A strange commonality between the beauties and the geeks

Strange but true….I know of a friend (classical opera singer) stuck in NYC without work since she is unable to get the required visa. (Source: The Economist)

Beauty and the Geek

A new bill proposes more visas be allocated to fashion models

IT’S not often that fashion models are paired with IT workers, except in the lurid fantasies of computer geeks. But because of a decision made back in 1990 they must compete for the same over-subscribed H-1B, a temporary work visa for specialised occupations. Until 2004, when the government lowered the cap on the number of H-1Bs it issued, it didn’t matter so much. But now demand has far outstripped the limited number of visas available, and many foreign models are being denied the chance to sashay down America’s catwalks.

Anthony Weiner, a New York congressman, wants to fix this tragic glitch. He has proposed a bill amending the rules so that the models will be reclassified into their own special immigration category. This would free up more visas for the nerds; and it would allow 1,000 models to strut their stuff in America each year, compared with just 349 in 2007, half the annual number admitted between 2000 and 2005.

Clean-tech sector: A quick review of 2007 and 2008

2007 was undoubtedly the year of clean-tech. The debate around global warming frequented the front pages of major newspapers, and reached our homes and dining tables. There were too many exciting clean-tech related news to recount, and there were a few disappointments as well. I have been asked several times if there is anything ’substantial’ to be expected out of this clean-tech boom, or are these just science fair type curiosity projects, but on a larger scale and consuming tons of public sector funding? While many clean-tech blogs are highlighting technologies to look out for in 2008, ‘Automotive News’ recently published a tongue-in-cheek list of 10 potential alternative fuels that included chicken droppings and cheese.

I remain optimistic that what we are witnessing is not just a shift in our understanding of the need for cleaner energy sources, but also a unique coming together of science, engineering, health, business, investor and public policy stakeholders that ultimately need to work closely together to find winning solutions. This is no science fair - this is evolution in action. An evolution of technologies and policies, and of our abilities to incorporate better ones into our lives.

Here are some thoughts that stuck with me through 2007, and what I am expecting in 2008. Would love to hear what you think about these.

2007

1. Ethanol bubble bursts - A few failed IPOs, the spectacle of rising food prices around the world, esp Mexico, and a realization that ethanol actually gives lower fuel economy provided enough material to disillusion even some of corn-ethanols strongest supporters. On the issue of technology trajectory for ethanol, it seems cellulosic ethanol has not yet moved fast enough to be commercially viable in the short term.
   
2. Clean coal continued to garner attention, esp as gasification projects got major funding for building demonstration projects. But I am still looking for serious and convincing plays in this sector. There is much potential here but people seem scared of venturing too far into the dirty coal business.

MIT economist sees U.S. weathering $100 oil

Oil has finally hit $100/barrel. To some, it seems, this is finally the trigger that will force major societal changes - a price point for oil commodity that may now impact not just our outlook on the cost/benefit analysis of investments in renewable energy sources (i.e. non fossil fuel based), but also our consumption patterns (i.e. improving our nega-watts).

But I am no so sure. I feel, an d I qualify this by saying that this is more of a gut feeling than any kind of careful analysis, that people won’t feel the need to make a change in their behavior unless the change was rapid, sharp and highly publicized. I also worry if at such high prices, some of the more dirty fuels, such as tar-sands etc might also start getting exploited.

But what do I know….let’s read what an economist has to say about the impact on the $100 oil (source: MIT News):

MIT economist sees U.S. weathering $100 oil

Sarah H. Wright, News Office
January 2, 2008

As the price of oil doubled over the last year, hitting the $100 mark for the first time on Jan. 2, it may have looked like 1973 all over again to some observers. But research by MIT macroeconomist Olivier Blanchard, Class of 1941 Professor of Economics, shows that a return to 1970s-style gas lines and stagflation isn’t in the cards.

Blanchard’s paper, “The Macroeconomic Effects of Oil Price Shocks: Why are the 2000s so different from the 1970s?” outlines changes in U.S. and global economic policies between the two eras. Cited in The Economist (Nov. 17) as an explainer for the current situation, the paper was co-written by Blanchard’s colleague Jordi Gali (Ph.D. 1989) of the Center for International Economic Research in Barcelona.

