Where Poppies Would Not Grow.

(To Mark the 90th anniversary of the end of "The Great War").

At the cenotaph we stand

amid the chill; clocks ticking;

hands touching watches, then

thrust back into pockets.

Amid the blood-red symbols

we forget the meaning of.

Flowers that only bloom

in unrested ground; turned-

over, the shell-shocked furrows,

and craters filled with snow;

into a blaze of neglected

and sad glory that is forever lost.

Three old men, who have

passed their century of days -

not long now to shed more tears.

Comrades and even children gone,

such is their destiny to survive

until they are become dust, in still fields,

where poppies would not grow.

Nukes Buried in Your Backyard?

I have commented previously on the idea of "mobile" nuclear reactors, that could be fuelled by uranium or by thorium, and delivered on the back of a lorry to wherever they are needed. The reality of such power-plants, "smaller than a garden shed", has been endorsed by the Los Alamos government lab. which also developed the first atom-bomb. Each unit is expected to provide electricity for 20,000 homes, and they are safe! The small-scale reactors will be sealed at source, will not contain any weapons-grade uranium, have no moving parts and since they will be incarcerated in concrete and buried underground, impossible to steal.

The US government has issued a license to a company, Hyperion, based in New Mexico, which has already taken its initial orders and aims to begin mass-production within five years. Hyperion's intention is to produce electricity at a price of 10 cents per Watt "anywhere in the world". The cost is anticipated to be $25 million per unit, and for a community of 10,000 homes, that amounts to a competitive $2500 per household.

Hyperion, in Greek mythology, was one of the Titans - sons and daughters of Uranus (sky-god) and Gaia (Earth-goddess) - who lost the war with the Olympians ("The War of the Titans") and were subjugated by them. Their despair at this fate was the subject of a poem by John Keates:

"These crystalline pavilions, and pure fanes,
Of all my lucent empire? It is left
Deserted, void, nor any haunt of mine.
The blaze, the splendour, and the symmetry,
I cannot see – but darkness, death and darkness." ...cheery stuff, isn't it?

The first 100 definite orders are mostly from oil and electricity companies, but Hyperion is also focussing its marketing toward developing countries and isolated ("off-grid") communities. The company plans to build three factories which their business-plan holds will manufacture some 4,000 "mini-nukes" between 2013 and 2023. A Czech company, TES has "ordered six units and optioned a further twelve", of which the first would be sited in Romania. There are additional talks underway with the Caymen Islands, Panama and the Bahamas.

The mini-nukes are said to be "only a few metres in diameter", and will be delivered by lorry, needing to be refuelled every 7 - 10 years. There are no design-safety issues expected because the type of reactor has been used "by students" for 50 years without incident. An application to go ahead is expected to be submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2010.

John Deal, the CEO of Hyperion, said:

"You could never have a Chernobyl-type event - there are no moving parts. You would need nation-state resources in order to enrich our uranium. Temperature-wise, it's too hot to handle. It would be like stealing a barbecue with you bare hands."

Toshiba has been exploring the utility of 200 kW reactors of dimension six metres by two metres, which are intended to power smaller numbers of homes over a more extended time-period, and it is thought they could power a single building for 40 years. Clearly, if this mini-nuke technology does go ahead it is potentially a competitive business.

Related Reading.
"Mini nuclear power plants to power 20,000 homes." By John Vidal.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/09/miniature-nuclear-reactors-los-alamos

Oil Gap Greater Threat than Terrorism.

Professor Sir David King said famously that global warming is a greater threat than terrorism. This was in the context of a perceived need to install new nuclear power, which many claim is "carbon free". It isn't quite, not when all the factors of uranium mining, concrete production etc. are costed-in, but overall, the technology does produce less CO2 than coal or gas-fired power stations. Presuming that it is true that rising levels of atmospheric of CO2 will cook the planet, it might be conceived that more lives will be lost to global warming than to actions by terrorists.

