Thursday, February 25, 2010

Oil demand rising

This article seems to say that we won't see the wild swings in oil prices that we saw in the 2000s, which is good. Economies can survive and thrive with high oil prices. The thing that kills them is unpredictable oil prices. If this is really the case, it's good news. Also interesting that Daniel Yergin believes that developed countries have hit their peak oil demand, because any further energy growth demand will be satisfied by renewables.

Chinese oil demand is once more growing fast, rebel militants are threatening to attack pipelines in Nigeria, and tensions are again rising in the Gulf. Recent headlines are increasingly making it seem like 2003 all over again.

Now, as much of the world emerges from recession and as geopolitics and threats to energy supplies return to the fore, oil consumption is expected to rebound again, driven mostly by Asia and the Middle East.In recent times, oil has taken a back seat while the world has focused on the recession. As economies slowed, oil demand fell for two consecutive years, the first time that has happened since the early 1980s. 
But the market is better equipped to handle the stresses this time around.
Thanks to the slowdown in energy consumption, OPEC producers now hold an estimated six million barrels a day of spare capacity, equal to roughly 7 percent of current demand, much of it in Saudi Arabia alone. 
Such a cushion should shield the market from the wild excesses of the 2003-8 period, when prices rose as demand expanded, supplies fell, and spare capacity dwindled to a precariously slim level of well under two million barrels per day. 
Yet considerable uncertainties remain. How fast will production drop in many of the world’s more mature regions, including Mexico and the North Sea? Will Russia surprise with another increase in its production this year? How effective will OPEC producers be in managing the market? And perhaps most importantly, how fast will demand grow? 
In large part, the answer to many of these questions lies in what happens next to two countries that will be increasingly crucial in shaping the direction of oil markets well into the next decade: China and Iraq. Each captures the challenges that oil companies, OPEC producers and policy makers face in meeting energy demand and managing global supplies in the long term.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Work - alas

Great quote:

“Opportunity is missed by most because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” Thomas Edison

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Vertical Farming

I've got a client who is thinking about vertical farming, so I've been looking into it. And what better way to introduce the topic than Colbert? (and despite what it says, this video is available and works just fine.)


Monday, February 22, 2010

Chavez is at it again

Working towards civil war? This guy is scary.


President Hugo Chavez's socialist government is creating peasant-based militias throughout Venezuela's rural, agricultural-rich regions, raising fears of confrontation among the country's cattle ranchers and landholders.
The armed groups, organized by Venezuela's military, will be responsible for protecting poor farmers from vigilante groups allegedly organized and financed by cattlemen and wealthy landowners, Chavez wrote in a newspaper column published Sunday.
"Faced with the onslaught against peasants through an escalation of aggressions, sabotage and hired killings by the most reactionary forces of our society, the duty of the state ... is to protect the poor farmers," Chavez wrote.
The newly formed militias will also help the military prepare for a possible foreign invasion, said Chavez, who has repeatedly warned that the U.S. military could invade Venezuela to seize control of its immense oil reserves. U.S. officials deny that any such plan exists.
The government claims that more than 300 peasants have been killed — purportedly by mercenaries for wealthy landholders — since authorities launched a sweeping land reform initiative in 2001.
Landowners and cattle ranchers dispute those claims, saying Chavez's administration is wrongly attempting to vilify them as a means of gaining political clout among the country's poverty-stricken farmers. They vehemently deny hiring vigilantes to drive away or kill peasants, who occasionally squat on their lands or steal cattle. [news.yahoo.com]

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Allegory

I hope that you have all seen the movie Avatar, preferably in 3D.  I've even thought about going back to see the IMAX version.

Most critics said, and I don't disagree, that with such emphasis on 3D visuals, you can't really expect the characters to be three dimensional as well. That aside, apparently the struggle of the Na'vi has been compared to a dizzying number of other causes and trends.


