New Policy for a New Era?

For those interested in my approach to the challenges we are facing in the world today, it might be interesting to read the speech I gave to the Swedish Institute for International Affairs on December 19th.

The text can be found on the Ministry website on my own old one and on the site of the Institute.

Those interested can there also access the video version of the event.

The speech has been fairly widely commented upon in Sweden, although mostly in general appreciative terms without going too much into the substance.

But it does set out both my vision and my priorities. It combines optimism about the possibilities of globalisation with pessimism concerning the dark clouds gathering on the more immediate horizons of the neighbourhood of Europe.

The Future of This Blog?

As has been noted, this blog has gone inactive since I was asked to serve as Foreign Minister of Sweden in early October.

It is not easy to combine blogging with having an official position. Your worlds are scrutinzed in a somewhat different way - as indeed they should be.

It's really the difference between being an observer of politics and an active participant in some of the same events. And the two roles are very different, with blogging fitting better with the first than with the second of these two functions.

Nevertheless, the web is an important tool also of the increasingly important public diplomacy.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs does maintain it's somewhat dull site in Swedish as well as another one in English, although I have to admit that they don't really meet the standards that must be achieved these days. Work is underway to improve them, although government bureucracies don't really operate with the speed of the light.

To which extent I will have the possibility of continuing to post on this or another blog now and then remains to be seen, but since I noted that there are hundreds of visitors each day in spite of the blog being virtually "dead" since months back I just wanted to note the state of affairs.

We'll see.

A new year might bring new opportunities also in this respect.

Assad’s Olive Branch Can Bear No Fruit!

Ammar Abdulhamid Fri. Dec 29, 2006
Forward Forum

According to an article in Time magazine this month, I am the central figure in some cockamamie plot to overthrow the Syrian government. The plan, apparently, is to undermine Bashar al-Assad’s regime through the ballot box, starting with the parliamentary elections scheduled for March 2007.

But as every Syrian knows, these elections tend to be quite staged and inconsequential. Perhaps the American officials who concocted the classified plan for regime change believed they could make it appear more credible by assigning a primary role to a dissident like myself. No one, however, could exude the kind of aura needed to cover the naiveté of the proposed scheme.

If nothing else, this half-baked plot exposes how much the United States is struggling to develop a coherent policy toward Syria. Washington is clearly unable to grasp the reality on the ground, both in Syria and across the Middle East — and nowhere is this disconnect more visible than in the naive insistence, by the Iraq Study Group and others, on linking progress in Iraq to the revival of Syrian-Israeli peace talks.

If Israel returns the Golan Heights to Syria, the advocates of this line argue, the Assad regime will become more agreeable to helping the United States in Iraq and to reining in Hezbollah and Hamas. But little consideration is given, at least officially, to the fact that Assad may not be in a position to help achieve any of these things once the United Nations’ investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri is completed.

This open secret has led many to believe — with ample justification — that despite the Iraq Study Group’s emphasis on obliging Damascus to abide by all relevant U.N. resolutions, the Assad regime will ultimately be rewarded with a free pass on the Hariri assassination. Indeed, there is an implicit acknowledgement among all advocates of talks with Assad that the regime’s real interest lies more in killing the Hariri investigation than in retrieving the Golan. But since this matter cannot be acknowledged publicly by either Damascus or Washington, returning the Golan is made out to be a key to solving the region’s problems.

Why, some might ask, should Israel care about all this, if in the end it gets something out of the deal — such as the containment of Hezbollah and Hamas?

For one, it is not really clear that Damascus actually can deliver in this regard, seeing that the real financial backer here is Iran. So, unless the Assad regime suddenly becomes willing to turn against Iran, it is unlikely to cause a serious break in the flow of arms and funds to Lebanon and Gaza.

No matter how desirable this turnaround might seem in the eyes of American and Israeli policy-makers, it remains an unlikely course of action for Assad. The alliance between the two regimes dates back to the early days of the Iranian revolution, and the security and economic dimensions of the relationship have been developed for years.

Iran invests hundreds of millions of dollars in Syria, and annual bilateral trade tops a billion dollars. More importantly, Iranians have been able to heavily infiltrate the Syrian security apparatuses, to the point where Tehran has the ability to manipulate existing differences among different members of the Assad family. Today, Iran is both a security threat and a lucrative business partner to the Syrian regime — and both sides are well aware of it.

The fact that Iran has so much influence on the Assad regime likely means that Iranian concerns would filter into talks between Israel and Syria. Considering the nature of relations among Iran, Israel and the United States at the moment, it is not at all clear that diplomacy with Damascus would be productive.

And that’s not all that could hamper Damascus’s ability to achieve peace. There is the Assad regime’s growing nationalistic jingoism, as well as the fact that the ruling Alawites represent less than 10% of Syria’s population. And, of course, there’s the ongoing Hariri investigation.

This might mean that even if Damascus does agree to sit at the negotiating table — which itself is far from a given — discussions could drag on due to the Assad regime’s inability to commit to specific concessions. Any concession to Israel, or to the United States, would likely be held against the regime by its domestic critics, meaning that Assad would be hard pressed to settle for anything less than a perfect deal.

Indeed, it was just such an impossible quest that made then-president Hafez al-Assad — who was a far more credible and pragmatic leader than his son — walk out on talks with President Clinton in 2000. How reasonable, then, would it be to expect that the embattled Bashar Assad will accept what his respected and feared father could not? One need only look at how the younger Assad has tried to appropriate Hezbollah’s perceived victory in Lebanon to grasp that at this stage, he is more interested in burnishing his militant credentials than his diplomatic ones.

Yet even if Assad were to sign a peace treaty with Israel — which, again, seems rather hard to imagine at the moment — such a deal would almost certainly be viewed as tainted by most Syrians. Any concessions made to the Jewish state would be portrayed by critics of the regime as Assad preserving his power at the expense of the national interest.

What exactly this would mean for the future of Syria is hard to say, but one can get a pretty good idea by looking next door, in Iraq and in Lebanon. With communal lines being drawn ever darker, the minority Alawites’ rule in Syria is far from guaranteed.

As such, peace with Assad may not necessarily mean peace with Syria. Indeed, a peace treaty might not even outlive the regime. So unless Israel, the United States and the international community are willing to assume the role of protector, it is unlikely that peace with an Assad-ruled Syria will prove enduring. Syria cannot make peace with anybody, least of all Israel, until it first makes peace with itself.


Ammar Abdulhamid, a Syrian blogger and author, was forced into exile in 2005 for criticism of the Assad regime. He is founder of the Tharwa Foundation, an independent initiative focusing on diversity issues in the Middle East, and is a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy.

Is Dialogue with Iran and Syria Worth It?

Ammar Abdulhamid
(Spanish, Russian, French, German, Czech, Chinese, Arabic)

Despite frequent claims to the contrary, the fundamental problem in the Middle East is not intervention by the West. On the contrary, the real problem is that, for all their dabbling, the Western powers seem capable of neither war nor dialogue. This leaves everyone in the region at the mercy of the Middle East’s oppressive regimes and proliferating terrorists.

Advocates of the Iraq war lacked an understanding of the complexities on the ground to wage an effective war of liberation and democratization. As a result, their policies merely ended up eliminating Iran’s two major regional rivals: the Taliban and Saddam Hussein’s regime. This presented Iran with a golden opportunity to project itself as a regional hegemon, and Iran’s leaders are unlikely to let this opportunity slip away.

