A Great Bubbling: Economics Of Oil Prices

By : Daniel Yergin
The world will never be quite the same. High oil prices are not only changing the political and economic landscapes but they could also change energy itself, because they are stimulating the most widespread drive for technological innovation this sector has ever seen.

The political shifts are striking, wherever you look. Russia was so flat on its back at the end of the 1990s that Western banks and companies competed to see who could close its Moscow offices faster. Today, even though Vladimir Putin says he does not like the term, Russia certainly appears to be an energy superpower, using oil and gas to restore its position in the world.

Balances of political power are shifting in other ways. In 2006, after his nonstate lunch with President Bush in Washington, China's President Hu Jintao took off directly for state visits to Saudi Arabia and Nigeria.

Meanwhile, that other balance, in supply and demand, has been extremely tight. Even without actual disruptions, possible threats to supply from the war in Lebanon and from rising tensions over Iran's nuclear program were enough last summer to push oil prices above $78 a barrel, accompanied by forecasts of $100 a barrel.

But then a slowing U.S. economy and growing inventories, and the prospect of rising non-OPEC production, sent prices down. That was enough to alarm OPEC into cutting production in order to stem the downward trend and keep prices above $50 to $55 a barrel. That's not exactly a low price; it's still double the OPEC price band of just a few years ago.

The flow of funds illuminates how much has changed. OPEC's revenue has tripled over the past four years, from $199 billion in 2002 to about $600 billion in 2006. The Mideast's trade surplus is 50 percent greater than that of emerging Asia.

While oil states are recycling a good deal of this resurgent wealth back into the United States and Europe as they did in the 1970s this time much more is going into investments in Asia and local and regional financial markets and development. What used to be said of Shanghai that it employed up to a quarter of all the world's building cranes is now being said of Dubai.

Petrodollars are also fueling political assertiveness in countries such as Iran (where oil revenue rose from $19 billion in 2002 to $60 billion in 2006) and Venezuela (from $21 billion to almost $50 billion over the same period).

But there are two big economic questions. What do high prices mean for the economy? And what do they mean for the future of world energy?

The risks from high oil prices are clear and manifold: loss of purchasing power on the part of consumers who drive the world economy; a blow both to business and to stock-market confidence and thus to investment; and a painful shock to the balance of payments of non-oil-developing countries.

Most fundamental of all is the possibility that high oil prices will start to drive up inflation, forcing central bankers to jam on the interest-rate brakes. But at what level of price?

A few months ago one of the key OPEC decision makers, harking back to that not-so-long-ago $22 to $28 band, observed, "We thought that the world economy would collapse at $40 a barrel." But economic growth sailed right on through $40, then $50, then $60 a barrel.

Part of the reason is that the major economies are much less oil-intensive than they were in the 1970s. What this means is that less oil is required for every unit of GDP. For instance, the U.S. economy has grown by more than 150 percent since the 1970s, but oil consumption by only about 25 percent.

The other major explanation is that this time, prices have been rising in response to a "demand shock" (epitomized by 10 percent economic growth in China) and not a "supply shock" (a disruption such as the 1973 embargo or the 1979 revolution in Iran). This is largely true, although not completely. For there has been an "aggregate disruption" a supply cut when you add up the loss of supply from Nigeria because of an insurgency in its delta region, the reduced levels of production in Iraq and Venezuela and the (now mostly healed) loss of supply from the 2005 hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico.

Yet there was some point at which prices would begin to bite. That appears to have been in the $60 to $70 range. And those effects can be seen, along with the housing decline, in the slowing U.S. economy, with implications for all countries that export to it.

But the most lasting impact of the shift in the energy market may well be measured in energy itself. There is a bubbling and brewing of technological innovation along the entire energy spectrum from conventional supplies and renewables and alternatives, to efficiency and demand management.

Oil and gas companies continue to innovate. Last September, Chevron announced a find in the Gulf of Mexico oilfield at 6,890 feet, and an additional 19,685 feet under the seabed an extraordinary technological achievement.

Around the world, the "digital oilfield of the future" is becoming the digital oilfield of the present. The large-scale conversion of natural gas into high-quality diesellike fuel is getting closer.