  • Palestinian protesters in the town of Bilin dressed up as Na'avi recently to protest the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.
  • Bolivia's leftist President Evo Morales has praised Avatar as a "profound show of resistance to capitalism and the struggle for the defense of nature."
  • Chinese bloggers have compared the film's story to the exploitation of Chinese citizens by government-backed real estate developers -- a factor that may have contributed to the film being pulled from Chinese theaters.  
  • Activists ran ads in the Hollywood newspaper Variety comparing the Na'avi to India's forest-dwelling indigenous tribe, the Dongria, whose territory is now threatened by a planned bauxite mine.
  • Environmentalists Lori Pottinger compared the story of Avatar to the Brazilian government's plans to build dams in the Amazon Basin.
  • Russian Communists described the film as an attempt to justify Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize. 
  • New York Times columinist Ross Douthat called the movie "an apolologia for pantheism."
  • David Boaz of the libertarian Cato Institute says the movie is about "defending property rights".
  • Last but not least, Cameron himself says the movie is an allegory about the U.S. war on terror

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Utah, cutting back on high school

So, I can't quite imagine a worse way to cut costs than jeopardizing the future by cutting back on education. Although, in some ways you do wonder what we're teaching in high school at all.  100 years ago, it was expected that by the time you got out of high school you actually knew something. My grandfather graduated from a one-room school house in rural Pennsylvania with Greek and Latin and went on to have several patents. I certainly didn't know that much by the time I left high school in a good suburban school district and I imagine that fast-growing Utah doesn't teach their kids as much as I got taught. Now some nutter wants to cut out 12th grade.  What do you think?


Utah lawmaker has proposed a cost-cutting measure to keep high school students from slacking off in their senior year -- eliminate 12th grade.
Utah proposes eliminating 12th grade
A Utah lawmaker says too many 12th graders spend the year "playing around." As part of a cost-cutting measure, Republican State Senator Chris Buttars has proposed eliminating a fourth year of high school statewide.
(Getty Images)
Republican State Senator Chris Buttars earlier this month proposed ditching a fourth year of high school statewide, calling 12th grade a time for "nothing but playing around."
Addressing the Utah State Senate's Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee meeting, Buttars said cutting high school back to three years would save the strapped state $102 million annually.
"You're spending a whole lot of money for a whole bunch of kids who aren't getting anything out of that grade," Buttars said. "It comes down to the best use of money."
Buttars' has since diluted his proposal, saying that eliminating 12th grade should be an option available to students. [abcnews.go.com]

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Troubles in Greece and everywhere

Greece has roughly the population and probably a lower GDP than the City of Chicago, and yet its financial troubles are affecting the US economy. Because there is so much uncertainty about the Euro, the dollar is strengthening, which makes US exports more expensive to the rest of the world.

It looks like Greeks are unwilling to do what it takes to pull themselves out of this mess. The Finance Ministry employees, who, of all people, should understand the severity of the problem and the ways to fix it are on strike, protesting pay cuts. And, yes, George is making sure people know he is Cypriot, not Greek, these days.


A week of labor protests in Greece began with workers from the finance ministry protesting salary cuts as part of the finance minister's ambitious three-year austerity program.
The four-day strike by Finance Ministry officials is expected to affect services ranging from Greece's statistics office to operations at the country's market watchdog, the Hellenic Capital Markets Committee.
At the same time, and more disruptively, thousands of customs officials have declared their own three-day strike starting Tuesday, while tax officials will hold a one-day strike Wednesday.
On Thursday, taxi drivers will also hold a one-day strike, their second in less than a week, while fuel truck drivers have also threatened a walkout for this week.
"What we are protesting is the reduction in wages and also the elimination of the autonomous tax rate enjoyed by ministry employees," said Yiorgos Samaris, president of the Federation of Unions of the Finance Ministry, known as OSYO.
The three-day strike by customs officials is likely to be the most painful strike of the week. The closure of ports and border crossings has sparked fears of crimped exports and imports sorely needed by a country in its worst recession in 16 years. [WSJ.com]

Friday, February 12, 2010

Evil Buzz

As a long-time and devoted gmail user, this news about Buzz is really disturbing. Do I need to change my primary personal email account? What happened to the corporate motto: Do no evil?

