to a five-week low as the dollar strengthened against the euro, making commodities less attractive as an alternative investment.

Follow the Money (video)

Standing at the pump, watching the numbers tick away, do you ever wonder where the money goes? You’re not alone: People on the other end of the pipeline are wondering too. While we feel the pinch in our pockets, citizens of oil-producing countries are often not seeing the profits.

Lester R. Brown: Mounting Stresses, Failing States

Among the top 20 countries on the failing state list, all but a few are losing the race between food production and population growth. Close to half of these states depend on a food lifeline from the World Food Programme. Food shortages can put intense pressures on governments. In many countries the social order began showing signs of stress in 2007 in the face of soaring food prices and spreading hunger. Food riots and unrest continued in 2008 in dozens of countries, from tortilla riots in Mexico to breadline fights in Egypt. In Haiti, soaring food prices helped bring down the government.

Another characteristic of failing states is a deterioration of infrastructure—roads and power, water, and sewage systems. Care for natural systems is also neglected as people struggle to survive. Forests, grasslands, and croplands deteriorate, generating a downward economic spiral. A drying up of foreign investment and a resultant rise in unemployment are also part of the decline syndrome.

Oil Shortage ‘Claim’ Tip of the Iceburg

Few thought it was possible, but a surefire conspiracy seems to be brewing. Energy, the heartbeat of the world, is the cusp in the coming tide. The theory of Peak Oil is running rampant. Over 75% of the human population believe that he earth will soon run out of oil.

The US is producing less than 40% of the domestic crude it needs. It’s regulatory limitations have increased so much that a new oil refinery hasn’t been built in over 30 years. It’s environmentalregulations have ‘built’ a wall around obtaining oil from the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), ANWR, and oil shales. That can mean only one thing.

The current administration seems to want a global governance. That governance would be controlled by one person-a ruler of sorts over everything. The UN would control energy, economies, and lives. But Obama has the power to put America first again.

Natural gas supplies could be augmented with methane hydrate

WASHINGTON – Naturally occurring methane hydrate may represent an enormous source of methane, the main component of natural gas, and could ultimately augment conventional natural gas supplies, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council. Although a number of challenges require attention before commercial production can be realized, no technical challenges have been identified as insurmountable. Moreover, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Methane Hydrate Research and Development Program has made considerable progress in the past five years toward understanding and developing methane hydrate as a possible energy resource.

“DOE’s program and programs in the national and international research community provide increasing confidence from a technical standpoint that some commercial production of methane from methane hydrate could be achieved in the United States before 2025,” said Charles Paull, chair of the committee that wrote the report, and senior scientist, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California. “With global energy demand projected to increase, unconventional resources such as methane hydrate become important to consider as part of the future U.S. energy portfolio and could help provide more energy security for the United States.”

Exxon, TransCanada Say Alaska Gas Pipeline Cost Soars

(Bloomberg) — Exxon Mobil Corp. and TransCanada Corp. said a proposed pipeline to carry Alaskan natural gas to U.S. markets will cost 23 percent to 58 percent more than originally expected.

Is Iraq’s oil strategy too ambitious?

BAGHDAD (UPI) — The chief executives of two of the world’s oil giants have been waxing lyrical about helping Iraq quadruple its oil production over the next decade, but questions linger about whether it can be done.

Some energy industry experts believe that given the plethora of problems that the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is having to deal with, Baghdad is being way too ambitious.

Oil India May Buy Fields in Africa, Latin America, Australia

(Bloomberg) — Oil India Ltd., the nation’s second- biggest state-run explorer, is seeking to buy oilfields in Africa, Latin America and Australia to cut imports and meet energy demand in India, Asia’s third-biggest consumer.

BP Interested in Brazil Assets, China Projects

(Bloomberg) — BP Plc is interested in acquiring assets in Brazil and is working with China Petrochemical Corp. to expand in Asia, Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward said today.

