E85's Greatest Enemy

All around, some of E85's enemies are making significant advances. Ion lithium batteries are attracting a lot of R&D attention as well as practical application. Hydrogen refuses to fall off the horizon. But more importantly, people are genuinely concerned about the repercussions of food produce resources being applied to car fuel energy. Some have vehemently spoken out against Ethanol and per some reports corn prices have already been influenced while crude oil kept up its creepy crawl to $100/bbl.

However, just recently President Bush and congress signed into law what are being touted as ground breaking rules that will usher in a new era and galvanize us on the path to energy independence and environmental health. One would think this is a great victory for E85 and should keep its fledgling wings fluttering for now. Think again. Firstly, I would not want to look down this President or congress's track record for any validation on sowing the seeds of great ideas or successful execution. But even that is not relevant. No matter the virtuoso of its aptitude, some aspects of life and living are just beyond the domain of government and many a great thinkers like Milton Friedman warned us and vigorously fought to keep our markets and lives free of government intervention. There are places where government should get involved and places where it should not. This is not one of them. This is incongruous. Not congress. Only the free market is conducive to human invention and innovation. Political and bureaucratic entities would do best by staying away. And why would we need the government here? So much is already being done by the free market. After all, there was no government action to prompt manufacturers to start producing fuel efficient cars. For green charters by corporations and companies. For investments into solar technology. And the billions being poured into Ion lithium, hydrogen technology and other bio fuels. What warrant does the government have to start promulgating laws into a domain that is a paragon of the free market system. Not only that, but the rising demand and price for crude oil itself is enough to dictate the course of action.

Government needs to mind its own business for several reasons. Firstly, this is our way of life. Our foundation and principals are based on tapping strength by creating conditions that are conducive for free enterprise to flourish. Not to stifle it by intervention unless this is absolutely necessary. This appears to be a severe, though silent, violation of those principals. Secondly, government is political. It's motives are not based around maximization of profits and the most efficient allocation of capital. Therefore, by sheer force of nature it cannot evaluate the best or even good courses of action. Cronyism tends to be a loathsome by-product when government meddles in business. Even if it was able to make a good judgement and execute it well enough there is the impending risk of interference by rival political succession who may even reverse the course of action and plant it's own ideology.

Now don't get me wrong. I am not anti-government or establishment. But I am all for good perspective. Government can do much to encourage and fund efforts around innovation. And it needs to protect an enduring and founding ideology. If there is any silver lining to this dark cloud then its that in its attempt to regulate innovation government might end up subverting an option that perhaps is not a correct one on the basis of crossing over food resources into fuel.

Further Along the Path

There is plenty of good observation abound.....

Hybrids cars continue to pervade the American automotive landscape. Nissan has made a solid entry with its Altima and Chevy has introducted a hybrid version of its full size Tahoe SUV which can deliver 21 mpg in the city. More and more electric hybrid versions are entering. Annual sales of electric hybrid models are approaching the 500,000 units and further economies of scale will make future models cheaper. The hybrid premium is already lower on the price of a car. The average is now estimated at $1,500 which is lower by 50% from a couple of years ago.

While Ion Lithium batteries remain a distant target the industry appears fairly determined on reaching it and replacing the current standard of Nickel Hydrite.

Toyota is entering the hydrogen fuel cell landscape with its own experimental model pushing up some more confidence in this little understood fuel source.

Bio Diesel seems to be staying firm and I personally hear stories of people filtering used vegetable cooking oil from restaurants and using it in their engines through converter kits.

I personally was witness to a hear warming sight of a hill top house in San Diego surrounded by solar panels. And I saw solar panel installment bill boards in Central California put up there by private enterprise.

And last but not least, crude oil is looking to settle north of $90/bbl while gas prices at the pump are (on average) north of $3/gallon again. At least in this case, I am glad that my own prediction on a lower price for crude oil has fallen apart. The higher prices provides greater financial incentive in alternative fuels. OPEC need not worry. World demand will continue to rise and a great dependency on crude oil will stay for several decades. Even the government of oil-rich Dubai (the most progressive of the oil rich and wealthy Arabia fiefdoms) has entered agreements with firms to convert its taxi fleets and other government vehicles to the hybrid model.

Green Skies ??

Taking a much overdue lift off the ground I took in a lot of air on some hearty green activity in the great blue skies. It came as no co-incidence. I was travelling an inter-continental route and as usual was overly avowed at the wonderous, marvellous and even inscrutable nature of the machinery and mechanics of the jetliner. One leg of my trip was a 14 hour flight on a Boeing 777. Its mind boggling how the engines, these girdling citadels of steel, sustain for so long the raging jet-fuel fires that are hot enough to lift 100 tons off the ground and push it up into the air at 1,500 feet per minute. Just as mind scratching is the amount of energy required to perform such a take off. As a child we lived 3 miles from an airport and I still recall the trenchant roar of the full powered engines as the plane geared for take off. Never did I once hear an engine when planes were landing at minimum thrust (due to descent inertia and lighter fuel load). Hence as an energy enthusiast I honed in on Boeing advertising the 777's energy conscience. Their website states that the 777-200LR (its long range model) uses 6,500 less gallons per flight without giving us the average flying time or the total fuel load for such a flight. The number obviously looks better on its own and so be it. 6,500 gallons after all is 6,500 gallons. Expect the average flying time for the 200LR to be something like 8 hours. The flight I was on was 14 hours but the 200LR has passed a durability test of 22 hours and 42 minutes which by the way is the new world record! The longevity of the flights is an added bonus as by avoiding a re-fueling stop makes the trip more energy efficient (some time gain and avoiding a second full thrust take off and ascent to crusising altitude). Nice going, Boeing. Get it....going....Boeing. Never mind.

