Archive for February, 2006
What if… the oil runs out?
Originally published in PC Plus magazine
We live in a world where technology delivers a multitude of little miracles. From the ubiquitous Blackberry to the sat-nav systems in our cars, we’re living in an always-on world of instant global communication, on-demand data and computing power that would have been undreamt of a few decades ago. Our economy is overwhelmingly electronic, from the zeroes and ones of electronic banking to the ecommerce sites killing big-name retailers, and in an increasingly cashless society we’ve replaced notes and coins with chip and PIN. The problem with these little miracles is that they all require power - and it’s running out.
In October, UK businesses were warned that they might need to close during the winter due to the double whammy of fuel shortages and rocketing energy prices. The predicted cold snap didn’t appear (or at least, it hasn’t so far) and an energy crisis was averted, but we’re not out of the woods yet. In early February we were stunned by a 22% increase in the cost of gas; by the end of the month, an explosion at the UK’s main gas storage field left the entire country with just two days’ worth of gas - one-seventh of the usual capacity, and one twenty-sixth of the European average.
The gas problems will go away, in the short term at least. However, when you look at the bigger picture the UK is in a very vulnerable position. Less than four percent of our electricity supply comes from renewable sources; if something were to restrict our fuel supplies, we’d be in trouble. According to think-tank the Foreign Policy Centre, if extremists controlled the world’s oil supplies and increased the price to $161 per barrel, we’d suffer “devastating economic problems” and energy rationing. The FPC even suggests a return to the days of the Blitz, but instead of air raid wardens we’d have “energy wardens”. The group suggests that “the mentality at community and householder level must be similar to that of the war years, or Britain will have no energy future.”
The FPC’s doomsday scenario assumes that any fuel shortage will be artificial rather than natural. However, many adherents of the Peak Oil theory believe that not only will our finite fuel resources run out, but that the process is already well underway.
Peak Oil was first proposed in 1956 by geophysicist Marion King Hubbert, who predicted that US oil production would peak by 1970 and that global production would peak in 2000. He was partly right: US production peaked in 1971, but global production continued to rise as 2000 came and went. Then again, Hubbert couldn’t have predicted the mid-70s oil crisis, which reduced demand and, perhaps, postponed the global peak.
As the Washington Post reported in June 2004, conventional oil production is indeed in decline: “For every 10 barrels of conventional oil consumed, only four new barrels are discovered. Without the unconventional oil from tar sands, liquefied natural gas and other deposits, world production would have peaked several years ago.” According to the Worldwatch Institute, in figures quoted by oil firm Chevron, oil production is declining in 33 of the 48 largest oil producing countries - but as developing nations grow more industrialised and our own insatiable desire for energy shows no signs of abating, demand for oil continues to rise. The most pessimistic estimates suggest that if demand stays relatively static, global oil production will peak in 2015.
The oil will not run out overnight - we’ve got a few decades after the peak - but as demand begins to significantly outstrip supply, energy prices will soar. In the absence of alternatives - how many of us drive hybrid cars or have energy-neutral homes? - and with promising technologies such as fuel cells still stuck in the labs, things could get nasty. Increased transport costs and energy costs will have a huge impact: they’ll increase firms’ costs and push up the prices of all products and services while taking an ever-larger chunk of our incomes; blackouts will become the exception rather than the norm, and we may have to endure 70s-style three day weeks. And that’s the best-case scenario. Pessimists predict that oil-producing nations will hold the rest of the planet to ransom, and that the oil-dependent nations will use force to secure fuel supplies.
So what are we doing about it? Not as much as we should, it seems. The government wants 10% of our energy to come from renewable sources by 2010 and 20% by 2020, but it seems that we won’t hit those targets in time - and if Peak Oil theorists are correct, by 2020 fuel supplies will already be in steep and irreversible decline. If new technology is going to save us from our dependence on oil, it really needs to get a move on.
Album (and DVD) of the year
On sale in twelve days (in the UK - it’s out on the 21st in the US). Yes!
Update
I’m living in the past! Today’s the ninth, not the eighth, so it comes out in eleven days! Double yes with a great big shiny yes on top and a side order of woo-hoo!
Happy shagging - the next toothing “craze”?
Remember toothing, the “craze” that was apparently sweeping the nation as people used their bluetooth phones to locate potential partners for no-strings sex? Despite being widely reported, it was a hoax.
