Hmmm.. U.S. Asked to leave Uzbekistan air base

One of the side games to the U.S. invasion of the middle east (a.k.a. The War on Terror) is the oil situation in the Central Asia countries that are of the former Soviet Union. There's quite a bit of oil up there, and I gather that there's a game afoot to control that oil. One of the games is the U.S. plan to run a pipeline through Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and to the sea from there.

This meant that the U.S. was in suport of the Uzbeki government. Conveniently the Uzbeki government has been giving the U.S. land area to operate air bases, that have been used as staging for U.S. forces going to Afghanistan and perhaps other conflict areas. One purpose has been the encirclement of Iran, apparently.

But earlier this year the Uzbeki government brutally supressed a protest. Suppressed, as in killed scores of people. That kinda suppression, where there's blood in the street and lots of crying.

US asked to leave Uzbek air base (Saturday, 30 July 2005, BBC.CO.UK)

Apparently U.S. diplomats have been expressing official consternation over that kinda suppression.

Flights into the K2 (Karshi-Khanabad) base had been reduced at the request of the Uzbek authorities, after the US criticised the government over events in Andijan.

And now the Uzbeki authorities are asking us to leave. The article doesn't quite connect these, perhaps because the U.S. officials are professing to "not know why the request had been made", but anybody who can read between the lines can see there's a disagreement brewing.

The eviction notice came days after US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld returned from a visit to Uzbek neighbours Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

Officials in Kyrgyzstan affirmed that US forces could continue to use Manas air base for as long as the Afghan war requires.

Mr Rumsfeld said he did not believe US operations in Afghanistan would be hurt if Tashkent denied continued use of K2, because there are other options in the region.

Oh, whew, at least our subversion of Central Asia can continue unabated. But what about the oil pipeline?

Okay, I'm being a little tongue in cheek about this. It seems to me this is a setback to U.S. plans, but I'm glad it's because the U.S. authorities were complaining about Uzbeki brutality.

But, wait, there's more. Here's the NY Times coverage: Uzbeks Order U.S. From Base in Refugee Rift (By STEVEN R. WEISMAN, and THOM SHANKER, NY Times, Published: July 31, 2005)

Uzbekistan formally ordered the United States to leave an air base that has been a hub for operations in Afghanistan in protest over a predawn United Nations operation on Friday to spirit out refugees who had fled an uprising in Uzbekistan in May, senior State Department officials said Saturday.

The article goes on to explain about the refugees. That they went to Kyrgyzstan, and that there have been recommendations to relocate them to Romania (?for safety?). The article goes on to explain how the U.S. is insisting on reforms.

About 450 Uzbek refugees arrive in Romania (Turkish Daily News, Saturday, July 30, 2005) reports that exactly this happened. That 450 Uzbek refugees arrived Friday July 29 in Romania.

CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap (29 Jul 2005 09:36:11 GMT, Source: IRIN, reported by Reuters, published on AlertNet) This Reuters "central asia wrapup" also reports on the same thing, giving a few more details.

Most of the article is discussing health aid being provided to several of these countries. It's not clear what this health aid has to do with the U.S. being asked to leave Uzbekistan, or the refugees, but this is a "wrap up" article. The article also discusses the general expectation from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) calling on the U.S. to provide a timetable concerning pulling out of central asia. They are accepting of U.S. presence so long as its necessary for the operation in Afghanistan, but apparently not one moment longer.

The NY Times article ends on this interesting note:

Mr. Rumsfeld received assurances from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan that the American military could continue to use bases in those Central Asian nations to support relief and counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan.

"We feel we've had a good arrangement and good relationships in a number of those countries in the region," Mr. Rumsfeld said during his travels. "And obviously from time to time things may be adjusted one way or another."

The issue has been a test of the Bush administration as it has tried to balance two of its most prized foreign policy goals: democratization and counterterrorism.

Pentagon and military officials pointed out that it remained unclear whether the eviction from the Uzbek base would halt all bilateral relations with a nation on the rim of one of the most unstable regions in the world.

Those in the United States government and the military who argue for carefully managed engagement, even with dictatorial governments, note that without any formalized Western influence in places like Uzbekistan, there would most likely be influence from less-democratic sponsors, like Russia or China.

Reading between the lines, saying "without formalized western influence" and contrasting it with "influence from less-democratic sponsors, like Russia or China" points in the direction of a game of influence. Both statements are grounded in the thought that large countries are going to control the destiny of certain client countries. And it implies a contest between the U.S., Russia, and China to establish influence over Central Asia.

A new kind of solar lighting

Maybe you're familiar with skylights .. y'know, cut a hole in the roof and install a window. They're great for ambient lighting, during the day. You don't have to turn on an electric light for that room, yet the room is well lit.

Another advantage is that the light is natural sunlight. The kind of light our bodies evolved over millions of years to love. Studies have shown that we function better in natural sunlight. Plus there's that concept that to create vitamin D in your body, you need natural sunlight.

http://www.sunlight-direct.com/

Here's a new kind of skylight that has those benefits, but it's also directional and far more flexible than skylights. It uses zero electricity for great power savings.