Well, that's not all. Another development in the short range flight domain also seems to have taken a turn for the better. Using a jetliner for a 375 mile flight from LA to San Francisco would strike quite a few of us somewhat egregious. How do airlines make it economical? Not exactly sure but airlines to need to switch flights for planes which can mean them flying around without a load or a loss leading flight to cover sunk costs. The average price they charge probably covers the costs of these short range flights on jets. No doubt, people prefer jets and some would pay dearly for them. But not all of us. And not in this 6 billion global population era that can ill afford energy luxuries. Hence, its nice to see a resurgence of twin propellor (props) on short routes. As per a recent article by Newsweek magazine, the new generatin of this not-cutting-edge technology is made to customer order in regards that caused people to shy away from them. Two turbo-props are featured. The Q400 bombardier (featured below) and the ATR 72-500. Both can seat 70+ passengers. Both are reported to consume 30% to 40% less fuel than comparable passenger capacity jets. The Q400 can crusie at 400 mph and has something called an active vibration and noise cancelling system. Here's the best part. The business proposition is hot. Given the fuel savings some regional airlines have started to convert. Worldwide orders for small turbo props (less than 90 passengers) had dropped to a dismal 25 aircraft in 2002 and by 2004 the figure was no better than 48. In 2005 that number shot up to 150 and in 2007 we are at 125 half way through the year. The predominant factor: price of fuel.

I guess we don't really think of the sky as green but a bluer blue may just carry some hint of that awesome GREEN. Its been a while since I have found a worthwhile video to add to one of my blog entries. Here is one which is as much a tribute to the capabilities of the Boeing 777 as it is to the skills of the test pilots who can perform such acts. In this case high cross winds landings with approach angels requiring nerves of steel......

OPEC WARNS WITH A PRICE BACKLASH

OPEC (Oil Producing & Exporting Countries), a consortium of countries in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Venezuela that control 40% of the world's oil supply have stated, out of an act of medieval mentality and childish bickering, that if a large shift is planned out of the petroleum fuel sources by the industrial nations then they will re-evaluate their investments which could lead to a prices 'going through the roof'. A warning! A reaction. Concern and fear. But do not fear, I think they are bluffing. In any case, they are being quite stupid. China, India, the Pacific Rim and other developing companies will keep demand on the up. The alternative fuels are decades from even something like 20% of the market. And by that time the market will be much bigger. If anything, an OPEC act of retaliation will only strengthen the resolve and create more political will to prioritize a larger shift out of petroleum based fuels. OPEC should instead work with the manufacturers and innovators. Do more R & D. Work on making the fuel more potent and cheaper. Make it compete. Play the good game. A spike in the price of gas and other commodities will be very harmful to consumers and economies in the short run. However, it justifies bigger investments in the alternative fuel projects.

OPEC WARNING ON BIO FUELS

I TOLD YOU SO (AS DID HALF THE WORLD)

It can be a brief uplifting experience to see one's predictions come true. That is until you discover that so did half the world's. If you are predicting that the price of some commodity or stock is going to go up or down and so it happened then its likely that half the world was right about it and the other half wrong. Unless you belong to that elitist club of contrarians that shine as rare as the sun does in the city of London. In the world of gas prices these days that ray of sunshine would be even more scarce. Most people knew that gas prices at the pump would rise. To what level? And if they will break $4/gallon in the high-cost-of-living markets is the real game. I think with the Nat'l average this week around $3.15 there really isn't much of a danger over all but some spots in California and trudging perilously close to the psychologically sensitive $4 mark.

Ever since I found my interest in this domain I have been watching the relationship between Gas prices and Crude Oil futures which is quoted in $ per barrell and is the international benchmark for the market price of petroleum. Now, that's whole sale and not the retail that we face everyday. And after wholesale it breaks out into a lot of different types of fuels the largest of which would be the one that ends up in our cars. I have watched countless TV clips of newscaster and energy pundits hacking out the relationship between crude oil and gas at the pump and nothing anyone has ever said really sticks to mind. The relationship is not without its sense of complexity and perplex and why shouldn't it be. We are talking about two different things. Because crude oil encompasses more than just what we see at the pumps and there other elements between raw material and finished product namely refining the relationship is put in myopia. However, crude oil has stayed at or around $65. The high end of the $65 - $45 range I predicted in December of 2006. Which means the range is off and will likely bust. Still I am impressed that it held there for quite some time. Understand that suppliers like Venezuela, Russia and the OPEC block co-ordinate to regulate supply and price.

