What's New

"Russia, China, Iran redraw energy map"

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His article "Russia, China, Iran redraw energy map" on The Asia Times Online dated 8 January, 2010, shows how the world's biggest energy network has been re-defined, with momentous implications for energy finance, security, and geopolitics at least in the coming decades. Click here

Are the emerging markets heading to global power, or to a Malthusian world?

From The Economist, 4 - 6 August, 2011-

Emerging vs developing economies - Power Shift -The emerging world begins to seize the lion's share of global markets     Click here

Economic Focus - Why the tail wags the dog - Emerging economies now have greater heft on many measures than developed ones     Click here

But fairness aside, is it sustainable for the emerging markets with huge populations to emulate the per capita resource consumption of the West?

Ponder for a while by visiting my Paper - Age of Scarcity: China at the doorstep to survival to a low-carbon future     Click here

The Golden Age of Gas

"Shale gas should make the world a cleaner, safer place" - The Economist, 6 August, 2011 Click here

The Map of the Golden Age of Gas shows that China and America have respectively the world's largest and second largest technically recoverable shale gas reserve. The IEA scenario chart shows that the share of unconventional gas, including shale, is increasing from 12% in 2008 to 25% of global gas production by 2035.

This is set to significantly reduce global oil dictatorship (Chapter 6 - Hot, Flat and Crowded, Thomas Friedman, 2009) and should promote better energy game plans between China and the United States?

Are we entering a Golden Age of Gas? Special Report, World Energy Outlook 2011, International Energy Agency Click here

Water challenges Asia's Rising Powers

A two-part series posted on YaleGlobal Online on 12 and 14 July, 2011

(I) Fierce competition over water threatens China’s economic progress and global food, energy prices - Keith Schneider Click here

This sharpens China's continuing struggle with sustainable development. It focuses attention to the increasingly critical issues of water scarcity, conservation, reclying, efficiency, and harvesting, and begs the question of the pressing need for a greener and minimalist lifestyle.

(II) India must prepare for future growth by planning a low-water economy - Rohini Nilekani Click here

The scope for a re-think is huge in urban areas where mismanagement, waste and recylcling opportunities are colossal. "When 300 million more Indians pour into 5000 cities and towns in the next three decades, municipalities will have to redesign water services", says Nilekani. Similarly, by 2025, 350 million more will flock to China's urban centres including 221 new cities each over one million population, according to McKinsey Global Institute's 'Preparing for China's Urban Billion' dated 24 March 2008 Click here

Whether in India or in China, a low-water economy should go hand in hand with a low-carbon future.

Best regards,

Andrew

Mimicking Nature as a rich source of inspiration and creativity

Another means to adapt, survive, transform, and create an inspiring tomorrow -

• Janine Benyus: 12 sustainable design ideas from nature Click here

• Sustainable engineering designs - lessons from nature Click here

• Mimicking Nature At The Nanoscale Click here

An energy-hungry China - China's major oil deals around the globe

Business Insider, 28 May, 2010

Click here

Age of Scarcity: China at the doorstep to Survival in a Low-Carbon Future

A Research Note

Download Age of Scarcity - China at the doorstep to Survival in a Low-Carbon Future

 

JEREMY GRANTHAM: We're Headed For A Disaster Of Biblical Proportions

"Legendary investor Jeremy Grantham of GMO has published a treatise on the root cause of exploding commodity prices. He has also offered a startlingly depressing outlook for the future of humanity.

Grantham concludes that the world has undergone a permanent "paradigm shift" in which the number of people on planet Earth has finally and permanently outstripped the planet's ability to support us.

Specifically, Grantham says, the phenomenon of ever-more humans using a finite supply of natural resources cannot continue forever--and the prices of metals, hydrocarbons (oil), and food are now beginning to reflect that. In other words, Grantham says, it is different this time."

Henry Blodget, Business Insider, 13 June, 2011 - Click here

See Jeremy Grantham's analysis in ''Time to Wake Up: Days of Abundant Resources and Falling Prices Are Over Forever" in his Quarterly Newsletter, April 2011  Click here

The Bigger Story behind Glencore

Live interview with CNBC on Straight Talk, 2o May, 2011

Click here

Writing on the wall for the Age of Oil?

Remember the famous quotation by Sheik Yamani, the ex-Saudi oil minister and chief architect of OPEC - 'The Stone Age ended not for lack of stones'? Would the following signal the beginning of the end of the Age of Oil?

Researchers close in on technology for making renewable petroleum

'Researchers have taken a crucial step toward making renewable petroleum by figuring out how to use a protein to transform fatty acids produced by the bacteria into ketones, which can be cracked to make hydrocarbon fuels.', reported on Science Daily on 29 March 2011

Click here

Car that runs on nothing but water unveiled in Japan

'Japanese company Genepax presents its eco-friendly car that runs on nothing but water. The car has an energy generator that extracts hydrogen from water that is poured into the car’s tank. The generator then releases electrons that produce electric power to run the car.  The electric powered car can run on any type of water (you can even use tea and soda…etc).  The car can run for an hour at about 50 miles per hour  on just a liter of water; about 2 cans of soda worth.  Genepax, the company that invented the technology, aims to collaborate with Japanese manufacturers to mass produce it.

Unlike other electric cars, the Genepax car does not require that batteries be recharged and has no emission. The water electrical generator is located in the back of the car and when water is poured it is then broken down in order to create electricity to power the car. Imagine what such a generator could do to the oil industry, the nuclear plants and the electrical grid.'

- Article posted on 26 March 2011 on Press Core, a non-profit online news channel created in 2001 by Paul W Kincaid, formerly of Upper Dorchester, New Brunswick Canada.

To view a video introduction - Click here

Vertical solar farm to adorn Chicago's Willis Tower

'Willis Tower, or formerly Sears Tower, is all set to don its green attire by integrating a pilot solar electric glass project on the south side windows of its 56th floor. This in effect will transform the skyscraper into a giant solar plant with 2 MW capacity, which is almost equal to the power generated by a 10-acre field of solar panels,' posted on Ecofriend.com on 23 March, 2011.

Click here

Andrew

www.andrewleunginternationalconsultants.com