CNY break

This blog is taking a bit of a CNY break as I try to get things going again after the holiday period.

I'm still monitoring the news feeds though. I'm now using SharpReader, a free RSS reader for Windows. It's free, it's simple to use, and it works, only thing is, it requires .Net, so if you're into the anti-M$ and Evil Empire stuff, it may not be for you. Shrug. For me, whatever works well. I don't have time to evaluate 20, 30 RSS readers just to pick one.

"Bloggable" news items are still being saved to Furl. Will take a while to sort through those. Furl is good, it's free and it's been working quite well. Until quite recently, that is, where I am encountering a peculiar bug where I need to save an item twice in order for it to show up correctly in the cache. The folks over there tell me they have deployed a fix for this, but I'm still seeing the same problem. Maybe I'll bother them again.

(2007-02-27 18:01:16 SGT) [Musings] Permalink

Sunday February 18, 2007

American Dream, Downsized

peakoil.com -> thenation.com :

For the first time in human history there are more people living in urban areas than rural, and cities have grown like amoeba into megacities - so crowded that they have become virtual countries with complex ecosystems unto themselves. Tokyo leads the pack with 31 million residents. Seoul has 23 million, followed by New York and Bombay.

Living space, unless one belongs to that tiny percentage called the upper class, is shrinking as the human population continues to grow. While the rural poor leave open sky and rolling plains to flock to the edge of the metropolis - they crowd into ramshackle slums in the third world, or one-room units in the first - the middle class is clinging to its precious status by contending with far smaller living spaces than those of previous generations.

I went with some friends to look at a two-bedroom house the other day. It's a bungalow that was once the home of a working-class family in the 50s. Now, with skyrocketing prices and a prime location, it's out of reach for my friend, who is a single lawyer. The little house was going for a little over $1.3 million dollars. "My American dream," she said with a sigh, "has just been seriously downsized."

Of course, the further you go from the city, the more space you can afford. But there's a catch: if you want more space you'll likely have to exchange it for your time. The price tag for a front yard and back garden can be a four-hour commute every day. Today a condo is what most in the middle class can hope for in places like San Francisco or New York. I suspect that in another generation or two, middle-class homes in American cities will look like those of Tokyo today - which is to say, the size of a train compartment.

(2007-02-18 09:38:52 SGT) [Biz] Permalink

Coal can't be clean : leading Australian scientist

peakoil.com -> news.com.au :

Australian of the Year and leading scientist Dr Tim Flannery has questioned the viability of clean coal technology, saying it may be made redundant by cheaper and greener energy resources. He said Australia did not possess the right geological conditions to support the clean coal process, which injected carbon dioxide emissions into the ground rather than releasing them into the atmosphere.

"Globally there has got to be some areas where clean coal will work out, so I think there will always be a coal export industry (for Australia)," he said. "Locally in Australia because of particular geological issues and because of the competition from cleaner and cheaper energy alternatives, I'm not 100 per cent sure clean coal is going to work out for our domestic market."

However, Dr Flannery said Australia possessed the right conditions to make geothermal technology, using underground energy to produce electricity, while solar power was becoming increasingly viable. Dr Flannery agreed with the sentiments of British scientist Dr David King that climate change was a bigger global threat than terrorism and called on the Australian government to act immediately.

(2007-02-18 09:27:57 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

Friday February 16, 2007

Jay Hanson: On human nature, energy, and collapse

peakoil.com -> warsocialism.com :

And I looked, and behold peak oil: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

If you were born after 1960, you will probably die of violence, starvation or disease. Although it's news to you, your generation is challenged with a technically-insoluble problem – a political problem – which will ultimately kill five out of six worldwide – or perhaps all. You can not solve this problem because that carbon-based, selfish-gene rational computer on your neck isn't logical!

- Jay Hanson is the author of dieoff.org. You might call him the grandfather of peak-oil doomerism - a peakoiler before peakoilers were called peakoilers, a doomer before doomers were called doomers. From that particular point of view, we are all doomed because we are doomed to be doomed. It doesn't matter even if we believe that we are not doomed, because we are all doomed anyway.

Wonderful. The economists/cornucopians will have none of this, of course. The moderates sit somewhere in the middle. If there is a doomerosity scale of 1 to 10, Jay Hanson would rate a 10. Or 11. Maybe. I'm at 6. What about you? Are you a doomer, a moderate ... or an economist?

(2007-02-16 11:05:01 SGT) [Energy] Permalink Comments [2]

Chrysler announces 13000 job cuts

news.yahoo.com :

For 13,000 Chrysler workers, Feb. 14 will now be known as the Valentine's Day massacre. On Wednesday, Chrysler announced its long-awaited restructuring, which included a 16% reduction in its work force, shift reductions, a plant closing and a surprise hint that the plan could lead to a DaimlerChrysler divorce. Chrysler's German parent, DaimlerChrysler AG, said it is looking at all options to revive its fortunes, including partners for the troubled Chrysler.

Chrysler blamed the wrenching restructuring on poor sales after a shift in consumer taste from SUVs and trucks to more fuel-efficient vehicles. With Chrysler's job losses, the domestic auto industry has eliminated or proposed cutting 132,000 manufacturing jobs at 64 U.S. plants since May 2005, said Sean McAlinden, chief economist and vice president of research at the nonprofit Center for Automotive Research. The job cuts at Chrysler will reduce by 400,000 the number of vehicles that operations can produce each year.

Like the other domestic automakers - Ford and General Motors - DaimlerChrysler's earnings have been hit hard by rising labor costs and slumping sales as consumers have turned to foreign models. For years, the so-called Big Three pinned their fortunes on higher-priced sport utility vehicles and trucks, but that strategy soured when gas prices climbed to near $3 a gallon.

City tries to cut energy bills with LEDs

news.com.com :

Raleigh, N.C., wants to become LED City. The city is conducting experiments to see if it can cut energy consumption and maintenance costs by replacing conventional public light fixtures with ones based around light-emitting diodes. In December, Raleigh - in conjunction with LED manufacturer Cree - replaced high-pressure sodium lights in a downtown parking garage with LED lights. Although the LED lamps cost substantially more than regular sodium lamps, they require less electricity and need to be replaced far less often. "We are saving over 40% of the energy we would otherwise use," said Mayor Charles Meeker. "And the quality is better. With sodium lights, you get bugs in the cover, and the light is kind of yellowish."

If all seven municipal parking lots in the city were retrofitted, it could save the city $100,000 a year in energy consumption and decreased maintenance. The lights in stadiums, gyms, schools, parks and other public venues could be next. If successful, the experiment could ultimately serve as a showcase for something several LED manufacturers are angling to accomplish: maneuvering LEDs into the commercial and residential lighting market.

Approximately 22% of the electricity consumed in the United States goes toward lighting, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. LEDs can last 75,000 hours or longer and consume far less power than standard incandescent bulbs. Only about 5% of the energy that goes into conventional bulbs actually turns into light; the rest gets dissipated as heat.