Bye Bye NAM, Hello Realpolitik!

Stuka #77: ``Actually, what I did read was a paper on the impact of high energy prices on US consumption and conservation in the 1970s.``

Thanks for the info............Can you point me to the paper, or any similar paper. Did it state that 50% of the energy needs of a country could be handled by nuclear energy? That seems like a pretty big deal. There must be other papers on it, also, since such a large number would completely alter the way the world functions. In such a case, India`s deal with the USA would make a lot of sense. However, if the figure is not 50%, but undecided or far less than 50%, then the Indian deal would take a different turn...........

dehliwalla #92: ``you people cannot take any debate in positive light. Anyways;;``

What exactly is taking a debate in positive light mean? I am simply asking you questions on some pretty wild assertions you are making. What is wrong with that? Do you consider that negative? What is negative about asking you to quantify an assertion. Feel free to ask me to quantify any assertion I make. I will not consider it negative. In fact, that is what debating is all about..........

You basically stated that the world was going to run out of energy sources in 30-40 years, and based your argument on that. You stated that Condi was an expert in x, y and z areas, and based an argument on that.........

I simply asked you to validate them. If the world is actually going to run out of oil in 30-40 years, as you claimed, then the debate will go in one direction, on this article. If it isn`t then it would go in another direction..........

You could simply state that your initial assertion was wrong............

HP#6, 42:

You are right. This is not a scholarly piece worthy of an academic jouranal devoted to India`s energy outlook. The purpose of the article was to initiate a discussion and let people more knowledgeable than me, such as yourself, contribute to the discussion. I thank you for that.

As has been pointed out by many others, nuclear power cannot meet all of India`s energy demands, but it is perhaps the only large source which can be generated internally, especially if Indians can find out a way of using their substantial Thorium resources.

``Dost mittar is working feverishly to portray a rift in the Congress admin. Now where his talking points are coming from?

Straight from the RSS HQ or from the BJP ideologues?``

He is implying that the two most prominent and important members of the Manmohan cabinet are not on the same page with the Prime Minister. In fact, he is going even further than that and implying not only a rift between the manmohan cabinet exists but there is also an ideological split between the Prime Minister and two important ministers, one being the Foreign Minister.``

Would I be wrong in suggesting that you are looking for a sanghi under every bed; at this rate, you might become a top contender for the winner of the year`s Joe-Mcarthy award.:-).

I have my views and am not reluctant to express them if they do not meet the test of political correctness. In the process, some people might call me a sanghi while others call me dhimmi or muslim/paki lover. This is all fine with me. Now, to your main points.

There is no rift in the Congress adminsitration even though various cabinet ministers have different views on some issues, esp. those relating to liberalisation and foreign policy; the major ideological rift is between the Congress and its communist supporters in the UPA. Policy battles over issues are fought in all governments between various ministries in all countries; I have seen enough of these in the Canadian government. Yes, I called Natwar Singh and Aiyar Nehruvian war-horses and I do not think that either of those individuals would object to that description, indeed, they would proudly proclaim to be one. Heck, even Manmohan and Narsimha Rao claimed to be Nehruvian socialists when Rao was the Prime Minister.

“The US administration told India in no uncertain terms that its support for the Indo-US Accord in the US Congress would depend upon India’s support for the IAEA resolution against Iran.”

``Where is the link for this? “No uncertain terms” is strong language, let see who said that.``

I am surprised that you even asked this question. A google searh on ``US pressure on India IAEA`` resulted in 494,000 links.

``Which bureaucracy is the writer talking about? The Indian bureaucracy is not as highly politics driven as the one in the US.``

I was not thinking of the Indian but NAM bureaucracy. Most international organizations have a secretariat with full time employees whose job it is to write position papers, policy documents, plan and conduct meetings, etc. These organizations have a strong survival instinct. As an example, India` Planning Commission is still a huge organization even though most of its old functions have become redundant, it has just found new roles for itself.

“India also has the largest Shia community outside Iran and alienating Iran also means a potential political cost to the Congress Party, especially in the state of Uttar Pradesh.”

I am not going to go out looking for the link but this exact line appeared in one RSS mouth piece ”Pioneer” and now it finds its way on Chowk.``

It may surprise you but I have not seen this news item in Pioneer, which I do not read, except for an occasional linked piece. The reference to Shia community was made by Manmohan Singh in his interview with Washington Post. Here is the excerpt (the reference to political cost was my own view, knowing how desperately the Congresss is trying to win back the Muslim vote in UP from Mulayam Yadav. I am sure you are not unaware of the appeal to caste and communal politics in India).

``Washington Post: With the new special relationship between the United States and India, do you think that your country can use this new relationship in helping the United States on relations with Iran?
Singh: We are entirely one with the rest of the world, that countries which take solemn international obligations, that they must honour those obligations. So we would like Iran, for example, to honour its obligations. Our interest would be to work with other like-minded countries that a constructive solution can be found for the problems that Iran is expressing, that the world community is expressing about Iran. We have strong civilisational links with Iran. Also I would say Iran is the largest Shia Muslim country in the world. We have the second largest Shia Muslim population in our country and I do believe that thanks to our unique history we can be a bridge``

Thanks again for reading and commenting.