Advocates of dialogue with the Iranians and their Syrian allies, like former United States Secretary of State James Baker, labor under the delusion that they can actually reach an understanding that can enable a graceful US exit from Iraq and help stabilize that wounded country. The delusion is based on two false assumptions: that the Iranians and the Syrians can succeed in Iraq where the US has failed, and that the international community can afford to pay the price of ensuring their cooperation.

True, Syria and Iran are playing a major role in supporting Iraqi insurgents, and Syria is still encouraging the trafficking of jihadists and weapons across its borders with Iraq. But the idea that these activities can be halted at will is naïve.

For one thing, the interests of the Shia communities in Iraq and Iran are not the same. Iraqi Shia have never accepted Iranian dictates, and many took part in Saddam’s war against Iran in the 1980’s. After all, the Iraqi Shia are Arabs, and if they are now willing to coordinate their activities with their Persian counterparts, their main goal will always be to secure an independent course as soon as possible, even while they carry on with their internecine disputes within Iraq. Iran is in no better position than the US to convince them to resolve their differences.

President Basher al-Assad of Syria faces a similar dilemma. Although he has opened Syria’s border to jihadists and has allowed Saddam’s supporters to operate freely there, that choice may not be entirely his. Syria’s aid to Saddam in maneuvering around the United Nations’ oil-for food program brought Iraqi money to inhabitants of the border region, who have always been closer in customs, dialect, and outlook to their Iraqi neighbors than to their fellow Syrians. In the absence of government investment, local inhabitants’ loyalty went to Iraqi Baathists who helped improve their lot. Indeed, even local security apparatuses have been unwilling to comply with dictates from Assad and his clique to seal the borders.

In these cirumstances, neither Syria nor Iran seems capable of delivering anything but mayhem in Iraq. What, then, would the proposed dialogue between the US and these states achieve other than continue to empower their corrupt yet ambitious regimes?

The story gets more complicated when one considers the UN inquiry into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri. Assad wants nothing more than to see this affair forgotten – and the proponents of dialogue think that they can give him what he wants in the hope of breaking Syria’s alliance with Iran.

But that is merely another erroneous (not to mention amoral) assumption. The alliance between Syria and Iran dates back more than two decades, and was explicitly reaffirmed by the two ruling regimes as recently as January 2005. Indeed, the two regimes are now joined at the hip. Assad’s recent refusal to attend a summit in Tehran with his Iranian and Iraqi counterparts was a mere tactical move designed to appeal to the proponents of dialogue.

In fact, Iran has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Syria, and annual bilateral trade tops a billion dollars. Irani’s growing influence over the Syrian security apparatus is well established, and Iran is funding an effort to create Syrian Shia militias to compensate for Assad’s sagging support in the army and in the minority Alawite community.

Assad cannot turn his back on all of this. No deal would be sweet enough, even if it included the return of the Golan Heights. For Assad and his supporters, survival is more important than sovereignty.

Still, to read the well-known names of commentators and policymakers who are recommending engaging Syria and/or Iran is a testament to how inconsequential and cut off the Western powers have become from the realities on the ground in the world’s most turbulent region. That, it seems, is the price of their arrogance.


Ammar Abdulhamid is a Syrian author, blogger and dissident. He runs the Tharwa Foundation, an independent initiative that focuses on diversity issues in the region.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2006.

The Rhoids!

So here I was crouching head-down on my belly in the Doctor’s chair, my ass hoisted in the air in a very un-reassuring position for a shy reclusive and heretical buttocks, when it suddenly hit me, no, not the intrusive instruments of the doctors perianal conspiracy, but the sudden realization that the problems with my ass, if memory served me correctly, seem to have come about around the same time as my problems with my Assads, which, indeed, made perfect sense to me, seeing that all involved are indeed full of shit.

But then my realization went deeper than that when I remembered that I can actually date my first serious bout of hemorrhoidal pain and bleeding back to the early days of the US-led invasion of Iraq. I, then, had a series of “dry runs” coinciding nicely with my first stint at Brookings in mid 2004. But, and beginning in mid January 20005, things went down hill and colon upon my return to Damascus, with the onset of that long period of incessant interrogations by Syria’s various security apparatuses, and my incessant defiance thereof. Consequently, a surgery became necessary in April - the bleeding stopped - a death-threat inevitable in June -the throbbing pain came back - and exile a relief in September - the bleeding of anus and soul returned, and never looked back.

My bleeding is but a reflection of the turbulence around and within me, my anus a barometer. This world is going indeed to shit, and, if some had their way, so will my life.

The latest ramification of the Time’s article is the embellishment in an Arabic site run by another troubled Syrian soul in exile, a journalist and a graduate of the Syrian prison system who have developed his own unique way of coping with his own growing disillusionment with the Syrian regime and his own messianic predilections, Nizat Nayouf. His way allows him to quote “widely knowledgeable sources” in Syria, while maintaining a semblance of objectivity and stating that their claims "are rather difficult to verify." indeed. The “widely knowledgeable sources” in Syria claim that I am a triple agent of sorts playing all sides, including the US Administration, the regime and the NSF, and that I have secretly recorded NSF meetings, and sent the recordings to the Presidential Palace in my Damascus, through my mother, the well-known actress Muna Wasssef who, naturally, is very "close to the Palace."

The source also identifies the Tharwa Project as the vehicle of the US conspiracy, albeit it admits that our funding initially came from a Dutch organization connected, according to "widely knowledgeable sources" in the Netherlands this time around, to the Protestant-Jewish lobby.

In fact, however, I never attended any of the NSF meetings, because, here I am the center of a CIA covert plot to bring down the Syrian regime and no one has seen fit so far to speed up the approval of my asylum application and give me a goddamn passport. I took part in establishing the NSF virtually, I have never yet met Khaddam or Bayanouni, and other than the US-based members of the NSF, I only met those who came here for occasional visits. Now, I should think that that would make it pretty hard for me to get any recordings of NSF meetings, unless, of course, I had accomplices. This is what the new version of the report will likely claim in some future date.

As for my Dutch donors, well, actually, they happen to be a branch of an international Catholic organization, namely the well-known Pax Christi, known for its peacebuilding and humanitarian activities all through the world, even here in the good old USA.

Conclusions:

* The widely knowledgeable sources remain the bane of our existence in this world. They fuck up war. They fuck up peace. They fuck up objectivity. When they are real, that is. More often, however, they are nothing more than tattered disguises for our growing sense of insecurity and paranoia.

* We all live under the delusion of being right and good most if not all of the time. And though I tend to question myself often with regard to my basic motives, intentions and means, I cannot claim to be any less susceptible to this tendency than any given one of us. For this reason, I have no option but to muddle through the dark days and ways that lie in front of me, stumbling from one sudden realization to another until I make some sense of it all, or someone makes some sense of me.

Ouch Doc, yeah, that really does hurt.

A Heretic in the Wind!

A recent article in the Time paints me as the central figure of some cockamamie covert plot to overthrow the Syrian regime. But, and while I'd really like to see our illustrious regime overthrown and reconciled to the dustbin of history (to borrow a term that is so dear to the hearts of regime spokesmen), news of my involvement in such “sinister” plot come as news to me as well. I was never aware of that fact that I was that creative. I think I should take up writing again, soon.

Meanwhile, I am, at this stage, a member of the board of the Tharwa Foundation USA, which was recently incorporated in Washington to conduct human rights and democracy activities along lines similar to our Tharwa Project in Syria with its focus on diversity issues. Tharwa Foundation USA will be the recipient of funds from a variety of donor organizations in the US, but nothing that directly comes from the US government (where our donors get their money, however, is their problem). Moreover, the Tharwa Foundation will not be carrying out any partisan activities, such as supporting any particular political candidate, party, or movement inside or outside Syria, or anywhere in the region (we have representatives in Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Palestine, Morocco and the Gulf).

