Every once and a while I read the Economist. I used to be a loyal follower through the early 1990s, but I noticed some slight editorial changes towards the end of the millenium and lost interest. Instead, I drifted back to the library where I would grab ancient copies of the magazine, from the 1940s for example, read a few editorials and wonder “how could they have been so smart?”

Today I noticed an article that reminded me of the glory days of the magazine and it set me right down in my chair. It is called “The curse of oil: The paradox of plenty”

I don’t mean to bore anyone with the details but it sets off with the suggestion that the discovery of oil, which is far more desireable as an export than anything else in a nation, can lead to development slow-downs, damaging financial turbulence, or even repression of freedom in a country.

Graham Baxter at BP says “the curse of oil is a problem that BP recognises, and we have a part to play in helping our hosts deal with this wall of dollar-denominated cash coming into their fragile economies.â€? But André Madec of Exxon says: “We don’t like to call it the oil curse, we prefer ‘governance curse’. We are private investors, and it is not our role to tell governments how to spend their money.”

Once you peel back some of the layers of free-market versus regulated-market debate, the issue appears to be whether those flush with cash should be authorized to see where their money really goes. Apparently many are starting to say that the books should be open to review. Does that mean they will really want what’s best for those receiving the money? A representative of the World Bank is quoted as saying “countries have no justification for secrecy“:

The push for greater disclosure is, he says, already leading to demands for greater transparency in the power, water and construction sectors. If push really comes to shove, natural resources may yet become what they should be for some of the world’s poorest people: a blessing.

Really? That seems optimistic, especially when the US Administration is still arguing that national security in a war (related to oil, if not for control of it) must be placed above the public’s right to know. And what guarantees are there, even from a pure market standpoint, that the Exxon’s and BP of the world will actually give a whip about how the world’s poorest people make do? I think that’s a stretch, but you never know. Things do change.

Oh, and another thing: when was the last time that gas/petrol stations were willing to open their books to the public? I’d like to know how much of my money was going where (taxes, overhead, profit, etc.) so how do I go about getting that information? Come to think of it, I think I’d like to know why prices jump up so quickly on market news but take weeks to go down. Do energy companies have justification for their secrecy?

< A design group has come up with the perfect solution for those people who want the appearance of a fire, while reducing the risk of poisonous fumes and the mess of combustion. It is called “EcoSmart Fire” to emphasize how smart it is to have an Ethanol flame burning in your house.

My first questions were, of course, what is the actual heat output of this thing and whether it is practical to assume a ready supply of denatured ethanol. Unfortunately this is probably the wrong approach to this new technology — finding a way to enhance the ambiance of a space already running on central heat seems to be the main point, with only a very basic level of practicality, safety, and sustainability in mind.

Nonetheless, I found that the FAQ says the flame can “produce 14Mj/h equivalent to 13000BTU”. Not bad for a small room. Come to think of it the average PC power-supply generates about 1500BTU to 2500BTU but even if you ran five or so PCs to keep you warm you would still be on the grid and you couldn’t “safely” burn stuff. On the other hand, if you live in more than a 500 sq/ft bungalow you might need to invest in a lot of small fires, which just begs the question of whether you can run these fires from a centralized control system to manage output, burn-rate, etc. or if you are just supposed to setup a fire on its own in each room, as the Victorians did.

The marketing blurbs claim this really uses a renewable energy as the source of fuel, but burning wood is like burning ethanol in that regard, eh?

In fact I read that Alaska’s Senate passed a law recently (bill 337) to promote creating ethanol by processing waste wood with fish parts. So the comparison must be intended for petroleum or natural gas based fireplaces, not wood fires. Is that a big market?

Come to think of it I’m wondering why someone hasn’t yet figured out a way for restaurants to recycle their own cooking oil into beautiful and firery displays of ambiance. And if ethanol is actually available, then just mix it with the waste oil from food preparation and you end up with a convenient fuel for running your fireplaces as well as your vehicle…biodiesel.

You know the whole water into wine thing? Well, I hate to bring it up but what else comes to mind when the Army announces that their diesel-powered Humvees are going to be outfitted with technology that can return water from diesel exhaust? Just filter the exhaust through some “proprietary carbon filters” and put the results into a handy container in the Humvee and add a spigot. Pretty darn amazing idea, if you ask me, and apparently just one of the innovative things that happens when the chips are down in a desert and water is considered a truly precious commodity, yet diesel fuel is all around. Or as someone in logistics might put it “if you carry fuel, you already have your water”. Well, unless you run out of “proprietary” filters. But I digress…

once you taste the water, you realize the potential.

Great marketing slogan, because before I tasted the water I just thought it would be a convenient place to dump toxic waste from warships and munitions. To be frank, the risk equation being used here to justify the research is simple. The more complicated the supply logistics the more vulnerable the soldiers, so the brass are looking for ways to shore-up a water supply chain. Cleaning domestic superfund base sites? Civilians are vulnerable mostly, so no pressing need for the military to invest in new technology there…remember, the groundwork for the Internet was started by a project funded by the US military to help maintain the command structure during war.

Now, let’s say the situation with risk is different — contaminated water is all around, AND diesel refineries are nowhere to be found. Enter engines designed for bio-fuels? Hmm, maybe the next war, although the use of bio-diesel is known to lower the risk of damage from IEDs since it is less combustible. It also might make the water taste more like yesterday’s freedom fries.

In the meantime fuels like bio-diesel remain non-combat experiments and the ability to recycle the exhaust sounds like a cool use (pun intended) of energy tech that I hope makes it to the civilian world soon.