Also understand that does demand at the pump have a real direct relationship with the price of crude oil? Let's say the sales of HEVs that do 40+ MPG went up to 5 million units per year. Well its not quite that simple. To get a perspective of why that necessarily doesn't change things a whole lot read my blog entry TO LIVE AND TO LEARN. But, as no one can really predict the future, this can still have a profound impact. The production of Nickel Hydride batteries, Ion Lithium batteries and Hydrogen fuel cells will get more efficient. And the level of fossil fuels these production processes consume will lessen. The use of these technologies over the combustion engine may even have a consumption advantage vis-a-vis crude oil. We do know that things will change in the future. At some point, these factors will bear enough, I hope, to impact the price of crude oil lower. Crude oil can already take a few hints:

PRIUS AND CAMRY HYBRID SALES SOAR IN MARCH
TESLA TO PROVIDE BATTERY PACKS TO TH!NK
NEW US ALT. FUEL STATIONS DIRECTORY HAS 2,200 LISTINGS
DUBAI INTRODUCING HYBRID TAXIS

I would still like to make an optimistic and perhaps more contrarian short term prediction. That Crude Oil futures will dip below $60 at least once in 2007 despite a vast and thorough effort by supplying nations to control supply and also refining still under developed.

To be continued..............

Every Dog Has Its Day

If every dog is to have its day then these days the dog would be Toyota. Its not paramount that the company has surpassed General Motors in the volumes of business it conducts. They have been making better automobiles and captured the public's interest and respect well before that. Known for almost unreal dependability and durability the company is now footing itself to dominate the HEV domain - the only type of new-technology vehicle that has any semblance of a real market with expected units sold this year set to test the 300,000 mark. A small number by any standard but one that grew by 52% in Feb 2007 vs. Feb 2006. Total HEV units sold in 02/2007 were 22,998. The Toyota Prius took its share of this performance upwards of 50% and that does not include all the other HEV cars that Toyota sells including the Camry, Highlander and the Lexus models.

If the Prius keeps this up it could well end up being the car that defines a new generation of design and engineering. Despite the fact that its more of a big city phenomenon where gas is expensive and commutes are long, it has never the less demonstrated a popular appeal amongst many classes of drivers including the young (who want to change the world). In California, you can't be driving around in several of its cities without seeing many of them in the course of a day. Upon first glance it comes across as puny and too futuristic in style. Its small and light alright but not as much as you'd think. I see them cruising at 70mph+ every day. The style appeal is somewhat surprising but without much choice in the market it seems to have pulled through. And now that it has sizable and visible numbers on the road the design may spark a new era of car sketching that could start to break away from the status quo. Toyota may be the most successful and robust company today. Its breadth and reach is astonishing when you span through Lexus range of cars. Its the only Japanese economy brand that has broken into the true luxury mind set of the buyer. Infiniti from Nissan ranks a strong second while Honda's Acura has struggled. Lexus commands a spot next to the luxury greats and now I myself have come across several owners who would rank it as a greater feat of quality engineering and luxury modeling than the time-honored German greats.

INERTIA

You gotta have inertia. Whether its in your career. Your passions or hobbies. Self-development. And of course, your automobiles. Well, as far as the cars go you get it without asking. Inertia is all around you. Its central to the physics of your car's gearing system. But taking inertia for granted is not the same as the fun of exploiting it. In my next car decision, whenever that happens, if I don't buy a HEV then at least I hope for a manual shift. It would be a nice break from the rut and a lot more potential to exploit inertia.

Fairly recently I happened to be casually curving through a leisure cruise at a local park moving with the flow at 25mph when it occurred to me. Noticing that at the lower speeds and with some distance from the car ahead fewer full stops were needed even if the car in front stopped intermittently. While the car ahead would sometimes fully stop, with enough distance I could ride out the distance at a slower speed and hope that it would resume its drive without causing a complete loss of inertia. After exiting the park later that day I experimented further on bigger roads. One thing that I noticed almost immediately was that people generally drive hard into a halt probably coming down from 45mph to a stand still within 100 feet. And I am sure all of it would be foot braking (the other option being to use gear braking). Gear breaking is a left-over habit of mine from the good ole manual shift days. Unless I have to reduce speed dramatically I would apply a gear down shift. As my car's automatic transmission has 3rd, 2nd & 1st gear options it allows for more flexibility. I can now, after some practice, bring my 3,200 lbs. vehicle to a full halt from 45mph within 150 feet by using the gear options and a hint of the hand brake right at the end but not a touch on the foot brake. The habit, which my wife finds terribly annoying, also naturally extends the life of the brake pads.

For the purpose of more bang for your petro-buck, the idea is to have to avoid a terribly low speed or a stop at 1st gear so you don't need to build inertia back up. If I spot a red light from afar I will just step off the gas pedal. Most drivers on your tail will know why you are reducing speed albeit a bit early. Some tend to maintain distance while others will move in on your tail with a hint of irritation. But I find that as much as half the time I have employed the tactic I am able to escape the 1st gear and have to re-build up a lot of inertia. Has it helped? Am I getting better MPG? By just looking at the data one can't tell. So much goes into the character of a trip. But by plain logic I don't see why it won't have an impact. I should be improving MPG and buying less brake pads. At 68,000 miles I have had just one change of pads. Now that should reduce fossil fuels usage somewhere.