Besides, parliamentary elections in Syria are too farcical and tightly controlled to become the center of any meaningful opposition work or action. For them to be put at the center of a plot to overthrow the Syrian regime is ludicrous. If there is someone who thinks along these lines in the administration, then heaven help us.

My affiliation with the National Salvation Front has nothing to do with Tharwa, especially the branch in Syria, where the Tharwa team has always been critical of this recent aspect of my activism, albeit they accept my freedom to make my choices in these matters just as I accept theirs.

Indeed, Tharwa came to light in Syria in early 2003, following 2 years of preparation. The NSF, on the other hand, was established in Europe in March 2006. Tharwa emerged as a regional civic project that support dissident views, and is often run by dissidents. Still, it has no partisan affiliation with any existing political group inside or outside the country, and does not represent itself as a political operation anywhere. In fact, its members come from a variety of political backgrounds, not to mention ethnic and religious affiliations.

The Time story, therefore, is definitely not well-researched and tends to read too much into too little and stitches together disconnected pieces of a nonexistent puzzle. The current administration has not yet formed a coherent policy vis-à-vis Syria, albeit they are opening up more and more to the Syrian opposition, the NSF in particular. But that only means that we have been talking more often, nothing concrete has so far come out of the talks except for a general agreement that the NSF is an important and credible opposition movement whose views and basic expectations warrant to be factored in whatever policy that the Administration ends up adopting with regard to Syria. NSF members in Europe are conducting similar activities there as well with their local governments. Indeed, the NSF recently opened an office in London.

Still, I don't really mind in principle being the central figure of a rumored covert operation, provided it is substantive and real. This one is just too bloody farcical, and I would like to believe that I am smarter than to be involved in something like this. I was exiled from Syria less than 15 months ago – not enough time in this day and age for one to lose his grip on the realities he left behind.

Everybody in Syria knows of the staged nature of the parliamentary elections there, exposing this fact to an external audience is important, of course, and it should be done, and it will be done I know, with or without overt or covert US support, but the results of this activity will not have a major impact, if any, on the standing of the Assad regime vis-à-vis the Syrian population, who have long grown accustomed to this periodic song-and-dance.

Nevertheless, should the Time story cause someone in Syria to worry, for whatever reason, then, it is good. But if it made them laugh it is even better. For I noticed that the Assads are at their worst when they are confident and joyful, so they might as well dance naked around the campfire, as far as I am concerned (I wouldn't mind doing that myself actually. It's been a while).

As for the opposition, well, we have to admit that we are still relatively weak with limited grassroots appeal. But our weakness is more than compensated by the moronic policies of the Assads, not to mention their avarice, this is indeed what keeps us in the game, and this is the one constant that has been working for us all along, albeit we cannot keep on
counting on it. Indeed, I believe that the NSF is slowly moving beyond that, which is why it finds itself so much in the news lately. But then, we have legitimate complaints vis-à-vis the Assads regime and our point of view merits an audience and merits support. Ignoring us and legitimizing the tyrannical and corrupt rule of the Assads is not realism, it is downright duplicitous and as equally moronic as the policies adopted by the Assads themselves.

But then, there are indeed plenty of morons all around. Some believe in farcical engagement justified on the basis of real politick, others in no less farcical warfare advocated on the basis of certain undying messianic expectations. Then there are opportunist morons who wouldn't mind scavenging around for a tasty morsel, and idealistic morons who think that they have to find a way to chart a path around all those moronic policies out there in an effort to salvage what can still be salvaged from the impending wreckage by way of mitigating the overall disaster and in the name of some ideal that keeps on militating within their souls.

I like to believe that I belong to that last category of morons. But there are those who will feel more comfortable putting me in the former. Be that as it may, I am only 40 years old, and I am going to be around for a while through the thick and thin of it, and if people can't see things my way today, perhaps, in a few years time, I will have created the sort of reality on the ground that can lend more credibility to what I and my dissident colleagues stand for.

On the other hand, stories like this, coming at a time like this, yearend and all, cannot but make me look back at the last few months of my fledgling political career, and yearn, really yearn, for early retirement. I enjoyed life more when I was just a heretical poet and author waiting for one or two of my misguided colleagues from the Time of Ignorance of yore, who, still high on atavistic religiosity rather than joi de vivre, would come and kill me while I lounged by the Sheraton poolside in Damascus with my equally heretical wife, kids and mother sipping on that odd mixture of lemon and beer that we are all so fond of in the family, and the country.

Oh well, I have to stop daydreaming I guess, there is some covert scheming waiting to be done back in the office.

Cheerio.

***

More on this story with a quote by me here. And this is an article that I recently wrote and which is being widely syndicated in a number of languages.

The Flipping Moment!

Indeed, the Assads of Syria are currently being wooed by one and all, American Senators, European officials, and Arab leaders, but soon, I'd wager, everybody will be wowed by how little the Assads actually have to offer and by how bent they are on overplaying their hand, just as they have done on so many occasions over the last few years.

The Assads don’t have it in themselves to “flip” really. Flipping requires a certain family consensus that in light of existing family dynamics is very hard to reach. The interests of different family members still diverge along personality lines, individual ambitions and business interests. A suitable new arrangement or accommodation has not been reached yet, and will not likely be reached anytime soon, if ever.

Meanwhile, the current consensus on the necessity and usefulness of the alliance with Iran and Hezbollah was reached by default – the alliance has been a hallmark of Syrian foreign policy for decades now. Different family members simply lapsed on established positions and policies and stuck to their guns. The fact that events seemed to have justified this choice of theirs will argue in their individual minds that sticking to these policies is the best thing to do at this stage. So, they will do nothing but grandstand and will continue to do nothing but grandstand as the flipping moment fades away over the horizon.

This is why President Bashar told his Italian interviewer recently that, although Syria can do a lot to help the US in Iraq, considering that the Assads have such “excellent relations” with so many of the actors involved in the Iraqi scene, the US should also “talk to Iran.”

Meanwhile, those who think that they can talk some sense into the Assads should learn from the experience of Senator Bill Nelson, who was vilified in official Syrian press for claiming after the end of his visit to Syria that he had had a sharp exchange of views over Lebanon with the Syrian President, an assertion that has nothing to do with the rules of "politics, diplomacy and morality," according to the Syrian daily, Tishreen, that went on to list Nelson among those "two-faced" US officials who pay visits to Syria for purposes related to partisan politics in the US. Well, perhaps they got that last point right. Baathists are not all and always as dumb as we think. So, unless one is willing to grovel at the feet of the mighty Assads of the Middle Eastern jungle, perhaps there is no point in talking to them at all.

Indeed, the Assads will overplay their hand. We can always count on them doing just that when things seem to be going their way, even with Iranian coaching. It's a habit. It's well-nigh genetic.

A Call for Action!

Well, it seems that a stream of senators is planning to follow in the footsteps of Senator Bill Nelson and go to Syria to engage the ever so charming Ass…ads. Well, I say, let’s give them a piece of our minds about that. No, we may not be able to discourage them from undertaking such a “noble” endeavor to reach out to the hardened criminals of the world in the hope of achieving peace and stability, but we can at least convince them to avoid the mistakes of Senator Nelson who did not bother to talk to the press afterwards or raise any contentious issue.

