Hello Everybody, ----- Original Message ----- From: "Keith Addison" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <biofuel@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Monday, May 24, 2004 12:47 AM Subject: Re: murdoch: Re: [biofuel] Ratifying the Kyoto Protocol
> >--- In biofuel@yahoogroups.com, murdoch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >I pay little or no attention to Kyoto and haven't for some time. I > >believe that if Global Warming really is a threat to be taken > >seriously, and I think it is, that it will take virtually all people > >on Earth to engage in climate pre-remediating energy consideration > >(for want of better words) that goes well beyond something like Kyoto. Hear, hear ! Vladimir, do you hear ? > > Indeed. As I said, it's woefully inadequate. BUT it's not as woefully > inadequate as the response to the threat of the powers-that-be, > whether corporate or national. I mean, for heaven's sake, this list > has probably saved more cabon than most governments! The Kyoto > protocol's 10 years old, but the issue itself is more like 17 - 17 > years I think since the US Congress was addressed on it, and that > wasn't a reassuring message at all. > Our lords and masters don't take a long-term view - the next > election, the next AGM. They'll drag their heels forever. IF we let > them. Kyoto's a ploy really, but an essential one. Get them somehow > or another to sign their precious names to the damn' thing and then > we can flog them on to do it right. Without formally committing to > something or other, adequate or not, they'll prevaricate and > obfuscate until the sky falls on their heads. And ours. > >I wouldn't expect to have a way to illustrate my verbal gobbledy-gook, > >but it occurs to me that this story, which I had meant to bring to > >your attention anyway, is to my eye an illustration of a large > >somewhat credible statement along the lines of "we actually take this > >stuff somewhat seriously". > >Even coming from a nation now world-famous for using increasing > >amounts of fossil fuels in their economic expansion, I take their > >renewable energy policies to be light-years beyond the U.S. or Russia, > >which one or two leaders from now will doubtless make some > >concilliatory policy moves along the lines of "ok, well, maybe now we > >can get it in gear, now that we have clearer evidence" or some such. > >At that time, I intend to sue the leaders of both nations for making > >me throw my computer across the room. > > :-) How liberating. You should pay them. > > I wouldn't be too sure about China. I think it's something of a > bubble, sad to say. I don't see much real analysis of China's > situation in the general media. Too much received wisdom, > hand-me-down stuff, largely unexamined, too context-free, rendered > credible by not much more than that it's what everyone else is saying > too. How true! Turned out that China had been hyping foodgrain production (~ 400 MMTA) by including the weight of husk, while other countries correct their figures for this residue. > If you look elsewhere you see a different picture. Westerners > tend to see a picture that's swayed by all the Chinese consumer goods > in their stores, and by all the fevered business hype, and that's fed > rather too much by greed and a pack mentality, as we've so often seen > before. There's also China's mystique, which has bamboozled > Westerners for so long. Also, in the China Daily, you're reading the > official line. China isn't exactly being a model citizen, in a lot of > ways, but especially in its energy consumption. China has now > replaced Japan as the world's second largest oil consumer, and I've > not heard of any plans to curtail that growth. Talk of environmental > considerations is just talk, so far, and new talk at that, with no > evidence that it might be any more than lip service. It might be > jumping to conclusions that they plan to substitute their > fossil-fuels use with renewables - more likely it's intended to > supplement fossil fuels use, or growth in fossil-fuels use. > Meanwhile, however... > > I quite liked this story (and I think I have more faith in India's > prospects with renewables than China's). Here's a link to the mandate for blending 5% ethanol with gasoline and 20% biodiesel with dino diesel at the refineries, most of which is in the govt's hands. It is a modest target http://planningcommission.nic.in/reports/genrep/cmtt_bio.pdf The idea is to produce ethanol from sugar/sugarcane/molasses/starch bearing crops such as cassava and sweet sorghum/lignocellulosics such as rice straw and sugarcane bagasse. The blend is to progressively increase but only upto a maximum of 20% due to the following concerns "(i) higher aldehyde emissions, (ii) corrosiveness, affecting metallic parts (iii) higher latent heat of vaporisation causing startability problem, (iv) higher evaporation losses due to higher vapour pressure and (v) requiring large fuel tank due to lower calorific value." The proposed feedstock for the biodiesel is Jatropha, as "However, Jatropha curcas has been found most suitable for the purpose. It will use lands which are largely unproductive for the time being and are located in poverty stricken areas and in degraded forests. It will also be planted on farmers' field boundaries and fallow lands. They will also be planted in public lands such as along the railways, roads and irrigation canals". In the Demonstration phase,which is to complete by 2007, 4,00,000 Ha are to be commandeered in 8 states through both private inititative and Joint Forest Management Committees )(Here forest depts provide title of forest land to the local community, which is then induced to invest in the land and the profits are shared,. At last count, there were about 63,000 of them in operation across the country). A lot of employment potential is expected even at the the Demo stage and in the wordsof the Committee : "Thus Bio-diesel development by itself could become a major poverty alleviation programme for the rural poor apart from providing energy security to the country in general and to the rural areas in particular and upgrading the rural non- farm sector." On the Demo being proven, a further 11 Million Ha are to afforested by 2011, for producing about 13 Million MT per annum to meet the demand for 20% blend. This target is modest, the plan is achievable with available infrastructure and the entire projevyt is to be implemented on mission mode. This plan looks more likely to succeed than the earlier wooly headed dreams of converting 5 Million Ha of wasteland per annum. There are serious concerns about using a monocrop such as Jatropha and no doubt course correction will occur as we go along. The biggest flaw, however is the proposal to establish a 100,000 TPA biodiesel plant in each state to process the oil into biodiesel. This