It uses fiber optics to capture and carry light. Since fiber optics are highly flexible, this means you can route that light anywhere. Even rooms deep inside a building can have natural sunlight, simply by running the fiber optic cable to that room.

Note:

Q. When will a commercial product be available?

A. A commercially available product will be available in early 2007.

Are we surprised?? The gutting of the energy bill ...

As I noted yesterday, Congress is working on an "Energy" bill that's in response to GW's "National Energy Policy". According to the NY Times, the bill is getting worser and worser.

Provisions to Curb Oil Use Fall Out of Energy Bill (By CARL HULSE, Published: July 26, 2005, NYTIMES.COM)

Note that Congress has an artificial deadline of delivering a bill to Pres. Bush by August 1. I suppose that's so they can preserve the hallowed August Shutdown, allowing them all to take their vacation plans.

Working furiously to try to strike a deal on broad energy legislation, Congressional negotiators on Monday killed two major provisions aimed at curbing consumption of traditional fossil fuels like oil, natural gas and coal.

House members rejected an effort to incorporate a plan passed by the Senate to require utilities to use more renewable energy like wind and solar power to generate electricity. They also defeated a bid to direct the president to find ways to cut the nation's appetite for oil by one million barrels a day.

... But Republican opponents of the plan said the fuel savings target could lead to unpopular restrictions like mandatory car pools and put too much responsibility for achieving the goal in the hands of the president.

... Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, the senior Democrat on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said his plan to require power plant operators who now rely on coal, oil and natural gas to increase their use of renewable fuels was a low-cost, market-driven approach to cutting demand for fossil fuels and easing air pollution.

Under the proposal, which has repeatedly passed the Senate, utilities would have to generate at least 10 percent of their electricity through renewable fuels by 2020.

"It would reduce our dependence on traditional polluting sources of electricity," Mr. Bingaman said.

And, to rub the salt in the wound of these contradictions ...

China is planning to produce 10% of its power from wind energy by 2020. Hmm, China can do what the U.S. cannot? What does this say?

In Search of a New Energy Source, China Rides the Wind (By HOWARD W. FRENCH, Published: July 26, 2005, NYTIMES.COM)

From the distance the turbines look almost forbidding, looming very large on the horizon like some clawed space invaders. But one must get up close, very close, to hear the slightest hum as their blades spin, harvesting power from the wind.

Apart from the random bleating from a huge herd of sheep, the loudest noise in this open, rolling grassland of Inner Mongolia is the buzz from the transformers that dot the plain, collecting electricity from this small army of 96 metallic monsters with their spinning blades.

Blessed with vast, empty countryside and a seemingly permanent stiff breeze blowing across the steppes, the buzz of transformers is growing steadily louder in this far northern province as investors pour money into the wind farm. It is already huge, and may soon be getting much larger.

... By 2020, starting from a minuscule base that it has established only recently, China expects to supply 10 percent of its needs from so-called renewable energy sources, including wind, solar energy, small hydroelectric dams and biomass like plant fibers and animal wastes.

... "We have huge goals for wind power development," Wang Zhongying, director of China's Center for Renewable Energy Development. "By 2010, we plan to reach 4,000 megawatts, and by 2020 we expect to reach 20,000 megawatts, or 20 gigawatts." If anything, Mr. Wang said, these targets are too conservative, and may be easily surpassed.

"Dreadful" energy bill before congress

GW Bush has been pushing an abysmal National Energy Policy for awhile. Now before congress is a bill meant to be their answer to his proposed policy.

Don't Blame Dems For Dreadful Energy Bill (by David Morris, July 25, 2005, RenewableEnergyAccess.com)

The House version appears to be HR 1640, "Energy Policy Act of 2005" but there's also a Senate version which I can't find.

In any case, I'm not surprised they (Congress) has made a bad bill. They are all bought and controlled by the big money interests who've been crying for years that making any real move to renewable energy would damage business.

How bad is it? The most effective provision in either energy bill may be a small program to promote a technology that cuts off heavy-duty truck engines after 15 minutes of idling.

... One such provision, for example, allows the federal government to impose high voltage transmission lines on recalcitrant states. Another severely limits the authority of state and cities over the siting of liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals. Provisions stripping states and communities of their authority over private energy companies are accompanied by another that would have the same debilitating effect on federal authority. Both bills repeal the 70-year-old Public Utilities Holding Company Act (PUHCA). PUHCA was passed to clean up the mess created by massive utility mergers in the 1920s and the resulting wave of fraud and financial manipulations that helped to bring about the Great Depression.

PUHCA forced utilities to refocus their corporate structure on their core obligation -- the delivery of low cost, reliable electricity. And it endowed the newly created Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) with the power and responsibility to examine the utilities' books and evaluate any merger proposals.