There is a more immediate and actually connected problem and that is the splitting seam between the demand for oil and the amount of it that can be recovered at a daily rate. It is thought there are some 1.2 trillion barrels of crude oil in the ground to be recovered, but it is the rate of recovery (sometimes called "conversion") that determines the viability of a resource, rather than its total unrecovered volume. The impact of a supply-demand gap will be felt more immediately than that of climate change. Indeed, some producers may decide to withhold oil from exports to satisfy their own needs, thus conferring an oil-famine on importing nations such as the US and UK. This would be good for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, but at the same time destroy entire national or continental economies in the process. A price too high, one might think.

A looming energy crisis, when oil prices rise to and above the $150 barrel level of last summer (more than twelve times the price in 1999), is the more immediate threat to national security, with fuel prices soaring back above the £1.20 litre that has hit many industries, including haulage with a knock on influence on the costs of practically all goods. The UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security, which is an alliance of eight companies drawn from across the national economy, has warned of an end to cheap oil by 2013, in accord with the prognostications of most oil analysts. The peak will certainly be with us by then, biting hard on the tail of supply, thus widening further the gap with demand; that is, if the world economy has not fallen into major recession, or depression during the next five years, which it might.

Last week, OPEC announced its intention to cut production by 1.5 million barrels a day, having been persuaded by the West to up its output of oil because of the summer prices which the latter said it could not bear and keep its economies afloat. The latter relative surfeit of oil, combined with the credit crunch and economic downturn with a fall in demand for oil has forced an artificial plunge in the price of oil to around $60 a barrel with an according loss in revenue to the OPEC nations.

The geological factors of peak oil mean that this is a temporary halt in an inevitable and relentless overall upward trend in the price of crude oil and this will hit the world economy hard. As oil becomes more expensive, the rate of inflation will be forced-upward, as the costs of manufacturing and distributing all goods rises. Will Whitehorn, the Chairman of the Taskforce said:

"The first report of the Taskforce is a balanced look at the energy risks and opportunities we face. It is also a wake-up call to the urgent actions required by the UK and other major global economies to overcome the consequences of the end of the era of cheap oil.

"The current financial and economic crisis provides a real opportunity to the British Government to lead the world in renewable investment whilst the oil and other commodity prices remain suppressed in the short term by weaker demand."

Nice to see there is an "opportunity" rather than blind panic and imminent societal collapse. If only we had been thinking this way 30 years ago, but sadly I doubt there is enough time left to come up with much in the way of renewables - particularly not to substitute oil-based transport with - unless one accepts the longer paradigm of electric vehicles run on renewable electricity, but that will take much more time to implement. That last statement about "renewable investment" does sound like a sales-pitch, laudable though it may be, and a fall in demand for oil due to the cancellation of projects due to lack of funding from banks too nervous to lend money, is not encouraging that there is much time left for opportunity to be reaped. Even at best, we have 4 years (until 2013), and that is not long enough to do much, except to learn to use less energy, especially oil.

The most immediate threat to human civilization is the lack of cheap liquid fuel for transportation, for which there is no alternative to oil, certainly not on the scale of around 20 billion of the 30 billion barrels of oil the world's nations gets through every year to keep their populations mobile.

Once again, the dawn of a relocalised (less transport-intensive) global society is indicated... and soon, whether we like it or not.

Related Reading.
"Oil shortage 'bigger threat to UK than terrorism'". By David Millward.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/oilprices/3278934/Oil-shortage-bigger-threat-to-UK-than-terrorism.html

Cheap Oil Will Not Last Long.

The recent slump in the price of a barrel of oil to less than half its peak of almost $150, last July, has caused those of a more cornucopian persuasion to crow, "so where have all the peak oil enthusiasts gone now?" This is a tragically mistaken point of view, which assumes, as economists often do, that the markets control everything and that low prices mean abundance of a particular resource. Hence following this line of thinking, everything is now hunky dory.

