Watch this video summary of the Silicon Valley CEO Summit on oil dependence and alternative energy led by Sass Somekh, who is an IAGS trustee, featuring Set America Free Coalition members Bud McFarlane and Anne Korin:
Committing to do their part
December 27th, 2006Don’t do it, Delhi
December 22nd, 2006Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Shikha Dalmia notes that “India’s Supreme Court earlier this year ordered an extraordinary campaign to close all businesses in the residential areas of New Delhi because they violate the city’s zoning laws against mixed use. But if the court proceeds with this misguided crusade, India’s capital may never attain its “world class city” aspirations. This is the lesson from America, where similar laws contributed to the decay of once-vital core cities and created anemic, sterile suburbs.”
“Decay of once-vital core cities” will mean an increase in the distance people need to drive every day (and the oil they must consume) to purchase their groceries, take kids to school, or commute to work. If you live in a mixed use neighborhood, you can just stroll down the street to your corner grocery.
Dalmia adds,
“the question remains: Will inflicting all this pain and suffering on businesses actually produce a better New Delhi?Some of the businesses might be able to pay the exorbitant rents of newly constructed, Western-style malls and relocate, as the court wants. But the vast majority won’t be able to move, notes Parth Shah, founder of the Center for Civil Society, a Hauz Khas-based think tank that he created by carving out office space in his flat. This is not only a matter of expense; rather, many of these businesses depend on their communities and can’t be transplanted elsewhere. For instance, neighborhood grocery stores will lose their function if they are relocated to a strip mall a mile away. Women who have to balance work with household chores will be unable to stay in business. The upshot will be a net attrition of the economy.
But will this anti-business movement improve the quality of life?In “The Death and Life of Great American Cities,” Jane Jacobs, the brilliant critic of America’s centralized land-use planning, argued that businesses don’t just wither without their neighborhoods — neighborhoods wither without their businesses too. She traced nearly every familiar urban malaise — high crime, social isolation, disintegrating communities — to the loss of business diversity caused by laws banning mixed land use. The very presence of local shops, restaurants and merchants deters crime, she pointed out, vastly reducing the need for formal policing. Furthermore, they draw people out of their homes and onto the streets, creating countless opportunities for social interactions, none of which are meaningful in their own right but together inject what Indians would term raunaq — life and color — into neighborhoods.”
It’s kind of nice to be able to walk to a coffeeshop without having to risk your life crossing an eight lane highway in the middle of a suburban town.
Recent remarks by President Bush
December 22nd, 2006President Bush puts it bluntly:
In my judgment, we’re going to have to get off oil as much as possible to remain a competitive economy.
And I’m looking forward to working with Congress to do just that. I’m optimistic about some of the reports I’ve heard about new battery technologies that will be coming to the market that’ll enable, you know, people who — people to drive the first 20 miles, for example, on electricity. That’ll be the initial phase — and, then, up to 40 miles on battery technologies. That’ll be positive, particularly if you live in a big city. A lot of people don’t drive more than 20 miles or 40 miles a day. And, therefore, those urban dwellers who aren’t driving that much won’t be using any gasoline on a daily basis. And that will be helpful to the country.
I’m pleased with the fact that we’ve gone from about a billion gallons of ethanol to over five billion gallons of ethanol in a very quick period of time — mainly derived from corn here in the United States. But there’s been great progress and we need to continue to spend money on cellulosic ethanol.
That means new technologies that will enable us to use wood chips, for example, or switch grass as the fuel stocks for the development of new types of fuels that will enable American drivers to diversify away from gasoline.
Russia to Georgia: Pay up, or freeze
December 22nd, 2006“Russia’s state-controlled natural-gas monopoly threatened to cut off supplies to Georgia if it doesn’t agree to a more than doubling in the price of gas imports. OAO Gazprom asked Georgian authorities to finalize the amount of Russian gas imports they want for next year at €178 ($235) per 1,000 cubic meters, or risk receiving no gas at all, Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said.
Georgia, which now pays €83, has accused Russia of using energy resources as “political blackmail” and as a means of punishing the small, ex-Soviet republic for its efforts to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Russia denies the charges, saying the price is similar to what it charges other European consumers.” AP
Ahmadinejad’s plan to subvert sanctions
December 22nd, 2006excerpt from a recent oped by Gal Luft and Anne Korin:
What do you call a world leader who faces a strategic threat stemming from his country’s energy dependence and introduces a crash program for energy independence that taps into his country’s domestic resources?
Ahmadinejad.
With 43 percent of Iran’s gasoline imported, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad knows that a comprehensive gasoline embargo could cause social unrest that could undermine his regime. In response, he recently announced a three-part crash program for energy independence.
One tenet of the plan is massive expansion of the country’s refining capacity. While no refinery has been built in the United States in decades, Iran’s refinery infrastructure is undergoing one of the world’s fastest expansions, including the construction of two large new refineries.
A second pillar is to secure imports of refined products from Venezuela, one of Iran’s staunchest allies against the West.
The third, and most innovative, part of the plan is to convert Iran’s vehicles to run on natural gas rather than gasoline within five years. Iran has the world’s second-largest natural-gas reserve after Russia – 16 percent of the world’s total – which guarantees an uninterrupted supply of cheap transportation fuel for decades. The cost of conversion of both the cars and refueling stations is heavily subsidized by the government.
To read the full IAGS report on Iran’s strategy to subvert sanctions, click here.
Enter the dragon
December 22nd, 2006Chicago Tribune: “China had enough oil to sustain itself just 15 years ago. Now it is one of the world’s thirstiest oil addicts, importing 40 percent of what it needs. Only the U.S. consumes more. [...] “You have two powers competing over the same sandbox,” said Gal Luft, a China expert with the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security in Washington. “As a country of China’s size grows, there will be a moment when the moment of reckoning comes.” “
Doing business, Saudi style
December 18th, 2006The short version:
1. The British were investigating a 60 million British Pound slush fund set up to bribe Saudi princes into buying British military jets.
2. Saudis got mad. Saudis said they’ll call off the 10 billion Pound deal unless the investigation is called off by, well, yesterday and buy French planes instead.
SURPRISE!
and now, for something completely different
December 13th, 2006Jim Woolsey, former Director of the CIA and a founding member of the Set America Free Coalition, rocks on with Jeff “Skunk†Baxter of the Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan.
Source: Pajamas Media
Good plug in news!
December 13th, 2006The Dept. of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory reports that there is sufficient spare “off-peak” electricity production and transmission capacity tofuel 84 percent of the country’s 220 million vehicles were they plug-in hybrid electric vehicles: “We were very conservative in looking at the idle capacity of power generation assets,” said PNNL scientist Michael Kintner-Meyer. “The estimates didn’t include hydro, renewables or nuclear plants. It also didn’t include plants designed to meet peak demand because they don’t operate continuously. We still found that across the country 84 percent of the additional electricity demand created by PHEVs could be met by idle generation capacity.”
In the meantime, big kudos to the Senators and Representatives, led by the co-sponsors of the bipartisan Vehicle and Fuel Choices for American Security Act, who sent letters to the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) asking them to work together toward allocating $90 million in budget year 2008 to speed the commercialization of plug-in hybrids. Click to view the House and Senate letters.
Does this sound like a free market to you?
December 5th, 2006A government negotiates with a group of governments over price and allocation of a resource.
Private companies own about 6% of this resource, the rest is owned by government controlled companies.
Could it possibly be more clear that the oil market is not free?