Re: # 96
Bongdong or Subroto:
I concur with you. In my honest opinion, Solar/Nuclear Energy will be the mainstream solution 40-50 yrs from now.
As far as storage is concerned, people will invent some Large Capacitors Type cells with cheap technology.

I have seen houses in MA that have Electric/Wind/Solar Power. Combination of the three was enough for household needs and cost of installation was under $25,000.

Who knows, ProtoPlasma found in Blood can be another source of storing energy. There are lots of avenues yet to be evaluated, if only Hally Burtons/GM/Toyotas would let the funding roll......

10 yrs ago, nobody who have thought that Laptops can work on batteries for 10 hrs non stop.

Beej#10:

``Relations among countries should not be based on single issues – and seldom are.``

I do not suggest that they are, this is why I suggested that it must have been an agonising decision for India. I may add however that Energy requirements are not just ANY issue and the US policy in the Middle East is thought by many to be mainly energy driven.

godot#11:

I think that it is too early to say that India has become a well-lubricated condom for America. So far, it has not taken any action which is unpopular in the country or against national interests to accomodate the Americans. We will see if it changes in the future.

dehliwalla #92: ``There is no exact way to measure when will Oil supply exhaust to completion, but it is widely acknowledged by financial analysts in Wall Street that when prices hits $100 per barrel, at the present rate of consumption, that is constantly rising now that India/china has joined the race, more excavation will further put the downward pressure on the Oil, hence making it more expensive to drill and not to mention refining it.``

Sardarji......ik naween theory.......I don`t mean to pick on you, but you are coming up with one new theory after another..........Now you are stating that there is no way to measure when the oil supply will run out. In your last reply, you stated that the oil supply would run out in 30-40 years! Is it running out or is it not running out?

Could you point me to the Wall Street analysts who are stating that, ``when the price of oil with reach $100/barrel......`` x and y will happen.

And what exactly are the stating? What does, ``more excavation will further put the downward pressure on the Oil, hence making it more expensive to drill and not to mention refining it`` mean?

It doesn`t make sense.....If more excavation will, ``furthur put the downward pressure on the oil,`` how does that make it more expensive to drill for it. As technology is advancing, drilling for oil, and getting oil from tar etc. is becoming cheaper, not more expensive. And how will it make it more expensive to, ``refine`` oil? What does cost of refining have to do with downward pressure on oil?

The fact is that oil is not running out in 30-40 years. It is peaking in that time. Also, the price of oil is not going up due to lack of oil availability. It is going up due to lack of refining plants. And there is nothing to gaurantee that it will go beyond $100/barrell. At best, this could happen in a quick short term; if that. In fact, once it gets beyond x dollars, it actually becomes viable to get oil out of tar-sands, which will reduce the price of oil, again........

The key is to build more refiniries. Which will get build, under the laws of supply and demand. Now, someday oil will run out, obviously. But no one really knows when. It certainly isn`t in 30-40 years. People have been predicting its peak for a while. And they get proven wrong and wrong again, due to advances in technology, and newer reserves which are found..........

From the Wall Street Journal: http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_wsj-oil_oil.htm

``Oil, Oil, Everywhere . . .
January 27, 2005

By Peter Huber and Mark Mills

The price of oil remains high only because the cost of oil remains so low. We remain dependent on oil from the Mideast not because the planet is running out of buried hydrocarbons, but because extracting oil from the deserts of the Persian Gulf is so easy and cheap that it`s risky to invest capital to extract somewhat more stubborn oil from far larger deposits in Alberta.

The market price of oil is indeed hovering up around $50-a-barrel on the spot market. But getting oil to the surface currently costs under $5 a barrel in Saudi Arabia, with the global average cost certainly under $15. And with technology already well in hand, the cost of sucking oil out of the planet we occupy simply will not rise above roughly $30 per barrel for the next 100 years at least.

The cost of oil comes down to the cost of finding, and then lifting or extracting. First, you have to decide where to dig. Exploration costs currently run under $3 per barrel in much of the Mideast, and below $7 for oil hidden deep under the ocean. But these costs have been falling, not rising, because imaging technology that lets geologists peer through miles of water and rock improves faster than supplies recede. Many lower-grade deposits require no new looking at all.

To pick just one example among many, finding costs are essentially zero for the 3.5 trillion barrels of oil that soak the clay in the Orinoco basin in Venezuela, and the Athabasca tar sands in Alberta, Canada. Yes, that`s trillion -- over a century`s worth of global supply, at the current 30-billion-barrel-a-year rate of consumption.

........

.......Oil prices gyrate and occasionally spike -- both up and down -- not because oil is scarce, but because it`s so abundant in places where good government is scarce.

......

In the short term anything remains possible...... But to suppose that those prices foreshadow the exhaustion of the planet itself is silly.

The cost of extracting oil from the earth has not gone up over the past century, it has held remarkably steady. Going forward, over the longer term, it may rise very gradually, but certainly not fast. The earth is far bigger than people think, the untapped deposits are huge, and the technologies for separating oil from planet keep getting better..............