We partied like it was 1999

Okay, today is December 31, 2005. A posting on Scripting News had a pointer to five years ago and I suddenly remembered what that day was like. The big concern? Remember Y2K? The fear that come midnight that night, that the whole mechanised world around us would come crashing to a halt?

I remember being in San Francisco that night and passing by someone on the street shortly after midnight, and we exchanged the observation "Well, it all seems to still be working".

Before then I'd attended a talk by my old spiritual teacher. He's one of those who study on and on about conspiracy theories, and who has moved out to the country. At his place in the country they are offering it as a community place for like-minded folk to live. The phrase "intentional community" is common in the spiritual communities, and that's the phrase he uses as well. At this talk in, oh, I think it was in 1998, he was talking about having bought a huge quantity of canned food rations, and put aside other survival supplies. And he was talking about his experience at a gasoline station, where the power suddenly went out and the station owners had to chase everybody away. The computerised store could not be operated without power, and that was the perfect analogy for what might happen in 1999 when the computers fail.

During the talk he turned to me, since he knows I'm a serious geek, and asked my professional opinion. I had to say that the scenario was certainly possible. And, it was, because it wasn't known how wide spread any computer outages might be, and what the consequences would be. However I knew very well that the computer and IT industries had been doing a lot of Y2K related work to fix the systems.

It wasn't too surprising when computer failures failed to materialize. First, there'd been a lot of Y2K work which had served to strengthen computer system reliability across the spectrum. It's not like this problem was a surprise to the computer industry, because "we" had known about it since the 1980's.

But, it's worth pondering the general issue. The Y2K nemesis did not occur, but that doesn't mean we've escaped unscathed.

First, the Unix systems that are widely spread have a 2036 problem, in that their system clocks will roll over that year. That's far enough into the future we don't have to worry about it, right? But that's what the computer industry thought in the 1980's, and then the latter part of the 1990's was a scramble to handle Y2K issues. Human nature will be to push problems off until it's a crisis.

But even more generally think about how computers have woven their way into crucial roles in society. What if there were a massive failure? Suppose it were widespread enough to prevent food or water from being shipped? Today our food comes from so far away, and in most cities there's no local farming. It wouldn't take much to cause mass starvation. But it would have to be a very interesting sort of widespread failure. The failure would have to prevent shipping for long enough that local warehouses would empty, and the few local farms would be overrun by demand.

It's a little hard to imagine what kind of failure it would have to be. Here's a few possibilities that come to mind:

Power outage: This is the most obvious, and there is a looming issue with energy resources anyway. The Peak Oil warning is that fossil fuels derived from oil will have a peak in production after which there is an inexorable decline. If the world reaches the Oil Peak and hasn't developed an alternative to fossil fuel, then shipping will be impossible. If you want an example of the result, let me remind you have the Mad Max movies.

Computer virus: It would be difficult today for a computer virus to make a widespread outage happen. There are so many entities involved with shipping food etc, that it would be hard to knock them all out. One entity might have their computers knocked out, but the others would be okay. However it's always possible the virus authors will score a big hit and knock out most computer systems in one blow. The computer virus's do show an ability to spread deeply inside corporations, even behind firewalls, and I suspect the security of systems inside firewalls isn't as secure as one might like.

A cure for this problem is to ensure there's a wide variety of computer systems in use. There is a biological analogy at play, in that the multitude of biological species means that each virus or other biological attack can damage only a few species. Each species has different vulnerabilities, and each biological agent targets a small number of vulnerabilities. There's a similar principle for computer systems, in that each computer system has specific vulnerabilities. That's partly why virus's on Windows computers can spread so quickly, is that there are so many Windows computers each having the same vulnerabilities.

Food virus: Writing about biological diversity reminded me of a threat. The farmers are specializing towards a smaller and smaller number of food species, because that's what the seed industry is providing. What if this went to a logical conclusion, and there were only one species of corn being grown, and then a virulent crop blight were to pounce on that once species? It could wipe out a whole growing season around the country, if not around the world. Eek.

The cure for that problem is to diversify food crops.

Not to worry: In general these scenarios are worst case nightmares, rather than likely events. That is, except for the Peak Oil situation which is barrelling towards us like an out of control unchecked freight train. So long as the government is hiding their head in the sand, we the people are stuck on the tracks not even aware there's danger coming around the bend.

For most sorts of events ingenuity will kick in, relief supplies will flow, and there'll be a lot of serious sounding coverage on CNN. For most disastrous events we survive, because that's what humans do.

But when the oil production peaks, if nothing has changed between now and then, well, Mad Max might look tame.

