Showing posts with label green talk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label green talk. Show all posts
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Who Pockets the Extra Money I Pay For Gas?
THERE IS NO PLACE CALLED "KING ABDULLAH ECONOMIC CITY" in the world as of now. But perhaps it wouldn't be long before we see a spot on Google Earth with such a name having 3 million in population, partly thanks to the sky-rocketing Oil prices.
[Above: Doubling of crude oil prices over past 366 days. Source: wtrg.com]
This is the good or "light" crude that is getting costlier. The world at large has the capacity to refine this rather crude product into usable Gasoline, Diesel, etc. Increasingly, many oil-wells have started drawing "heavy" crude for which the Oil companies worldwide have limited refining and processing ability. Oil processing giants like Reliance Petrochemicals is in the process of constructing world's largest oil refinery in India with a huge capacity of processing both "light" and "heavy" crude, but it would take a couple of years to be fully functional. The so called shortage of light crude might have put the crude prices under pressure, but by no equation it could make the prices go double over the previous year.
Furthermore, if someone argues that the Demand of Oil has grossly and suddenly outpaced the Supply, and that is forcing the Oil prices to rise, you are being taken for a ride. The demand is supposed to be well in sync with the production. It is the supply-chain that has gone for a toss, and by a certain account a suspicious mind might smell a mischief at work.
I suppose it takes only common sense to pose the question: the extra money that I am rather forced to cough up for every litre at the gas station, where does it go after all? It must be ending up into someone's pocket... There must be somebody who is accumulating a rather handsome capital in this fashion from around the world! And, there are a couple of possibilities:
In a very interesting documentary last month the BBC correspondent visited this once barren site where construction work is going on at a fanatic pace in the deserts of Saudi Arabia. The contractors, such as the Bin Laden Group, are trying to convert the uninhabitable sandy planes into King Abdullah Economic City which is one of the six of its kind - making it one of the largest desert reclamation project in the world.
[Right: The city in Saudi Arabia that consumes a major portion of a billion dollars of revenue every day that the Saudi Arabs acquire by selling oil to the world at a doubled price.]
It is reported that since they have doubled the crude oil prices, nearly USD 1 billion is pumped every day into the building of such cities by the Saudi people; the money that Saudi Arabia, the largest oil producer, acquires by selling crude oil.
[Related post: Oil Money Powering Windmills]
[Go here for the BBC story on the Saudi city and how they make/spend billions a day from rising Oil prices.]
[Go here for details about the controversial oil company Zapata Corporation founded by President George Bush, Sr.]
[Go here for a Bloomberg story on the "world's largest oil refinery".]
[Go here for an interesting article titled: Perhaps 60% of today's Crude Oil Price is Pure Speculation.]
Interesting Headlines: "The Crude At Rude Prices"
and
"Oil Crises called Oil Prices"
The crude prices reached a historical record USD 145 per barrel - nearly doubling compared to the previous year. A barrel holds 42 US gallons or about 159 litres of crude oil, making it USD 0.91 for 1 litre - almost double from USD 0.44 per dollar last year. This is the purchasing price of crude oil from the OPEC countries, and is not yet usable. The actual process is much more complicated, but at a very high level, it follows steps like transport it, refine it, process it, transport it again, store it, distribute it and make available at the local gas station. This adds additional costs to the original purchase price of Oil. Traditionally, the total production cost and profit on top with added government taxes becomes the sale price of the product to the end-consumer. However it may not work in that fashion all the time - countries like the US purchase crude at a different (lower) price from the market, and countries like China and Malaysia subsidise the product to bring the retail prices within consumable range for the common people. But then, beyond a point no government with the right economic policies would be able to insulate the global economic pressure of the price-rise. It is rather a misnomer that India subsidises gas and diesel. Consumers in India pay more for litre than the selling price of the Oil companies by the way of additional tax by the government.and
"Oil Crises called Oil Prices"
[Above: Doubling of crude oil prices over past 366 days. Source: wtrg.com]This is the good or "light" crude that is getting costlier. The world at large has the capacity to refine this rather crude product into usable Gasoline, Diesel, etc. Increasingly, many oil-wells have started drawing "heavy" crude for which the Oil companies worldwide have limited refining and processing ability. Oil processing giants like Reliance Petrochemicals is in the process of constructing world's largest oil refinery in India with a huge capacity of processing both "light" and "heavy" crude, but it would take a couple of years to be fully functional. The so called shortage of light crude might have put the crude prices under pressure, but by no equation it could make the prices go double over the previous year.
Furthermore, if someone argues that the Demand of Oil has grossly and suddenly outpaced the Supply, and that is forcing the Oil prices to rise, you are being taken for a ride. The demand is supposed to be well in sync with the production. It is the supply-chain that has gone for a toss, and by a certain account a suspicious mind might smell a mischief at work.