Blanchard discussed the differences between the oil shocks in the 1970s and in the 2000s during a recent interview with the MIT News Office.

Q: Four price-doubling oil shocks have occurred in 35 years–1973, 1979, 1999 and now. How have economic reactions differed?

A: In the 1970s, there were two sharp recessions and sharply higher inflation. This time around, the economy has remained strong, and inflation has barely bulged.

Q: What’s behind the differences? Why was 1973 so different from 2007?

A: In the 1970s, the adverse effects of oil price increases were compounded by other adverse shocks–a sharp slowdown in productivity growth and large increases in the price of raw materials.

In the 2000s, the effects of oil price increases have been partly offset by other shocks, this time favorable–sustained productivity growth and strong Asian growth, for example.

Pollution and long term environmental degradation: impediments to Pakistan’s growth

A few weeks ago I organized an academic panel discussion on global climate change and the impact on Pakistan. The speakers were leaders in the field of climate change and sustainable development, and provided a crisp account of the short and long term threats that developing countries such as Pakistan faced in the wake of rapidly increasing air and noise pollution as well as long term weather & climate related ecological changes.However, at the end of the session one gentleman walked up to me and remarked: “humain apnay khaaney peenay kee paree hai, aur tum samajhte ho key hum environment per tawajjah dey sakte hain?” (i.e. we are concerned about our food/livelihood and you think we can pay attention to the environment?). This post reflects on that interaction.

We all agree that Pakistan is in a deep quagmire right now, in more ways than one. Our society is in the middle of a historic struggle to once again win freedom - this time from the hands of the military and the corrupt politician-military alliance. At the same time, we also face internal threats in the shape of religious extremism and suicide attacks, and external geo-political developments. In the middle of all this chaos is an ordinary Pakistani who is unable to earn decent wages, has to deal with rapid inflation and crunch on food supplies, and political-economic chaos around him continues to negatively impact his/her daily job.

But then - can we really afford to not pay attention to our ecology and environment, given that our very livelihoods depend directly on it? I don’t think so.

Greenhouse Gas Contributions of Automobiles Around the World

Look at that chart below. It is striking that the USA not only has the largest population of automobiles in the world (highest penetration per unit population), but also contributes significantly to the CO2 emissions (size of the ball). Clearly, so much can be done to reduce the impact of the automotive industry on anthropogenic global warming.

However, what is even more worrisome? Look at China, for example. See how low their automotive penetration is compared to a country like US, and see what their CO2 contributions are. Now imagine if China was to develop an automotive penetration that was as high as the USA? What would be its contribution to the greenhouse gases if cleaner technologies were not adopted? This is a major question, not just for China but for all rapidly developing countries. Of course they deserve the development, the growth, and the improved mobility that is a part of it all, but this world really needs to figure out how to make clean technologies accessible and affordable to these countries. If not, we are headed towards some real trouble.

Additional reading(s): here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Study Finds Diesel and Hybrid Vehicles Can Provide More Societal and Private Benefits than Gasoline and E85 Vehicles

RAND Study Finds Diesel and Hybrid Vehicles Can Provide More Societal and Private Benefits than Gasoline and E85 Vehicles

from Green Car Congress by Mike Millikin

Rising fuel costs, as expressed in the cost of the energy security externality, significantly change the outcome for E85-powered vehicles. Click to enlarge.

Cars and light trucks powered by advanced diesel technology or hybrid technology can provide larger private (consumer) and societal benefits than traditional gasoline-powered automobiles, according to a RAND Corporation working paper presented today.

The paper by RAND, “The Benefits and Costs of New Fuels and Engines for Cars and Light Trucks”, also found that cars and light trucks continuously fueled by a mixture of E85 compare unfavorably with the other two alternatives. That finding, however, changes dramatically if the cost of fuel rises sharply.

Rising oil prices coupled with concerns about global climate change are driving debate about which fuels and engines should be used to power the 17 million new cars and trucks sold each year. Advanced diesel and hybrid technologies show very well in this study, in terms of benefits to the individual and society overall. E85 simply doesn’t provide the same benefits.

—John Graham, senior author and dean of the Pardee RAND Graduate School

Graham presented the results of the research at the annual meeting of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management in Washington, DC.