To Live and To Learn

Its now been 4 months since I started blogging on the subject. A subject that I had researched little into and one with many technical scores. Yet an exciting debate raged and I found myself mindful of the discussion and for ways to improve the efficiency of my own energy consumption. So I picked up on some know-how and with a little bit of common sense went on to start blogging. I also did it to learn about the subject and network with others on it in the hope of picking up some knowledge for myself. And in some ways it has. Well, I was stupid and ignorant enough to sense that shifting into a non-fossil fuel source somehow causes an improvement of resource efficiency. As I saw electric hybrid cars breaking out into the market it gave me the impression that the electric-hybrid version of a car is actually doing more out of the same energy input than its non HEV version. I bought into it. Others did too. Some went out and bought HEVs thinking that. The naked truth is that while there will always be invention and innovation some truths will never change. And one of those truth is that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only be converted or shifted. If your HEV has a nickel hydrite battery then process and resources were expended to put that equipment into your HEV. Hence, unless all the processes and resources can be quantifyed and put into the equation, only then can you size it up and see if your HEV's car battery is producing any real return in terms of efficiency. Given the law of physics I just mentioned it probably is not. Still, such vehicles will gain popularity. Because they suggest efficiency. They support it. And they bring cause and struggle to the domain. Do they have any real value? I believe they do. They will certainly have value in convenience. Less trips to the gas station. Reduced dependence on gasoline. And perhaps even enhanced performance at the lower $ market levels. And the advent of new ways and technologies that breaks out of the mundane. Still, it is important to keep some sight of the fundamentals and principals and not get totally duped by marketing campaigns.

Some fallacies are beautifully crafted. You almost cannot blame anyone for falling into them. The jolly old joker would even argue that you would want to fall into it. One such farcical drollery that I picked up a long time ago is when car salesmen tell you that you can give up the 'cash back' option on a car's purchase price for the 0% financing. But its not 0%. The cash back that you just gave up is the interest. Its added upfront. But its sooooo good that flocks will fall to it till the end of time. Perhaps the one that bothers me the most is the one that accountants perhpas unwittingly sell all the time. In a pre-dinner discussion at a friend's house in north LA last year I watched in horror as one of the guests pounded on the merits of interest only mortgage loans and their whopping benefit in tax deductions. That as a result he was paying far less taxes and just laughing to the bank. Which bank is that? You couldn't convince him otherwise. Especially now that he had bought the loan. The truth is that the only way you get a tax deduction outside of statutes is through expenditure. For this particularly wise man-of-the-world he was only getting a deduction for what he paid out in interest. Just because you got a bigger refund check means nothing. You paid for that refund. Well over.

Anyways, you get the gist. You wanna be green. Stop the car. And walk..........

Link............

A Muddy Milieu

An interesting and somewhat mysterious feature of new technology debate is the viability or productivity aspect. Almost all tooted technologies from electric batteries, electric plug-in, hydrogen fuel cells and bio-fuels are oft attacked that they consume far more energy than they provide. Ethanol takes a barrage of blows for the fossil fuels required to produce it and its voracious appetite for land irrigation while Hydrogen's energy input versus output disproportion gets a vitriolic licking from quarters eager to enlighten the world for how dumb we are for even considering these options. Not even car batteries are spared when the pundits shed their lair. To further muddy the waters we have breaking technologies like ultra-capacitors and synthetic coal. This leaves the layman like myself in a spin who then need to turn to common sense to see what appears to be viable and has surrounding validating factors. A lot of people who possess esoteric knowledge post their technology validation claims rather wantonly on many blogs. And scientists have been wrong about the future as many times a new invention comes around.

Hydrogen suffers from criticisms on the cost in energy of extracting the molecular form and lack of infrastructure that can deliver it. Ethanol and bio-fuels too have large energy value and infrastructure questions. And this fuel lobby is political which does not auger well with market economy principals. Plug-in electrics are criticized for pressuring the electricity system and HEVs are a sag for the cost of battery replacement and the electric drive train.

When I posted a question on Yahoo Answers! (see previous blog) as to which technology could reach some level of pervasiveness in the future most said that Lithium batteries sounded the most promising (upheld by Tesla Roadster fame) and that a distant second would be Hydrogen fuel cells.

In the milieu of breaking grounds don't underestimate the come-back power of crude oil. From observations alone, this natural resource is designed to provide us with energy and for centuries now oil and its many forms have served us remarkably well. Its power will not be easy to overcome. If crude oil slips to $40/bbl a lot of us will have to re-hash our financial and economic templates on sought-after new fuels. For those who question new fuels' net energy contribution after factorting what it costs in terms of electricity and fossil fuels to arrive at the new fuel, one should take the same aim with gasoline. Gasoline is pervasive, accepted and paid for. After exploration, drilling, refining and distribution how upside down would gasoline be? Yet you can place a price on all that with profit and people will pay for it. Economies of scale makes it viable. Wouldn't the same apply to new fuels. I come across comments all the time that why do we purseue Hydrogen fuel cells when the output energy is electricity. Why bother? Why not just work on direct electricity if that is what the end result would be anyway. Well, you have to consider if you can what it will look like after economies of scale. Can electrolysis produce a magnitude of fuel cells that can out perform the production process. The only viable answer that we have right now is that if Chevrolet and Honda have come this far with it then hopefully its more than just a hobby and they seem to think it can.

