What the… ? Via:
Energy consumers and speculators are scrambling to take out options contracts to insure themselves against oil prices rising above $100 a barrel — a further sign of growing expectations of a spike in the crude market.
Some have even taken out contracts to protect themselves against prices rising to $250 a barrel in the next two years… [Scramble to insure against more oil price rises. Financial Times. November 5 2007]
I wonder when the famed Simon-Ehrlich wager will be invoked!
In the recent ASEAN Summit, member states agreed to a pact that calls for alternatives to fossil fuel:
CEBU, Philippines: Leaders from 16 Asian nations signed an energy security accord Monday that they said would reduce the region’s dependence on fossil fuels and promote the use of alternative energy sources.
Briefly mentioned was the reduction of carbon emission:
The Cebu Declaration on East Asian Energy Security, announced Monday, set a wide range of goals, including a promise to “mitigate greenhouse gas emissions through effective policies and measures.”
Those alternatives seem to mainly include biofuel and nuclear energy. Unfortunately, the pact, much like other ASEAN-initiated treaties, is practically unbinding:
The same scepticism holds good for other agreements reached at the latest summit: one to improve the rights of the millions who move between ASEAN countries seeking work; another to improve co-operation against terrorism; and a third, signed with other East Asian powers, to cut greenhouse-gas emissions and promote renewable energy supplies.
Read the fine print and you will find few significant commitments, let alone concrete targets. ASEAN leaders like the rhetoric of union but not the obligations of it.
The new energy pact is of course a step into the right direction, just like the u-turn made by Bush weeks after the ASEAN Summit. It signals the growing realization in Southeast Asia that we need to do something with our dependency on fossil fuel. Regardless whether climate change is part of the realization, the reduction in carbon emissions which is part of the target is definitely a welcoming target.
Even before the energy pact was signed in Cebu, the Phillipines, member states Malaysia and Indonesia were gearing for biofuel. Almost outrageous plans on both sides of the Malay Archipelago were buzzing. One of them included a mega palm oil plantation on Indonesian Borneo. The plan has since been defeated after protests from environmentalists:
WWF successfully defeated a proposal for the world’s largest oil palm plantation, which threatened to destroy the last remaining intact forests of Borneo.
In Malaysia, a compulsory mixed of biofuel into civilian ground vehicle-worthy gasoline will be enforced in the near future:
Malaysia has announced plans to switch from using diesel oil to a part bio-fuel alternative.
Commodities Minister Peter Chin said laws were being drafted to make the use of such fuel compulsory by 2008.
Negotiations have begun with petroleum companies, to persuade them to produce fuel using both mineral and vegetable oils, the government has revealed.
The government favours fuel from 19 parts diesel to one part palm oil, and says engines do not need modification.
Similar measure is being implemented in the Philippines:
San Fernando City, La Union (15 January) — With the signing of the Biofuels Act into law by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, will pave the way for the Philippines to become self-reliant on energy.
According to the Act, the law will promote the use of alternative, renewable energies such as compressed natural gas, liquefied natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas, hydrogen, electricity, and any liquid at least 85% of the volume of which consists of methanol, ethanol, or methyl ester such as coco-biodiesel.
Apart from biofuel, Indonesia is planning to construct four new nuclear power plants:
The Indonesian government has proposed building four nuclear plants at the foot of a 1,600-metre dormant volcano in central Java as part of a long-term plan to meet its energy needs.
The four reactors will cover the size of about 600 football fields near the farming village of Balong, to be built in stages over 10 years.
While the government is enthusiastic about commissioning the first plant by 2015, many are concerned about the proposed site in the shadows of Mount Muria, which has been dormant for 3,000 years.
Malaysia is also mulling the idea of nuclear power plant though nothing definite has been brought to the table yet. Instead, for better or for worse, hydro power is seen as a major source of electricity for years to come.
While the two alternatives diversify the countries’ — as well as ASEAN’s if the pact is adhered at all — energy sources, there are issues related to them.
The expansion of palm oil will eventually bring about deforestation. While biofuel is carbon-neutral, deforestation is not. In fact, Brazil is one of world’s major emitters of carbon due simply to the current massive deforestation of the Amazon. In combat climate change, the expansion of palm oil plantation for the purpose of biofuel production provides a dilemma for policymakers, if not downright paradox.
In contrast to all other energy sources, nuclear produces almost no carbon emission and does not involve deforestation the way biofuel or even hydroelectric dam requires. It is perhaps the ultimate answer to the problem of climate change. Of course, radioactive waste is a major issue that blunts environmental appeal of nuclear power.