We need to convince these people to address both in private and in public the issue of worsening conditions of human rights in Syria, especially the plight of denaturalized Kurds, and to call for the freedom of all political prisoners, an end to the ongoing campaign of crackdown and intimidation against all activists and opposition members, and allowing political exiles to return home to live in freedom and security. They also need to encourage the Syrian regime to cease its efforts to destabilize the democratically elected government in Lebanon, and to review its dangerous connections to the Iranian regime and unsavory terrorist movements in the region.

These are the addresses and numbers of the people involved:

U.S. Senator Chris Dodd448 Russell Building Washington D.C., 20510Tel: (202) 224-2823 Fax: (202) 224-1083

U.S. Senator Arlen Specter 711 Hart BuildingWashington, DC 20510Tel: 202-224-4254

U.S. Senator John Kerry 304 Russell Bldg.Third FloorWashington D.C. 20510(202) 224-2742

U. S. Senator Bill Nelson 716 Senate Hart Office BuildingWashington, DC 20510Phone: 202-224-5274Fax: 202-228-2183


We can refer in this regard to the recent statement by President Bush with rgard to the human rights situation in Syria:

For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary
December 13, 2006

President's Statement on the Government of Syria

The United States supports the Syrian people's desire for democracy, human rights, and freedom of expression. Syrians deserve a government whose legitimacy is grounded in the consent of the people, not brute force.

The Syrian regime should immediately free all political prisoners, including Aref Dalila, Michel Kilo, Anwar al-Bunni, Mahmoud Issa, and Kamal Labwani. I am deeply troubled by reports that some ailing political prisoners are denied health care while others are held in cells with violent criminals.

Syria should disclose the fate and whereabouts of the many missing Lebanese citizens who "disappeared" following their arrest in Lebanon during the decades of Syrian military occupation.

The Syrian regime should also cease its efforts to undermine Lebanese sovereignty by denying the Lebanese people their right to participate in the democratic process free of foreign intimidation and interference.

The people of Syria hope for a prosperous future with greater opportunities for their children, and for a government that fights corruption, respects the rule of law, guarantees the rights of all Syrians, and works toward achieving peace in the region.

Middle Eastern Realities! (1)

Every new conflict in the region becomes inextricably linked to the ongoing Arab-Israeli Conflict as well as western imperialism in the discourse and tactics employed by the various regional actors invovled, who are often more interested in prolonging the said conflict. Festering old wounds are always a good distraction from developing new ones. However, the real panacea here does not lie in treating the causes of one set of wounds at the expense of another, as so many experts end up recommending, but in tackling the real issues involved: the development and democracy gaps. Any realism that attempts a song-and-dance around these issues represent nothing more than a cop-out mechanism, a running away from the real challenges ahead, and will only make the problems worse in the not-too-distant future. For things are moving at a much faster pace than they used to, and any problem that gets neglected today will haunt us all in the near morrow.

City Utilities End Coal Fired Electricity Contracts in California

In what is hopefully the start of a new trend, several Southern California cities have decided not to renew long-term contracts for coal-fired electricity, choosing instead to turn to cleaner sources of electricity.

City officials told Utah-based Intermountain Power Agency they wouldn't be renewing their contracts for coal-fired power, which expire in 2027, and would instead be looking for alternative energy sources.

"It's a huge change," said Mayor Todd Campbell of Burbank, one of the cities that decided not to renew its contract.

The cities are Pasadena, Glendale, Riverside and Anaheim. They join the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which has already choosen not to renew the contract with Intermountain. Currently coal fired electricity makes up a significant percentage of their power, for example Pasadena Water & Power says that the Intermountain plant is 65 percent of our energy.

Intermountain's general manager Reed Searle said the company had worked for three years on the renewals and was now looking at ways to modernize its plants to bring them into compliance with California's greenhouse gas legislation that takes effect on the first of January.

The cities' decision came after increased pressure from politicians and environmentalists.

Senator Dianne Feinstein wrote a letter to an umbrella group for the cities last week saying she was "shocked and dismayed" by an initial decision last month by Burbank to renew the contract.

Phyllis Currie, general manager of Pasadena Water & Power said the utilities wanted to explain how important Intermountain was to California cities. "It's a serious issue when you tell us to walk away from that," she said.

The move could put Southern California in the forefront nationally of the commercial use of alternative energy in coming years.

Intermountain has extended its renewal offer for power from the plants until 2023 from the previous deadline of May 2007 in the hope state regulators will let utility officials renew the contracts if greenhouse gases are reduced. Electricity utilities are starting to feel the pressure for "clean" coal.

City Utilities End Coal Fired Electricity Contracts in California

In what is hopefully the start of a new trend, several Southern California cities have decided not to renew long-term contracts for coal-fired electricity, choosing instead to turn to cleaner sources of electricity.

City officials told Utah-based Intermountain Power Agency they wouldn't be renewing their contracts for coal-fired power, which expire in 2027, and would instead be looking for alternative energy sources.

"It's a huge change," said Mayor Todd Campbell of Burbank, one of the cities that decided not to renew its contract.

The cities are Pasadena, Glendale, Riverside and Anaheim. They join the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which has already choosen not to renew the contract with Intermountain. Currently coal fired electricity makes up a significant percentage of their power, for example Pasadena Water & Power says that the Intermountain plant is 65 percent of our energy.

Intermountain's general manager Reed Searle said the company had worked for three years on the renewals and was now looking at ways to modernize its plants to bring them into compliance with California's greenhouse gas legislation that takes effect on the first of January.

The cities' decision came after increased pressure from politicians and environmentalists.

Senator Dianne Feinstein wrote a letter to an umbrella group for the cities last week saying she was "shocked and dismayed" by an initial decision last month by Burbank to renew the contract.

Phyllis Currie, general manager of Pasadena Water & Power said the utilities wanted to explain how important Intermountain was to California cities. "It's a serious issue when you tell us to walk away from that," she said.

The move could put Southern California in the forefront nationally of the commercial use of alternative energy in coming years.

Intermountain has extended its renewal offer for power from the plants until 2023 from the previous deadline of May 2007 in the hope state regulators will let utility officials renew the contracts if greenhouse gases are reduced. Electricity utilities are starting to feel the pressure for "clean" coal.

$402m Tidal Energy Plant For New Zealand

New Zealand’s Northern Advocate reports that a US $402 million (NZ $600m) proposal to generate electricity with 200 tidal-powered turbines submerged at the entrance to the Kaipara Harbour could get under way next year. The harbour is one of the largest in the world. It’s a broad shallow harbour covering an area of over three hundred square miles and has more than two thousand miles of shoreline. It has a two and a half mile wide entrance to the Tasman Sea halfway along its length.

Although officially called a harbour, the Kaipara is rarely used for shipping, owing to the treacherous tides and bars at its mouth. For this reason, no large settlements lie close to its shores, although small communities dot its coastline.



Crest Energy has applied to the Northland Regional Council for resource consent to set the 22m-tall turbines on the seafloor along about 8km of the 30m deep main channel at the harbour entrance.

The tidal energy is expected to get the turbines generating 200 megawatts of power - enough for 250,000 homes. The turbines, shielded from fish, would sit on heavy concrete pylons and be at least 5m from the surface at low tide. Leisure craft and barges could pass over them, but would be restricted from anchoring in the turbine area.

Two 30km-long cables 125mm in diameter would feed electricity into the national grid.

Crest Energy claims the size and commercial scale of the Kaipara project would make it the largest of its kind in the world.

If the project gets the green light, possibly around the middle of next year, the company plans to raise about $50 million to begin building turbines.