To Whom Does The Future Belong ?

To whom does the future belong ? In the field of car energy sources there are many contenders. Just take a look below. I recently posted the question on Yahoo Answers! (a Q&A portal with an estimated 30 million visitors a month). Surprisingly, I got more of a response than expected. A small number of answers but one good enough for the top 100 open questions in their 'Cars & Transportation' section. Thought I'd post a link here and if you'd like I would really be interested in knowing your response too.

Competing Alternative Energies

--------------------------------

Car batteries

Bio Fuels

Liquid Hydrogen

Hydrogen Fuel Cells

Ultra Capacitors

Coal based Synthetic or Coal-to-liquid

Other ??

WHICH NEW CAR ENERGY WOULD YOU BET YOUR MONEY ON ??

HEV Next Generation Insight ?

Hybrid Electric Vehicles have become a force to be reckoned with. They span a wide variety of cars from the ultra efficient (50mpg+ Prius) to the ulta powerful (300bhp+ Lexus 450GH). Annual sales of HEVs is approaching 500,000 units. People from all walks of life have embraced it from movie stars to ex-truck owners. And now, the next generation of HEVs may well be ready to be launched with some exciting enhancements. Worldcarfans.com claims to have some insight imagery as well as data on the great expectation: the next generation of the dominant HEV, the Toyota Prius. It won't be any news to a car energy follower that Nickel Hydride battery is being replaced with the Ion Lithium technology (the kind used by the all electric Tesla Roadster). The Ion Lithium charge will lead efficiency expected to aim the 80mpg mark. Horsepower should see a lift due to a bigger 1.8L (currently 1.5) engine and the Ion Lithium. Thank God for that. Still, the most exciting feature of this baby would be the Solar panel roof. Solar is probably the most overlooked energy source and I am surprised that I don't come across more discussions on it. Especially in places like California with its sunny (and smoggy) skies and some 20 million cars.

True? Its a 2008 so we shall know later this year.

THE NEXT GEN TOYOTA PRIUS ??

The China Syndrome

Forgive me but I must digress. I recently was involved in a discussion on an article of misinformation that was doing the rounds. As you can tell by the overture on my website I am a big believer in US innovation and invention. Our trade relation in China is often misconstrued. Things are not quite as they seem. The following is my response and the source article by a veteran journalist, Eric Margolis, who wrote it for Pakistan's Dawn Newspaper is below the response.

My Response:
The article is quite biased and ignorant too. The US has been importing global production for decades, its nothing new. Right after the 2nd WW the US guaranteed an exchange on its currency against gold so that Europe and the world could use USD as practically gold reserves and re-build. It has also been very generous with import tarriffs - also to help stabilize countries by providing economic assistance given the sheer strength of its economy - something that Japan and now China have been unfairly escaping with. The US Fed deficit is a bad thing but it is also complicated. Despite a monsterous deficit, when the global recession hit in 1997, the safe-haven choice to park your money was the US. Particularly, US treasury bills that feed right into the deficit. Japan suffered from a lack of confidence in its economy as the its towering surpluses lead to grave inefficiences in its banking system that reported hundred of billion of dollars in losses. Even Australia tops Japan as an investment choice. The writer himself mentions that if China was to float its currency there would be a run to buy US Dollars. Why is that if China supposedly has a better economic system? This explains that money alone is not enough. The strong trade surplus that China has is directly agains the US meaning that its a product of US consumption of Chinese goods. And not just Chinese goods, American goods produced in China as Americans would rather have the Chinese make them cheaply and focus on hi-tech domains such as Internet, telecommunications, aerospace, semi-conductors, computer chips, capacitators, bio-tech research and others like it. Areas where China is still an outsider. Just because they are sent out to be produced in China does not mean they really made them.
And lastly, don't forget! The entire trade surplus that China and Japan have is almost instantly invested right back in US treasury bills to fund the deficit. There is no real power in this formula. You have a surplus yet your income and employment is dependant on your buyer. The buyer (US) likes it because they can get it done cheap and durable which helps their economics too. Hopefully, this keeps things stable. If anyone has the upper hand, it would be the buyer.
As for western devils, well that's another matter. Perhaps, Eric Margolis could use a lesson or two in finance, economics and history. He seems to be quite apt at devils and demons.