The research examines the benefits and costs of three alternatives to the gasoline-powered internal combustion engine for the 2010-2020 period: gasoline-electric hybrid technology (as found in the Toyota Prius or the Ford Escape SUV Hybrid), advanced diesel technology (such as the Mercedes-Benz E320 sedan), and dual-fuel vehicles that are powered continuously by E85, where the ethanol is produced from corn.

What’s Wrong With Energy Investments?

As I indicated before, I have become a big fan of the reporting and writing on Xconomy.com. Bill Aulet has posted several articles on xconomy and two recent ones are just simply must read. He titled them “What’s Wrong with Energy Investing” Parts I&II.

In “What’s Wrong with Energy Investing? Part I“ Bill articulates well the need to not lose sight of finding efficiencies in a largely hydrocarbon-based economy as we work on renewable energy sources:

While there clearly used to be a shortage of private equity capital for energy ventures (and rightly so because of their highly cyclic nature), that problem has gone away. Money is now gushing in. By my simple calculations, the amount of money available to energy ventures from dedicated private-equity funds quadrupled from 2005 to 2006, soaring from approximately $5B to $20B. I believe this is even understated. The point is that the money is flowing in at an amazing rate. But where is it going? Energy as a sector is almost as non-specific as technology or transportation. We have to peel back the label and take a closer look.

The lion’s share of the money that is dedicated to energy is earmarked for renewable or alternative energy. Renewable or alternative energy is a fantastic thing and it is necessary, but wholly insufficient, to deal with the energy problem. The biggest part of the energy riddle that needs to be solved resides—and will continue to reside for the next 50 years—with the hydrocarbon side. How do we find more to meet the booming demand? And, how do we find ways, through technology, process, and/or business-model innovation, to reduce the environmental impact of hydrocarbon usage? Renewables is a rounding error when compared to the 80 to 90 percent of the demand that hydrocarbons (i.e., oil, gas, coal—ah!, there it is the four-letter word of energy) fill and will continue to fill for the foreseeable future.

We should and must invest in renewables and alternative energy for the future and there will be some big wins there relative to investing. But with all the new money and attention rushing into this small part of the sector, we are majoring in minors. The major focus should be how do we deal with the continued need for hydrocarbons and how do we make this cleaner energy. Just to put this in perspective, the world would be dramatically better off from an energy-supply standpoint if we could find a way to improve recovery rates at oil and gas wells by 1 percent than if we built a million new wind turbines. If we could find a way to reduce CO2 emissions from automobiles by 1 percent it would be, from a quantitative and practical point of view, thousands of times more positively impactful than increasing solar energy production by a hundred times.

Here is a comment I left on his website:

I did a quick back of the envelope calculation based on your point that without tackling the hydrocarbon economy’s efficiency problems, we would be “majoring with the minors”. In the near term, you are quite right!

US population traveled roughly 3 trillion miles last year that emitted 984 million tons of CO2. If we went the direction of Europe and used ‘clean diesels - for even just 50% of our transportation usage - a conservative estimate would show us gaining 12-13% reduction in CO2 emissions. If we also chose to follow EU that is recommending 120g/km of CO2 emissions in 2012, then we will observe a conservative estimate of 20-22% reduction in CO2. That is more than 200 tons of CO2 from just the transportation sector alone. And this technology is available now! Not tomorrow, and not dependent on improvements in battery technologies or massive changes in our infrastructure.

The ozone treaty can do much more for the planet.

Here is an op-ed written in the Financial Times by my former Ph.D. surpervisor Mario Molina. Mario was an Institute Professor at MIT but has now moved to UCSD. Needless to say, he is right on the mark. I am meeting him this week and hope to learn more how he thinks Montreal Protocol/agreement can be used to understand how to deal with the global warming crises. I know that he was consulted in the development of the Kyoto Protocol, and it will be interesting to learn how he judges Kyoto’s success vis-a-vis the achievements under the Montreal protocol.

The ozone treaty can do much more for the planet.
By Mario Molina

765 words
24 August 2007
Financial Times
Asia Ed1
Page 11
English

(c) 2007 The Financial Times Limited. All rights reserved

The Montreal protocol, the treaty that protects the ozone layer, celebrates its 20th anniversary next month. Its achievements in reducing chlorofluorocarbons and other ozone-depleting chemicals give us much to cheer.