Of course it is far from that - by the way, congratulations to President Obama for his landslide victory, having secured about two thirds of the "college votes", although he will have an unenviable job on his hands to resolve the many issues facing the United States and indeed the world - since we are still shuddering in the nakedness of the Emperor's Clothes that the world financial system has been shown to be. Cold winds still blow and accordingly, the cheap oil has arisen from reduced demand in consequence of a fall in economic activity. Scared banks won't lend to each other or to businesses and the world is still relatively flush with oil as a result of OPEC producers having been persuaded to up their output to get oil prices down, otherwise the West particularly would face economic debilitation, and the producers too, once their western customers could no longer afford to buy oil from them.

Well, we have seen a crash, really it was a case of the proverbial straw breaking the financial desert animal's back - the massive oil prices of just a few months back, pushed up the load on a financial system that was already shaking at the knees of its burden, and clothed only in the fabric of credit. In short, if accounted for in terms of real solid collateral, there is more money on the world's books than actually exists, hence a levelling-down of the stockmarket probably to somewhere nearer reality. The global economy must restore faith that more institutions will not unexpectedly collapse, and get money back into its true role which is "currency" to oil the wheels of commerce.

Some independent analysts have predicted that oil will stay below $100 a barrel while the world continues to sort itself out amid the fallout of the credit crash. However, the amount of oil being produced still runs close to the demand for it, and hence we are at a proverbial tipping point, where the balance could weigh in either direction. Personally, I don't see any likelihood that it will tip towards cheaper and cheaper oil, because of the geological reasons of the nature of oil wells and that many are becoming increasingly exhausted (or will become so during the immediate time to come) , and it will be harder and more costly to recover oil from them.

The only phenomenon that could keep oil prices down for any significant period is a worldwide and protracted recession, so closing the gap of demand against supply. Eventually this must open-up again, as we get through more oil and to the tipping point of world maximum (peak oil) output. Both the Chinese and Indian economies are roaring ahead but I note that neither are immune from the credit crunch, and China has seen a downturn of around 9%. Simply, if the West can no longer (or is very cautious to) buy their cheap manufactured goods, there will be no incentive to make them. Hence a downturn in these economies seems inevitable.

I sometimes think that the machinations of globalisation are something like a group of mountaineers attached to a single rope, with all being similarly tied together, beit banks, business or the economies of entire countries or continents - if one slips, the team can take up the strain and all may still make it to the top, but if a few of them fall, they all do. By design or default the winding-down of the global machine is at hand, and I suspect it will be by default because who will be brave enough to call a halt to their own part in its march, unilaterally? That would simply be like cutting oneself free of the rope and jumping off the mountain, and no one is that altruistic... or foolhardy.

Related Reading.
"Oil executives, political leaders say decline in oil price will not last." By Adam Schreck, chicagotribune.com, (November 5th). http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-ap-ml-gulf-oil,0,5975386.story

Small is (Still) Beautiful: A Tribute to E.F.Schumacher.

