Did you see that one West Wing episode where Russia and China had their armies on stand at opposite borders of Kazakhstan? I’ve been thinking about that one a lot lately.

According to the front page article in the Financial Times today:

Russia plans a massive increase in the scale of its exports of oil and gas to Asia in its quest to expand its political and economic role as a global energy supplier, Vladimir Putin has said.

He went on to say that Russia would export 30% of its production to Asia in 10-15 years time.

Now, I take a statement like that, combine it with the fact that Kazakhstan and a lot of other Stans have big oil export plans of their own and were under Moscow’s control until a mere 15 years ago PLUS China’s oil-hungry growth trajectory and the massive road building project they are undertaking in Xinjiang Province (see below) and I come up with a recipe for conflict in Central Asia.

The significance the road project in Xinjiang. When I was out there this summer, I had a chance to travel along this long, barren dirt road from Kashgar to Tashkurgan. They’re in the process of paving it now.

This leg of the road took about 6 hours, not including an overnight stay in a yurt (see previous post). For a sense of scale, if you head back the other way from Kashgar to Urumqi, it’s about a 24-hr train ride.

The high passes leading into the Pamir Mountains were spectacular. The valley floors rivalled the highest peaks in North America and persisted higher into the clouds, rising to over 24,500 feet. We met people of all Central Asian ethnicities: Kyrgyz, Tajik, Uigher, Kazakh. And, we learned that “Stan” means the place of a peoples, or roughly translated, “country”. The poor Uighers never got a Stan of their own, although they tried.

To the right on our way out, just over the mountains, China borders each of these Stans plus that pesky one, Afghanistan. And, finally, when you get to Tashkurgan, if you keep heading up the valley through the pass, you’re on your way to Islamabad, Pakistan –the Stan with a nuke. Welcome to the new Silk Road.

Only, instead of silk, the Chinese are now prepared to move troops and nuclear warheads if needed. It seems to me that Russian oil ambition could trigger an incident (good thing Condi speaks fluent Russian), but there are probably 10 other big international security scenarios that would prompt Beijing to militarize the region. I won’t pretend to know enough about these to comment, but it’s something I hope all those security wonks in Washington have analyzed to death. I’ll have to leave it to them for now.

On a more human level –just to keep it real– here are some snap shots of the Kyrgyz family who brought us into their home and gave us yak milk tea. I thought the first one with the father and a squirt gun was apropos, although secretly I thought the glimmer in his eye was directed toward the Han Chinese for occupying his native lands in the name of global politics and empire building. It’s a complex place, way up there at the top of the world…

Tesla Motors Chairman and early investor, Elon Musk (PayPal co-founder), wrote a compelling essay on the Tesla blog putting up the case for Photovoltaics over Photosythesis. The crux of his argument makes a lot of sense:

“Plants are essentially just a very inefficient way to convert sunlight into stored chemical energy. Crops typically have a net efficiency of about 1/2% or so, compared with commercially available photovoltaics at 20%.”

However, Elon’s emphasis on a “primary solution to the world’s energy needs” is too narrow in scope. There are going to be many, many partial solutions for kicking our oil habit, assuming we kick it at all (a BIG assumption). Maybe 20-30 years from now, a clear leader in the tech race for an oil alternative will emerge, but the judges are definitely still huddled.

Beyond the efficiency case, Elon also makes a good point about Brazil being a unique success story for ethanol, citing a few facts:

Oil consumption in the US is 27 barrels per person per year (BPY) vs. 4.2 BPY in Brazil, but the US also produces more oil at 11 BPY vs. Brazil at 3.35 BPY. Therefore, Brazil has to close a gap of 0.85 BPY, whereas the US has to close a gap of 16 BPY, resulting in a per person supply/demand imbalance 19 times greater than that of Brazil! Moreover, the US has a population 50% greater than Brazil, but has less arable land and a shorter growing cycle.

I applaud the quantitative argument. But, to dismiss ethanol in “the world’s most populous countries, such as Japan, China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, etc.” is –again– not looking at the whole picture. For example, building ethanol plants in Guangdong Province, China, that run on a plentiful local potato variety and putting solar panels on every rooftop in Guangzhou are not mutually exclusive nor short-term activities. By the way, both are in progress now.

One last thing I wanted to mention, regarding the Tesla electric car. This thing is going to kick ass… as a stand alone product but also as a high-profile attitude changer for the general public and their perception of pure electric cars (as opposed to hybrids). Their success will certainly shape the long road ahead. Godspeed.

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I’ve been into maps lately. Here’s one that shows existing and proposed renewable energy projects in the US. I am surprised at the density of biomass projects in the North East and the lack of same in the Mid West. Isn’t that where a bunch of those farmers live? Take Kansas and Missouri (the 2 big states right in the middle with no green dots). What’s going on, guys? The only thing I can think of is that whoever assembled this map does not believe in the future of ethanol. There are hardly any proposed biomass projects shown.

Without leaning on any other analysis, this image might indicate that wind is the hot sector to be in. And, I have to say, solar gets a lot of press for a few little yellow dots down there in SoCal and AZ.

Source: www.globalenergy.com

technorati tags:energy, renewale, map, cleantech

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