$402m Tidal Energy Plant For New Zealand

New Zealand’s Northern Advocate reports that a US $402 million (NZ $600m) proposal to generate electricity with 200 tidal-powered turbines submerged at the entrance to the Kaipara Harbour could get under way next year. The harbour is one of the largest in the world. It’s a broad shallow harbour covering an area of over three hundred square miles and has more than two thousand miles of shoreline. It has a two and a half mile wide entrance to the Tasman Sea halfway along its length.

Although officially called a harbour, the Kaipara is rarely used for shipping, owing to the treacherous tides and bars at its mouth. For this reason, no large settlements lie close to its shores, although small communities dot its coastline.



Crest Energy has applied to the Northland Regional Council for resource consent to set the 22m-tall turbines on the seafloor along about 8km of the 30m deep main channel at the harbour entrance.

The tidal energy is expected to get the turbines generating 200 megawatts of power - enough for 250,000 homes. The turbines, shielded from fish, would sit on heavy concrete pylons and be at least 5m from the surface at low tide. Leisure craft and barges could pass over them, but would be restricted from anchoring in the turbine area.

Two 30km-long cables 125mm in diameter would feed electricity into the national grid.

Crest Energy claims the size and commercial scale of the Kaipara project would make it the largest of its kind in the world.

If the project gets the green light, possibly around the middle of next year, the company plans to raise about $50 million to begin building turbines.

Annemarie and Emily

i have been absent for a while.

the war ended. maya's condition grew worse. she passed away and i have been left with a stain on my heart. what now? i have been living the past few weeks in total darkness, not know what lies ahead. not knowing if things could get any worse.. if i was going to lose anyone else... and today it almost happened in Palestine. i almost lost two more friends.

below i have posted an email i just received from Annemarie Jacir:


>Four hours ago my sister, her curator Carolyn and I were shot at by the Israeli army. My nerves are still shaky. We’ve been drinking every since. My legs are weak. I feel I can’t stand on them.

Today in downtown Ramallah at around 4:15 pm as we were driving down Ramallah’s main street….we had just bought kanafa to eat ….after spending the day at ‘amari camp.

I was driving down the main street. A taxi driver cut me off. I rolled down the window and cursed at him. We pulled over and Emily and Mohammed jumped out to buy kanafa. Then we continued, dropping off Mohammed at his car…which he had left in the center of town. We agreed to meet at Mohammed’s place down the street.

I was alone in the front seat. Emily and Carolyn in the back. Suddenly there was a van directly in front of our car. He veered a bit towards our car. I slowed down, wondering how I was going to pass him. And then he emerged from his window…pointing an m-16 across the street and spraying bullets.

The three of us hit the floor of the car. All around us…shooting, shooting, shooting. So close. So close.

And then on the other side of the street, another van – looking exactly like the first….men with guns spraying bullets everywhere.

Next to us a man with his 5-year old daughter… Like us, stuck between all the shooting. He opened his door and tossed his daughter to the ground with him.

I lifted my head…the man shooting was around 6 feet from me. Shooting away. Israeli secret service…dressed up like an Arab. They do this all the time…so they come into town and no one notices. Then I saw tens of Israeli soldiers crawling the streets all around us. Did they come out of the vans? They were in full uniform, unlike the two van ‘drivers’ who had dressed as plain clothes Arab men. “Mustarabeen”…Israeli agents who dress like Arabs.

Shooting shooting. I covered my head. All I could think about was Emily in the backseat and Carolyn. Emily…my precious sister…my beautiful sister… Kamran in Scotland… the man who escaped with his daughter. I braced myself at the shooting continued. Told myself calmly that if the windows of the car were hit. Which they surely were about to be. That it was nothing. To remember that all that meant was the window was broken and not necessarily that one of us had been hit.

Mohammed called…I picked up the phone…my voice broke. Crumbled. I hadn’t realized my fear until that moment. Why couldn’t I speak? Why? I didn’t recognize my own voice. I knew I sounded hysterical. I didn’t want to sound like that.

Took another peak. Army everywhere. The men shooting shooting shooting shooting….god, that sound.

Emily. Emily in the back. We made eye contact. What could we do. We were stuck in the middle of a shoot out ..right in the middle of it…with no where to go.

We couldn’t even get out of the car and make a run for it. We’d have been shot down.

I wondered if they’d kill us. I wondered if someone on the street might duck into our car for cover. But the streets were empty.

We stayed on the floor of the car for 20 minutes like that. I thought, really truly felt I was going to die this way. And I didn’t want to die like that. Totally helpless. In a trapped car.

The more the shooting went on, the more I felt my nerves turn to jelly. And then…

Bam. Our car was hit. I heard glass break. I covered my head. My head was covered anyway I think. For fear of the car windows being hit.

We were ok. Emily was ok. Carolyn was safe.

More time passed. How stupid to have my hands on my head. what would that do? Where is Emily? I think i will die today. I am going to die today.

I peaked out. I saw the Israelis grab a man off the street and shove him into the other van.

Then the undercover Israeli closest to us, in the van, …decided to leave. Operation over. He pulled towards us. The criminal. I stared at his face, my head on the passenger seat…he didn’t have enough room to get by us,…so he smashed into our car and scraped his way by. The whole time I couldn’t take my eyes off his face. He didn’t even notice us I think. Three women so close to him, stuck to the floor of the car…

We are all ok. Nothing happened. There’s a bullet in the car. It hit the back of the car. It didn’t hit the gas tank. It didn’t hit the gas tank. We are ok. But three young men tonight are not. And many, many more are not. This is nothing new, nothing out of the ordinary.

A man disappeared this afternoon. Two men were killed. It won’t even make the news.

------------

"Nothing much is happening in Beirut, we go on from day to day looking forward to that moment when we can come and go to our homeland without any restrictions or special permission. Regards to all in Bethlehem. Yours, Edward"

- June 12th, 1968 (letter from my uncle to his family)

Annemarie Jacir
www.philistine.org

Buy This Alternative Book

Here at the Alternative Energy Blog, while not underestimating the scale of the challenges facing the world, we like to talk about solutions. Another website that has consistently done this is World Changing, which started as an award winning group blog, became a non-profit and has now also become a 600 page book.

This firecracker of a book is about the future of the world, full of big ideas on how humanity, technology and our environment can interact in a positive way. If you are tired of pessimistic doom and gloom tomes on the state of the world and the business as usual messages of many of our political & business leaders, this is the book for you. It is a optimistic read, overflowing with ideas for change.

What are you waiting for?

Go buy World Changing and instead of the Barefoot Contessa, let's see barefoot solar engineers on the top sellers list.

Buy This Alternative Book

Here at the Alternative Energy Blog, while not underestimating the scale of the challenges facing the world, we like to talk about solutions. Another website that has consistently done this is World Changing, which started as an award winning group blog, became a non-profit and has now also become a 600 page book.

This firecracker of a book is about the future of the world, full of big ideas on how humanity, technology and our environment can interact in a positive way. If you are tired of pessimistic doom and gloom tomes on the state of the world and the business as usual messages of many of our political & business leaders, this is the book for you. It is a optimistic read, overflowing with ideas for change.

What are you waiting for?

Go buy World Changing and instead of the Barefoot Contessa, let's see barefoot solar engineers on the top sellers list.

goodbye maya.

1.26.1976 - 10.26.2006

i miss you so much already.

New Government in Sweden

Well, things do happen in life, as we know.

On Friday I was appointed Foreign Minister of Sweden in a move that was widely seen as somewhat surprising.

And in many ways it was. But when asked, while it wasn't entirely easy to say yes, it would have been impossible to say no.

So that's the way it is. And there is a very good team at the ministry with Gunilla Carlsson doing international development issues and Maria Borelius doing international trade. In addition, there is Cecilia Malmström as Minister for European Affairs located in the Prime Minister's Office.