This story reminded me of it: apparently “randy teens” have “sparked a new craze”, which has been dubbed “happy shagging”.
According to the Daily Snack, which comes from the same stable as that bastion of investigative journalism, the Daily Star:
Instead of swapping clips of people being beaten up, teens are now eyeing up steamy romps.
The phone orgies even have a street-slang name – “daisy chains”.
So what’s the evidence?
Health workers in south London were tipped off about the craze by a parent who found a sex film on their child’s mobile.
Apple and the Engadget Awards
This time last year, I wrote about the Engadget awards and said:
There are some interesting differences between the readers’ choice awards and Engadget’s own picks, which suggests the power of the online Mac community - typically if Apple makes something in any of the categories, the readers overwhelmingly voted for it while Engadget tended to go for non-Apple kit
A year on, and Engadget’s giving out gongs again. I’m getting deja vu:
Gadget of the Year
Readers’ Choice: Apple iPod (5g)
Engadget Pick: Microsoft Xbox 360Desktop of the Year
Readers’ Choice: Apple Power Mac G5 (quad)
Engadget Pick: Sony RC SeriesLaptop of the Year
Readers’ Choice: Apple PowerBook (15-inch)
Engadget Pick: IBM Thinkpad ZMedia PC of the Year
Readers’ Choice: Apple iMac G5 with Front Row
Engadget Pick: Niveus Media K2Portable Audio Device of the Year
Readers’ Choice: Apple iPod Nano
Engadget Pick: iRiver U10Portable Video Device of the Year
Readers’ Choice: Apple iPod (5g)
Engadget Pick: Cowon A2
Google gives BMW das boot
Google has delisted bmw.de for trying to artificially inflate its pagerank. There’s a good discussion developing about this on MetaFilter, which is where I found the story in the first place.
Got an iMac? Be careful with the headphone plug
A family friend has a lovely G5 iMac, which is just short of its first birthday. The headphone socket’s in pretty much constant use, and a few weeks back it broke. Due to a mix-up over warranties (said Mac is under warranty but the shop thinks it isn’t), my friend has been invoiced.
For £700.
You might think that £700 for a new headphone socket sounds rather steep. I do too. Worse still, the authorised reseller didn’t provide an estimate before carrying out the work, and until the warranty situation is sorted out is refusing to return the machine until the £700 is paid.
Just out of interest, if the warranty situation isn’t solved, would the iMac owner have a legitimate claim under the Sale of Goods Act? A headphone socket that breaks in less than a year because of, er, plugging headphones into it, and which costs nearly as much to repair as the entire computer costs to buy, doesn’t strike me as “fit for purpose”…
Who killed Smash Hits?
The publisher blames the Internet, but the Guardian’s Alexis Petridis unmasks the real villain:
in the past decade, rounded, interesting, flawed human beings have vanished entirely from teen pop. Record companies, cleaving to the American model of perfection, began media-training their stars - “media-training” being a technical term for surgically depriving someone of their personality. Pop music in 2006 is no better or worse than it was 25 years ago - the tracks on Girls Aloud’s recent Chemistry album are every bit as thrilling as Adam And The Ants’ Stand and Deliver - but the people who make it have been focus-grouped out of existence. They are witless automatons, smiley conduits for the groundbreaking work of pop production teams.
Glasgow’s sick kids hospital needs PS2s
I don’t normally post this kind of stuff but Yorkhill Hospital’s a national treasure, and I know that some of you lovely people have games industry contacts.
From the Evening Times:
GAMES consoles have been stolen from a hospital ward for sick kids in Glasgow.
Nurses on Yorkhill’s ward 4B discovered a number of items missing recently.
There is now only one games console left on the surgical receiving ward.
And the remaining system has to be shared between more than a dozen patients who are in for surgery or are being treated for severe burns.
Now nurses at the hospital have launched a fundraising drive to replace the PlayStations and video games.
If any of you have an “in” at Sony or at anywhere else that might be able to help, can you spread the word? Cheers.
Internet Explorer 7
Beta 2 is out, and the beta’s open to the public*. I haven’t had the chance to play with this one yet, but the first beta was a big improvement over IE6.
* Beta software can do weird things, install at your own risk, if it eats your computer don’t blame me, etc etc etc.