“If we can find the right opportunity, we’ll enter Brazil,” Hayward said in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland today. “We’ve signed an agreement with Sinopec,” and “we continue to see new opportunities, like shale and other things” in China.

Brazil to renew energy contracts by decree-report

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazil’s Mines and Energy minister on Friday denied that a draft provisional measure had been prepared that would enable concessions for electricity firms to be renewed by decree ahead of their expiry in 2015.

Friday’s Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper said such a measure was afoot to reduce regulatory uncertainty that had damped investments and mergers in the sector, to help utilities firms raise funds from banks by showing concrete future plans.

Nigerian Militants Cancel Cease-Fire With Government, AP Says

(Bloomberg) — Nigeria’s main militant group has ended a cease-fire with the government and pledged to renew attacks on the nation’s oil industry, the Associated Press reported, citing a statement from the group.

SNAP ANALYSIS - Nigerian oil militants end ceasefire

MEND was significantly weakened by last year’s amnesty programme, with several of its top field commanders handing over their weapons in return for clemency. It is unclear who is in charge and what operational capacity the group has left.

But oil infrastructure in the delta, a network of thousands of shallow creeks opening into the Gulf of Guinea, is extremely exposed with thousands of kilometres (miles) of pipeline passing through remote and thickly-forested terrain.

“To damage a pipeline just takes one youth who is able to swim and carry a beer bottle that is filled with sand and petrol,” Emmanuel Uduaghan, governor of Delta state, one of the three main states in the region, said last month.

Arch Coal Plunges After Profit Falls Below Estimates

(Bloomberg) — Arch Coal Inc., the second-largest U.S. coal producer, plunged the most in 13 months after it said fourth-quarter profit missed analysts’ estimates on lower shipments amid the worst recession since the 1930s.

Woodside Construction Workers Return to Australian LNG Project

(Bloomberg) — Woodside Petroleum Ltd., Australia’s second-largest oil and gas producer, said construction workers who went on strike at its Pluto liquefied natural gas project in Western Australia returned to their jobs today.

Gold Versus Co2 Bancor, Why Are Gold Bugs Scared?

As we noted above, the US dollar is already Bancor, in the fiat money sense that its creation and circulation has no need at all to relate to fundamentals. Not for nothing, ‘Time’ magazine in 1999 named Keynes as one of the 20th century’s most influential persons, writing: “His radical idea that governments should spend money they don’t have may have saved capitalism”.

With a CO2 Bancor, capitalism can create virtual money and survive the final energy crisis, when the after-peak oil fall in global energy supply begins to be really serious, well before 2020. Other natural resource stress points and strangleholds can be added. These affect everything from iron ore and coal transort and supply, to water and soil resources. All need massive remedial investment spending to avert serious and permanent shortage, making it very desirable to have a new world reserve money, with a tendency to fewer zero’s after the spending need estimates.

Kentucky studies 42 locations with best potential for nuclear plants

State officials are scouting potential nuclear power plant sites around Kentucky as part of a broader effort to expand the state’s electricity supply beyond traditional coal-fired generators.

Sydney desalination plant splits opinion

One of the world’s biggest desalination plants is about to open in Australia’s most populous - and thirstiest - city, Sydney.

The $1.7bn (£1.04bn) scheme has been driven by concerns about climate change and of erratic rainfall patterns in a fast-growing metropolitan area attracting 50,000 new residents each year.

Climate chief was told of false glacier claims before Copenhagen

The chairman of the leading climate change watchdog was informed that claims about melting Himalayan glaciers were false before the Copenhagen summit, The Times has learnt.

Rajendra Pachauri was told that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment that the glaciers would disappear by 2035 was wrong, but he waited two months to correct it. He failed to act despite learning that the claim had been refuted by several leading glaciologists.

Obama Orders Government To Slash GHG Emissions 28%

President Obama has ordered the government, the largest consumer of energy in the U.S., to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 28 percent by 2020.