All together a rather strong team.

And the policy declaration of the new government is also very clear on the priorities also in foreign affairs.

We clearly want to be in the centre of the process of European integration. We want a Europe that is a strong voice for freedom, democracy, peace and reconciliation throughout the world. We are convinced of the need to go on with the process of enlargement of the European Union. We seek security in the cooperation with other nations. We value the transatlantic link. We remain a strong supported of the United Nations.

All in all a modern foreign policy.

So that's what I'm doing at the moment. These days to a large extent getting the house in order. But then onwards...

Speaking in New York City on October 10th

I'll be giving a talk for the Linnaean Society of New York at 7:30 pm on October 10th at the American Museum of Natural History. Admission is free. Please enter at West 77th street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue. The talk will be held in the Lindner Theater.

I'm looking forward to sharing some good things happening in Iraq. In the talks I've done before, I always meet some great like-minded people.

Call For Mid East Action

Today is published a major appeal for a new push towards peace in the Middle East, signed by a large number of public leaders around the world.

And I am among those that have signed the appeal.

It comes at the same time as US Secretary of State Rice is touring the region and exploring the possibilities of moving forward.

And it comes when there is a mounting interest in Europe in taking some sort of initiative. The present policy vacuum on the key issues of the conflict are nothing less than dangereous.

Another appeal in another critical situation.

Will it have any effect?

Clean Coal or Dirty Coal?

When President Bush said “America is addicted to oil”, he could also have said that America is addicted to coal.

Most Americans are not aware of the sheer scale of current coal use in the United States. Over 50% of electricity is generated from coal with 20 pounds of coal per a person being burnt every day to generate electricity.

While questions are increasingly being raised about remaining oil and gas reserves, we are assured that there is plenty of coal left to burn. Indeed in a talk to a meeting of builders and contractors at the Capital Hilton on June 8, 2005 President Bush asked the audience,
"Do you realize we've got 250 million years of coal?"

Hopefully readers will spot this obvious gaffe. The figure quoted by the coal industry is 250 years of reserves, not 250 million years. The energy illiteracy of the average person is worrying enough, but in our political leadership it is a real cause for concern.

There are an estimated one trillion tons of recoverable coal in the world, by far the largest reserve of fossil fuel left on the planet. The United States has over 25% of the world’s recoverable coal reserves. An important point to remember when considering how many years of coal we have left is that these figures are based on current rates of consumption and do no take into account growing demand for electricity. Since 1980 coal use for power generation has increased by over 75%.

A good percentage of the coal that’s left is too dirty to be burned in conventional power plants and much of its buried in inconvenient places. In 1974 the USGS published an estimate of the recoverable reserve base at 243 billion tons. This however failed to take into account real world restrictions on mining: state and national parks, roads, towns, proximity to railroads, coal quality, losses during mining and geologic limitations. When these are factored in less than 50% of the coal estimated as “recoverable” in the 1974 study was available for mining. This fails to taken into account how much is economically recoverable at market prices. In a 1989 study by the U.S. Bureau of Mines in Kentucky, at $30 a ton 22% of coal was economically recoverable. The author Tim Rohrbacher wrote “a strong argument can be made that traditional coal producing regions may soon be experiencing resource depletion problems far greater and much sooner than previously thought”.

Recently there has been a rise in suggestions that America should replace its addiction to oil, with diesel fuel made from American coal. There is currently in place a Coal-to-Liquids Tax Credit of $0.50/gallon in place until 2023. The idea has been around for a long while, in the second world war it was used by the Germans to make Nazi oil from coal when their supply of normal gasoline was cut off. I remember when I first started researching peak oil I realised after awhile if things got bad that coal rich countries might turn to making Nazi oil in desperation when petroleum depletion started to bite. Of course calls to start building Coal to Liquids plants aren’t proof that petroleum depletion is well advanced, but I hardly see it as a source for optimism.


Fischer-Tropsch pilot plant

You don’t need to be an expert on coal liquefaction to realise that it’s a bad idea as this article on AutoblogGreen shows. It’s expensive, uses lots of water, produces double the carbon dioxide when compared to regular petroleum use and produces diesel when the vast majority of the U.S. car fleet runs on gasoline. Over at the Ergosphere, the Engineer Poet crunches the numbers and compares coal to liquids versus electric vehicles. He calculates that to replace the United States petroleum consumption at current rates would take 214 four billion dollar coal to liquid plants (that’s not far off a trillion dollars in investment) and the mining of an additional one and a half billion tons of coal a year, in addition to the one billion tons already being mined for electricity generation. It should be noted that the high percentage of electricity currently produced from coal is not an argument against electric vehicles, this is something I have covered in detail elsewhere on this blog. Electric motors are inherently more efficient than the internal combustion engine. It is far easier to control emissions from large power plant, than from the exhausts of thousands of cars. Electric vehicles are not reliant on one source of energy and in the longer term polluting non-renewable sources of electricity can be replaced by clean alternative energy.

The coal industry’s promotion of the idea that America has a vast reserve of coal is slowing the transition to clean renewable sources of energy. In addition to tv spots showing child actors extolling the virtues of coal, the industry has spent heavily to get the ear of the political establishment. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Peabody Energy, the world’s largest coal company spent over 5% of its revenues on political contributions, for comparison Exxon Mobil and General Motors spent a fraction of one percent.

In seeming return for such generosity, The Energy Policy Act of 2005 included five billion dollars of subsidies for the coal industry.

Virtually every power plant built in America between 1975 and 2002 was fired by natural gas. However between 1970 and 2000, the amount of coal America used to generate electricity tripled.

Now with natural gas prices rising steeply, U.S. power utilities are expected to build the equivalent of 280 500 megawatt coal-fired electricity power plants between 2003 and 2030. China is already constructing the equivalent of one large coal burning power plant a week with two thirds of energy production coming from dirty coal. 16 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in China. India is the third largest producer of coal in the world, also getting over two thirds of its energy from coal. If these new coal plants are built, they will add as much carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as has been released by all the coal burned in the last 250 years.


Acid run off from coal mining

Coal’s sale price may be low, but the true costs of its extraction, processing and consumption are high. Our use of coal leads to ravaged mountains, air pollution from acidic and toxic emissions and fouled water supplies. Coal mining is massively more invasive than oil or gas drilling. Coal burning power plants account for more than two-thirds of sulfur dioxide, 22% of nitrogen oxides, nearly 40% of carbon dioxide and a third of all mercury emissions in the United States. Results of the largest mercury hair sampling project in the U.S. found mercury levels exceeding the EPA’s recommended limit of one microgram of mercury per gram of hair in one in five women of childbearing age tested. Each year coal plants produce about 130 million tons of solid waste, about three times more than all the municipal garbage in the U.S. The American Lung Association calculates that around 24,000 people a year die prematurely from the effects of coal fired power plant pollution.

Techniques for addressing CO2 emissions exist, although the will to quickly implement them lags.

The techniques electric utilities could apply to keep much of the carbon dioxide they produce from entering the atmosphere are known as CO2 capture or geological carbon sequestration. This involves separating the CO2 as it is created and pumping it underground to be stored.

Until recently I wasn’t aware that all the technological components needed for carbon sequestration are commercially ready (according to an article in September’s Scientific American magazine) as they have already been proven in applications unrelated to avoidance of climate change. However integrated systems have yet to be built on a commercial scale.

Capture technologies have been deployed extensively throughout the world both in the manufacture of chemicals (e.g. fertilizer) and in the purification of natural gas. Industry has gained experience with CO2 storage in operations to purify natural gas, principally in Canada, as well as using carbon dioxide to boost oil production, mainly in the United States.