Renewables have captured the public's imagination and are coming into their own. Wind power is the one that is closest to becoming conventional. This is not just the result of market forces. The development of renewable resources is being driven by mandates and subsidies of the European Union and of the federal and state governments in the United States, and by similar programs in countries like India and China. But it is working.

In fact, renewables are growing so fast that they are straining capacity in people and materials. Right now there is a shortage of turbines and blades for windmills. Renewables are a sizable business these days; the worldwide investment in wind and solar sales for 2006 is estimated at $40 billion.

But sometimes the enthusiasm for wind and solar discounts the huge scale of the energy system and the lead times needed to develop any form of energy, as well as the fact that these sources have to eventually establish themselves as economically competitive without government help. Even with all the advances, they are still a very small part of the overall energy mix. But they will continue to grow.

What is also rising is the funding and fervor that are going into innovation. A decade ago, I chaired a task force on energy research and development for the U.S. Department of Energy. It was a quiet period in energy, supplies were ample and interest was subdued.

That would not be the case today. Prices, anxiety about supply and the quest to reduce carbon emissions because of climate-change concerns have turned energy into a major focus for technology investment. Governments and businesses continue to be big players. But they now have company: venture capitalists.

The embodiment of the old model was the centralized Synthetic Fuels Corp., a U.S. government company that was chartered in 1980 with $17 billion to promote such options as shale oil and the conversion of coal into liquid fuels. It was very much in the spirit of the oft-invoked "three M's" Manhattan Project, Marshall Plan and Man in Space. But when prices went south in the 1980s it was wound down, and by 1986 it had disappeared.

Governments and companies are stepping up their investment in energy R&D, and will remain critical to the development of new technologies. Research-and-development spending by the U.S. Department of Energy is $1.8 billion and is slated to grow 25 percent in 2007.

Now the people who brought you Silicon Valley are also stepping into energy. Venture-capital investment in energy reached $1.7 billion in the first three quarters of 2006, almost five times what it was in the same period in 2004, according to the Cleantech Venture Network. "When we started investing in this area, it was like investing in the Internet in the early 1990s before anyone had ever heard of the Internet," says Ira Ehrenpreis of Technology Partners, an early clean-tech investor. "Now there has been an awakening in the VC community that clean tech offers as large an opportunity as information technology and life sciences, both of which were revolutionized by venture capital."

This means growing amounts of money going into energy businesses, operating under the discipline of venture capital. Some of the results are already there. One of the biggest recent tech IPOs, Suntech, made its founder, Zhengrong Shi, the richest man in China.
Of course, many of the new initiatives will not succeed. With this rapid growth comes a degree of hype that has some echoes of the Internet frenzy.

But that cycle of boom and bust left a set of technologies that are transforming business and society. And one clear difference is that in the Internet boom the business plans focused on eyeballs and didn't worry so much about how to make money. Here the market opportunity is clearer.

This diverse but intense focus on energy technology will likely have wide effects. There will be new ways to find or develop conventional energy. The competitive position of alternatives will be enhanced. The boom in conventional, corn-based ethanol, with its overwhelming political support, will nevertheless run into limits of land and food-versus-fuel competition. The current holy grail in liquid fuels is the search for economically competitive cellulosic ethanol, made from crop waste or specially designed energy crops.

Overall, some of the most intriguing possibilities will come from applying biology and genetic engineering to energy problems.

Much else is now on the energy-technology agenda from fuel cells and solar energy to advances, on the demand side, in how we use energy and the ways in which our cars are powered. Technological advances, along with regulations, enabled the United States and Japan to double their energy efficiency in the 1970s. That could happen again. When it is all added up, there has never been so much activity in new energy technologies. If it stays at this pace, expect dramatic results.

Finding New Love Online

By : Robert Rogers
So you're sitting at home alone again on a Friday night. You're single, attractive, and have a fun personality. You're content with being single, but really enjoy the company of others, and sometimes wish that you had someone special in your life. Does this describe you? Then you're not alone. There are millions of people at home probably right now who are looking online for that special someone. The question is, will you be there?

A simple search for online dating services in google will yield over three million results. You'll find every kind of dating site, specializing in different interests, ethnic backgrounds, religious preferences or nationality. This can be a bit intimidating, but don't let that stop you. Keep looking around; get a feel for what the online services have to offer. Don't join anything just yet even if it's free. There's plenty of time for that later. Right now you just want to start thinking about the kind of people you might meet online at these various online dating services.

