O mundo está a ficar cada vez mais estranho... às vezes, pela positiva!

Isto vem mesmo a calhar após o referido na nota anterior, embora seja uma grande surpresa para mim, e isso não só pelo que o ministro (imagine-se,do petróleo) saudita diz do aquecimento global, mas pelo que diz sobre as energias renováveis (ler tudo):

Saudi Oil Minister Calls Global Warming "Humanity's Most Pressing Concern" | ThinkProgress

Energia solar na Alemanha: evolução

German Solar Output Increases by 60% in 2011 | ThinkProgress

Just weeks after the solar industry installed the one millionth system in Germany, the country’s solar trade association announced that the technology accounted for 3% of total energy generation in 2011 — increasing 60% over 2010 to 18.6 terawatt-hours (18.6 billion kilowatt-hours.)

Even with changes to the feed-in tariff that have reduced solar photovoltaic installations compared with previous boom years, the sector was still the fastest growing among all other renewable energy sectors in 2011, according to preliminary figures.

This follows data released last week showing that renewable energy accounted for 19.9 percent of electricity production in the country this year, growing 16.4 percent over 2010. Meanwhile, overall energy use in the country fell 4.8% due to warmer temperatures and increasing efficiency efforts, further boosting the value of solar generation.

Para variar, uma boa notícia ...

Clean Energy Stunner: Renewable Power Tops Fossil Fuels for First Time | ThinkProgress

Renewable energy is surpassing fossil fuels for the first time in new power-plant investments, shaking off setbacks from the financial crisis…. Electricity from the wind, sun, waves and biomass drew $187 billion last year compared with $157 billion for natural gas, oil and coal, according to calculations by Bloomberg New Energy Finance using the latest data. Accelerating installations of solar- and wind-power plants led to lower equipment prices, making clean energy more competitive with coal.

Eles não querem energias alternativas (e renováveis)

Saudi Prince (who backs Fox News): “We Don’t Want The West To Go Find Alternatives” To Oil | ThinkProgress:

"The jury is out on whether Saudi Arabia actually has enough excess or spare production capacity to continue to control the price of oil.....

What is clear is that the Saudis want to create the impression that they control the price of oil — and that they don’t want oil prices so high that Americans make the shift off of our billion-dollar-a-day addiction too quickly, which is to say, fast enough to preserve a livable climate for our children and countless future generations."

Não sei o que dizer ....

Japan may have lost race to save nuclear reactor « Climate Progress:

"The radioactive core in a reactor at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant appears to have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor, experts say, raising fears of a major release of radiation at the site."

The UK’s Guardian reports the grim news in its breaking story whose blunt headline I used above.

– Enviado através da Barra de ferramentas do Google"

Pois ....

“All of the above” is no energy policy « Climate Progress: 

 "– Enviado através da Barra de ferramentas do Google"

Comentários?

German solar output hit 10.6 GW peak Sunday « Climate Progress:

[clicar para aceder a uma versão maior]

"- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Energias renováveis, Portugal, nuclear, Japão ....

Desde há algum tempo a estratégia energética seguida pelos governos Sócrates tem sido sujeita a críticas incidindo sobre o seu custo relativo face a outras alternativas - a necessidade de subsidiação do arranque das renováveis traduz-se no encarecimento da energia quer para as famílias, quer para as empresas; a ênfase nas renováveis, particularmente, da energia eólica, pelas características da produção desta, leva a resultados ineficientes do ponto de vista económico e tecnológico, etc., etc. Muitas destas críticas são articuladas por quem considera a opção nuclear como algo, no mínimo, a exigir discussão em Portugal, na perspetiva da construção de uma, ou duas centrais nucleares, no nosso país. Eu fui acumulando informação sobre a polémica, mas nunca a estudei, e logo não estou em condições de emitir um juízo sobre ela - podem ler o que diz o blogue A ciência é neutra a esse respeito.