Chinese loans for the US
------------------------
By Eric Margolis

WHILE American voters were finally giving President George Bush and his southern-fried Republican Party a richly-deserved, long-overdue drubbing, I was off in China observing a nation that while rigidly authoritarian, is at least governed by capable, intelligent people. The same, alas, could not be said of the Bush administration that has saddled America with two lost wars, costing over eight billion dollars monthly, soaring budget deficits, and the intense dislike, if not downright hostility, of many people around the world.Here in Beijing for my umpteenth visit since 1975, I’ve seen the future, and it still says, ‘Made in China’. This gigantic metropolis of 25 million seems destined to become the world’s new capitol city — provided China’s economy, still surging at over 10 per cent per annum, remains strong, and political stability continues.Beijing’s massive new skyscrapers, huge government blocks, broad, traffic-clogged avenues and miasma of smog and dust give it the look of an imperial capital in a science fiction film.Recently, China staged a grandiose summit for 48 African leaders summoned to Beijing to receive $10 billion in aid from President Hu Jintao.Energy voracious China now gets 30 per cent of its oil from Africa. Angola just passed Saudi Arabia as China’s leading oil supplier. China is bent on securing the lion’s share of Africa’s supplies of oil and other strategic resources. China-Africa trade has surged 30 per cent to $50 billion in 2003. Interestingly, during the height of the Cold War in the late 1980s, the Soviet Union tried the same strategy, but was thwarted by the CIA and South Africa.China’s non-interference policy in foreign affairs means its trade and aid come without strings, a major plus for authoritarian or boycotted African regimes. But at least China is not hypocritical. While Washington boycotts Sudan and Zimbabwe over human rights, it cosies up to other African nations like Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia that are routinely accused of serious violations by international rights groups.The summit was a lavish spectacle, with convoys of bigwigs in armoured limousines racing down the avenues, dancers, drummers, acrobats, small armies of tough security details, and regiments of China’s feared, ramrod-straight paramilitary police, the Wujing, scowling at everyone.This week, China announced a third quarter trade surplus of US $102 billion. Beijing’s monetary reserves have finally topped one trillion dollars, surpassing the former cash king, Japan. Much of China’s reserves remain in US dollars. Beijing continues to finance America’s spending binge by lending it billions, and keeping its reserves in dollars, though their value is under increasing pressure. Communist China, in effect, continues to prop up the capitalist dollar in the face of growing pressure for its devaluation.China’s mammoth trade surplus, and a rising flood of foreign investment, has swamped the nation’s banks with cash. This, in turn, has fuelled indiscriminate speculative investments, particularly in real estate and factories, and ignited a gold rush frenzy that often obscures China’s solid economic achievements.This flood of hot money poses a serious danger. Indiscriminate investment leads to overproduction, which then causes a deflationary crisis that could end in financial meltdown.China’s government has been struggling without much success to restrain this investment dragon. Beijing refuses, however, to allow its controlled, seriously undervalued currency, the yuan, to float, as its trade partners keep demanding.The undervalued yuan has given China its huge surplus, the motor of growth that has pulled the nation out of poverty. China still needs to deal with hundreds of millions of struggling farmers, state industry workers, and unemployed.So it refuses to allow the yuan to inch up by more than five per cent. If the yuan were allowed to float, say Chinese bankers, people would rush to convert to dollars, causing a dire financial crisis.Who would have ever imagined that it would take Chinese loans to keep the US financial system from imploding?US Republicans would do well to take pointers on capitalism from China’s communists who have beaten the western devils at their own game. — Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2006

Link to Eric Margolis's article in Pakistan's Dawn periodical

Crafty Concepts

Here's a couple of crafty concept cars built on technologies that looks to conserve and looks that seek to tempt. Both are from car companies at the fore front of advancement. Toyota has taken charge of the Hybrid Electric market while Honda's Variable Cylinder Management is a cool mechanism.

Toyota's FT-HS Concept pictured above is a hybrid electric that is likely drawing on the Lexus GH450 3.5L V6 drive-train and will deliver 400bhp as well as 0-60mph in less than 5 seconds with an MPG boast too. The best number may still be the expected less than $40,000 price tag. Times certainly have changed. These figures used to be the domain of for-the-rich-only cars.

Honda has released its 8th generation styling for the Accord Coupe. Honda promises added performance (possibly 300bhp which should be good for 0-60 in less than 6 seconds) and its Variable Cylinder Management (VCM). VCM is a great mechanism that shuts down 2 cylinders in the V6 at higher speeds when due to inertia the extra 2 cylinders are practically worthless. This technology is already available in the 2006 and newer Honda Odyssey models. A hybrid electric version could follow in 2009. Pricing is expected in the low $30,000s.

Crude Oil at $52 (20 month low !)

I wasn't planning on this blog entry. But I am being forced to. Crude oil has dropped to $52 per barrel. A level it hasn't seen since May of 2005. I had recently written about the subject a month ago on December 7, 2006 when it was $10 higher. Naturally, I was pleasantly surprised. I immediately started scooping around to see what the professional reasons would be. It took a while to find a decent bit of reflection but I think I got a pretty good one. Apart from the usual assignment of fundamental reasons, it appears that the strong one is that market bulls have abandoned ship. This is a frequent occurring in financial markets which today consist of more speculative trading than actual buying and selling. When a lot of speculators take a position or bet which becomes popular, things happen if matters don't turn out as expected. The market appeared to be eyeing the $72 peak levels for crude oil and good old OPEC was talking about cutting production to 'stabilize' prices. When the climb was largely resisted at the $65 level people started to get worried. Pretty soon they started unwinding their bets to cut losses or book whatever profit is in the bag. Prices usually tumble in these situations which reach a state of frenzy. And when the frenzy is over, prices will recover somewhat but should be in a sober state.