…The federal government, which occupies nearly 500,000 buildings, operates more than 600,000 vehicles, employs more than 1.8 million civilians, and purchases more than $500 billion per year in goods and services, spent more than $24.5 billion on electricity and fuel in 2008 alone. Achieving the federal GHG pollution reduction target will reduce federal energy use by the equivalent of 646 trillion BTUs, equal to 205 million barrels of oil, and taking 17 million cars off the road for one year. This is also equivalent to a cumulative total of $8 to $11 billion in avoided energy costs through 2020, according to the White House.

Drumbeat: January 30, 2023

China Leading Race to Make Clean Energy

TIANJIN, China — China vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States last year to become the world’s largest maker of wind turbines, and is poised to expand even further this year.

China has also leapfrogged the West in the last two years to emerge as the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels. And the country is pushing equally hard to build nuclear reactors and the most efficient types of coal power plants.

These efforts to dominate the global manufacture of renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China.

“Most of the energy equipment will carry a brass plate, ‘Made in China,’ ” said K. K. Chan, the chief executive of Nature Elements Capital, a private equity fund in Beijing that focuses on renewable energy.

U.S. speeding up arms sales, defenses with Gulf allies

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES — The Obama administration is quietly working with Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf allies to speed up arms sales and rapidly upgrade defenses for oil terminals and other key infrastructure in a bid to thwart future military attacks by Iran, according to former and current U.S. and Middle Eastern government officials.

The initiatives, including a U.S.-backed plan to triple the size of a 10,000-man protection force in Saudi Arabia, are part of a broader push that includes unprecedented coordination of air defenses and expanded joint exercises between the U.S. and Arab militaries, the officials said. All appear to be aimed at increasing pressure on Tehran.

Kazakhs protest government’s burgeoning ties with Beijing

ALMATY: Kazakh protesters scuffled with police yesterday at a rally against their government’s burgeoning ties with neighboring China. Many in Kazakhstan, a vast but thinly populated nation, are suspicious of China’s growing influence in resource-rich Central Asia and accuse the government of selling out oil riches to their giant, energy-hungry neighbor. President Nursultan Nazarbayev said last month China had proposed renting a million hectares of Kazakh land to grow soya and other crops. The government later denied any plans to lease land to China.

Political Uncertainty Grips a Russian Republic

Dagestan, one of the most heavily subsidized of Russia’s regions, should be able to support itself. It has oil and gas reserves, like neighboring Azerbaijan, and once lucrative vineyards and fisheries. The sandy coastline itself, stretching 250 miles along the Caspian Sea, should be a moneymaker in a beach-starved colossus like Russia.

But the beaches around Makhachkala (pronounced ma-HACH-ka-la), a city of 466,000, offer a primer in what has gone wrong. Tycoons have chopped up much of the coast for private mansions, and local residents complain that the public beaches that remain are too dirty and ill kept to enjoy. As for tourists, Makhachkala’s mayor, Said D. Amirov — who now uses a wheelchair as a result of an assassination attempt — put it this way: “You can’t develop tourism when you have a murder every day.”

Peak Oil Confusion

Although the issue of peak oil has gained attention over the last several years (due mainly to oil prices skyrocketing to $147 per barrel in 2008), it’s simply amazing that most opponents have no idea what “peak oil” means.

Fighting Starvation, Haitians Share Portions

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Maxi Extralien, a twig-thin 10-year-old in a SpongeBob pajama top, ate only a single bean from the heavy plate of food he received recently from a Haitian civic group. He had to make it last.

“My mother has 12 kids but a lot of them died,” he said, covering his meal so he could carry it to his family. “There are six of us now and my mom.”

For Maxi and countless others here in Haiti’s pulverized capital, new rules of hunger etiquette are emerging. Stealing food, it is widely known, might get you killed. Children are most likely to return with something to eat, but no matter what is found, or how hungry the forager, everything must be shared.

…“The whole food supply chain has been trashed by the earthquake,” said David Orr, a spokesman for the World Food Program. “The port, the roads, the trucks, the whole commercial life of the country has been disrupted.”

