General Motors CEO: oil has peaked

The world's biggest car maker, General Motors, believes the global oil supply has peaked and a switch to electric cars is inevitable. In a stunning announcement at the opening of the Detroit Motor Show yesterday [14 Jan 2008], GM's chairman and chief executive officer, Rick Wagoner, said ethanol was an important interim solution to the demand for oil, until battery technology gave electric cars the range of petrol-powered cars. GM is working on an electric car, the Volt - due in showrooms in 2010 - but delays in battery technology have slowed its development.

Mr Wagoner cited US Department of Energy figures that showed the world was using about 1000 barrels of oil every second and demand was likely to increase by 70% in the next 20 years. "There is no doubt demand for oil is outpacing supply at a rapid pace, and has been for some time now," Mr Wagoner said. "As a business necessity and an obligation to society we need to develop alternate sources of propulsion. So, are electrically driven vehicles the answer for the mid- and long-term? Yes, for sure. But we need something else to significantly reduce our reliance on petroleum in the interim."

Most recently, ethanol has fallen out of favour with scientists and sustainability experts who have found that processing grain-based ethanol is not much more energy-efficient than refining crude oil. There is also a catch in GM's grand vision. Ethanol is about 30% less efficient than petrol (gasoline). Last year, a Sydney test found a car on a mix of 85% ethanol and 15% unleaded petrol travelled half the distance that a car on regular unleaded would.

- A fascinating admission from the head of a car-maker responsible for gas-guzzling vehicles like the Hummer and its brethren of SUV's and trucks. But their push for ethanol vehicles is troubling - it continues to promote the "starve the people to feed the cars" agenda.

Perhaps I might as well ride the trend and buy some agricultural stocks or ETF's to cover my rising grocery bills. It would be even better if I could find some income funds in that area, like my energy income trusts that are paying me monthly dividends that have been helping to cover the rise in my petrol bills.

(2008-01-17 19:46:36 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

Work on Singapore's first LNG terminal to start by early 2009

channelnewsasia.com :

Construction for Singapore's first terminal for liquefied natural gas (LNG) is expected to start by early 2009. Minister of State for Trade and Industry, Mr S Iswaran, said work has to begin soon if it is to be ready by 2012.

The terminal will be built by PowerGas, a subsidiary of Singapore Power, at a cost at least S$1 billion. As part of Singapore's efforts to diversify energy resources, it will have a capacity of 3 million tonnes of gas per year. Mr Iswaran said the Energy Market Authority is in the midst of appointing a buyer to procure LNG for the terminal. He stressed that the main criteria is securing affordable, quality LNG for Singapore.

- The tone of the article seems a bit strange, with phrases like "construction .. is expected to start by early 2009", and "work has to begin soon". And one thing about the cost. First they said this : "the terminal is expected to cost about $500 million, Singapore's Minister for Trade and Industry Lim Hng Kiang said". And now they say this : "The terminal will be built by PowerGas ... at a cost at least S$1 billion". How's that for a 100% rate of inflation?

Even if the LNG terminal were to be ready by 2012, if there are no other alternative plans for generating baseload electricity, the game would be over. Do they know how *over* the game would be? By 2010, we would be facing global peak oil *and* gas. Global conventional light sweet crude oil has *already* peaked back in May 2005.

They are building the casinos faster than they are building the infrastructure to power the casinos (and everything else). Where is the sense of priority here? By 2012, natural gas trading markets would be up and running, and whatever available gas would be going to the highest bidder. Singapore would be bidding along with giants like the US, Japan, China and India. Actually, we would also be bidding alongside our current piped-gas supplier Indonesia, which is building its own LNG terminal. It would be fun. Almost as fun as playing at the casinos.

What Was Your First Gaming Experience?

Inspired by : slashdot.org

The first real computer game I played was Lode Runner on my Apple //e back in 1985. I was about 12 years old. A guy in a white long-sleeved shirt came over to my home, delivered the computer, gave me one of those multi-colored Apple stickers that said "Apple Computer", set it up, and slotted the floppy disk into the drive.

The first level of Lode Runner came up. He couldn't get the tiny figure to move. The fellow shrugged, tried a bit more, and gave up. He said something about trying to find out how to play the game if he could. I never heard from him again.

I hit every key on the keyboard, starting from the numbers row to the QWERTY row, to ASDF and so on. There was no numeric keypad. I would not hear about numeric keypads until years later. I tried the arrow keys. Nothing. Most of the keys would start the game, upon which the bad guys would start coming after the Lode Runner but he froze there, unable to move. The Lode Runner would die on the spot when a bad guy touched him. Over and over. I gave up, and turned off the power.

The next day, I tried again. One of the keys felt different. It was harder to press and it clicked loudly when I pressed it. Then I happened to press one of the alphabet keys. J. The Lode Runner moved! He ran!

That was a long, long time before I read about the history of the Apple II series of computers, about how the older variants did not even have a Caps Lock key, and they were only able to type UPPERCASE characters, and how the Apple //e (that's how it's written folks) was the very first Apple II variant to be able to produce both lowercase and uppercase letters. It was a huge leap forward at the time. Imagine people typing letters or business documents or whatever it was they did on those computers back then in all-caps on the Apple II or II+. In today's context, it might look like they have all been SHOUTING LOUDLY.

What happened was this : the existing games of the time did not know about lowercase letters. Lode Runner was listening for IJKL and it did not understand ijkl in lowercase. Once I figured that part out, Lode Runner proved to be fun and challenging. I figured out U and O and how you needed to dig holes to run over the bad guys (I found out almost 20 years later that they were called "Bungelings"). I figured out how to restart the game. I fought my way through all 150 levels. I went into the level editor (Ctrl-R, E) and made my own levels and saved them to a blank disk.

Lode Runner had gameplay, and complexity, and replayability that you don't find in many games nowadays. It was a great game.

(2008-01-17 00:04:38 SGT) [Tech] Permalink Comments [1]

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