Bidding adieu

A Utah man is facing jail time for bidding on oil and gas land he couldn't and wouldn't develop.

Tim DeChristopher is arguing that it's okay to disrupt a fire sale if it's the result of arson-- or something like that.

He's facing federal charges of interfering with an auction and making false statements on bidding forms for taking part in a December Bureau of Land Management auction, one of many regulatory and policy environmental caltrops dropped by former President George Bush on his way out the door.

Degrees of Separation That's one version of a caltrop in the photo. It's an ancient landmine that's still used today; note that one spike always points upward. My fevered brain fixed on the analogy because the article title "Legal Cost for Throwing a Monkey Wrench" reminded me Edward Albee's Monkey Wrench Gang. They used them, fictionally. (Oh, I highly recommend the book and the author, though I prefer what they're doing along the Klamath River to blowing up dams.)

A temporary injunction held up 77 of the 116 parcels in January, and new Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar withdrew those parcels from consideration in February, according to an Oct. 7, 2009 BLM report (pdf). That report recommends a handful for leasing, a handful for withdrawal from leasing and that action on the majority be deferred.

The report probably led to the New York Times article in which DeChristopher's supporters reportedly claim his actions had a role in the judicial and administrative actions. That argument lines up with his lawyer's attempt to assert a "necessity defense". That's kind of a lesser of two evils thing; the article cites the example of breaking into a cabin when you're lost in the woods. It doesn't impress most judges.

"My intention was to cause as much of a disruption to the auction as I could," DeChristopher is quoted as saying. "Making that decision — that keeping the oil in the ground was worth going to prison — that was the decision I made."

To which I would respond: "Be careful what you ask for."

No, Utah isn't in the Ninth Circuit. I thought not, but checked anyway because that would be a wild card.

Melting the ice

I see that Benigno Sablan has been reappointed to the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council. I assume Marine Monument supporters wouldn't be pleased because members are nominated by the Governor, but I've liked Ben since he was my Congressman.

Really, I wouldn't even bring it up, except that the press release from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (This is the Saipan Tribune after all) states that "NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages the nation's coastal and marine resources." You might guess from my added emphasis that I consider that a boldface, um, overstatement. How about understanding and predicting the Arctic Icecap?

North by Northwest

The Northwest Passage is open for business. Dust off your history books and you'll recall that a passage to the Far East drove generations of early American exploration. Even Columbus was aiming for the "Indies".

So far, I've only run across an Australian who sailed West-to-East, but if it continues to open, and for a longer season, shippers are sure to follow. A beefed up oil tanker was tested before the decision was made to build the Alaska Pipeline.

The extent of sea-ice is approaching last year's record low. Global warming? Probably, maybe, but that's irrelevant in the near-term. The icecap has been shrinking for the 30 years we've had satellites to peep at it and for the last 10 years particularly.

We can argue about where the Highs and Lows park during summer and winds pushing the pack ice in the 'wrong' direction, even throw in global currents and post-ice-age isostatic recovery. We know that the 'new ice' from last year melts more easily and that open ocean absorbs more sunlight than ice, but we're ignorant puppies about events on this scale and our supercomputers will be happily humming for years. Climate change is about decades or centuries, not years.

Chill out

Why should I care way off in Saipan? Well aside from living near sea level and liking to think about ice when I'm sweltering in the dark, Russia has been pretty assertive lately.

There are bound to be disputes; Russia has tried to claim the North Pole and is building nuclear-powered icebreakers, Canada is still trying to assert control over their sea-lanes, and we're stumbling along with three aged icebreakers (one's for research and one's in the shop).

Yep, you got it: the icebreaker gap. It's not just military/political; ice-free doesn't mean, well, free of ice. Depending on who's defining, it means less than 15% ice. So ships can get stuck, they can get holed, they can sink. Big ships. Tankers. Enforcement and clean-up crews are going to have to function in that environment.

Also, submarine cousins from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are going to be increasingly likely to meet, and to invade each other's territory.

Chevy's volts-wagen might get us off of the oil road

The Chevrolet Volt will probably do more to get us off of foreign oil than all of the politicians' promises put together.

I really hope they hit their 2010 goal of a car that runs only on electricity. No Prius this, a small gas engine will only be used to recharge the batteries if they run down.

That could eventually make oil just another electrical source. Eventually, because those old gas-guzzlers will still be sold and they last for a long time.

Kudos to General Motors for taking the plunge, apparently risking the company in the process. According to the Atlantic author, "focus groups liked the company’s cars better when the logo was removed." That's pretty close to my opinion of the 100 year-old company before they announced this last year.

Even if they end up with Microsoft-like delays in hitting their deadline, they're pouring money into battery research which will help us in countless areas.

Also, other companies have to follow when the largest, er maybe second largest, automaker makes a commitment like this. Toyota, for instance, used to dismiss electric cars as impractical. According to the article:

At the 2008 Detroit auto show, Katsuaki Watanabe, the president, announced that Toyota would produce a lithium-ion plug-in car of its own, and would have it on the street in test fleets “not at the end of 2010, but earlier than that.” Toyota was talking about a few hundred experimental cars in a controlled setting, not tens of thousands of cars in dealer showrooms, a much less ambitious goal than GM’s. But Toyota is famous for under-promising and over-delivering.

In February, Tesla, the Silicon Valley company, announced plans for an electric sedan with a gasoline-powered generator, like the Volt—but set to arrive a year earlier, in late 2009. In March, BMW said it might produce an electric car for the U.S. market, and in May, Nissan said it would have one in test fleets in 2010. The drumbeat seems likely to continue. Simply by announcing the Volt, GM has attracted a bevy of competitors, bringing the electric car’s mass-market advent from over the horizon to around the corner.

Getting the lead out

I've been stewing about oil companies' greed for months, and it's got very little to do with gasoline prices *.

Where they can get away with it, they're still poisoning people with leaded gasoline. Okay, the United States still allows lead for specialized uses: planes **, boats and off-road vehicles, but I thought the world had dumped that poison decades ago. We've known about it since the 1920's.

Then I saw a throw-away line in a Philippine Inquirer story on another subject. 'That can't be true,” I thought. I was appalled by what came up after a little web-surfing.

Big oil happily trades lives for profits wherever and however it's allowed. The Australian LEAD Group tries to track countries that still allow lead additives, but there's a big difference between having restrictions and enforcing them.

According to an article in BusinessWorld (Philippines) "Figures from the World Wide Survey of Motor Gasoline Quality showed that the levels of lead added to fuel in third world countries were consistently twice as high as those added to the fuel in Western countries."

Since my search was in English, the Philippines popped up more than other countries. I, for one, suspect their experience applies to other places where big money meets weak governance.

Lives are cheap and gas is dear. Since leaded fuel is more efficient, it's hard to see any government stepping up enforcement at this time.

So I'm angry, and helpless.

* Their dirty little secret? Whether we've reached the 'tipping point' or not, they don't really want to increase production

** If you know any bat-shit crazy pilots, well, there you are.

*** One interesting item: because our gas comes from Singapore, Saipan stations were pumping lead into the 1980's.