Unless you tinker withBuzz's settings, a partial list of your most-emailed Gmail contacts might beautomatically made public (see this post over at SiliconAlley Insider; it appears that contacts are made public to those whoalready had a Google Profile account before Buzz; also seethis excellent andvery angry post at CNet for additional background).
Yes, that's right: without you ever touching Google Buzz'sprivacy settings, the entire world may know who you correspond with (yes,including that secret lover of yours and that secret leaker in the WhiteHouse).
Nevertheless, I am extremely concerned about hundreds of activists inauthoritarian countries who would never want to reveal a list of theirinterlocutors to the outside world. Why so much secrecy? Simply because, manyof their contacts are other activists and often even various "democracypromoters" from Western governments and foundations. Many of thosecontacts would now inadvertently be made public.

If I were working for the Iranian or the Chinese government, I wouldimmediately dispatch my Internet geeksquads to check on Google Buzz accountsfor political activists and see if they have any connections that werepreviously unknown to the government. They can then spend months on end drawingcomplex social circles on the shiny blackboards inside secret policeheadquarters.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Incomplete Manifesto

The Academy for Global Citizenship, a charter school where I serve on the board, is developing a zero net-energy building for our permanent home. We have some great pro-bono work being done by the the OWP/P Architecture firm in Chicago. They're bringing together a huge number of people to collaborate on this project at a meeting later in the spring. One of those is Bruce Mau, who is a frequent collaborator with Frank Gehry. I checked out his web site this morning and came across his Incomplete Manifesto that guides the work of his studio. Some of the ideas are very interesting, and even if you know them already, good to be reminded.

By the way, if anyone has any ideas on who'd like to contribute to a capital campaign for this project, let me know. No idea is too crazy.

11. Harvest ideas.
Edit applications. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid, generous environment to sustain life. Applications, on the other hand, benefit from critical rigor. Produce a high ratio of ideas
to applications.

12. Keep moving.
The market and its operations have a tendency to reinforce success. Resist it. Allow failure and migration to be part of your practice.

13. Slow down.
Desynchronize from standard time frames and surprising opportunities may present themselves.

14. Don’t be cool.
Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.

15. Ask stupid questions.
Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.

16. Collaborate.
The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.

17. ____________________.
Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas you haven’t had yet, and for the ideas
of others.

18. Stay up late.
Strange things happen when you’ve gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you're separated from the rest of the world.

19. Work the metaphor.
Every object has the capacity to stand for something other than what is apparent. Work on what it stands for.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Illinois Politics

A friend of mine recently calculated that, based on the number of unsolved murder cases, an Illinois governor is more likely to go to prison than a murderer. Yep, you heard that right.

And in more Illinois politics news Scott Lee Cohen, who was just chosen as the Democratic nominee for Lt. Governor in the primaries last week, apparently is another criminal-in-waiting. Oh, right, he's actually already pretty criminal. Why didn't we know this stuff 10 days ago?

If the long, long, long list of stories about Scott Lee Cohen are true, he's got the fondness for steroids of a Mark McGwire, the domestic abuse track record of a Charlie Sheen and the eye for hookers of an Eliot Spitzer. But wait! There's more! He's had tax troubles! His ex-wife accused him of adultery! Truly, the Democratic nominee for Illinois lieutenant governor appears the very definition of a Frankendouche. [salon.com]

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Believe it or not...



This, ladies and gentlemen, is the world's most widely-produced, street-legal electric car to date. It's the Sebring-Vanguard CitiCar and was introduced in 1974. [businessweek.com]

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Overturn Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Here's a quote by Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:

“I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens,” Mullen said during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on dropping the archaic “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. “For me personally, it comes down to integrity — theirs as individuals and ours as an institution.”
Bravo! So now when is Obama going to do the right thing? The thing he said he would do when he was campaigning for the gay vote and get rid of this ridiculous policy? As Mullen says, "it comes down to integrity."

Monday, February 1, 2010

Levity & Wisdom...

... from Yogi Berra:

We made too many wrong mistakes.

When you arrive at a fork in the road, take it.

You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I'm not hungry enough to eat six.

You can observe a lot by just watching.

You should always go to other people's funerals, otherwise, they won't come to yours.

You wouldn't have won if we'd beaten you.

You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going, because you might not get there.