It is not, after all, just homes that fell when the earth shook on Jan. 12. Supermarkets have collapsed to rubble. Butchers and bakers are dead.

The Fateful Geological Prize Called Haiti

The vast oil reserves of the Persian Gulf and of the region from the Red Sea into the Gulf of Aden are at a similar convergence zone of large tectonic plates, as are such oil-rich zones as Indonesia and the waters off the coast of California. In short, in terms of the physics of the earth, precisely such intersections of tectonic masses as run directly beneath Haiti have a remarkable tendency to be the sites of vast treasures of minerals, as well as oil and gas, throughout the world.

Notably, in 2005, a year after the Bush-Cheney Administration de facto deposed the democratically elected President of Haiti, Jean-Baptiste Aristide, a team of geologists from the Institute for Geophysics at the University of Texas began an ambitious and thorough two-phase mapping of all geological data of the Caribbean Basins. The project is due to be completed in 2011. Directed by Dr. Paul Mann, it is called “Caribbean Basins, Tectonics and Hydrocarbons.” It is all about determining as precisely as possible the relation between tectonic plates in the Caribbean and the potential for hydrocarbons—oil and gas.

Russia and Antarctica

It is impossible to name a specific timeline for a possible “War for the Antarctic.” But conjecture is possible based on the following factors - for example, the appearance of technology allowing rapid and cost effective supply of fresh water from Antarctic glaciers to arid and tropical regions; a new increase in oil prices and growing demand for crude, which will make oil extraction on the Antarctic shelf economically viable or an increase in demand for food because of the growing global population, which would require fishing in the south seas, etc.

Obama Acts to Ease Way to Construct Reactors

When President Obama said in his State of the Union address on Wednesday that the country should build “a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants,” it was one of the few times he got bipartisan applause.

China Insists That Its Steps on Climate Be Voluntary

BEIJING — As a Sunday target date approaches for countries to submit to the United Nations their plans for fighting climate change, China is banding together with other major developing nations to stress that only the wealthier countries need to make internationally binding commitments.

Carbon Market Could Grow 33% This Year

The global carbon market is expected to total $170 billion this year, a 33 percent jump from 2009, driven mostly by higher prices in Europe and a growth in the nascent carbon market in the United States, according to a new report from Point Carbon, a market analysis firm.

Chris Martenson: Big Ideas at the Commonwealth Club

Five years ago the audiences were all ‘of an age’ and now they include many more younger people and represent a much broader cross section of society, beliefs, professions and income levels.

My impression is that the tide is shifting, powerfully, and yesterday’s response proved to me that ideas matter, that people care, and that getting our collective act together is a rapidly ascending priority for a growing group of people. Whoever says that there’s no interest anymore in big ideas is flat-out wrong.

Analysis: Major Offshore Project Start-Ups to Watch in 2010

As we look at the year ahead, OPEC is predicting a world crude demand of at least 85.1 MMb/d. Specifically, the cartel’s forecast calls for world oil demand to grow modestly (by about 0.8 MMb/d) this year, a view they have maintained since late-2009. Though there is no shortage of oil supply, the following projects, due to come onstream in 2010, can only help in supplying this demand.

Mexico shuts Gulf oil port due to bad weather

Mexico, a major oil supplier to the United States, shut the Dos Bocas oil export terminal in the Gulf, the communications and transport ministry said in a statement.

Alaska Pipeline Project Files Open Season Plan

The Alaska Pipeline Project has filed its plan with the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to obtain approval to conduct the first natural gas pipeline open season to develop Alaska’s vast natural gas resources. The project is a joint effort between TransCanada Corporation and Exxon Mobil Corporation to develop a natural gas pipeline under the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA).

Seoul’s path to nuclear power

South Korean business leaders are proud that they have built a powerful, energy-intensive economy in a land with almost no natural resources. If Ulsan were its own country, its GDP per capita would be among the world’s highest, and it has created that wealth in large part by efficiently converting imported energy from the Middle East into products sold around the world.