Some key things you want to consider when deciding on an online service include how many members it has, the difference between a free membership and a paid membership offers, the monthly cost and the privacy policy. Most sites will let you join for free without giving any financial information such as a credit card. This will let you join the site with very little risk. Sites that claim millions of members are usually very well established and you're more likely to meet someone local in your area.

Once you're a free member, review the kind of information they want record about you. Typically they'll want a brief description of yourself, the kind of person you're looking for, and a checklist of interests and physical features. All of this information will be viewable by other members to some degree. The information is also searchable. So if you checked a box that you're interested in movies, other members will be able to find you based on a search for members who like movies. It's best to provide as much information and detail as possible. However, for safety reasons, never give out personal information such as an address, phone number, place of work, etc....

Free members may not have as much access to profile information as paid members. Typically free members can search based on location and age, but not by interests or physical description. Some sites allow free members to search by all available data, but will not allow them to contact another member without first joining. Paid members typically are allowed to communicate with all members both free and paid. So if you join for free, a paid member will still be able to contact you. If you're a woman, this is particularly handy since you may never have to become a paid member. Unfortunately the reality for men is they will have to always get a paid membership if they want the best chance to meet the right woman.

Author Resource:- Robert Rogers is a writer in the Washington DC area. For more free tips and resources, visit his website http://hotfling.com

How To Lose 20 Pounds Quick!

by Brian Bonito
How do you lose 20 pounds quick? Good question. It all depends on where you start. It depends on where you’re coming from and what kind of sacrifices you’re willing to make.

You can lose 7 to 10 pounds in a week, very easily, if you just clean up your eating. I mean really clean it up! We’re talking about drinking clean fluids…that means water. No saturated fats. No processed sugars. Lots of veggies…oh, and a tad bit of exercise. Say walking for 20 minutes a day after your last meal.

That’s a simple, good start. Easy stuff, too.

To lose 20 pounds quick you will need to hold steady on the above plan just a little longer. The first 10 pounds will disappear in about a week or ten days. Much of that will be water. When that’s done, you move a step further.

Next phase: exact same stuff. We’re not talking about killing yourself, here, especially if you haven’t been active for some time. An injury? That would be foolish. What good will the weight loss do if you’ve hurt yourself in the process? I’m guessing it might be depressing.

For your purpose: to lose 20 pounds quick, you don’t even need to join a gym, or lift a single weight. It’s called cleaning up your habits, if only for an abbreviated period of time. To lose weight, a small altering of your mindset is really the only essential. Begin and just stay the course, which is not always easy.

You must follow through. Action is a verb. It is continuous. Small daily adjustments, like the few outlined above are all that’s necessary. We’re talking about how to lose 20 pounds quick, not 100 pounds. You are always moving. The world spins and we move along with it.

We change our circumstances over time, mostly without notice. To effectively lose 20 pounds quick, you need to begin to take notice, to become more self –aware. It starts with the foods you eat, the fluids you drink, and the small steps you decide to engage in.

But it won’t take long. You can truly lose 20 pounds quick if you’re willing to take the very first, magical step. Simply begin.

Article Source: ArticleBazaar.net

Air Force Ammo Troops And Weapons Loader

By : Victor Epand
Ammo troops are the grunts of the Air Force, bottom of the barrel right above security forces and right below Armament. I'm Armament, so I can't really say much. Just like to take my chance to rag on my rivals! Ammo is the greatest job in the Air Force. My best years were working on munitions, and I have done it all.
Yet, with out the ammo, the planes would be flying around a desert with nothing (no one even mentions kamikaze...), and the marines that called in the Arial support would be screwed. They may be grunts, but id say pretty important grunts.

You see those planes would still be flying around without bombs and bullets even if ammo delivered the munitions if Weapons were not there to load them on the A/C.

By the way if you aren't ammo You are waiting on them. I have been in this game longer than you and I have done your job. I have processed 30mm ammo and built bombs from the ground up. Weapons train to do parts of your job too! During DS 1 when our MK82's were delivered with the arming loops in the wrong configuration do you think we called ammo to fix them? We are trained to install fuses, wire, install F.Z.U.'s, fin assemblies, the list goes on. I was an ammo aggie.