The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimated in 2005 that it is highly likely that geologic locations worldwide are capable of sequestering at least two trillion metric tons of CO2 - more than is likely to be produced by fossil fuel consuming power plants this century.

Carbon sequestration is not without risk. The two main risks are sudden escape and gradual leakage of carbon dioxide. In 1986 at Lake Nyos in Cameroon, Africa carbon dioxide originating from a volcano killed over 1,700 people. However according to IPCC this is unlikely for engineered CO2 storage in carefully selected, deep porous geologic rock formations. In regard to gradual leakage the IPCC estimated in 2005 that in excess of 99% of carbon sequestered is “very likely” to remain in place for at least one hundred years.

Studies indicate that 85%-95% of the carbon in coal could be sequestered using existing power generation technologies.



A key point is that fundamentally different approaches to carbon capture would need to be pursued for power plants using the old pulverised coal technology as opposed to the newer integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC). IGCC plants use heat and pressure to cook off impurities in coal and convert it into a synthetic gas, this gas is then burnt in a turbine. These plants are 10% more efficient than conventional plants, consume 40% less water, produce 50% less solid waste and burn almost as cleanly as natural gas plants.

Although building IGCC power plants is slightly more expensive (10%-20%), IGCC is likely to be the most effective and cheapest option for carbon capture.

In an IGCC plant designed to capture CO2 the syngas exiting the gasifier, after being cooled and cleaned of particles, would be reacted with steam to make a gas made up mainly of CO2 and hydrogen. The CO2 would then be extracted and pumped to a storage site. The remaining hydrogen would be burned to generate more power. Captured carbon dioxide can by piped up to several hundred miles to a suitable geologic storage site.

A recent study found that for carbon capture in a saline formation one hundred kilometers from a power plant would cost an additional 1.9 cents per kilowatt-hour (over the generation cost of 4.7 cents per kilowatt-hour for a coal IGCC plant that vents carbon dioxide), making a 40% premium. With coal generation costing 6.6 cents for a kilowatt hour, this would make wind power cheaper than coal and with technology advances could also provide a boost to other renewable energy sources (e.g. concentrating solar power).

However electricity producers are rushing to build conventional coal pulverisation power plants, just as they rushed to build coal plants without sulfur scrubbers prior to legislation coming into force. This is short-sighted as it is more expensive, more energy intensive and less effective to attempt to capture carbon from conventional coal power plants. It is highly likely that having built these plants, that the coal industry would expect the taxpayer to foot the bill for the additional expense. Of the one hundred or so plants being planned or under construction in America only a handful use IGCC technology.


Proposed Design for FutureGen

FutureGen, is the Department of Energy financed one billion dollar zero emissions plant intended to turn coal into electricity and hydrogen. Proposed in 2003 and backed by a consortium of coal and electric companies, it is not due to come online until at least 2013. Many in the industry consider this date to be dubious nicknaming the project NeverGen. It is intended to make it look like the coal industry is doing something, while actually doing very little and in the process putting off changing how coal plants are built for a decade or two. Indeed in its Coal Vision report(pdf), the industry does not plan on building “ultra-low emissions” plants on a commerical scale until between 2025 and 2035. According to the report “there is considerable debate about the need to reduce CO2 emissions”. The report also states that “achieving meaningful CO2 reductions would require significant technical advances”.

The report further states “large scale and long term demonstrations of carbon sequestration technologies over a geographically and geologically diverse range of... sites are needed before making any policy decisions concerning carbon management”. The coal industry wants sequestration to be demonstrated not only in the United States but additionally “similar assessments need to be conducted internationally”. In terms of who should pay for these demonstrations the report writes “the government must play a significant role”.

It sounds that if the coal industry has its way, it won’t be using carbon capture for many decades.

Instead of waiting until 2013 or even 2035, the coal industry could be building IGCC power plants with carbon capture now. The rush to build conventional coal pulverisation plants is extremely short sighted as these plants could be operating for the next fifty years or more.

In the first instance I advocate maximising our use of clean renewable energy. At the moment wind power is being used to generate only 0.5% of electricity in the United States. Using existing technology wind power could cost effecively generate a significant portion of many countries electricity supply. Significant sums of money should also be invested in making solar power and wave power more cost effective, as well as investments in energy long shots such as cellulosic ethanol and fusion power. If we are going to continue to use coal as global society as a major source of energy, which seems pretty much inevitable for at least the next few decades in key countries such as the United States, China & India, then we should be building IGCC power plants with carbon capture and retiring existing dirty coal plants now. If there are unforeseen problems with carbon capture, we need to find out now rather than in a few decades time. The coal industry's business as usual attitude is simply not acceptable.

Jeff Goodell in his recent book “Big Coal” concludes, “coal gives us a false sense of security, if we run out of gas and oil, we can just switch over to coal… the most dangerous things about our continued dependence on coal is it preserves the illusion that we don’t have to change our thinking”.

Further Reading:
“Big Coal” by Jeff Goodell
“What to Do About Coal?” in Scientific American September, 2006

Lively Discussion of Coal to Liquids

Coal Vision by the Coal Based Generation Stakeholders Group

Mountaintop Removal

A Quick Guide to Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

When Will Coal Production Peak?

Clean Coal or Dirty Coal?

When President Bush said “America is addicted to oil”, he could also have said that America is addicted to coal.

Most Americans are not aware of the sheer scale of current coal use in the United States. Over 50% of electricity is generated from coal with 20 pounds of coal per a person being burnt every day to generate electricity.

While questions are increasingly being raised about remaining oil and gas reserves, we are assured that there is plenty of coal left to burn. Indeed in a talk to a meeting of builders and contractors at the Capital Hilton on June 8, 2005 President Bush asked the audience,
"Do you realize we've got 250 million years of coal?"

Hopefully readers will spot this obvious gaffe. The figure quoted by the coal industry is 250 years of reserves, not 250 million years. The energy illiteracy of the average person is worrying enough, but in our political leadership it is a real cause for concern.

There are an estimated one trillion tons of recoverable coal in the world, by far the largest reserve of fossil fuel left on the planet. The United States has over 25% of the world’s recoverable coal reserves. An important point to remember when considering how many years of coal we have left is that these figures are based on current rates of consumption and do no take into account growing demand for electricity. Since 1980 coal use for power generation has increased by over 75%.

A good percentage of the coal that’s left is too dirty to be burned in conventional power plants and much of its buried in inconvenient places. In 1974 the USGS published an estimate of the recoverable reserve base at 243 billion tons. This however failed to take into account real world restrictions on mining: state and national parks, roads, towns, proximity to railroads, coal quality, losses during mining and geologic limitations. When these are factored in less than 50% of the coal estimated as “recoverable” in the 1974 study was available for mining. This fails to taken into account how much is economically recoverable at market prices. In a 1989 study by the U.S. Bureau of Mines in Kentucky, at $30 a ton 22% of coal was economically recoverable. The author Tim Rohrbacher wrote “a strong argument can be made that traditional coal producing regions may soon be experiencing resource depletion problems far greater and much sooner than previously thought”.

Recently there has been a rise in suggestions that America should replace its addiction to oil, with diesel fuel made from American coal. There is currently in place a Coal-to-Liquids Tax Credit of $0.50/gallon in place until 2023. The idea has been around for a long while, in the second world war it was used by the Germans to make Nazi oil from coal when their supply of normal gasoline was cut off. I remember when I first started researching peak oil I realised after awhile if things got bad that coal rich countries might turn to making Nazi oil in desperation when petroleum depletion started to bite. Of course calls to start building Coal to Liquids plants aren’t proof that petroleum depletion is well advanced, but I hardly see it as a source for optimism.


