Security

Nigerian taxi ban hits commuters

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The BBC reports that the capital city of Nigeria has banned the use of motorcycles for taxis:

The high profile minister in charge of the city of three million, Nasir el-Rufai, has cracked down on the motorbikes for two main reasons, he says.

Accident rates involving motorbike taxis are very high and the authorities have also become increasingly frustrated with the number of motorcycles being used as getaway vehicles in armed robberies across the city.

The decision has angered many who considered the motorcycle taxis worth the risks that are cited by the government:

A frustrated Adamu Mohammadu, waiting for a minibus at an Abuja street corner, complained there had been no consultations before the ban was announced.

“If you want me to appreciate that type of decision, carry me along; seek my view before you decide on my behalf. If they are really protecting my interest, they should return those okada boys to the streets,” he said.

First, this is undoubtedly due to the externality of the accidents and robberies. If the frequency of these two are not sufficiently high to be a worry to the average commuter then they should not be expected to automatically be sympathetic to a regulation that has a clear downside. Second, the giant increase in demand for other forms of public transportation has not been handled well, causing further slow-downs and spike in prices.

This is an excellent example of how trying to reduce one type of risk can ultimately lead to an increase in others, as well as the difficulty in generating support for addressing external risks (e.g. someone else in an accident or robbery). And so I am certain many people in Nigeria will ask whether the frequency/severity of the accidents and robberies (and insurance or other costs?) will decline enough to offset the frequency/severity of inconvenience to commuting without motorcycle taxis.

Perhaps rather than an outright ban (preventive measure), the government should have sought less intrusive strict regulation of identity and licenses or even partnered with the private sector to require a higher-level of insurance (detective measure). If nothing else, they certainly should have better anticipated the economic and social fall-out from blocking a heavily used form of transportation.

History, Poetry, Security

My Country Awake

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A poem by Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941):

Where the mind is without fear and the head held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening thought and action;
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

I get stuck somewhere on the “desert dand of dead habit” as I see sand contantly changing and evolving while a stream is burdened by following a familiar path (thus it is a stream, rather than a sea or ocean). Heraclitus would probably disagree, though, as he said you can never step into the same stream twice; it, and you, have undergone countless changes.

Incidentally, I also found a site where you can hear and/or watch actor Martin Sheen read it aloud, “at a rally for Appalachia in Athens County, Ohio”. Sheen does a fine job with this politically charged commentary on political security, but something tells me he is slightly off the poet-to-poem connection. Maybe Sheen would have been more suited for a more self-reflective theme like Shatner’s “Has Been” collection.

History, Poetry, Security

All These I Learnt

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A poem by Robert Byron (1905-1941) read by Prince Charles today for National Poetry Day in Britain. More and more poetry is ending up as audio, which is fine by me. I was a fan of Frost readings as a child, and after listening to his 78s over and over, never felt the written page captured his intent.

Unfortunately we will never know if Prince Charles’ reading is close to how Byron might have handled his own work since the poet met an untimely end at just 35 years old — he was lost at sea when his ship was destroyed by a German U-boat in WWII.

If I have a son, he shall salute the lords and ladies who unfurl green hoods to the March rains, and shall know them afterwards by their scarlet fruit.

He shall know the celandine, and the frigid, sightless flowers of the woods, spurge and spurge laurel, dogs’ mercury, wood- sorrel and queer four-leaved herb-paris fit to trim a bonnet with its purple dot.

He shall see the marshes gold with flags and kingcups and find shepherd’s purse on a slag-heap.

He shall know the tree-flowers, scented lime-tassels, blood- pink larch-tufts, white strands of the Spanish chestnut and tattered oak- plumes.

He shall know orchids, mauve-winged bees and claret-coloured flies climbing up from mottled leaves.

He shall see June red and white with ragged robin and cow parsley and the two campions.

He shall tell a dandelion from sow thistle or goat’s beard. He shall know the field flowers, lady’s bedstraw and lady’s slipper, purple mallow, blue chicory and the cranesbills – dusky, bloody, and blue as heaven.

In the cool summer wind he shall listen to the rattle of harebells against the whistle of a distant train, shall watch clover blush and scabious nod, pinch the ample veitches, and savour the virgin turf.

He shall know grasses, timothy and wag -wanton, and dust his finger- tips in Yorkshire fog.

By the river he shall know pink willow-herb and purple pikes of loosestrife, and the sweetshop smell of water- mint where the rat dives silently from its hole.