I suppose it takes only common sense to pose the question: the extra money that I am rather forced to cough up for every litre at the gas station, where does it go after all? It must be ending up into someone's pocket... There must be somebody who is accumulating a rather handsome capital in this fashion from around the world! And, there are a couple of possibilities:
In a very interesting documentary last month the BBC correspondent visited this once barren site where construction work is going on at a fanatic pace in the deserts of Saudi Arabia. The contractors, such as the Bin Laden Group, are trying to convert the uninhabitable sandy planes into King Abdullah Economic City which is one of the six of its kind - making it one of the largest desert reclamation project in the world.[Right: The city in Saudi Arabia that consumes a major portion of a billion dollars of revenue every day that the Saudi Arabs acquire by selling oil to the world at a doubled price.]
It is reported that since they have doubled the crude oil prices, nearly USD 1 billion is pumped every day into the building of such cities by the Saudi people; the money that Saudi Arabia, the largest oil producer, acquires by selling crude oil.
[Related post: Oil Money Powering Windmills]
[Go here for the BBC story on the Saudi city and how they make/spend billions a day from rising Oil prices.]
[Go here for details about the controversial oil company Zapata Corporation founded by President George Bush, Sr.]
[Go here for a Bloomberg story on the "world's largest oil refinery".]
[Go here for an interesting article titled: Perhaps 60% of today's Crude Oil Price is Pure Speculation.]
Thursday, June 05, 2008
The Green Wall of China
TODAY, JUNE 5, IS THE WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY.
It is an open secret that China is the biggest abuser of environment in the world. Most of the manufacturing in China uses coal-burning furnaces, and that one single industry equals more than the most the whole of Europe in terms of CO2 emission.
At the same time, China is the single largest country to have invested the most - USD 8 bn - into planting trees. Criticised yet again though it is doing some serious spend, the reason is rather different from a change-of-heart or accountability or even a soft-corner for environment. Beijing, its capital is being subjected to sand storms so frequently that the Chinese have already coined a term for it - Yellow Dragon. Sand from this area have already started crossing the Pacific and reaching Americas.
This is the Gobi desert from Mongolia making inroad into China at an alarming pace - claiming 3,600 km² of Chinese grassland per year and converting it into a desert, and creating "sandy" environment all over the place. The denting Chinese economy by nearly USD 50 bn every year. To check this dangerous progress China has finally decided to hug the trees, and we have the (great) Green Wall of China - the largest afforestation project in the world today.
The Green Wall is a project to plant a 4,480 km (2,800 miles) shelterbelt of trees across the North-Western rim of China skirting the Gobi Desert. To avert the ghost of de-forestation, this afforestation project is phased for next 70 years starting 2001.
Better late than never...
[Go here for a related coverage by BBC.]
It is an open secret that China is the biggest abuser of environment in the world. Most of the manufacturing in China uses coal-burning furnaces, and that one single industry equals more than the most the whole of Europe in terms of CO2 emission.
At the same time, China is the single largest country to have invested the most - USD 8 bn - into planting trees. Criticised yet again though it is doing some serious spend, the reason is rather different from a change-of-heart or accountability or even a soft-corner for environment. Beijing, its capital is being subjected to sand storms so frequently that the Chinese have already coined a term for it - Yellow Dragon. Sand from this area have already started crossing the Pacific and reaching Americas.
[Above: an artist's impression of the Green wall of trees stopping the Gobi desert in its tracks.]
This is the Gobi desert from Mongolia making inroad into China at an alarming pace - claiming 3,600 km² of Chinese grassland per year and converting it into a desert, and creating "sandy" environment all over the place. The denting Chinese economy by nearly USD 50 bn every year. To check this dangerous progress China has finally decided to hug the trees, and we have the (great) Green Wall of China - the largest afforestation project in the world today.
The Green Wall is a project to plant a 4,480 km (2,800 miles) shelterbelt of trees across the North-Western rim of China skirting the Gobi Desert. To avert the ghost of de-forestation, this afforestation project is phased for next 70 years starting 2001.
Better late than never...
[Go here for a related coverage by BBC.]
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Oil money powering windmills
WINDMILLS WERE A THING fascination, especially in the farmland of picturesque Europe, more so perhaps because they spoke of a bygone era that I felt I just missed. 