But a steady rise in oil and gas prices has put increasing pressure on the country’s old economic model.

Is aid without climate adaptation a waste of time?

Aid agencies are well resourced and quick to act, but not enough of them appear to be using their power to tackle the long term problems posed by climate change.

Straw Homes That Would Have Foiled the Wolf

At Quail Springs, days are spent perfecting greywater systems, creating food forests and building bio-swales to keep the limited rainwater from eroding the topsoil. But what’s really capturing attention are the buildings constructed with natural products like straw bale, adobe and bamboo.

But don’t expect to see this eco-village-in-the-making take final form in your lifetime — or your children’s or your grandchildren’s — and certainly not in the lifetime of the farm’s founders, husband-and-wife team Warren Brush and Cynthia Harvan.

Brush says the undertaking will take 200 years.

5 Unique Ways to Go Green if You’re Living in a Dorm

College is often termed the best years of your life. Now, recent trends suggest that it is also becoming pretty green. A growing number of colleges and universities are seeking ways to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, many with energy-efficient facilities and construction projects. A wind turbine at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, for example, provides 33 percent of campus electricity and saves more than $250,000 annually in utility costs. Richard Stockton College in New Jersey is heated and cooled using one of the country’s largest closed-loop geothermal systems, and students living in a new green-themed dorm at Dartmouth College use, on average, about 60 percent less energy than other students on campus. Plans for the dorm, named the Sustainable Living Center, call for it to be a waste-free, energy-neutral student residence.

Welcome To The Soft Apocalypse

By now, the apocalypse story – which goes back at least as far as the ancient Hebrews – has fractured into numerous sub-genres. Our favorite, these days, is the soft apocalypse, where the end has come but life goes on.
<P
Sometimes, things are rough. Not everybody plays fair. Nobody drives Beemers any more. The of the soft apocalypse fits somewhere between the uber-violent “hard apocalypse” (The Book of Revelation, The Clash’s “London Calling,” Cormac McCarthy’s The Road) and the “happy apocalypse” (Noah’s Arc, Asimov’s Foundation books, or the ’70s novel Ecotopia), where civilization falls but is replaced by something better. Sometimes, of course, it’s just a matter of tone: Road Warrior shows us humanity surviving after devastation, but it’s hard to call anything there “soft.”

The Perfect Near-Future Novel To Get You Through The Recession

Need a book to get you through another year of unemployment, glacier melts or maybe even another oil crisis? World Made By Hand could do the trick.

Energy prices fall so far in 2010

NEW YORK (AP) — For the past several months, oil prices have soared on the expectation that China would soon lead a new race for natural resources.

But government data released so far this year has told a different story, and oil has tumbled nearly $10 a barrel in the first month of 2010.

Americans are burning less gasoline than they did a year ago, according to a report this week from the Energy Information Administration. The EIA says the country’s appetite for petroleum products has dropped every week this month. And while China should expand petroleum consumption this year, a decision to rein in risky bank loans and cool down its economy may curb China’s energy appetite.

“What’s been driving oil prices is the promise of Chinese economic growth,” said Phil Flynn, an analyst with PFGBest. “But its demand numbers are very suspect right now.”

Crude Oil Falls to Five-Week Low as Dollar Rises Against Euro

(Bloomberg) — Crude oil fell to a five-week low as the dollar strengthened against the euro, making commodities less attractive as an alternative investment.

Follow the Money (video)

Standing at the pump, watching the numbers tick away, do you ever wonder where the money goes? You’re not alone: People on the other end of the pipeline are wondering too. While we feel the pinch in our pockets, citizens of oil-producing countries are often not seeing the profits.

Lester R. Brown: Mounting Stresses, Failing States

Among the top 20 countries on the failing state list, all but a few are losing the race between food production and population growth. Close to half of these states depend on a food lifeline from the World Food Programme. Food shortages can put intense pressures on governments. In many countries the social order began showing signs of stress in 2007 in the face of soaring food prices and spreading hunger. Food riots and unrest continued in 2008 in dozens of countries, from tortilla riots in Mexico to breadline fights in Egypt. In Haiti, soaring food prices helped bring down the government.

