Month: August 2006

Palm Oil vs. Crude Oil

Bloomberg.com: Worldwide
Supplies of diesel fuel from vegetable oils soared 80 percent in 2005, the agency said in July. That outpaced a 14 percent increase in production of ethanol, a fuel derived from corn and sugar that’s used as an alternative to gasoline.

Crude oil reached a record $78.40 a barrel last month and has driven up the cost of diesel and gasoline, making biofuels more competitive. Palm oil costs $507.50 a ton in Europe, less than about $680 for a ton of crude oil-derived diesel. Governments are subsidizing biodiesel to diversify energy supply and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

Vegetable oil-based diesel is made through a chemical process where the glycerin is separated from the fat, or vegetable oil. The process leaves behind two products — methyl esters, the chemical name for biodiesel, and glycerin, a byproduct usually sold for manufacturing in soaps and antifreeze.

Palm oil comes from bunches of plum-sized fruit on the tree, which becomes productive from about 30 months after planting.

Web Guitar Wizard Revealed at Last

Web Guitar Wizard Revealed at Last – New York Times
One of the most popular hits on this blog , since it was posted on Jan. 18th, has been this guitar video. Now the NY Times reveals “Who is this guy?” Turns out we had posted the original version, which later popularized with a version by a guy that called himself funtwo, who had added a drum track.

Eight months ago a mysterious image showed up on YouTube, the video-sharing site that now shows more than 100 million videos a day. A sinewy figure in a swimming-pool-blue T-shirt, his eyes obscured by a beige baseball cap, was playing electric guitar. Sun poured through the window behind him; he played in a yellow haze. The video was called simply “guitar.” A black-and-white title card gave the performer’s name as funtwo.
The piece that funtwo played with mounting dexterity was an exceedingly difficult rock arrangement of Pachelbel’s Canon, the composition from the turn of the 18th century known for its solemn chord progressions and its overexposure at weddings. But this arrangement, attributed on another title card to JerryC, was anything but plodding: it required high-level mastery of a singularly demanding maneuver called sweep-picking. (Click on the pictures to see each video).

France about-turns into a bigger military mess

France about-turns into a bigger military mess – Sunday Times – Times Online
The French believe that what they say is at least as important as what they do. They spin grandiloquent phrases and strike postures. Rhetoric is away of life and if you point out it is divorced from all strategic reality that is thought to be nitpicking.

The British, on the other hand, get engrossed in tedious detail like: “Is this practical? Who is going to supply the troops? What will be their rules of engagement?” With Lebanon the French have discovered phrase-making is not enough. In recent days they have become very practical, bleating that there are no established rules of engagement (governing what the soldiers can do and when they can fire) almost as though they were British.

If any country could have settled such important details in advance it is France. It took the kudos for working up the UN resolution. It acted as spokesman for the Arab world within the permanent five members of the council. It insisted that the resolution should not be made under chapter 7 of the UN charter, which would have given the troops the right to impose their will by force.

When France was invited to provide leadership over Lebanon, it vacillated. Its offer of 2,000 soldiers remains underwhelming. Chirac’s pro-Arab policies have not even bought off Muslim discontent at home, as the urban riots showed.

National oil companies | Oil’s dark secret

National oil companies | Oil’s dark secret | Economist.com
Iran, which has more oil and gas than all other countries save Saudi Arabia and Russia, pumps less today than it did in 1979, when the new Islamic government threw foreigners out. The current expansion of Russia’s NOCs is proving equally ill fated: costs have risen and output has grown more slowly at Yuganskneftegaz, the former production arm of Yukos, a Russian oil company, since its takeover by state-controlled Rosneft, according to Andrei Illarionov, a former adviser to the Russian government. Over the past 20 years, he points out, income per head has grown in countries with private oil industries, but has shrunk in those with nationalised ones.

Saad Rahim, of PFC Energy, argues that weak institutions lie at the root of this disappointing performance. Most countries with national firms used their oil wealth to develop the authority of the state, rather than the other way around. So NOCs sprang up before their countries had institutions strong enough to regulate them, or to manage the money they generate—a recipe for inefficiency and corruption.

Go west, young Chinese!

Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog: Go west, young Chinese!
ARTICLE: “China’s Big Push To Stoke Economy Rattles Rural Tibet: Meatpacking Modernization Threatens Beloved Yaks; New Train Brings Suspicion,” by James T. Areddy, Wall Street Journal, 24 August 2006, p. A1.

I know, I know. I seem to be harping on a theme here. And it’s certainly easy to paint the Chinese as the white man and the Tibetans and other inland peoples as the Indians, but you’re always left with this weird argument that says it’s better to leave populations largely disconnected and largely undeveloped in order to preserve the “purity” of their culture, which to me is a sort of strange, reverse racism–even a proto-fascist sentiment.

I know, I know. It’s an impossible dream to the environmental doom-and-gloomers. I just don’t think you can keep those 2-3 billion in the Gap and the Core’s mini-Gaps off grid from the better life forever, and I have an undying faith in the ingenuity of mankind (Forgive me Father, for I am an optimist).

Plus, I look at the history of economic development and I see that the cleanest states (Yale’s environmental sustainability index, for example) are Core states, while the next dirtiest are the Gap, and the most pollution-creating tend to be those transitioning from Gap to Core (as always–the transition states experience the most change). That tells me that if you want a cleaner planet, you want states to move from Gap to Core. That’s the best way to get a handle on local pollution problems (which decline, historically, everywhere with development) and the best way to force global responses to global pollution issues (which tend to increase with development).

Hezbollah Didn’t Win

WSJ.com – Hezbollah Didn’t Win
By controlling the flow of information from Lebanon throughout the conflict, and help from all those who disagree with U.S. policies for different reasons, Hezbollah may have won the information war in the West. In Lebanon, the Middle East and the broader Muslim space, however, the picture is rather different.

DIY Nuke Detector Patrols SF Bay

Wired News: DIY Nuke Detector Patrols SF Bay

With just $12,000 worth of gear, this inventor patrols San Fransisco in this Wired article, for a lot less than the scanners DHS is buying.

While Glaros’ homemade detector can be mounted practically anywhere, the team’s preferred platform is one or more of the pilot boats that meet container ships offshore. A pilot boat will typically meet a ship up to 12 miles out, giving the detector ample opportunity to gather data, and law enforcement a chance to respond.

For his part, Glaros has no doubt the United States will be attacked. “I’ve been in this business since SALT I. It’s gonna happen; it’s just a question of when…. I have a young daughter in San Francisco. That’s the main reason I got into this project.”

Iran’s Diplomacy

Iran [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
BTW, Michael Rubin’s take on Iran’s response in e-mail conversation last night:

They did not agree to suspend enrichment, but they’ve obfuscated the issue enough that they’ll get away with it.In short, they’ve decided to talk about what rewards we’ll give them, but have refused the conditions under which those rewards were to be granted.