To much delight, the winds continued to blow in their directions, as it were, and the windmills kept going around. With time, however, as the water-table got deeper and deeper, the Netherlanders found other ways and means to keep them spinning, namely, Electricity generated by turbines spinning by the winds. And I would say, this is a niche electro-mechanical engineering field - building a very energy efficient and 'light' turbine, such that the winds can spin at, and at the same time it gives sufficient torque to the dynamo to create electromagnetic charge that could be refined as usable domestic electricity. And along with all that technical things, the ROI turns profitable within reasonable metrics (and also, that we don't end up having a dog catching its own tail).
Now, so far there was no direct conflict of interest, if you like, between oil-burning (read: automobiles) energy devices verses electricity generation using water-spun, coal burning or nuclear turbines. And while saying that, I am choosing to ignore that portion of energy consumption where European and American homes prefer to use gas instead of electricity for domestic heating in the winter. I appreciate that this percentage might be big enough to ignore, but let's keep it simple here for the sake of argument.
The interesting part begins when the ROI (return on investment: time to turn profitable) for the oil companies starts stretching with every oil well getting deeper, water-source running dry, coal-mines hitting hard-rocks, and atomic energy falling hostage to missile-making men. For them, 'going green' proposes the logical next 'green field'.
The news as it is reported by Reuters today says that Mr. T. Boone Pickens, the legendary Texas Oil Billionaire it 'going green'. The Oil-man has plans to pump in USD 10bn into Wind-energy, and the proposal, which would start acquiring land next month, is to create the world's biggest wind farm.
The estimates have it that when those 2,700 wind turbines would eventually generate 4,000 megawatts of electricity - the equivalent of building two commercial scale nuclear power plants - enough power for about 1 million homes.
Mr. Pickens would also want to take the 'pressure off' the automobile sector by freeing up gas by not using it for energy production, but to let it go to those (billion dollar) refineries to pump out gasoline and diesel for the cars. At the same time, also take the pressure off from the American auto manufacturers to be energy efficient (and shake Toyota and Honda off?).
I have come to admire the old Oil-man, not simply for him shrewdly planning for another 'windfall' (no pun intended) of billions, but also contributing to the geographical landscape of North America: Windmills look pretty... Anywhere.
To much delight, the winds continued to blow in their directions, as it were, and the windmills kept going around. With time, however, as the water-table got deeper and deeper, the Netherlanders found other ways and means to keep them spinning, namely, Electricity generated by turbines spinning by the winds. And I would say, this is a niche electro-mechanical engineering field - building a very energy efficient and 'light' turbine, such that the winds can spin at, and at the same time it gives sufficient torque to the dynamo to create electromagnetic charge that could be refined as usable domestic electricity. And along with all that technical things, the ROI turns profitable within reasonable metrics (and also, that we don't end up having a dog catching its own tail).Now, so far there was no direct conflict of interest, if you like, between oil-burning (read: automobiles) energy devices verses electricity generation using water-spun, coal burning or nuclear turbines. And while saying that, I am choosing to ignore that portion of energy consumption where European and American homes prefer to use gas instead of electricity for domestic heating in the winter. I appreciate that this percentage might be big enough to ignore, but let's keep it simple here for the sake of argument.
The Oil-man announced at Georgetown Uni to pump USD 10bn to create world's largest wind-farm...
As Al Gore would love to tell you in a dark room with a huge LCD projector - both of these 'consume' natural resources, which are not renewable. And (to some degree) he is right. Unfortunately, the Earth could host only as many dinosaurs as few million years ago to turn them in oil today that could go on and on.The interesting part begins when the ROI (return on investment: time to turn profitable) for the oil companies starts stretching with every oil well getting deeper, water-source running dry, coal-mines hitting hard-rocks, and atomic energy falling hostage to missile-making men. For them, 'going green' proposes the logical next 'green field'.
The news as it is reported by Reuters today says that Mr. T. Boone Pickens, the legendary Texas Oil Billionaire it 'going green'. The Oil-man has plans to pump in USD 10bn into Wind-energy, and the proposal, which would start acquiring land next month, is to create the world's biggest wind farm.
The estimates have it that when those 2,700 wind turbines would eventually generate 4,000 megawatts of electricity - the equivalent of building two commercial scale nuclear power plants - enough power for about 1 million homes.Mr. Pickens would also want to take the 'pressure off' the automobile sector by freeing up gas by not using it for energy production, but to let it go to those (billion dollar) refineries to pump out gasoline and diesel for the cars. At the same time, also take the pressure off from the American auto manufacturers to be energy efficient (and shake Toyota and Honda off?).
I have come to admire the old Oil-man, not simply for him shrewdly planning for another 'windfall' (no pun intended) of billions, but also contributing to the geographical landscape of North America: Windmills look pretty... Anywhere.
- See also:
- Related post: Who Pockets The Money You Pay Extra For Gas?
- Go here for the complete Reuters story
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)