Another characteristic of failing states is a deterioration of infrastructure—roads and power, water, and sewage systems. Care for natural systems is also neglected as people struggle to survive. Forests, grasslands, and croplands deteriorate, generating a downward economic spiral. A drying up of foreign investment and a resultant rise in unemployment are also part of the decline syndrome.

Oil Shortage ‘Claim’ Tip of the Iceburg

Few thought it was possible, but a surefire conspiracy seems to be brewing. Energy, the heartbeat of the world, is the cusp in the coming tide. The theory of Peak Oil is running rampant. Over 75% of the human population believe that he earth will soon run out of oil.

The US is producing less than 40% of the domestic crude it needs. It’s regulatory limitations have increased so much that a new oil refinery hasn’t been built in over 30 years. It’s environmentalregulations have ‘built’ a wall around obtaining oil from the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), ANWR, and oil shales. That can mean only one thing.

The current administration seems to want a global governance. That governance would be controlled by one person-a ruler of sorts over everything. The UN would control energy, economies, and lives. But Obama has the power to put America first again.

Natural gas supplies could be augmented with methane hydrate

WASHINGTON – Naturally occurring methane hydrate may represent an enormous source of methane, the main component of natural gas, and could ultimately augment conventional natural gas supplies, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council. Although a number of challenges require attention before commercial production can be realized, no technical challenges have been identified as insurmountable. Moreover, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Methane Hydrate Research and Development Program has made considerable progress in the past five years toward understanding and developing methane hydrate as a possible energy resource.

“DOE’s program and programs in the national and international research community provide increasing confidence from a technical standpoint that some commercial production of methane from methane hydrate could be achieved in the United States before 2025,” said Charles Paull, chair of the committee that wrote the report, and senior scientist, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California. “With global energy demand projected to increase, unconventional resources such as methane hydrate become important to consider as part of the future U.S. energy portfolio and could help provide more energy security for the United States.”

Exxon, TransCanada Say Alaska Gas Pipeline Cost Soars

(Bloomberg) — Exxon Mobil Corp. and TransCanada Corp. said a proposed pipeline to carry Alaskan natural gas to U.S. markets will cost 23 percent to 58 percent more than originally expected.

Is Iraq’s oil strategy too ambitious?

BAGHDAD (UPI) — The chief executives of two of the world’s oil giants have been waxing lyrical about helping Iraq quadruple its oil production over the next decade, but questions linger about whether it can be done.

Some energy industry experts believe that given the plethora of problems that the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is having to deal with, Baghdad is being way too ambitious.

Oil India May Buy Fields in Africa, Latin America, Australia

(Bloomberg) — Oil India Ltd., the nation’s second- biggest state-run explorer, is seeking to buy oilfields in Africa, Latin America and Australia to cut imports and meet energy demand in India, Asia’s third-biggest consumer.

BP Interested in Brazil Assets, China Projects

(Bloomberg) — BP Plc is interested in acquiring assets in Brazil and is working with China Petrochemical Corp. to expand in Asia, Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward said today.

“If we can find the right opportunity, we’ll enter Brazil,” Hayward said in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland today. “We’ve signed an agreement with Sinopec,” and “we continue to see new opportunities, like shale and other things” in China.

Brazil to renew energy contracts by decree-report

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazil’s Mines and Energy minister on Friday denied that a draft provisional measure had been prepared that would enable concessions for electricity firms to be renewed by decree ahead of their expiry in 2015.

Friday’s Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper said such a measure was afoot to reduce regulatory uncertainty that had damped investments and mergers in the sector, to help utilities firms raise funds from banks by showing concrete future plans.