Gas prices at the pump in the US are yet to follow suit. As per Gasbuddy.com they are only 3 cents lower than a month ago. The average price is in the low $2s. Seems hardly true, doesn't it?

Related:

Why gas prices move like "rockets up and feathers down" at AUTOBLOGGREEN

Natural-gas futures end almost 7% lower
Crude futures fall under $52 a barrel to end near a 20-month low

WHY I BLOG

As the old Chinese saying goes……may you live in interesting times. Better still, interesting times of betterment and advancement. My first blog entry for 2007 is not about alternative energy. Though indirectly it is about alternative energy and everything else. It’s about why I am here and how I got to be here.

All ages would have had their versions of advancement and what passes as captivating and interesting. For our age, Computers and the Internet have got to go down in history alongside Electricity, Telephone, Cars and Planes as a turning point that compelled and propelled us into fundamental change. I feel remarkably fortunate and fantastically gleeful to be part of the age that saw the initiation of the Internet, the blogosphere, the rapid shaping of its young, nascent life and its mighty thrust into our day-to-day lives. I am not one for a broad status quo. I like to see things change and mold. New requirements to compel us. And new ideas, innovation and invention to meet them. Even the invention of a new requirement: things and ways we did not know to be needs for us unless someone showed us a great idea and soon it became a need: much like the internet. I believe that change and innovation is in our nature. And if we don’t receive the compulsion for change then we usually end up inventing it. Nothing is quite as fascinating as engineering an invention or change that fuels a completely new culture or market. One that had not existed before. If necessity is the mother of invention, then desire is its guardian angel. Even the most exciting of alternative car energy may not be in the same class of invention as the motor car itself. Blogging, however, I beg to disagree. Blogging holds inside it a tremendous shift in our world. Its beginnings appear basic enough. Using the internet as a broadcast tools just about anyone with a computer and an internet connection (a figure that I would imagine to be around one billion today) could broadcast their thoughts, journals, essays, articles and what else took to their fancy. A few may have realized at the time that this stood to shake the very foundations of broadcast media itself. Those few would be well rewarded today.

Some 70 years ago, the channeling of Television took its place along side print media in our hearts and minds. Despite what some pundits may be proclaiming at the time, TV never looked to replace print media which is alive and well today. The arrival of TV must have had the generation livid and buoyant at the technological-marvel that could receive transparent signals and convert them into living, breathing images. The vastly superior enhancement over sound signals was fascinating enough and purchase of the wonder box was inevitable for everyone. Soon there after if you didn’t have one then you were just strange and weird. As with print media, TV sought to report, inform, entertain and titillate. But in TV character would not just subscribe to prowess in articulation and style but also appearance, movement and delivery. Given the magical quality of video image few people at the time may have stopped to think over the similarities and disadvantages it carried to print media. Like Paul Graham, the Internet guru, says ‘You don’t realize how bad something is until you have something else to compare it to’. And that my friends, is the kind of invention I am talking about: the Blogosphere. The greatest similarity that TV and print share is their institutionalization. And the characteristic that decision formulation in terms of what programming or articles the subscribers get to choose from will flow mostly top down. Even if this did not happen and let’s say a popular news anchor or writer could sway what stories he or she wanted to cover then instead of the institution we are placed at that person’s disposal who themselves could never exercise with complete detachment from the institution. In either case, the end subscriber has no say in the content that is delivered. Nor can they challenge it in any form or investigate it. This may be the greatest single benefit that internet and blogging bring to the merit and process of the business of media. News has taken up another dimension. Already in motion and soon to dominate: the business of News will continue to be crafted by its makers but not delivered. It will be acquired. News makers will be delivering their contents on to internet portals where the public will choose with a variety of criteria what they wish to receive and view. Not only that, they will rate it on quality, veracity, bi-partisanship and whatever else the community decides upon. Commercial institutions, despite the fact that they perform in a competitive environments do hold some inherent disadvantages. They are run by powerful men and women and while some have benefited from good judgment others have been ruined by a lack there of. Most of these power beings hold terrible egos which inevitable end up clashing with one another at some point to the detriment of all. Large institutions not only have their weight of internal politics but also sway to the political will of influential government figures. All of which are factors that can fly right into the face of efficiency and purity. When such impurities occur they funnel all the way down and right into our living rooms. Print, in fact, may be the purer of the two mediums in the sense that at least it avoids a level of brevity. With a magazine or a newspaper, I can browse and choose which story I would like to read and when I can read it. I can skim over various headlines and headers. Choose the depth to which I want to read a particular story. Options that TV never permitted. Even before TV content was available over the internet I felt the annoying notion that I was stuck with whatever programming was on offer and would miss the shows I really wanted to watch. This must be an arch reason for the success of the TEVO device that allows scores of hours of recorded TV transmission that you can watch at your leisure. The internet promises a whole lot more. In a matter of a few years, the Internet will become the default medium and channel for the distribution and acquisition of Radio programming, music and television programming and even movies (of course theatre will live on unharmed). Google’s $1.65b acquisition of YouTube, which will appear cheap in retrospect, marks the beginning of this awesome future. While Google forges ahead with a portal where aggregators and programmers can deliver material for acquisition, Microsoft with its Vista operating system and Apple with its iTV are laying the ground work for the platform in our homes. There are 2 great prospects here: one is that you see and hear what you want to, when you want to which can be geared to your specific interests. Secondly, we will not be limited to the large institutions and their domination of the airwaves. The brave new world is about to step it up a few notches for the cause of meritocracy and talent promotion. Institutions have done well to search and promote talent but they have carried grave inefficiencies and sins in the process. A large institution that does an overall better than average or better-than-its-competitors job of talent search and promotion can afford for a lot to slip through the cracks. For one thing, layers of middle managers are a problem. An individual writer or journalist may be high on talent and low on form. Such an individual could easily earn the dislike of the recruiting chain. Or sometimes an institution that is largely favored may get bottle necked with a large tide of applicants to join its ranks. Sometimes it will resort to a seemingly cruel process of computers searching through resumes looking for key words and criteria while real talent get shunned down the algorithm circuitry. Unable to absorb the volumes adequately talent easily spills over the wayside. In the new world, the chances of this happening would be far less as individuals have a direct access to the audience. Talented individuals can publish writing, reporting, movie scripts and even video on their own. And their content is fully exposed to anyone who cares to view it. They can generate their audience on their own and get a favorable recruitment response which otherwise may not have occurred.

