Archive for February, 2008

Lesson of the Day

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

By David L. Brown

According to an article in the New York Times online edition today, some experts predict gasoline will hit four dollars a gallon by this Spring. The comments were based on the fact that crude oil closed today at $100.08 a barrel, an all-time closing high that firmly puts the world price of oil above the one hundred dollar mark. According to The Times:

On Tuesday, diesel prices rose to a record $3.60 a gallon, compared with $2.62 a gallon last year.

For a decade, rising oil prices had failed to dent global economic growth. In the United States, consumers absorbed the higher costs thanks to easy credit and rising prosperity, while in developing countries, government subsidies helped ease the pain. The rise in energy prices was a result of growing demand around the world.

The price of oil has quadrupled in six years, and Tuesday’s close was not far below the inflation-adjusted all-time high set in April 1980, after the Iranian revolution. That record, $39.50 a barrel, equals $103.76 in today’s money.

We have been talking about oil here at Star Phoenix Base for a long time. I was introduced to the subject in-depth about 15 years ago by my fellow author Val Germann, and no doubt he will have something to say about this latest news. What he introduced me to back in the early 1990s was the Hubbert Curve, a classic bell curve which predicted that oil supplies would eventually peak and then decline. In fact, according to the Hubbert Curve, they were seen to peak … right … about … now! As indeed they are doing.

The Times decries the fact that the rising oil prices come at a bad time for the economy, as if this were just some unfortunate coincidence. In fact, that is rather like putting dessert before the main course. The steadily rising price of petroleum, which is at many times its historic price relative to other commodities, lies at the root of the problem. Our economy is wide open to dire difficulties precisely because it is so completely reliant upon an ever increasing flood of petroleum — a flood that is turning into a faltering flow.

Well, the economy probably deserves what it gets, because for many of us who were paying attention, and based on Dr. M. King Hubbert’s work more than a half century ago, the situation in which we find ourselves should be no surprise. We have had decades to prepare for this and we have royally squandered the opportunity, particularly here in the U.S. where we as a nation have steadfastly continued to build gas guzzling cars and energy inefficient houses and to use oil and its many products as if there were no tomorrow. Now, there well may be “no tomorrow,” at least for the world as we know it.

There is a simple everyday word to describe what we, collectively, have engaged in concerning our energy future. Come on, class, let’s spell it all together: S-T-U-P-I-D-I-T-Y. Right, stupidity. That shall be our text for today.

Of course, things are never that simple and as always we must factor in greed, ignorance, and even fundamentalist ravings about the riches of the Earth as a gift to humankind from some all-wise deity, ours to use as we wish before going to our heavenly reward. But in the end, stupidity is as good a word as any to describe the situation.

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Posted in Age of Oil, Economics, Essays and Opinion | 1 Comment »

Science and the Thought Police

Sunday, February 24th, 2008

By David L. Brown

Is the probing light of science being dimmed in the interest of political expedience? Several ominous examples suggest a continuing effort on the part of government appointees to prevent scientists from speaking freely and openly.

The role of science is to answer questions relating to nature and, in its applied form, to find ways to benefit humanity. History is filled with examples of discoveries that changed the world. A key element of the scientific method is that it must be open and allow findings to be checked and re-checked by qualified individuals. But growing numbers of government scientists are complaining of being muzzled by political “handlers.”

This has been especially true in regard to findings about climate change. One top expert on the subject, James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute, refused to be silenced and has defiantly spoken out on global warming. He got away with it because of his courage and the strength of his reputation, but many lesser lights have been dimmed or extinguished, in some cases forced out of their jobs as the penalty for speaking “inconvenient truths”.

Here is another example. Dr. Richard Carmona served as the U.S. Surgeon General from 2002 until he resigned in 2006. During testimony before a Senate committee last summer, Carmona charged that Bush appointees engaged in political interference on key issues such as stem cell research and the use of contraception. The nation’s top doctor was unable to freely speak his mind on matters concerning human health.

According to a Reuters news report, he told the Senate committee: “Anything that does not fit the ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried.”

He added: “The problem with this approach is that in public health, as in a democracy, there is nothing worse than ignoring science, or marginalizing the voice of science for reasons driven by changing political winds. The job of surgeon general is to be the doctor of the nation, not the doctor of a political party.”

Dr. Carmona also said that he had been instructed to mention President Bush three times on every page of any speech he gave. We can assume that those references were expected to be laudatory rather than critical.

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Posted in Essays and Opinion, Politics | 1 Comment »

Lake Mead May Run Dry in 6 to 13 years

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

By David L. Brown

According to scientists at the Scripps Institute in San Diego, the vast reservoir behind Hoover Dam may run dry by the year 2021, leaving the rapidly growing city of Las Vegas, Nevada without water to sustain itself as well as the hydroelectric power produced by the dam. In all, 25 million people depend on the lower Colorado River system for water and power. Since 2000, Las Vegas has been the fastest growing metropolitan area in the United States
Readers of my novel The Star Phoenix may recall a description of this very scenario, in which Lake Mead has become an empty waste of mudflats and the once-vibrant gambling city abandoned to encroaching desert. Once again, fiction threatens to become fact.