Nigerian Militants Cancel Cease-Fire With Government, AP Says

(Bloomberg) — Nigeria’s main militant group has ended a cease-fire with the government and pledged to renew attacks on the nation’s oil industry, the Associated Press reported, citing a statement from the group.

SNAP ANALYSIS - Nigerian oil militants end ceasefire

MEND was significantly weakened by last year’s amnesty programme, with several of its top field commanders handing over their weapons in return for clemency. It is unclear who is in charge and what operational capacity the group has left.

But oil infrastructure in the delta, a network of thousands of shallow creeks opening into the Gulf of Guinea, is extremely exposed with thousands of kilometres (miles) of pipeline passing through remote and thickly-forested terrain.

“To damage a pipeline just takes one youth who is able to swim and carry a beer bottle that is filled with sand and petrol,” Emmanuel Uduaghan, governor of Delta state, one of the three main states in the region, said last month.

Arch Coal Plunges After Profit Falls Below Estimates

(Bloomberg) — Arch Coal Inc., the second-largest U.S. coal producer, plunged the most in 13 months after it said fourth-quarter profit missed analysts’ estimates on lower shipments amid the worst recession since the 1930s.

Woodside Construction Workers Return to Australian LNG Project

(Bloomberg) — Woodside Petroleum Ltd., Australia’s second-largest oil and gas producer, said construction workers who went on strike at its Pluto liquefied natural gas project in Western Australia returned to their jobs today.

Gold Versus Co2 Bancor, Why Are Gold Bugs Scared?

As we noted above, the US dollar is already Bancor, in the fiat money sense that its creation and circulation has no need at all to relate to fundamentals. Not for nothing, ‘Time’ magazine in 1999 named Keynes as one of the 20th century’s most influential persons, writing: “His radical idea that governments should spend money they don’t have may have saved capitalism”.

With a CO2 Bancor, capitalism can create virtual money and survive the final energy crisis, when the after-peak oil fall in global energy supply begins to be really serious, well before 2020. Other natural resource stress points and strangleholds can be added. These affect everything from iron ore and coal transort and supply, to water and soil resources. All need massive remedial investment spending to avert serious and permanent shortage, making it very desirable to have a new world reserve money, with a tendency to fewer zero’s after the spending need estimates.

Kentucky studies 42 locations with best potential for nuclear plants

State officials are scouting potential nuclear power plant sites around Kentucky as part of a broader effort to expand the state’s electricity supply beyond traditional coal-fired generators.

Sydney desalination plant splits opinion

One of the world’s biggest desalination plants is about to open in Australia’s most populous - and thirstiest - city, Sydney.

The $1.7bn (£1.04bn) scheme has been driven by concerns about climate change and of erratic rainfall patterns in a fast-growing metropolitan area attracting 50,000 new residents each year.

Climate chief was told of false glacier claims before Copenhagen

The chairman of the leading climate change watchdog was informed that claims about melting Himalayan glaciers were false before the Copenhagen summit, The Times has learnt.

Rajendra Pachauri was told that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment that the glaciers would disappear by 2035 was wrong, but he waited two months to correct it. He failed to act despite learning that the claim had been refuted by several leading glaciologists.

Obama Orders Government To Slash GHG Emissions 28%

President Obama has ordered the government, the largest consumer of energy in the U.S., to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 28 percent by 2020.

…The federal government, which occupies nearly 500,000 buildings, operates more than 600,000 vehicles, employs more than 1.8 million civilians, and purchases more than $500 billion per year in goods and services, spent more than $24.5 billion on electricity and fuel in 2008 alone. Achieving the federal GHG pollution reduction target will reduce federal energy use by the equivalent of 646 trillion BTUs, equal to 205 million barrels of oil, and taking 17 million cars off the road for one year. This is also equivalent to a cumulative total of $8 to $11 billion in avoided energy costs through 2020, according to the White House.

Nasdaq battered as techs slump

Stocks tumbled Friday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq leading the way down, as investors bet that the strong economic growth seen in the fourth quarter of last year can’t be sustained.

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