Friday Frolics

The New York Times stepped up with a brand new Energy & Environment section.

Nigeria needs between 30,000 and 40,000 megawatts of power but President Yar'Adua will still not declare an emergency as he had promised in his inaugural address.

For those who want to match to Washington, PowerShift is organizing the biggest lobby day in front of Congress this coming Monday, March 2 (It is March already!). More information: Power Shift 2009. The Youth Summit runs from today (Feb 27) through Monday (Mar 2nd).

We reached the bottom: I am not a fan of this: Reusable toilet wipe

The reality coalition, that has been running ads against the notion of "clean coal" has recruited the Coen Brothers' off-kilter sensibility to the campaign:




CO2 Famine: This is an interesting Senate hearing...this scientist is slumped, claims the world is short of CO2 gases and even more some of his paychecks were from Exxon-Mobil

Is Water the New Oil ?

Definition:
Virtual Water
Virtual water is the amount of water used in the production of food and fibres. Our external water footprint is the total amount of virtual water we use in other countries when we import their goods.

Facts:

• Two thirds of the water needed to produce the UK's food and clothes is used in other countries.
• Pacific Institute: Droughts "attributable in significant part to climate change" are already causing "acute water shortages" around the world, and pressure on supplies will increase with further global warming and a growing world population.

My thoughts:
In 2008, when Crude Oil futures ramped up to a record-setting $147, I read an extensive research report that explained the rise of crude oil prices in a very macro-economic sense.
In sum, a growing world middle-class (BRIC nations, South Africa) demanded more oil for their newly-acquired vehicles and demand for power. But there were financial "technicals" that also showed that the levels could not hold.

However, the facts about an increased global demand for commodities holds and one of the things that cannot really be speculated upon is water. As the developing world becomes more urban and as the West requires more goods from these nations, water is definitely going to be a scarce commodity.

Question is... will it be the new oil? Causing economies that have it to boom and those that need it to wage war?

Hidden Costs

Don't we all hate those hidden costs/fees on our telephone contracts that suddenly bump up our payments to some undisclosed level?
Apparently, so is the true cost of climate change. One can look at my post below to see the study done by Tufts University. But there are some other numbers that I have been reading up on and thought that I might share. All these numbers are American and I can only imagine what the real cost is for the rest of the world. (Courtesy of the Environmental Defense Fund)

According to a University of Maryland study, costs already accrued include:

• $1.3 billion – the amount of damage associated with crop loss as a result of Georgia’s drought in 2007
• 300 million – reconstruction costs for the damage caused to rail transportation by Hurricane Katrina
  
• $272 million – insured catastrophic losses in 2007, as a result of increasing flood damage
• Four global warming impacts alone – hurricane damage, real estate losses, energy costs, and water costs – will come with a price tag of 1.8 percent of U.S. GDP, or almost $1.9 trillion annually (in today's dollars) by 2100, according to the same study.
  
• Losses will be massive to state economies. The impact of global warming on three sectors – tourism, electric utilities and real estate – together with hurricane damage would shrink Florida’s GDP by more than 5 percent by the end of the century.
  
• Delaying just two years will require twice the effort. An analysis of 2008 climate legislation shows that waiting just two years to tackle global warming would require more than double the annual cuts in emissions to achieve the same cumulative goal – 4.3 percent in annual cuts versus 2 percent
  
• We should not delay investment and job creation. Companies are waiting for new rules before they invest billions in new power plants and other projects. A cap is necessary to unfreeze this investment. A cap will also create new manufacturing jobs, like making steel for wind
  

Cutting Emissions is A Bargain: Check the %-ge of the GDP a cap-and-trade system would have.

Cap and Trade it is...

Obama's speech tonight highlighted the climate and the budget, and a 'sneak preview' of the budget tells us that the carbon emissions system that will be in place will be the cap and trade system.

This was obviously the way that things were going. When I attended the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative meetings here in the Northeast, everyone was fussing about what system the Federal Government was going to adapt.

Tufts University put out a publication showing the costs of global warming and it really tells one story: It is imperative for the US (+ China) to act immediately. The Environmental Defense Fund also releases some interesting numbers that I am going to write about tomorrow.

The New Co-op Capitalism

This is an article that I found interesting, especially in light of the times we are in now and as we think of the next step:

Paradigm Shift from The Daily Beast

The question I have is:

Are these global 'watchdogs' going to be responsible for the developed world watching over the developing world?

Uganda to be among top 50 oil producers

Courtesy of Sam Rugunda - From Uganda's New Vision Newspaper.
Will research on the sentiments this week... but should be good for Uganda and the larger Eastern Africa in economic terms.

Read story here.

Map-py Friday

1. Purdue University has used the brilliance of Google Earth to map CO2 emissions (plug-in needed) in the United States. The scalability of Google Earth has certainly not been fully utilized. In my former job, I recall it being employed to display real time power prices in the Northeastern US, which is useful for basis trades. I'm just thinking of the potentials and what comes straight to mind is actually: Ushahidi.com
2. Credit Crunch much? It seems that the heftiness of the lack of capital is eating up on the West's pledge of $18billion to developing nations to combat climate change. Only $1 billion has been paid out.
3. Today is Map Friday so here is another map from the Environmental Defense Fund that shows the effect of caps on Global emissions reduction.

Happy Friday!