Of gas and biofuels
Posted by Heading Out on May 5, 2006 - 8:58am
China's CNPC last year bought Kazakh oil producer PetroKazakhstan, and the first oil from Kazakhstan reached China last week via a major new pipeline. Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov last month paid a six-day visit to Beijing, where he signed off on a plan to send 30 billion cubic meters of gas annually by a new pipeline to China beginning in 2009. Not satisfied, China is in talks with Kazakhstan over a gas pipeline from that country, too.Well enter Vice President Cheney and the United States has an alternate suggestion
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney is expected to push in Kazakhstan on Friday for a major new gas pipeline from the country to bypass Russia and take Kazakh gas westward through Azerbaijan and on to Turkey.
Down at the bottom of the article, it also appears that others are not impressed with the likelihood of this coming to pass.
Kazakhstan is unlikely to antagonize Russia by moving fast on a new gas pipeline westward, while the low quality of gas in Kazakh fields would also make any such project extremely costly, said Valery Nesterov, oil and gas analyst at Troika Dialog. Proposals to hook Turkmen gas up to a Kazakh pipeline westward would likely serve to push up prices for Russia rather than win the United States and Europe easier access to the gas, he said.Another big problem for any direct Kazakh route to the West is that it would have to go under the Caspian Sea, the demarcation of which has yet to be agreed on by its littoral states, including Iran, Baran said. "Iran would be a threat to any pipeline project," she said.
Meanwhile in Asia the hope is that oil prices won't stay up too long though ethanol is becoming more popular
In Thailand, consumption of plant-extracted gasohol has quadrupled in the last year, rising to 3.4 million barrels a day in March. The country's consumption of gas and diesel stood at 70 million barrels per day that month.And China is also looking into biofuels It currently produces about 1 million tons of ethanol, but could perhaps produce more using their own varieties of grass etc.
The plants include sugar grass, which is suitable for salina and other low-quality land in 18 provinces north of China's Yellow River and Huaihe River basins.China currently consumes around 323 million tons and imports around 119 million tons a year, according to the article.Those land totals 33.34 million hectares, and one fifth of them would be enough to produce 20 million tons of ethanol, said Shi.
China produces annually 1.5 billion tons of stalk as by-products of grain production, which can be used to produce 370 million tons of ethanol.
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Does anyone else feel like Peak Oil seems to have exploded onto various states' "radars" over the past year or so? It certainly seems to me that a lot of people are being very hasty and scrambling to lock in as much supply as they can.
I guess the burning question is: Are these states and energy companies locking in to simply maintain the status quo, or are they locking in to minimise the disruption while they develop alternative energy sources?
The sudden panic rather depressingly leads me to believe the former rather than the latter...
--Groucho Marx
In current terms Marx was a cornucopian. 150 years ago that made sense. Capitalism has proven remarkably resilient at responding to its crises. Impending peak oil breaks all molds, Marxian or otherwise. This is not a crisis Marx foresaw.
If you know of a Marxist critique of peak oil post a note here. Everything I see is ad hoc, this is all too new for much else.
One problem with Peak Oil is that it is a problem in a scale where our capitalist system is controlled by states and very large oligopole or monopoly corporations. It is essentially no longer a capitalistic market economy but a command economy.
Command economies are very efficient at getting one thing done but they have a hard time doing the right thing since they lack the constant parallell development of manny ideas and products.
Our future probably depends on a fairly small number of very powerfull individuals in states and mega corportations deciding that they and their heirs would like to live in a pluralistic and culturally rich future. We depend on them deciding on a "fertilizing" strategy and not a "hoarding" strategy.
The next part that must work is doing the right physical investments and technology developments. It must both be concentrated and spread out to do a lot of good in the short term and not miss important opportunities. Here is the market economy king in assigning recources and using them efficiently if there is a market with manny competing companies.
I am quite sure that most of us can do ok physically if our leaders are up to this and things start moving. If not regions will start to break down and other regons will get it and the world will start to split up in well managed parts and basket cases. Where will we then have our next former Sovjet union och new Zimbabwe?
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-05/cmu-cmr_1050406.php
For those who don't know, Eurekalert is run by AAAS.
The AOCS is everything non petroleum oil, from supply to sythesis to diet to oxidation. There were realistic discussions about the diversion of food lipids to energy uses. There is a clear understanding by the scientists there that biological lipids will not replace all our current petroleum usage.