O meu partis pris nessa questão foi sempre o de que se deve apostar em primeiro lugar, e de modo enfático, na eficiência energética; em segundo lugar, nas renováveis, com respeito, sempre, pelas restrições económicas e financeiras aplicáveis em cada caso. Entendia e entendo, por um lado, que o necessário encarecimento do preço de energia decorrente da aposta nas renováveis se poderia justificar como prémio de seguro contra os riscos (desde sempre previsíveis e inevitáveis) do aumento do preço do petróleo e da extrema dependência do País do fornecimento dos combustíveis fósseis; por outro, entendia que esse sobre-custo seria um custo admissível pelo fato do  País ser um dos primeiros a encetar, de modo tão extensivo, uma estratégia desse tipo. Como pano de fundo haveria ainda tudo aquilo que diz respeito à emissão de gases de estufa. No entanto, encarei aquela polémica como podendo carrear elementos sérios para qualificar a tempestividade da aposta, quer a dimensão efetiva dos custos  - uma estratégia adequada pode transformar-se num desastre se for mal operacionalizada, e acontece estarmos em Portugal. O tempo dirá do mérito da aposta de Sócrates, e espero que o considere significativo.

"A resposta, meu amigo, está no vento ..."

YouTube - Bob Dylan - Blowing In The Wind, lyrics, listening and learning english songs:

"- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Via Paul Krugman, numa nota, "A resposta, meu amigo, está no vento" que qualifica as previsões quanto aos custos das energias renováveis, que espero se venha a revelar como, indevidamente, pessimista. Em todo o caso a música, desde sempre uma das minhas favoritas, é a razão para esta nota.

Notícias (potencialmente) boas, mas que outros qualificam

Seria muito bom uma corrida (estilo do que se passou entre a URSS e os EUA, no espaço, nos anos 60) entre os EUA e a China no domínio das renováveis e da eficiência energética:

• Smart Grid Arms Race? U.S., China Face Very Different Challenges | SolveClimate.com: "Talking about a green revolution as a competition between China and the U.S. is like putting two teams on the same field that play different games. Yet, this has been the popular spin on news that China’s spending on smart grid technology will exceed that of the U.S. by $200 million. It has also been the spin on high-speed rail and the so-called 'clean tech arms race.'"

As notícias (potencialmente) boas...:

• Sustentabilidade é Acção: Bill Gates e a energia nuclear "limpa": "Bill Gates esteve no mês passado a dar uma conferência no grupo TED sobre uma nova forma de energia nuclear.[...]" Acedam a este blogue e vejam o vídeo que vale a pena.  

•  Op-Ed Columnist - Dreaming the Possible Dream -Tom Friedman NYTimes.com

... e as qualificações feitas por outros (respectivamente):

• Bill Gates is wrong about “energy miracles” « Climate Progress»

• Dear Vinod Khosla & Tom Friedman: No amount of sequestration will make coal “clean” | Grist: "No, no, a thousand times no. Even if a coal-fired power plant sequestered 100 percent of its carbon pollution, it would not be 'clean.' Even if, as Khosla says, it sequestered all its carbon pollution and helped abate carbon pollution from other sources, it still wouldn't be 'clean.'"

Energia; picos de petróleo, gás e colapso

 Clicar para aceder a versões ampliadas dos gráficos.

• The Oil Drum | World Oil Capacity to Peak in 2010 Says Petrobras CEO. O nº 1 do petróleo brasileiro diz da sua justiça, e demonstra a sua tese com um conjunto de gráficos bem ilustrativos (exemplos acima).

Tirados do The Oil Drum | Drumbeat: February 4, 2010 as seguintes referências: 

• The Oil Drum | Energy Flow, Emergent Complexity, and Collapse: "Civilizations grow in complexity given the right circumstances. And all too often they end up collapsing. History is replete with examples. Joseph Tainter, among others, has examined collapse from the standpoint of decreasing marginal return on investment in increasing complexity, which he posits is the most common factor in collapsed societies. The key question one must ask is: What critical circumstance (if there is one factor above all others) enables a society to grow in complexity in the first place? If we find an answer to that question we may also find what causes the decrease in marginal returns as complexity increases. This is certainly a growing concern for our modern civilizations. I advance a systems theoretical and principled thesis, below, that puts the increased flow of energy as the key enabler of increases in complexity. And I examine what we might expect from declines in that flow rate when sources are depleted." Aquilo que é dito atrás cruza com isto.

• The oil industry: Beyond the black stuff | The Economist: "Big Oil is being forced to rethink its future"

Números interessantes, mas a informação do que o Google está a fazer no domínio das renováveis e da eficiência energético diz-nos um bocado de como alguns estão atentos:

• Where's Google Putting Its Money? | SolveClimate.com: "The International Energy Agency projects that global energy demand will increase 46 percent by 2030, requiring an investment of $26.3 trillion in energy infrastructure to meet the expected demand. Yet, last year, global investment in the sector fell to $5.6 billion, a 33 percent drop from 2008, and that was the second highest year. Revamping our energy system will take substantial funding, and while some countries, like China, are investing in the whole cleantech pipeline, from “lightbulb to lightbulb” — from idea to implementation, as Google puts it — the U.S. is investing only sporadically. Since 1980, funding for R&D has dropped 58 percent, with energy getting only 2 percent of the pie."