But, here's a positive development around this: Lawmakers Abandon MTBE Liability Shield to Help Clear Way for Passing Energy Bill (July 25, 2005 — By H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press, published on ENN.COM)

The article discusses a deal to close the problem over MTBE. The House wanted to put a liability limit on the MTBE producers, but there's evidence those companies knew about MTBE's dangers. Just like the cigarette companies, eh? That is, the cigarette makers knew for decades that smoking causes cancer, but they hid that evidence, killing millions of people, before the news was unveiled. So to with MTBE apparently.

Wind power deployment facing a ...er... headwind (groan)

Wind power projects in Europe have a current installed capacity of 0.6 GW, however plans are afoot for around 54 GW of wind projects. Europe as a whole is more accepting of the idea that global warming gasses must be reduced, and they see infrastructure investment (e.g. wind energy projects) as the solution. This is opposed to GW Bush's stance that apparently reduction in global warming emissions would mean loss of american jobs, I suppose he's being short-sighted to his fossil fuel industry roots (there's a reason I call him President Enron, with Vice President Halliburton and Secretary of State Chevron) ... but, installing wind energy systems would mean new jobs.

Blustery Conditions for European Wind Power New Energy Finance White Paper Outlines Difficulties in European Wind Power Market (renewableEnergyAccess.com, July 22, 2005) with supporting data from New Energy Finance

The article goes through the wind energy plans in europe:

The most ambitious countries are Germany, the UK and the Netherlands, targeting 25GW, 9.1GW and 6GW respectively.

and the costs and financing issues:

So where is the bottleneck? An analysis of projects under development and national targets reveals that specific sites have been identified for 32.5GW (59%) of the proposed developments. Of those sites which have already been identified, and in some cases for which permits awarded, no less than 29.7GW (92%) have yet to secure financing. That translates into an immediate funding requirement of EUR 49.4bn (USD 62.4bn).

One of the reasons for the difficulties experienced by as-yet-unfunded projects is that offshore permitting is a lengthy process involving multiple authorities - industry sources claim as many as 14 different agencies can be involved in a single project. Streamlining of procedures is being actively tackled by British, Danish, Swedish governments.

Another concern is that the offshore services companies required to erect towers and lay cables may have insufficient capacity for the huge volume of work ahead.

The real problem, however, according to Ian Temperton of Climate Change Capital, is that as they stand, the projects are just not financially viable:

"If the projects make economic sense the funding is available", he says. "There is no shortage of experience amongst the major lenders and equity providers in financing onshore wind."

So, while promising, it's frustrating to see the roadblocks. Or should that be wind breaks?

Mall War..er..Wall Mart and alternative energy? Hunh?

Normally you don't think of a big corporation like Wall Mart doing something nice like supporting alternative energy systems in a big way. But, well, here we are.

Wal-Mart Deploys Solar, Wind, Sustainable Design (by Jesse Broehl, Editor, RenewableEnergyAccess.com, July 22, 2005) with further information on Wall Mart's site

The RenewableEnergyAccess.com article focuses on the solar and wind energy aspects of the design, but Wall Mart did a lot more than that. For example, rather than impervious pavement covering the parking lot and walkways, they are using pervious materials. Pervious materials allow rainwater to soak through into the ground, which they say decreases runoff problems, but I suppose it also helps the health of the ground underneath the parking lots.

Another topic they're addressing is the heat island effect. This is one of those fairly obvious things that took scientists awhile to study. Basically urban areas are hotter (in summer anyway) than rural areas, and it's because urban areas tend to have large expanses of dark colored objects. For example large parking lots, and dark colored rooftops. Additionally you have few trees and other plantlife. This combines to amplify the heat in urban areas. There's several ways of addressing this, such as light colored rooftops. Wall Mart is claiming this decreases their cooling costs, because their building is not in a heat zone.

They've also built a rainwater collection pond, and arranged several facets of the site design to channel rainwater to that pond. The pond then provides wildlife habitat, and the water is also used for irrigation. The net result is less dependance on city water.

A very interesting thing to me is the presence of two wind turbines, and nearly 100 kilowatt capacity of solar panels.

One wind turbine is a large (50 kilowatt) design by Bergey Windpower that's prominently displayed in the center of the parking lot, and can be seen for miles around. It's a new design that's supposed to provide power even in low wind conditions. The other is a small unit attached to the big sign, providing the power required to run the sign.

The solar installation is covering their garden center, and is also designed to allow some light to filter through so that the garden center doesn't require added lighting.

This is an interesting and positive trend. Wall Mart is doing this as a special experiment, and working with NASA to record all sorts of data. However if it works out as expected, one can expect new big box stores to be built in a similar way. Especially as Wall Mart is sharing the data with the public, the result will be that other corporate interests can look at the data themselves and use it in their decisions around how to build new buildings.

Oregon Senate Passes Broad Biofuels Bill

Oregon Senate Passes Broad Biofuels Bill: The Oregon Senate today approved an amended version of House Bill 3481 that supports a growing biofuels industry in Oregon through the use of tax credits.

The bill uses a broad definition of biofuel: “liquid or gaseous fuel produced from a biological source, including but not limited to waste and residue from agriculture, forestry or related industries or other industrial or municipal waste.