There were entire sections on biodiesel and energy. Also a key lecture by Professor Frank Gunstone of the University of St. Andrews tiltled Will Oil and Fat Supply Meet Oil and Fat Demand in 2020? This was fascinating because it looked at all sources of lipids from oil seeds to rendered animal fats to pressed fish oils. The total supply is increasing and a greater percentage of the total is from oil seeds every year.
There is great opportunity to increase lipid production with out increasing acreage significantly for biodiesel. I will gather some thoughts and present more here after I take care of some work.
"There is great opportunity to increase lipid production"..."The total supply is increasing and a greater percentage of the total is from oil seeds every year."
My great concern when I hear talk of biofuels is, where will the vast amounts of pesticides and fertilizer come from?
I'm under the assumption that monoculture can be very difficult without a constant check on pests (i.e. large amounts of petroleum based pesticides). And due to the acres of production that we are talking about, where will the natural gas come from in order to feed these commercial-sized crops?
"Inputs" are important I think we'd all agree. Yet they never seem to be discussed in detail. Did they talk about this at the conference? Or if you have insight into these concerns please elaborate in your future response.
Thank you.
We start with hemp and work our way to algae.
In the meantime, bioethanol and biomethanol can be made from bio, waste and landfill gases.
Don't worry about biomass, there's more than enough to make all the biofuels you want.
Why the World Is Not About to Run Out of Oil?
Notice this nice forecast from CERA:
I think It would be important, especially for newbies or PO skeptics, if TOD could debunked this article and offer a rebuttal.
HO's post
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/4/23/12186/9663
The fact that there is so much "debunking" of Peak-Oil going on means it is getting more mainstream, however slightly - this is a good thing.
"The country's consumption of gas and diesel stood at 70 million barrels per day that month"
Hmmm, what country consumes that much? Some of these writers sure are sloppy with their numbers/units. It makes you wonder how much of the rest is wrong.
One of my favorite gaffes is when they quote some value, typically a change in money spent or saved, without specifying the time frame.
Physics should be a required subject in high school.
Also, why is it that economists, who are experts at calculating exponential growth of money (interest rates, how much a penny invested in 1776 would be worth now, etc), are so incapable of realizing the consequences of exponential growth of anything else?
Chemistry should be required in high school too.
Maybe a little geology ought to go into the science education mix.
No, I don't think so. You are spot on. Agriculture?
Who remembers this word?
Agricola
For those who do, do you remember why?
Does anybody know what Bauer means in German? Strange Coincidence? Don't know, have to have DaveByGolly research that one.
Previous to Bauer, I believe Hitler was the most frequently used German name.
So why Bauer?
Caspian Oil - a Sunday Special (all the big fields and the pipelines)
Pipeline economics - why the Afghan pipeline will NOT be built (that applies to any gas pipeline form Turkmenistan)
A pipeline is like a marriage with kids (Dec. 16)
(on the Kazakhstan-China oil pipeline, among others).
I once had a lenghthy comment describing how many times a breathless announcement could be made by politicians with respect to an international pipeline, and why such comments should be heavily discounted... I need to dig it up or rewrite it.
But yeah Cheney is full of shit on this one.
But here we go again :) I love maps.
It's just a hop, skip and a jump over to China, mostly through Tajikistan about which we learn
As an almost failed state, Tajikistan would be only too happy to get some pipeline revenue. On the other hand, should the Turkmen renege on their deals with China, this small country could not impede troop movements if worse comes to worse. The Uzbeks would surely be concerned about all this and must cooperate with the Chinese Dragon. An alternative for the Turkmenistan gas would be to join up with a pipeline from Kazakhstan to China.Jerome, you're a excellent source about the region. I just disagree about predicting the future developments in the area. I tend to think that the Chinese are very powerful there and growing more so all the time. I believe that what they want, they will get.
As for the pipeline through Afghanistan into Pakistan, that will depend on what India is willing to pay assuming of course that a spur will be built so they get the gas.
But to make my main point, I think desperation for energy drives all this and the kind of practical, logistical points you bring up are certainly a factor. In the end, however, I think the supply will end up where the demand is and money is no object at this point.
best, Dave
As the provider of (some of) that money, let's say that I disagree with that...