He shall know the velvet leaves and yellow spike of the old dowager, mullein, recognise the whole company of thistles, and greet the relatives of the nettle, wound-wort and hore- hound, yellow rattle, betony, bugle and archangel. In autumn, he shall know the hedge lanterns, hips and haws and bryony.

At Christmas he shall climb an old apple-tree for mistletoe, and know whom to kiss and how.

He shall know the butterflies that suck the brambles, common whites and marbled white, orange- tip, brimstone, and the carnivorous clouded yellows.

He shall watch fritillaries, pearl-bordered and silver-washed, flit like fireballs across the sunlit rides. He shall see that family of capitalists, peacock, painted lady, red admiral and the tortoiseshells, uncurl their trunks to suck blood from bruised plums, while the purple emperor and white admiral glut themselves on the bowels of a rabbit.

He shall know the jagged comma, printed with a white c, the manx-tailed iridescent hair-streaks, and the skippers demure as charwomen on Monday morning.

He shall run to the glint of silver on a chalk-hill blue – glint of a breeze on water beneath an open sky – and shall follow the brown explorers, meadow brown, brown argus, speckled wood and ringlet.

He shall see death and revolution in the burnet moth, black and red, crawling from a house of yellow talc tied half-way up a tall grass.

He shall know more rational moths, who like the night, the gaudy tigers, cream-spot and scarlet, and the red and yellow underwings.

He shall hear the humming-bird hawk moth arrive like an air- raid on the garden at dusk, and know the other hawks, pink sleek-bodied elephant, poplar, lime, and death’s head.

He shall count the pinions of the plume moths, and find the large emerald waiting in the rain-dewed grass.

All these I learnt when I was a child and each recalls a place or occasion that might otherwise be lost.

They were my own discoveries.

They taught me to look at the world with my own eyes and with attention.

They gave me a first content with the universe.

Town-dwellers lack this intimate content, but my son shall have it!

Was Byron survived by a son? The British Navy named a Frigate the HMS Byron (perhaps in memory of John Byron (1723-1786) a former rear admiral). It was built by the US in 1943, fittingly sunk two U-boats, and was scrapped by 1947.

Edited to add (15 Oct 2006): The Guardian has a nice write-up on Byron’s inspirations and insights:

While many of his Oxford contemporaries initially took a benign view of Hitler – Unity Mitford crowing over her “delicious Stormies” (stormtroopers) and Evelyn Waugh cheering on Mussolini’s fascists in Ethiopia – Byron was an arch-enemy of both fascism and appeasement: “I am going to have Warmonger put on my passport,” he declared. “These people are so grotesque, if we go to war it will be like fighting an enormous zoo.”

In the strange confrontation that took place in English life in the late 1930s, as the gilded butterflies of Brideshead found themselves confronted by the goosestepping armies of Nazi Germany, few got it as right as Byron.

In this context, it seems that his poem was a call to secure and preserve the openness and beauty of the English countryside. Was it a call to arms against the Nazis? No, I don’t believe he was specifying any one threat but rather all threats, or at least expressing the need to truly appreciate the value of natural resources and thus imply a commitment to better understanding and reducing vulnerabilities on behalf of future generations. Just a thought…

Energy, Security

Problems of Hydrogen Distribution

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Here is an interesting study of the German auto industry R&D with regard to hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles. The study is called “R&D focus of German Hydrogen Innovation System” and seems to be based on a theory that testing and subsequent implementation can not happen until a suitable “innovation system” comes about. They study the hydrogen research from 1974 to 2000 in Germany because they call it a “frontrunner” in the EU.

Not surprisingly, and as I have suggested before, the risk and uncertainties of a hydrogen infrastructure remain a major obstacle to its use in a distributed network for automobiles:

What is the logical way out of this visible trend in the German R&D sector? As argued earlier, the R&D behaviour of the car manufacturing industry can be explained by the uncertainties they perceive in terms of infrastructure development and these uncertainties are very difficult to manage. A way out therefore, depends strongly on reducing the uncertainties regarding infrastructure. This requires a strong party that acts as a system intermediary. The role of this intermediary is to bring together the parties involved in a future hydrogen economy (like is done in the Californian Fuel Cell Partnership) but is also capable of arranging strong commitments in terms of infrastructure development. Hereby reducing the uncertainty for all actors involved. Since the stakes are so high and the process so capital intensive this is a role that most likely only a strong government can play. This is in line with history that shows that the majority of our current infrastructures (roads, electricity, natural gas) are controlled and coordinated by governments. When the transition to hydrogen is really taken seriously by governments, just funding of R&D is likely not to be sufficient. A strong coordination effort should accompany these financial initiatives