There may be even more to celebrate if leaders decide aggressively to pursue the significant greenhouse gas reductions possible by strengthening the treaty. Next month, the parties to the ozone treaty have the opportunity to reduce climate emissions by many times the reductions mandated under the Kyoto protocol on climate change. If would be the first time developing and developed countries explicitly agreed to mandatory measures for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

During its 20 years of operation, the Montreal protocol has become the world’s best global environmental agreement, having phased out 95 per cent of ozone-depleting substances in developed countries and 50-75 per cent in developing countries. The US estimates that by 2165 these efforts to restore the ozone layer will prevent 6.3m deaths from skin cancer and produce Dollars 4,200bn in health benefits to society in that country alone. Those health benefits extend to all countries of the world, and to the ecosystem itself.

But the work of the ozone treaty is not over. More needs to be done to complete the job of eliminating CFCs and related chemicals that are still attacking the ozone layer. Even more importantly, the ozone treaty can do a great deal to limit greenhouse gas emissions, because CFCs and the other chemicals that deplete the ozone layer are also powerful greenhouse gases.

World Clock: Statistics

I just got this link from a friend, and the information contained within it is rather overwhelming. It is a real-time counter that is predicting various phenomenon based on statistical models developed in respective fields. For example, it tells you the instantaneous world population, growth of communicable and non-communicable diseases, the mean temperature of the earth’s troposphere, the number of gallons of oil consumed, and the number of cars produced etc… I could not verify how accurate their models are, but just knowing how these numbers are adding up is enough to make one pause and think twice about what humanity is sort of experiencing in this world, exactly at the same instant as I sit down in front of my computer with a cup of coffee to catch up on the news.

Check it out: http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock.swf

Below is a screen shot of it from 6 minutes ago (click to enlarge). That’s how long it took me to crop and save the image, write up this short post, send a quick email to my brother, and press Publish….

Improving Fuel Economy: “need to save ourselves from ourselves”

An E-mail response to my op-ed in The Boston Globe provided a link to this article in The New Yorker. It is absolutely fascinating. I prefer you read this even before you read my article. As the piece aptly summarizes: “Sometimes, they know, we need to save ourselves from ourselves”.

My proposed solution to this problem: Increase fuel prices to accurately reflect the true societal cost of burning hydrocarbon fuel, and the market forces will put the pressure on consumers to make more rational choices. That in turn will convince the automakers to change their product mix.

Fuel for Thought

by James Surowiecki
July 23, 2007

In the auto industry, there’s one thing you can always count on: if a new environmental or safety rule is proposed, executives will prophesy disaster. In the nineteen-twenties, Alfred Sloan, the president of General Motors, insisted that the company could not make windshields with safety glass because doing so would harm the bottom line. In the fifties, auto executives told Congress that making seat belts compulsory would slash industry profits. When air bags came along, Lee Iacocca told Richard Nixon that “safety has really killed all our business.” A few years later, when Congress was thinking about requiring fuel-economy standards, auto executives warned that instituting such standards would create “massive financial and unemployment problems.” And now, with Congress debating a bill to raise fuel-economy standards, for the first time in almost twenty years, the Chicken Littles are squawking again, forecasting doom for Detroit and asserting that making higher-mileage vehicles is technologically unfeasible and economically suicidal.

 

Of course, much of this is simply stonewalling by executives determined to keep meddlesome politicians out of their business. But sometimes the industry’s fears have been founded on real market research. In the case of safety glass, G.M. believed that consumers weren’t prepared to pay more for cars with safety glass, so Sloan worried that it would be hard to recoup the cost of installing it. Similarly, when, in the mid-nineteen-seventies, G.M. offered front-seat air bags as an option on Cadillacs, Buicks, and Oldsmobiles, they didn’t sell. Fuel-economy standards present the same difficulty: although there are plenty of affordable models that get good gas mileage, over the past two decades some of the most powerful and least fuel-efficient vehicles on the market—S.U.V.s and pickup trucks—have also been among the best-selling. Thirty years ago, so-called “light trucks” accounted for about a fifth of all auto sales. Today, even with a recent slowdown, they account for more than half.