Even China will not dump USD 10 bn in an uncertain venture with (an)uncooperative partner(s) that can scupper a deal at any time.
I would not underestimate the determination of the Chinese. Here are some additional quotes from the article.
This situation is complex. For example, the Asian Times reports in The Sino-Russian romance As usual, I recommend reading the whole article.So, Russia and China are getting cozy and both agree that the US should stay the hell out of the Caspian Sea & Central Asia. Now, if the cash-rich Chinese want some of that Turkmen and Kazakhstan gas and are willing to build the pipelines, would the Russians risk antagonizing them? Jerome says "no pipeline out of Turkmenistan can be built, whether to India, China or elsewhere, because it makes no economic sense to build it when Gazprom can undercut you any time with a fully amortised and operational pipeline already available". But the Chinese clearly want the gas and have a big checkbook. So, it's not clear what going to happen. Consider that China has already bought PetroKazakhstan as you note. Russia didn't stand in the way there.
Meanwhile, the Sultan of the Steppes has every reason to smile.
I'll shake hands with you but
you won't be getting any of my gas
The only certainty I see here is that the US will be cut out of any deals and Cheney is wasting his time. As was alluded to in a previous comment, it is ironic that the Chinese can sign big checks because they send all that manufactured crap to the America (Walmart) and simultaneously snub the US in procuring energy to keep it going. And that Unocal deal (they operate in South East Asia) didn't help matters. The world is a beautiful thing sometimes. You just have to keep the right perspective.
Huh? Of course they do. They're outbidding people for oil and natural gas contracts all over the world, or at least trying to. Otherwise, I agree with your remarks. Of course Lukoil didn't want China to buy PKZ but it happened, didn't it? Nursultan Nazarbayev enjoys good relations with Russia but he still allowed the sale. He's playing everybody off against the others.
China bad loans may reach total of $900bn
By Richard McGregor in Beijing
Financial Times
China's total liabilities for non-performing loans may be as high as $900bn, dwarfing official estimates and outstripping the country's massive foreign exchange reserves, according to a study of Beijing's bad debt problem.
The study, part of Ernst & Young's annual global survey of NPLs, says China's big four state banks alone have bad loans worth $358bn, or more than twice official estimates.
Of course, Stratfor predicts China will collapse almost every year, for one reason or another. They're the ones that predicted oil would go back down to $30 because China would collapse before the end of the year. That was two years ago, I think.
From The Media Matters website:
From the May 2 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto:
CAVUTO: Colonel David Hunt joins us now, the Fox News military analyst, in Boston. Colonel, I'm wondering whether this is a military threat -- leave aside the energy concerns -- but a military threat to our country now?
HUNT: Yeah. There is no question. Oil -- oil is a weapon. And I think what you are finding with Iran, Bolivia, and -- and Venezuela, that it absolutely is being considered. And why wouldn't the -- why wouldn't terrorists, or terrorist states, or states getting close to being a terrorist state, like Venezuela, like Bolivia, and certainly Iran, consider it? It's -- it's -- it's cheaper for them. And it absolutely could hurt us. And we need to be very, very careful about it and figure out how to counter that kind of a threat.
[...]
CAVUTO: Colonel Hunt, finally, let me end with you. Is this now, in your eyes, the way that Bolivia has acted in the last 24 hours, a military threat?
HUNT: Yeah, I think it could -- I think it absolutely needs to be considered. And the problem is we're very tied down in Afghanistan and Iraq, and we're going to have to start looking toward South America and figure out what we can do in the near term. All your very smart guests are talking about some far-term stuff, but the near term is, if Bolivia keeps this up, what Venezuela does, and Iran, we've got near term -- right now, this month, this next six months -- action that we have to look at both from a military standpoint and an economic standpoint, so, yeah, absolutely it's a threat.
If not, they'd be in there already. Is it called overreach or overstretch? Everyone goes back and second guesses Hitler with his second front. But once you're running the empire, it's not such an easy decision, is it?
In the case of the US imperial defeatin Oil War IV, lingering too long in Iraq with too few troops was the mistake. In retrospect another false flag terror operation that would have been the excuse for nuking Iran in May 2003 and resuming the draft maybe could have been a winning move. But just like Germany in 1942, most of the rest of the world is lined up against the US at this point. In 2006, a US strategic victory is not an option.