And yet we see some in the US government discussing hydrogen fuel-cell as though the infrastructure will magically appear. Will the oil companies build it? Not likely, unless the government subsidizes them and pays for the risks, which just begs the next question; Will the government build it? Why would they when there are other more stable and certain existing sources of fuel distribution? Well, the motive is not clear (false hope? pride? machiavellianism?) but the consequences are clear:

On July 21, 2005, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Senate Bill 76 (SB 76) that provided the necessary funding and legislative guidelines to implement recommendations of the CA H2 Net Blueprint Plan. SB 76 is a budget trailer bill that provides $6.5 million in funding for state-sponsored hydrogen demonstration projects until January 1, 2007. The funds may be used for co-funding the establishment of up to three hydrogen fueling station demonstration projects and the State lease and purchase of a variety of hydrogen fueled vehicles.

Close to $7 million dollars to build three stations and buy a few cars. Since funding runs out in 2007, that leaves three years to achieve the Governor’s vision:

To expedite the transition of our transportation system away from petroleum fuels, towards hydrogen fuel and vehicles, experts point to the crucial need for a hydrogen fueling infrastructure and the necessary leadership to make it a reality. An early network of only 150 to 200 hydrogen fueling stations throughout the State (approximately one station every 20 miles on the State’s major highways) would make hydrogen fuel available to the vast majority of Californians. This early vision for California’s Hydrogen Highway Network is achievable by 2010 and will help demonstrate the economic and technical viability of hydrogen technologies. Studies by the California Fuel Cell Partnership and others estimate that this initial low-volume fueling network will cost $75 – $200 million, the majority of this investment coming from private investment by energy companies, automakers, high-tech firms, and other companies.

One station every twenty miles? How does that compare to the number of existing gas and diesel stations? $75 – $200 million is a big spread. The numbers factor out to $375K to $1.3 million per station. The cost of blending biofuels into existing gas and diesel stations would be a tiny fraction of those numbers. Speaking of numbers:

200 stations x every 20 miles = 4000 miles

That is double the number of “Interstate” miles in California, according to the California Highways site:

The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) of 1991 brought the total authorized milage to 43,000. Of these miles, California has been allocated 2,311 miles.

That sounds great, until you take into account that Interstate miles are a tiny fraction of commonly traveled roads:

The Interstate system (formally “The Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate and Defense Highways”) serves the 48 contiguous states, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia. It carries more than 21 percent of the nation’s traffic on only 1% of the nation’s total road and street mileage.

The other 80 percent of people on 99% of the roads will have no hydrogen until someone, something, somehow figures out a sustainable distribution system. The CA governor clearly thinks it will be private industry subsidized by taxpayers. The report above thinks it will be the government. Neither has demonstrated a suitable “innovation system” that can bring a solution by 2010.

When you look at a cost/benefit analysis of energy distribution, hydrogen has serious problems of security (e.g. gas/liquid pressure and loss), while biofuels and hybrids are standing by as proven safe and reliable. Could the same level of investment in biofuels result in same or greater emissions changes by 2010 than combined hydrogen use for the five years afterwards?

Don’t get me wrong, research on hydrogen is great but I wish elected officials could be realistic about the need for a secure (e.g. sustainable) and clean source of energy that people can use on the road today. Progress today does not mean stump speeches about the great big hydrogen companies that will run our energy system ten years from ten years from now.

Go ahead, send Arnold a note and ask him how he gets around in his hydrogen Hummer.

The H2H puts lipstick on the pig by turning a vehicle whose urban fuel economy is about 10 miles per gallon (filling the tank routinely costs over $50) into a futuristic, alternatively-fueled car whose main tailpipe emission is water vapor.

So there you have the typical marketing pitch. Did you know that with hydrogen you can turn water into wine, rocks to pearls…tomorrow? The story concludes:

GM does not allow Schwarzenegger to use the “Self-Serve” lane at the hydrogen station. The company fills the tank itself, keeps the vehicle in Lake Forest, Calif. (near its engineering facilities and Quantum’s offices) and requires that a GM engineer ride in the car at all times. Is Hummer’s tentative embrace of green technology sparked by conscience or sales? Noting that Hummer’s North American sales in the first 11 months of 2004 declined 19% compared to the same period in 2003, the refashioning of Hummer starts to make sense–even if selling Hummers on their fuel economy still sounds like a desperate move.

Desperate and, quite frankly, not innovative enough.