However you will never load an aircraft. I have waited on ammo some and they have waited on me. If you think about it everyone still has to wait for someone or other. You can't get a aircraft up without clearance and so forth and so forth. So like I said waiting is what everyone dose. No matter what job you got!

Both sides show a little ignorance as to each others jobs. I've been in loading for almost 20 years and can honestly say it takes both jobs. We (weapons load) need ammo to build our bombs and deliver them and they need us to load them and on occasion reconfigure them (move swivels and loops, change fuse settings, and even frequencies on G.C.U.'s).

With out them we'd have nothing to load and with out us they'd have a flight line full of 110 and 141 trailers full of bombs. If the Air Force wanted us to do each others job we'd be one career field you'd build your own bombs crave them to the flight line, prep your jet, load your jest and then wait for O.P.'s to change the frag. That my friends would make for a very long day.

Loaders can't load with out munitions and munitions weapons sit on the trailers without loaders. It takes both sides. Actually I don't know why the Air Force doesn't do it like the Navy and have both career fields as one (Aviation Ordinance) they build and load.

Everyone has something to complain about when it comes to other unites that I know for a fact it is just how it goes and no one can do a thing to change it. Every unit thinks that they are better then someone else , but what they don't know is that when the time come to it they can be the best thing that happens to you weather you know it or not.

Author Resource:- Victor Epand is an expert consultant for http://www.WarGear.info/. WarGear.info carries the best selection of military clothing, war gear, and combat accessories on the market.

Do Blogs Dynamically Transform the Modern American Political Culture

By : Jonathon Hardcastle
Recently web logs, or blogs, have exploded in popularity and have come to occupy an increasingly important place in American politics. Given the disparity in resources and organization against other actors, their influence presents a puzzle. How can a collection of decentralized, nonprofit, contrarian and discordant websites exercise any influence over political and policy outputs? As the World Wide Web approaches its teens, we have new expectations about both the right to express an opinion and access to information upon which to base that opinion. Blogs have begun playing an important role in raising people's expectations Thus, blogs have demonstrated influence; the power to affect events. Blogging is now positioned inside the context of participatory journalism and the responses of mainstream media and political parties to the new technology are reflections of its emerging influence. From what evidence illustrates, blogs have managed to affect today's news agenda.

The Italian Renaissance gave Western civilization several crucial transformations. None, for this article's purposes, matters more than perspective. Boccaccio's Decameron, published in 1353, is considered to be among the earliest works of literature to propose that a point of view is crucial to understanding. Gutenberg's printing press brought forth a revolution that no one could have anticipated at the time. Today, the Internet is the most important medium since the printing press. It subsumes all that has come before and is, in the most fundamental way, transformative. When anyone can be a writer, in the largest sense and for a global audience, many wish to become one. Actually, no better environment exists nowadays for people to exercise these among many other rights, than the Internet and one of the best mediums to exercise these rights are weblogs.

According to some critics, most weblogs will never attempt to reach a public, even if they are in theory reachable by all Net users. The great majority of weblogs will probably be for personal use, while the user base will be peer to peer, not author to public. Other critics, in their attempt to evaluate the accelerating speed of the weblog trend, support that from what it seems so far, it is probable that most weblogs will be short lived, and wind up abandoned, just as most conversations are abandoned. Also it is probable that a few popular blogs will have huge user base and the vast majority will be invisible most of the time, a pattern that reminds some of the "old" and "traditional" mass media. Since the software and interface are highly flexible, and the uses of an easily updated, good-looking page are endless, weblogs will be commonly used in closed systems - private and company networks - as much as the open waters of the Web.

In relation to political coverage and news stories, bloggers have broken or magnified major news stories and blogs themselves draw fire for partisan politics, poor journalistic practices, and duplicity. But the issue still remains that blogs are still in their infancy, despite the wave of press they have received during the last two years. They provide a reasonable, but far from perfect, entry point into the news space, better at offering commentary and starting conversations than serving a current-events-indicator role.

Author Resource:- Jonathon Hardcastle writes articles on many topics including http://universeofjobs.com/