"The protocol-obsessed Chinese leader suffered a day full of indignities -- some intentional, others just careless. The visit began with a slight when the official announcer said the band would play the 'national anthem of the Republic of China' -- the official name of Taiwan. It continued when Vice President Cheney donned sunglasses for the ceremony, and again when Hu, attempting to leave the stage via the wrong staircase, was yanked back by his jacket. Hu looked down at his sleeve to see the president of the United States tugging at it as if redirecting an errant child.
"Then there were the intentional slights. China wanted a formal state visit such as Jiang got, but the administration refused, calling it instead an 'official' visit. Bush acquiesced to the 21-gun salute but insisted on a luncheon instead of a formal dinner, in the East Room instead of the State Dining Room. Even the visiting country's flags were missing from the lampposts near the White House.
"But as protocol breaches go, it's hard to top the heckling of a foreign leader at the White House."
Who isn't our government trying to provoke?
Yeah, a new cold war, just what we really need right now! I keep hoping for signs that we're going to start on tentative steps in the right direction, but we seem to be heading away from realistic solutions, and towards the fantastical, at break-neck speed. How, exactly will confrontation provide answers to our environmental concerns, and the Big One, Peak Oil? Cheyney, Rice, Rumsfeld and Bush, are really Dangerous and delusional. If they really studied Rome, they be way more circumspect and cautious.
When Bush and his henchmen talk about "freedom" "democracy" and "globalisation", I think they mean "freedom" for American corporations, backed-up by military force, to re-model the the world in the image of the United States, and with the United States in control of the world's economy, raw material, and markets. The main beneficiary of this new world order will be the United States, or at least the super-rich and powerful elite that rules the country.
Do these guys really believe that a benevolent form of imperialism is possible today? Isn't the age of imperialism over? In a way they are right. Iraq and Iran are test cases. If one can re-establish imperial rule here, rolling back nationalism, then maybe one could do it in other countries too? But how realistic is this neo-con dream? One can have differing attitudes to the insurgency in Iraq, but they are tough and ruthless mothers, who are not about to bow to imperial rule without a fight. Shock and Awe, like Blitzkrieg, just haven't worked. The Germans tried it in Russia and worse. Terror from the occupying army only makes the resistance more determined and willing to die. That's why the United States will lose in Iraq. Because the Iraqies are ready and willing to fight and die in far higher numbers than the Americans are prepared to. How is such and Pax Americna possible without millions of soldiers in uniform and wartime rates of taxation? There's this old British imperialist song, which has a jaunty, cockshore rhythm, and tune. I can only remember the chorus.
Oh, we don't want to fight,
But by jingo, if we do,
We've got the men, we've got the guns,
And we've got the money too!
Shortly after this song was written it all started to un-ravel for the British, as these things tend to do. It's like there's a kind of "historical gravity" at work here. What goes up, must come down, and this applies to countries, and Empires as well. So even if one is contemptuous of the "reality based community", the physical reality of "historical gravity" grabs one by the clicking heels of one's jack-boots, and drags one back down to earth, and reality, with a bump.
The United States "Empire" would appear to be heading for the trashcan of history at an alarming speed. Where is the money and where are the men? Of course if one has decided to use nukes, in order to re-establish a level playing field, then we enter new, uncharted, and very dangerous territory.
it's a disgrace, but it's also a safety valve - the nixon plan
Sometimes it just happens that we have very bad leaders. This is one of those times. These guys are not making rational decisions or acting on the interests of constituents. These guys are deep into eschatology and damn the torpedoes.
I wish I knew why we accept these leaders.
Look around the planet and see where you find rational actors amongst the politicians. It's pretty depressing.
Kazakhstan is the bright red sliver in the middle. That represents about 800,000 barrels per day exports out of production of 1.0 million barrels per day in 2003.
I believe they are currently producing over 1.3mbpd.
Exports, Iran versus Kazakhstan
Check it out.
Thailand's daily consumption is three times ours?
Thailand is planning to discontinue consumption of unblended premium gasoline at the end of this year, as a way of reducing oil imports. As in the USA, the strategy is to replace MTBE with ethanol, selling E10 blends for both regular and premium. Cassava, tapioca and sugar cane are the main raw materials for ethanol prodcution.