I can validate a lot of this from my own experiences and of several people that I come into contact with. As the world of blogging and Internet aggregators grew my subscription to Print media and TV news subsided. Most of the time I would be accessing a professional source or news media organization on the internet but I would do it through an aggregator like ‘del.icio.us’ or ‘newsgator’. I can sift through dozens of headlines in minutes and pick only the ones I want. I can then want to go ahead and and check out the blogs on the subject. I can use the news item tags and easily pick out probably 10,000 bloggers on a given subject. Is that a silly thing? NO! That’s good. If there are 10,000 out there some of them are likely to be really good and it don’t take much to find them. For example, I read a number of conflicting reports that conditions in Iraq are either improving or deteriorating. I then have the option of further investigating and looking up blogs of Iraqi villagers in the cross fire or a US soldier in the battlefield. A far more fulfilling and less polluted process than the ghastly and old worldly way of submitting and subverting oneself to the mind and heart of an authority projecting newscaster who really bleeds and bumbles like the rest of us. Ever since the popularity of YouTube and a number of websites following suite I acquire almost all of my news content on the computer while the TV box has taken to a fire-place like back drop item that adds color and sound to the living area. That is less there is a compelling episode of ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ on. I even look to entertainment on the net and follow some YouTubers whom I know will pick out the most hilarious clip out of a talk show or comedy. I would say that with entertainment I watch half the content coming from established institutions and the other half from amateurs. And guess what, the two are competing. Another plus for me cause I can really use the save in time. I don’t have to manage myself to the TV schedule. Another brilliant feature of acquiring your content online is that you can communicate with other viewers/readers by leaving comments. This gives a live critique to content and sometimes people who are too gullible have a chance to save themselves. For me, the old way of sitting down in front of the TV and watching a news personality that is malevolent with its own biases and choices for news now appears so pagan, ignorant, shameful and old worldly that I have a hard time living with the fact how I subverted myself to it all these years. And even believed a lot of it when I shouldn’t have. Despite my apparent distaste for institutional programming, I do get most of my TV news content from these programmers. But using a portal like YouTube allows be to explore a lot of lesser known institutions, international view points and take a look at what the audience really thinks of the content. I love it.

An equally powerful aspect of open distribution and open acquisition is that it allows the smaller player to reach a large audience who otherwise would have been blocked. With equipment and broadcasting capabilities becoming inexpensive and accessible these talented individuals have already started to show promise. Just take a look at the top viewed content on YouTube whether its creative or substantial. I myself have always enjoyed writing. Readership is gratification for any writer. In the past I have sent a variety of material to various publications only to be shunned because it probably wasn’t anything a few hundred thousand people would want to read. But I don’t need 100,000. I may want it. I have the 1,000 or so that I need. Now, all this does not mean that large institutions are gamed out. A lot of them are very good and run by talented individuals. But they will have to respond. And the smarter ones are already doing that. Hewlett-Packard has already inculcating a culture that spews innovation and invention with a bottom up model. In one of their such tactics they set up web sites where researchers can pitch product ideas. Then ‘players’ who may be other employees of the company view all the ideas and put their wagers on which ones will succeed. While ideas are being developed by the researchers, the players trade their wagers. Eventually, the idea with the most buy-in wins. This may be a small part of the institutional framework today but it can only expand.

I think that a lot of the I have put together here things look pretty inevitable because they make such powerful sense. Its not news to a lot of us. It is the reason why I blog.

Following is a speech by Paul Graham from the 2005 Open Source Convention. Paul is an internet entrepreneur and guru and this is a highly relevant and one of the most refreshing speeches I have heard in a long time. The speech was pivotal for me to pursue certain avenues. Check it out…….

Paul Graham OSCON 2005 at IT Conversations