COMMENT: Palm oil can light up biofuel advantage

An interesting overview of Malaysia's strategy for becoming a major player in biodiesel production. As noted before, they are installing many palm plantations, and from them are extracting "palm oil". The biggest advantage the article notes is a palm plantation can produce 5 tons of palm oil per hectare, while with other plant sources you can produce only 500 kg per hectare. COMMENT: Palm oil can light up biofuel advantage

Safe Haven | The Potential Emerging Energy Crunch

It's interesting to look at an investors viewpoint on "energy" and the oil supply issue. The Potential Emerging Energy Crunch (by Sol Palha) He lists several potential energy sources and points out how they all have problems preventing wide use right now. The issue is the high oil prices we saw over the last year, and he is trying to say the energy prices will continue to be high for the forseeable future, and that there is one solution: Uranium and Nuclear Power.

Hurm. Apparently Uranium is a hot thing to invest in right now ... my office-neighbor who's a serious day trader type of investor, he's really focussed on Uranium right now.

His reasoning about Uranium is there's a serious growth in Uranium demand around the world, not only from new reactors but also from stockpiling activities.

That may be, but I find his reasoning overall suspicious. First, Uranium and Nuclear Power is not a substitute for oil. No-way-no-how will you ever drive up to a fueling station and ask to fill-er-up with Uranium.

Uranium and Nuclear Power can only provide heat, from which they make electricity. Hence, Nuclear Power can run our homes and factories, but not our cars unless we convert to electric cars.

The energy price problem of the last year is oil prices. It is for oil we are fighting the wars in the Middle East. That's because the U.S. has stupiedly made a dependency on oil to run our economy.

In fact all the energy alternates he discusses produce electricity and aren't suitable for vehicles unless the U.S. were to convert to electric cars.

He does miss out on one glaringly important alternate energy source that's currently a rising star: Biodiesel. Biodiesel has an interesting advantage that it can be grown "anywhere", is simple to make, and can easily drive a diesel engine.

Now, back to the author of the post above. He's clearly an investment advisor. It's well known that investment advisors are more often than not pushing "products" which will drive investment transactions regardless of how sound an investment they are.

Green Car Congress: Seattles Essential Baking Company Shifts Delivery Fleet to B99 Biodiesel

Okay, so this is one small company and the deal involves only 13 diesel delivery trucks. What's the big deal? Well, it's like I noted yesterday, in getting biofuels (biodiesel is a biofuel) accepted, it will be easier to begin with commercial operators and build your market with them first. Yesterday it was the Port of Seattle, today it's a small bakery in Seattle, tomorrow it'll be another company and so on.

Eventually biodiesel will be a big thing among commercial companies.

Seattle’s Essential Baking Company Shifts Delivery Fleet to B99 Biodiesel (28 December 2005, Green Car Congress)

Biodiesel Truck Fleet Becomes the Essential Baking Company's Latest 'Baker's Dozen' (Wednesday December 28, 8:30 pm ET, Yahoo News)

Finding local sources for maintenance and fueling for the vehicles isn't as difficult as the average business small might think, say company officials. The Essential Baking Company currently uses Dr. Dan's (Freeman) Alternative Fuel Werks of Ballard for biodiesel fueling, and International Truck Leasing for trucks and service, among others.

Dr. Dan's Alternative Fuel Werks

Green Car Congress: Terminal Operator at Port of Seattle Moves to B20 Biodiesel

For alternative fuels like biodiesel to succeed, they don't have to first approach the mainstream car drivers. Yes, mainstream car drivers could buy a diesel car and pretty easily run it on biodiesel. But a mainstream car driver doing this would face an infrastructure problem, when they run out of fuel in the middle of the desert where do they find another biodiesel station?

This problem would make it hard(er) for biodiesel makers to sell their fuel, that is if they limited themselves to the mainstream car drivers. However there are a lot of diesel vehicles operated outside the mainstream car drivers.

This is an example: Terminal Operator at Port of Seattle Moves to B20 Biodiesel (Green Car Congress, 27 December 2005) The story concerns the Port of Seattle, which has a lot of heavy equipment (cranes etc) that run on diesel. It's in a fixed location, making it easy for the fuel vendor to simply deliver more fuel every so often.

This shows a useful game plan for the biodiesel vendors to follow. Industrial users like this are generally in a fixed location or in other ways you can make arrangements for fuel delivery. They operate a lot of diesel equipment, and there's a growing concern over the known health problems caused by burning fossil-diesel fuel. Those health problems don't exist when burning bio-diesel instead.

You may think "oh, they're not selling to regular drivers, so what good is that?" It does a lot of good, because it gets an alternate fuel into more vehicles. If the U.S. is going to wean itself off fossil fuel, those industrial users have to be converted sometime. If it's easier to convert them now, then why not do so?