Boa discussão da temático do Pico do Petróleo:

• Endless Oil: Peak Production vs. Oil Price -- Seeking Alpha: "One of the persons cited in Mr. Reed’s article is Leonardo Maugeri, a senior executive of the Italian oil major ENI. He states that “there will be enough oil for at least 100 years.” Actually there will be enough for a thousand or more, but not enough to keep our Volvos in the fast lane up to the skiing and partying in the Midnight Sun at Riksgränsen in the North of Sweden. There should, however, be enough though for the lamps of China and Beverly Hills."

Diz-se que o desenvolvimento da tecnologia de extracção de gás irá resolver grande parte dos problemas de abastecimento de energia durante este século:

• The Quiet Energy Revolution — The American, A Magazine of Ideas

E continua .... Bill Gates, denegacionistas, Obama, picos de quase tudo ...

• Bill Gates disses energy efficiency, renewables, and near-term climate action while embracing the magical thinking of Bjorn Lomborg (and George Bush) « Climate Progress

• Climate sceptics distract us from the scientific realities of global warming | John Cook | Environment | guardian.co.uk A recent example is the campaign to sow doubts about the US temperature record. To achieve this, an army of volunteers traversed the US photographing weather stations. Pictures were posted on surfacestations.org, showing weather stations positioned near heated buildings, air conditioners and other sources of artificial heat.

• China sea levels reach record high|Climate Ark  

• Obama: “To create more of these clean energy jobs … means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America.” « Climate Progress»Obama: “To create more of these clean energy jobs … means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America.” « Climate Progress»

• The Oil Drum | Drumbeat: January 28, 2010: "[...] In a nutshell, the world is dangerously close to 'peak everything' - oil, coal, natural gas, water, minerals, soil, phosphorous, fish, and perhaps the most important of all, the capacity of the atmosphere to absorb more carbon without triggering off life-destroying phenomena. [...]". Esta referência remete para um outro conjunto de referências sobre estes assuntos.
  

• BBC News - Temperature and CO2 feedback loop 'weaker than thought'

E continua ...

• The Gates Notes: Why we need innovation, not just insulation 

•  Fewer temperature reports could mean warming underestimated: scientist | The Windsor Star 

• Ice is 'rotten' in the Beaufort Sea | Climate Ark

• NASA makes it official: 2000s were the hottest decade on record, 2009 tied for second warmest year « Climate Progress 

• Did China block Copenhagen progress to pave way for its own dominance in cleantech? | Grist

Preço do petróleo, globalização, economia local (de novo), eficiência, preço do carbono e por aí adiante

Bem, só vendo e ouvindo, e ainda por cima numa pronúncia, acentuadamente, texana [penso eu]. Não sei se em 2012 teremos o barril de petróleo a $225, mas que para lá caminhamos, disso não tenho dúvidas, e algumas das razões invocadas (algumas de que não me tinha apercebido) são inquestionáveis. As implicações para os Açores serão aquelas que cada um quiser conjecturar.

"Jeff Rubin, the former Chief Economist of CIBC World Markets, speaks at The Business of Climate Change conference. Mr. Rubin predicts $225 per barrel oil by 2012 and with it the end of globalization, a movement towards local sourcing and a need for massive scaling up of energy efficiency."

Jeff Rubin At ‘The Business of Climate Change’ · Environmental Leader · Green Business, Sustainable Business, and Green Strategy News for Corporate Sustainability Executives

A China, cada vez mais a China - diversos, de diversos ângulos...

 Nota: Clicar sobre a imagem para ter acesso a uma versão maior.

A importância da China no panorama mundial é algo muito consensual neste momento, muito "conventional wisdom", e como tal, como usualmente sucede nesses casos, a efectiva capacidade que terá para formatar o nosso futuro, a real dimensão do fenómeno, no bom e no mau sentido, tende a esbater-se, a não ser ponderada, ou assumida devidamente, mesmo na consciência daqueles que afirmam ser óbvio aquele juízo. A "conventional wisdom" mesmo quando apreendendo, em termos gerais, um fenómeno, se não qualificada por um fluxo constante de informação, adequada, e problematizada, não é mais do que uma outra forma de ignorância (perigosa) - digamos, uma analfabetismo culto, se me é permitido o oximoro.