is a direct result of the Oil Companies' apprehensions about quality of biodiesel from local producers. I am sure local inititative will overcome this as well as set more ambitious targets for higher levels of blending/comlpete converions ot B100. Here I will depart from netiquette and interpose comments into a quoted article. > http://www.iht.com/articles/518600.htm > > Slowly but steadily, India will overtake China > Jonathan Power IHT > Thursday, May 6, 2004 > An economy awakes > > LONDON India is now in the middle of what many Chinese would give > their right arm for - a general election. Yet China is the power that > gets all the attention. > > When President Richard Nixon first went to China it was widely > assumed that he was ignoring India and courting China because China > had nuclear weapons and could help balance the Soviet Union. But > since 1998 India has possessed nuclear weapons and can balance China. How sad that a country to be taken seriuosly has to engage in this macabre dance of balancing terror. > While Washington is slowly waking up to the fact that the tortoise > soon might overtake the hare, the investors and the press continue in > their old ways. India's ponderous gait reminds us of that lumbering and gentle giant, the elephant, rather than the supercilious disdain of the tortoise. >Last year the inflow of foreign capital into China > was two and a half times that into India. The press barely covers the > Indian election while every day there is a story out of Beijing. > > This skewed appreciation has been going on since the time of Mao. > China basked in accolades in the 1960s and 70s, while India was > mocked for its "Hindu growth rate." China's people were fed, housed, > clean and tidy, while India's were ragged, hungry and sinking into a > trough of despondency - "a wounded civilization," in the words of the > novelist V.S. Naipaul. A border case, he strikes extreme postures, particularly as it is very chic and with it for his largely European audience. He wrote off India long back, when it was fashionable to do so. The novelist has since had a homecoming in the late Nineties, when India had an economic turnaround. He ate most of his earlier bad words in "India - a Million Mutinies now". Oh, the wages of success. > With the 1981 famine we could see, to use George Watson's phrase, > that "the intellectuals were duped." China had to beg around the > world for grain while India had managed to survive the savage drought > of 1979 without having to import a sack. > > Now with Mao long dead and the capitalist reforms of Deng Xiaoping > well into their stride, the story is being repeated but in a more > complex way. To many, China's economic progress has been nothing less > than spectacular. But inflationary pressures, bad bank loans, a > rapidly increasing maldistribution of income and crime all threaten > its economic stability. > India, meanwhile, has been gradually but with increasing speed > loosening up its old Fabian socialist system. After a major economic > crisis in 1991, Finance Minister Manmohan Singh introduced major > promarket reforms and fiscal expansion and India's economy has never > looked back. An ex Governor of the Reserve Bank he was recently anointed our Prime Minister, what with an uncharacteristic, if self-protective, act of sacrifice by Sonia Gandhi. Even if controlled by her, he has a mind of his own. In his last posting as Finance Minister in a minority govt., he managed to last out his 5 years. Wonder how he will perform with such a ragged rabble he is now forced to lead - casteists from the Hindu heartland, pseudo secularists with an eye on the Muslim vote, tamil chauvinists who support the murderous V Prabhakaran of LTTE responsible for killing Mr. Gandhi, telugu separatists, and outside support from a bunch of decrepit and ancient leftists with their heads firmly in the sands of bygone eras. The jittery stock markets lost a cool US $ 30 Billion on a single day after hearing market friendly nattering from some of these dinosaurs. > India's annual growth has been averaging 5 percent - and is now 8 > percent, thanks to a good monsoon. Singh, who has become Sonia > Gandhi's principal economic adviser, believes that with more reforms > than the present government has so far countenanced, an average > annual growth rate of 6.5 percent is sustainable - which is what he > privately thinks China's overhyped growth rate actually is. > > India is better placed than China for future growth. Its capital > markets operate with greater efficiency. They are also much more > transparent. Companies can raise the money they need. India's legal > system, while too slow, is much more advanced and is able to settle > sophisticated and complex cases. Its banking system has relatively > few nonperforming assets. > > India's democracy and news media are alive and vital, which provides > a safety valve for the incoherent changes that modern economic growth > brings. India has religious riots, secessionist movements, urban > squalor and bitter rural poverty. But the voters know they can throw > the rascals out, and regularly do. As they did with the BJP recently. Though the choice is still between Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the imperatives of democratic politics, a vigilant press and a resurgent middle class make them perform. > Moreover, the massive flows of foreign investment into China are a > two-edged sword. It has become a substitute for domestic > entrepreneurship. Few of the Chinese goods we buy are in fact made by > indigenous companies. And the few that exist are besieged by > regulatory constraints and find it hard to raise domestic capital. > China's state-owned enterprises remain massive but bloated and > possess a frightening number of nonperforming loans from China's > vulnerable banking system. At last count, the NPAs were in the roaring forties. > India, by contrast, has created world-class companies that can > compete with the best in the West, often on the cutting edge of > software, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. > > India's trump cards are its use of English, its emphasis on > mathematics in its schools and the talents of its diaspora. For > decades China has benefited from the wealth and the investment > potential of its diaspora and the economic energy of Hong Kong and > Taiwan. After years of ignoring its ŽmigrŽs, India is now welcoming > them back - and they have much more "intellectual capital" to offer > than China's, much of it coming from Silicon Valley, where the Indian > contribution has shone. > > Watch the tortoise continue its course as the hare starts to lose its breath. > > Jonathan Power is a commentator on foreign affairs. > snip < Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuel/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