The Energy Blog: Bioenergy Feedstock Information Network

As the world makes moves towards biofuels, the source of the biological material is going to become important. For example I've noted earlier how current growth in biodiesel production in southeast asia is leading to deforestation of the rain forests so they can plant palm trees and grow "palm oil".

The Bioenergy Feedstock Information Network (BFIN) "is a gateway to a wealth of biomass feedstock information resources from the U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and other research organizations."

This is U.S. Tax Dollars at work producing a wonderful information resource. They cover all angles of biofuels, including economics, environmental impacts, sources of biomass, the supply system, and research activities.

I found this via The Energy Blog, December 17, 2005 Bioenergy Feedstock Information Network

BLM to speed wind energy development

Here's some good news on the energy front. The U.S. Interior Department is announcing a new sped-up process for approving wind energy projects on public lands.

The move sets broad guidelines for the Bureau of Land Management's wind energy development program, and should decrease the time to get approval for a wind energy project from two or more years to less than one year, Norton said.

BLM to speed wind energy development (Great Falls Tribune, December 17, 2005)

Secretary Norton Announces Major Step Forward in Promoting Wind Energy Production on Public Lands

For Immediate Release: December 15, 2005

Contact: Hugh Vickery 202-501-4633, David Quick, BLM, 202-452-5138

WASHINGTON, D.C.– Interior Secretary Gale Norton today announced the completion of an environmental review that will allow the Bureau of Land Management to significantly expand its wind energy program on public lands while ensuring the conservation of threatened and endangered species and migratory birds.

With the publication of the record of decision on a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, BLM also is amending 52 land-use plans in 9 western states to generate more than 3,200 megawatts of wind energy - enough to provide electricity for nearly 1 million homes.

While changes in the land-use plans will speed development of wind energy, individual projects will still require site-specific analysis and permits. Nevertheless, BLM expects to be able to shorten the approval process for new wind energy projects from two or more years to less than a year.

"When he took office, President Bush made finding and developing alternative sources of energy on public lands a key component of his National Energy Policy," Norton said. "With this record of decision and the amendment of the land-use plans, we are taking an important step in diversifying and expanding America's energy supply while conserving wildlife and its habitat. We can conceivably produce six times more wind energy on BLM lands."

"The Department of the Interior has taken a major step forward for the future of U.S. wind energy and for America's electricity consumers," American Wind Energy Association Executive Director Randall Swisher said. "The inclusive way in which these policies were created will help to ensure the responsible development on BLM land of a clean, domestic, and strategic energy source."

The Interior Department has made increasing alternative energy production on public lands one of its top priorities, Norton said. For example, over the last 5 years, BLM has issued 86 wind energy permits, compared to four issued in the previous 5 years.

The Programmatic EIS establishes broad guidelines for BLM's Wind Energy Development Program ensuring that the best management practices are used to avoid impacts to at-risk species and migratory birds.

As part of the approval process, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a biological opinion stating that the wind energy program would not jeopardize threatened or endangered species.

BLM also incorporated guidelines to reduce the impact of wind energy production on birds, bats and other wildlife. The guidelines mitigate impacts related to noise, habitat fragmentation, collisions, ground disturbance, protection of riparian areas and wetlands, and other conservation issues. Wind energy accounts for only 6 percent of our nation's renewable electricity generation and 0.1 percent of our total electricity supply. BLM currently has 22 wind energy development sites that produce 500 megawatt hours of power.

"Public lands offer enormous opportunities for environmentally sound renewable energy production," Norton said. "We expect to see many new wind energy sites in coming years."

Land use plans define how public land resources will be managed within a specific planning area and establish restrictions on activities to be undertaken in that planning area. They are developed by BLM in conjunction with interested stakeholders and with ample opportunities for public comment. The land use planning process is the key tool used by BLM to protect resources and designate uses on public lands. The plans help ensure that the public lands are managed in accordance with applicable laws and regulations under the principles of multiple use and sustained yield; recognizing the nation's need for domestic sources of minerals, food, timber, and fiber while protecting the quality of scientific, scenic, historical, ecological, environmental, air and atmospheric, water, and archaeological values.

BLM developed the Programmatic EIS in response to recommendations made in the President's National Energy Policy, which encourages the development of renewable energy resources on public lands. The document is also consistent with congressional direction provided in the recently passed Energy Policy Act of 2005 related to renewable energy development on public lands.

Work on the EIS began in October 2003 and included extensive community meetings in the West and opportunities for public comment. The document addresses wind-energy development on BLM-administered lands in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. BLM is not amending the land-use plans for Arizona and California because those states already are addressing wind energy locally.

The Record of Decision and the Final Programmatic EIS are posted on the Web at http://windeis.anl.gov.