O conjunto de referências abaixo, acumuladas ao longo de Dezembro e Janeiro, ilustram bem o que digo acima. Surgem no quadro claro da importância da China, mas matizam pormenores, aprofundam áreas de fronteira do fenómeno, geram optimismos e preocupações, e colocam novas questões. As notícias do modo como a China, no terreno, está a encarar a eficiência energética, e as renováveis, é para mim, um motivo de optimismo - em última instância, as coisas a correrem muito mal, prefiro que os meus filhos, ou os meus netos, a viver num mundo "chinês" do que em nenhum; como irá evoluir o crescendo geo-económico e político chinês, ou a possibilidade de ele ser parado, levantam questões; e quando os chineses começam a acumular reservas (stocks) de matérias primas, e de minerais raros, não é caso de começar a perguntar o que eles sabem, que os outros não sabem?

• A Review I Will Treasure Forever: "...far from a knee-slapper and unlikely to be chosen by Ms. Winfrey for her book club..." - Grasping Reality with Opposable Thumbs: "[...] Richard Pachter:: I've long thought that the best advice one can give a youngster seeking success in the business world is to learn Chinese. Our pals in Beijing and Shanghai hold serious paper on us ('Us, U.S.,' as Paul Harvey used to say) and they can wreak terminal havoc upon America, its institutions and infrastructure, if and when they chose. But it's not really in their best interests to ask us to ante up and watch us turn our pockets inside out, show our empty hands and shrug.Why? "

• Roubini Global Economics - RGE Monitor -- Emerging Markets EconoMonitor: "It is my considered opinion that the West is underestimating China on a number of different levels. If we want to talk superpower politics, then China has always been a superpower albeit one that has been slumbering for 60 years. [...] China is more like the teacher, simply sitting back with a rye smile and watching the children fight it out on the playground and doing its own thing for the long term good of China. Where am I going with this - a recent post EAFE Pro looked at China's recent buying of copper and aluminum. I knew such buying was taking place but was surprised at the sheer scale. So why? China is taking advantage of the global recession to buy cheap and stockpile. China knows it will need the metal eventually just to construct the buildings, machines and cars it knows it will need in the future. " A figura acima foi retirada deste artigo.
  

• China: Innovation in electric bicycles: "China has gone crazy for electric bicycles -- they are far and away the biggest selling form of transport on the streets, with 120 million of the battery-powered two-wheelers whizzing up and down the thoroughfares."

• Ukraine : le remède chinois ? | Telos

• China pursues the technology that will save humanity « Climate Progress

• China as hegemon | The Economist: " Mark Thoma directs us to  Dani Rodrik, which discusses the book 'When China Rules the World', by Martin Jacques. So what will it be like when China rules the world? Americans and Europeans blithely assume that China will become more like them as its economy develops and its population gets richer. This is a mirage, Jacques says. The Chinese and their government are wedded to a different conception of society and polity: community-based rather than individualist, state-centric rather than liberal, authoritarian rather than democratic. [...] The thing about 'western' hegemony over the last century is that North America and Europe had a relative monopoly over developed nation status. China won't be so lucky; at best it will be first among peers. It therefore seems unlikely that China will be an overwhelming net exporter of ideology or culture, no matter how rich its economy grows."

• Op-Ed Columnist - Is China the Next Enron? - NYTimes.com: "I am reluctant to sell China short, not because I think it has no problems or corruption or bubbles, but because I think it has all those problems in spades — and some will blow up along the way (the most dangerous being pollution). But it also has a political class focused on addressing its real problems, as well as a mountain of savings with which to do so (unlike us)."Mais que não seja pelas estatísticas que apresenta, o artigo merece ser lido.

PS (14.01.10): Esqueci-me de colocar esta referência: Book Review - 'When China Rules the World - The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order,' by Martin Jacques - Review - NYTimes.com [tem a ver com a penúltima referência acima].

PS: E mais este ainda: China’s world centrality| Janela na Web: One key theme of the book is that China manifest great potential to become a new center of growth in the global capitalist system, but it is not guaranteed, as it requires China to solve a lot of intractable problems first. The book was finished before the global crisis. The crisis verified this view of the book: on the one hand the problems China is facing when trying to sustain its growth in the aftermath of the crisis is much bigger than before the crisis; but at the same time, I still hope that the crisis could serve as a wakeup call that in the end will push China to shift its course of development into a more sustainable and equitable one.