According to the Scripps report, there is a 50 percent chance that Lake Mead will run dry by 2021, and a 10 percent chance that will occur even sooner, by 2014. The projections are based on the continued severe drought conditions that have plagued the Southwest for several years and the amount of water used by humans. Further upstream the second main reservoir of the Colorado River, Lake Powell, is also shrinking. Besides Las Vegas and surrounding areas of Nevada much of Arizona also depends on the waters from the Colorado River reservoirs.
According to a story by the Associated Press about the Scripps report,

“We were stunned at the magnitude of the problem and how fast it was coming at us,” said marine physicist Tim Barnett, who co-authored a paper examining the fate of Lake Mead. “Make no mistake — this water problem is not a scientific abstraction but rather one that will impact each and everyone of us that live in the Southwest.”

Water shortages worldwide are a major threat to civilization in the near future. There are many factors, including the rising demand for water by irrigated agriculture and growing population numbers. Ongoing climate change is affecting weather patterns and most models show that the Southwestern U.S. along with many other areas of the world can expect reduced rainfall in the future.

Water, as some have noted, will likely become “the oil of the 21st Century.” I disagree to some extent with that statement, because it seems apparent to me that food will be the most critical limited resource to take the center stage in the continuing environmental decline of our planet. To the extent that water is without doubt the most important input for food production, then the statement is correct. (For more on this see my essay “Water Shortages Threaten World with Famine,” posted here on October 3, 2006. Use the search field at upper right to find that and other previous articles.)

The vision of a dry and dessicated Lake Mead, especially in such a near future time, bodes very ill for the future of the Southwest. Here in New Mexico where I live near the banks of the Rio Grande River, we are equally concerned about future water supplies. However, the situation for those who depend on the waters of the Colorado River is particularly grim.

In the face of developing disasters such as this, still, there are those who continue to deny that global warming and the resulting climate change are real. Ignorance, alas, provides temporary comfort to those who lack knowledge or persist in denying the dire threats of these environmental changes.

Posted in Climate Change | Comments Off

Agricultural Boom Is Misguided Policy

Saturday, February 9th, 2008

By David L. Brown

According to a report in the current issue of the magazine Agri-Marketing, 2007 saw record U.S. net farm income of $87.5 billion, “buoyed by booming demand of crops for biofuel production and record exports.” This is being viewed as good news by the farm industry, but I must add my note of warning that this may be setting up the ag sector for another boom-to-bust cycle.

According to the news item, the 2007 net income figure was up by nearly 50% over the previous year, and $30 billion more than the ten year average. The magazine reported that “land and cash rent prices are at record levels.”

Other “good news” included the fact that farmers planted 93 million acres of corn last year, causing sales of products and services by agri-businesses to skyrocket. These included seed, fertilizer, crop insurance, fuel, tractors and combines.

Finally, the magazine gloated about the fact that the new energy bill crafted by our wise and generous Congress “includes the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) which mandates the use of nine billion gallons of ethanol in 2008,” and scheduled to rise to 36 billion gallons by 2022. (Half of that is supposed to come from non-grain sources such as switchgrass but it could still represent 18 billion gallons from feed grains, an increase of 375% compared with the 4.8 billion gallons produced in 2006.)

Well, the problem with all this is that the whole scenario is unwise and unsustainable for several important reasons, including these:

• Biofuels made from corn and other food crops are only economically viable when the price of crops and petroleum are in a favorable ratio. Cheap corn and high oil prices make ethanol production profitable. But even though oil prices have spiked as high as $100 per barrel, demand by the exploding ethanol business has driven grain prices far above their historic range. Corn, the primary grain used in ethanol, has jumped to more than $5 a bushel in futures markets, up from a historic range close to $2. The cascading effect on other grains has taken wheat futures to more than $10 per bushel and soybeans to above $13. The potential profit from ethanol is seriously diminished as corn prices remain high.

• The future for alternative feedstocks such as switchgrass is in question. First, we do not yet have the technology to efficiently produce ethanol from so-called “cellulosic” sources. Second, farmers and the transportation infrastructure are not equipped to efficiently handle such materials. Third, even if we grow alternative crops for energy production, that will either take land out of production for feed grains or put into production marginal lands that would better be left in pasture, rangeland or forest.

• World food demand continues to climb and food scarcity is becoming widespread around the globe. Those nations that can afford to buy the dwindling amounts of available grain will continue to bid up the price against ethanol producers, while other nations face famine and food riots. This is creating a gathering economic and geopolitical train wreck as ethanol distillers and consumers around the world compete for the precious foodstuffs. Grain exports last year may have yielded more income, but due to rising prices rather than increased volume. This is creating a have vs. have-not crisis in world food security. Aid agencies are caught in a pinch when fixed budgets force them to reduce the amounts of food they can purchase for their programs.

• The ethanol phenomenon is a political issue that has virtually nothing to do with seeking solutions to energy needs. The U.S. government subsidizes ethanol to the tune of 51 cents per gallon, which is equal to $1.43 for each bushel of corn used to make the faux fuel. This government largess has nothing to do with assuring our nation’s energy supply, but is in fact pork barrel spending aimed at providing windfalls to farmers. We used to pay farmers not to grow crops; now we are paying them to grow crops for the wrong reasons. And if you think the people who are investing in ethanol production are doing so out of selfless concern, think again. They’re in it for the money with dollar signs in their eyes.

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Posted in Agriculture Issues, Economics | Comments Off