E.F.Schumacher looks to be proved right about oil after all. In his forward to the edition of Small is Beautiful (SIB), reprinted in 1993 and 20 years after the original, Jonathon Porritt discusses how E.F.Shumacher’s original thoughts and contemplations have unfolded in fact since then. He stresses particularly the essay on Buddhist Economics, and that the underlying principles are still true, i.e. the proverbial system endorsed by the subtitle of SIB, “...a study of economics as if people mattered.” This remains and will ever be applicable and must be the true aim of any sustainable economic system, not only from the moral perspective of equanimity and fairness, but for the simple reason that the capitalist ideology of limitless growth and expansion, as accounted by compound interest, is a nonsense. Agreed, it has worked certainly for the rich nations for over two hundred years, but that is only because the exhaustion of ultimately limited resources was a long way off. This is no longer the case, and it is becoming relentlessly clear that many of the resources which we take for granted have by now been used-up in significant proportion; sufficiently so that even if their end is not in sight, the rule of economics is being felt by huge price-hikes, for example in metals, oil and gas. There is a knock-on from this too, which is that the price of food has soared during the past couple of years, both because the cost of producing oil, which underpins most of modern mechanised agriculture is increasing, and that the world population and its aspirations has elevated to such an extent that the resource of arable land now has its limits in our sights. Changes in land use too, for example its conversion of purpose from crop land to golf courses, have impacted on this scene as populations become more affluent, as is their habit of consuming more meat, which requires more land to produce than is the case for an equivalent calorific value of vegetables. Living creatures obey the second law of thermodynamics, as do their inanimate counterparts, and energy losses are to be expected in the conversion of all forms of energy from one to another. Thus only one third of the energy in coal is recovered in terms of the energy of the electricity output when it is used to fire a power station, and the amount of energy recovered in meat from an animal that has grazed a given quantity from energy from grass, is far less than this. Porritt states that Shumacher was wrong about one thing, and this is the aftershock of the “oil crises” that beset the industrialised nations in the 1970s. The causes of the oil shocks at that time were political . In 1973, the largely Arab OPEC nations decided to punish the U.S. for its support of Israel in the Yom Kuppur war. To Effect a suitable castigation, the supply of oil was reduced by 5%... this caused a price spike of 400%. In 1979, the war between Iran and Iraq resulted in a similar loss of oil to the world markets and its price soared in similar degree. As Porritt surmises in SIB: “On some other issues, however, his views have not weathered quite so well. Like every other environmentalist writing in the early seventies, Schumacher was convinced of the imminence of serious oil shortages and deeply fearful of the economic and social dislocation that these would cause. Twenty years on [1993], the emphasis now is not on oil running out (current resources will almost certainly last at least until the middle of the next century), but rather on the environmental damage that will be done if they continue to be used up at current rates.” Now this is most telling. Even fifteen years ago, neither peak oil nor global warming were on the public radar. It was global warming that first hit the headlines toward the end of the 1990s, and more recently peak oil, although the first warnings of it were made in the mid 1950s. The two ills go hand in hand and the cure is the same for both, i.e. to burn less fossil carbon in the form of oil since this is the most vulnerable resource. The oil companies were certainly of the opinion that we had plenty of oil left and enough to last until the mid-00's. Now it seems clear that cheap oil will run-out long before then, albeit hydrocarbons will still be produced in quantity by various means in 2050, but at increasing cost and in a supply less than we need to maintain current western lifestyles. In the latter regard of an "oil crisis", Schumacher may be proved right after all. While the event was postponed by a few decades, the economic logic still applies.
Related Reading.
"Small is Beautiful," E.F.Schumacher, Vintage Books, London, 1993.