While I prefer the pact to stress more on green renewables energy such as wind and solar, the greatest failing is not the exclusion of green renewable energy. The greatest disappointment really is the non-binding nature of the agreement.
What is the point of signing a non-binding agreement?
I am disappointment to hear that Malaysia is planning to source 30% of its electricity from hydroelectric power plant. In The Star today:
PUTRAJAYA: The plan is to have 30% of electricity over the next decade generated through hydropower to reduce the adverse effects of fossil fuel use.
Power generated through gas and coal will be reduced to 45% and 25% respectively.
Hydroelectricity generation currently constitutes only 5.5%, gas 70.2%, and coal 21.8%.
I would prefer to see the country diversifies its sources and includes heavier utilization of green renewables like solar and wind energy.
Further in the article:
“Hydroelectricity is environment-friendly, renewable, cheap and stable. Prices of fossil fuel are not stable and are always increasing,” he [Energy, Water and Communications Minister Dr Lim Keng Yaik] told reporters after addressing the ministry’s monthly gathering here yesterday.
While hydroelectric is renewable, it is not environmental friendly and hence, not green. Hydroelectric dam devastates local environment perhaps more than any other types of power plant. The larger a dam, the greater the damage done to the local environment. The intensity of damage done to the local environment by a large dam could rival any other types of power plant at typical operational level.
One does not need to be reminded how various dams in the United States have contributed to the falling salmon population:
Scientists estimate that about 70%-95% of the human-induced kills of salmon in the Columbia Basin are dam related. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service “the major decline of the runs coincides with the construction and operation of dams for electrical power, irrigation, and flood control. Between 1930 and the late 1970’s about 200 dams, including 19 major hydro-electric dams, were constructed in the Columbia Basin to provide water for irrigation, flood control, barging, and cheap electricity for the aluminum smelters and cities of the region. Hardly any major stream was left untouched. For example, the 1214 mile Columbia River was turned into a series of back to back dams and reservoirs. Less than 200 miles of the Columbia River in the United States remain free-flowing today.
Or the extinction of the Chinese dolphin.
In The Star further, the minister seems to have implicitly assumed that hydropower plant produces less or practically no greenhouse gases compared to fossil fuel-based plants:
The minister said burning fossil fuels increased global warming and caused other damage.
That assumption does not necessarily hold for all cases.
Recent publications have suggested that dams in tropical areas produce significant amount of greenhouse gases due to decomposition in areas flooded by dams:
Hydroelectric dams produce significant amounts of carbon dioxide and methane, and in some cases produce more of these greenhouse gases than power plants running on fossil fuels. Carbon emissions vary from dam to dam, says Philip Fearnside from Brazil’s National Institute for Research in the Amazon in Manaus. “But we do know that there are enough emissions to worry about.”
In a study to be published in Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Fearnside estimates that in 1990 the greenhouse effect of emissions from the Curuá-Una dam in Pará, Brazil, was more than three-and-a-half times what would have been produced by generating the same amount of electricity from oil.
This is because large amounts of carbon tied up in trees and other plants are released when the reservoir is initially flooded and the plants rot. Then after this first pulse of decay, plant matter settling on the reservoir’s bottom decomposes without oxygen, resulting in a build-up of dissolved methane. This is released into the atmosphere when water passes through the dam’s turbines.
Therefore, please reconsider dear sir.
The NYT has an article on why some people are having a hard time switching from incandescent to fluorescent bulb:
In trying to replace — depose — incandescent light bulb light, you’re asking people to disengage from a gravitation as primal as the attraction to the sun’s light or fire, which are incandescent. Like the bulb and its filament, they make light from heat, to create a glowing focal source, or a “flame.”
Fluorescent bulbs activate a gas inside a tube, lighting a fluorescent coating that glows and creates an even, diffuse light without a center. Born in a lab, they don’t have much traction on the human experience since the dawn — incandescent — of man.
Also:
It could be that America splits along cultural lines in the debate. In Asia, people are more comfortable with fluorescent light, said Mr. Gordon, the designer, who has clients there.
“Asians have developed an architecture that makes use of diffused light sources,” he explained. Rice-paper windows and room-dividing walls in Japanese houses, for example, spread light evenly, with few shadows, unlike incandescent light, which has a source point, like the flame of a candle.
Whatever it is, buy fluorescent bulb instead of incandescent. It saves energy and the environment.