Thank you for contributing your translation suggestion to Google Translate. Porritt states that Shumacher was wrong about one thing, and this is the aftershock of the “oil crises” that beset the industrialised nations in the 1970s. The causes of the oil shocks at that time were political . In 1973, the largely Arab OPEC nations decided to punish the U.S. for its support of Israel in the Yom Kuppur war. To Effect a suitable castigation, the supply of oil was reduced by 5%... this caused a price spike of 400%. In 1979, the war between Iran and Iraq resulted in a similar loss of oil to the world markets and its price soared in similar degree. As Porritt surmises in SIB: “On some other issues, however, his views have not weather quite so well. Like every other environmentalist writing in the early seventies, Schumacher was convinced of the imminence of serious oil shortages and deeply fearful of the economic and social dislocation that these would cause. Twenty years on [1993], the emphasis now is not on oil running out (current resources will almost certainly last at least until the middle of the next century), but rather on the environmental damage that will be done if they continue to be used up at current rates.” Now this is most telling. Even fifteen years ago, neither peak oil nor global warming were on the public radar. It was global warming that first hit the headlines toward the end of the 1990s, and more recently peak oil, although the first warnings of it were made in the mid 1950s. The two ills go hand in hand and the cure is the same for both, i.e. to burn less fossil carbon in the form of oil since this is the most vulnerable resource. The oil companies were certainly of the opinion that we had plenty of oil left and enough to last until the mid-00's. Now it seems clear that cheap oil will run-out long before then, albeit hydrocarbons will still be produced in quantity by various means in 2050, but at increasing cost and in a supply less than we are used to currently. In the latter regard, Schumacher may be proved right after all." type="hidden"> We'll use your suggestion to improve translation quality in future updates to our system. In his forward to the edition of Small is Beautiful (SIB), reprinted in 1993 and 20 years after the original, Jonathon Porritt discusses how E.F.Shumacher’s original thoughts and contemplations have unfolded in fact since then. He stresses particularly the essay on Buddhist Economics, and that the underlying principles are still true, i.e. the proverbial system endorsed by the subtitle of SIB, “...a study of economics as if people mattered.” This remains and will ever be applicable and must be the true aim of any sustainable economic system, not only from the moral perspective of equanimity and fairness, but for the simple reason that the capitalist ideology of limitless growth and expansion, as accounted by compound interest, is a nonsense. Agreed, it has worked certainly for the rich nations for over two hundred years, but that is only because the exhaustion of ultimately limited resources was a long way off. This is no longer the case, and it is becoming relentlessly clear that most of those resources which take for granted have by now been used-up in significant proportion; sufficiently so that even if their end is not in sight, the rule of economics is being felt by huge price-hikes, for example in metals, oil and gas. There is a knock-on from this too, which is that the price of food has soared during the past couple of years, both because the cost of producing oil, which underpins most of modern mechanised agriculture is increasing, and that the world population and its aspirations has elevated to such an extent that the resource of arable land now has its limits in our sights. Changes in land use too, for example its conversion of purpose from crop land to golf courses, have impacted on this scene as populations become more affluent, as is their habit of consuming more meat, which requires more land to produce than is the case for an equivalent calorific value of vegetables. Living creatures obey the second law of thermodynamics, as do their inanimate counterparts, and energy losses are to be expected in the conversion of all forms of energy from one to another. Thus only one third of the energy in coal is recovered in terms of the energy of the electricity output when it is used to fire a power station, and the amount of energy recovered in meat from an animal that has grazed a given quantity from energy from grass, is far less than this. <br /> <br />Porritt states that Shumacher was wrong about one thing, and this is the aftershock of the “oil crises” that beset the industrialised nations in the 1970s. The causes of the oil shocks at that time were political . In 1973, the largely Arab OPEC nations decided to punish the U.S. for its support of Israel in the Yom Kuppur war. To Effect a suitable castigation, the supply of oil was reduced by 5%... this caused a price spike of 400%. In 1979, the war between Iran and Iraq resulted in a similar loss of oil to the world markets and its price soared in similar degree. As Porritt surmises in SIB: <br /> <br />“On some other issues, however, his views have not weather quite so well. Like every other environmentalist writing in the early seventies, Schumacher was convinced of the imminence of serious oil shortages and deeply fearful of the economic and social dislocation that these would cause. Twenty years on [1993], the emphasis now is not on oil running out (current resources will almost certainly last at least until the middle of the next century), but rather on the environmental damage that will be done if they continue to be used up at current rates.” <br /> <br />Now this is most telling. Even fifteen years ago, neither peak oil nor global warming were on the public radar. It was global warming that first hit the headlines toward the end of the 1990s, and more recently peak oil, although the first warnings of it were made in the mid 1950s. <br /> <br />The two ills go hand in hand and the cure is the same for both, i.e. to burn less fossil carbon in the form of oil since this is the most vulnerable resource. The oil companies were certainly of the opinion that we had plenty of oil left and enough to last until the mid-00's. Now it seems clear that cheap oil will run-out long before then, albeit hydrocarbons will still be produced in quantity by various means in 2050, but at increasing cost and in a supply less than we are used to currently. In the latter regard, Schumacher may be proved right after all.