Fischer-Tropsch pilot plant

You don’t need to be an expert on coal liquefaction to realise that it’s a bad idea as this article on AutoblogGreen shows. It’s expensive, uses lots of water, produces double the carbon dioxide when compared to regular petroleum use and produces diesel when the vast majority of the U.S. car fleet runs on gasoline. Over at the Ergosphere, the Engineer Poet crunches the numbers and compares coal to liquids versus electric vehicles. He calculates that to replace the United States petroleum consumption at current rates would take 214 four billion dollar coal to liquid plants (that’s not far off a trillion dollars in investment) and the mining of an additional one and a half billion tons of coal a year, in addition to the one billion tons already being mined for electricity generation. It should be noted that the high percentage of electricity currently produced from coal is not an argument against electric vehicles, this is something I have covered in detail elsewhere on this blog. Electric motors are inherently more efficient than the internal combustion engine. It is far easier to control emissions from large power plant, than from the exhausts of thousands of cars. Electric vehicles are not reliant on one source of energy and in the longer term polluting non-renewable sources of electricity can be replaced by clean alternative energy.

The coal industry’s promotion of the idea that America has a vast reserve of coal is slowing the transition to clean renewable sources of energy. In addition to tv spots showing child actors extolling the virtues of coal, the industry has spent heavily to get the ear of the political establishment. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Peabody Energy, the world’s largest coal company spent over 5% of its revenues on political contributions, for comparison Exxon Mobil and General Motors spent a fraction of one percent.

In seeming return for such generosity, The Energy Policy Act of 2005 included five billion dollars of subsidies for the coal industry.

Virtually every power plant built in America between 1975 and 2002 was fired by natural gas. However between 1970 and 2000, the amount of coal America used to generate electricity tripled.

Now with natural gas prices rising steeply, U.S. power utilities are expected to build the equivalent of 280 500 megawatt coal-fired electricity power plants between 2003 and 2030. China is already constructing the equivalent of one large coal burning power plant a week with two thirds of energy production coming from dirty coal. 16 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in China. India is the third largest producer of coal in the world, also getting over two thirds of its energy from coal. If these new coal plants are built, they will add as much carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as has been released by all the coal burned in the last 250 years.


Acid run off from coal mining

Coal’s sale price may be low, but the true costs of its extraction, processing and consumption are high. Our use of coal leads to ravaged mountains, air pollution from acidic and toxic emissions and fouled water supplies. Coal mining is massively more invasive than oil or gas drilling. Coal burning power plants account for more than two-thirds of sulfur dioxide, 22% of nitrogen oxides, nearly 40% of carbon dioxide and a third of all mercury emissions in the United States. Results of the largest mercury hair sampling project in the U.S. found mercury levels exceeding the EPA’s recommended limit of one microgram of mercury per gram of hair in one in five women of childbearing age tested. Each year coal plants produce about 130 million tons of solid waste, about three times more than all the municipal garbage in the U.S. The American Lung Association calculates that around 24,000 people a year die prematurely from the effects of coal fired power plant pollution.

Techniques for addressing CO2 emissions exist, although the will to quickly implement them lags.

The techniques electric utilities could apply to keep much of the carbon dioxide they produce from entering the atmosphere are known as CO2 capture or geological carbon sequestration. This involves separating the CO2 as it is created and pumping it underground to be stored.

Until recently I wasn’t aware that all the technological components needed for carbon sequestration are commercially ready (according to an article in September’s Scientific American magazine) as they have already been proven in applications unrelated to avoidance of climate change. However integrated systems have yet to be built on a commercial scale.

Capture technologies have been deployed extensively throughout the world both in the manufacture of chemicals (e.g. fertilizer) and in the purification of natural gas. Industry has gained experience with CO2 storage in operations to purify natural gas, principally in Canada, as well as using carbon dioxide to boost oil production, mainly in the United States.



The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimated in 2005 that it is highly likely that geologic locations worldwide are capable of sequestering at least two trillion metric tons of CO2 - more than is likely to be produced by fossil fuel consuming power plants this century.

Carbon sequestration is not without risk. The two main risks are sudden escape and gradual leakage of carbon dioxide. In 1986 at Lake Nyos in Cameroon, Africa carbon dioxide originating from a volcano killed over 1,700 people. However according to IPCC this is unlikely for engineered CO2 storage in carefully selected, deep porous geologic rock formations. In regard to gradual leakage the IPCC estimated in 2005 that in excess of 99% of carbon sequestered is “very likely” to remain in place for at least one hundred years.

Studies indicate that 85%-95% of the carbon in coal could be sequestered using existing power generation technologies.



A key point is that fundamentally different approaches to carbon capture would need to be pursued for power plants using the old pulverised coal technology as opposed to the newer integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC). IGCC plants use heat and pressure to cook off impurities in coal and convert it into a synthetic gas, this gas is then burnt in a turbine. These plants are 10% more efficient than conventional plants, consume 40% less water, produce 50% less solid waste and burn almost as cleanly as natural gas plants.

Although building IGCC power plants is slightly more expensive (10%-20%), IGCC is likely to be the most effective and cheapest option for carbon capture.

In an IGCC plant designed to capture CO2 the syngas exiting the gasifier, after being cooled and cleaned of particles, would be reacted with steam to make a gas made up mainly of CO2 and hydrogen. The CO2 would then be extracted and pumped to a storage site. The remaining hydrogen would be burned to generate more power. Captured carbon dioxide can by piped up to several hundred miles to a suitable geologic storage site.

A recent study found that for carbon capture in a saline formation one hundred kilometers from a power plant would cost an additional 1.9 cents per kilowatt-hour (over the generation cost of 4.7 cents per kilowatt-hour for a coal IGCC plant that vents carbon dioxide), making a 40% premium. With coal generation costing 6.6 cents for a kilowatt hour, this would make wind power cheaper than coal and with technology advances could also provide a boost to other renewable energy sources (e.g. concentrating solar power).

However electricity producers are rushing to build conventional coal pulverisation power plants, just as they rushed to build coal plants without sulfur scrubbers prior to legislation coming into force. This is short-sighted as it is more expensive, more energy intensive and less effective to attempt to capture carbon from conventional coal power plants. It is highly likely that having built these plants, that the coal industry would expect the taxpayer to foot the bill for the additional expense. Of the one hundred or so plants being planned or under construction in America only a handful use IGCC technology.


Proposed Design for FutureGen

FutureGen, is the Department of Energy financed one billion dollar zero emissions plant intended to turn coal into electricity and hydrogen. Proposed in 2003 and backed by a consortium of coal and electric companies, it is not due to come online until at least 2013. Many in the industry consider this date to be dubious nicknaming the project NeverGen. It is intended to make it look like the coal industry is doing something, while actually doing very little and in the process putting off changing how coal plants are built for a decade or two. Indeed in its Coal Vision report(pdf), the industry does not plan on building “ultra-low emissions” plants on a commerical scale until between 2025 and 2035. According to the report “there is considerable debate about the need to reduce CO2 emissions”. The report also states that “achieving meaningful CO2 reductions would require significant technical advances”.

The report further states “large scale and long term demonstrations of carbon sequestration technologies over a geographically and geologically diverse range of... sites are needed before making any policy decisions concerning carbon management”. The coal industry wants sequestration to be demonstrated not only in the United States but additionally “similar assessments need to be conducted internationally”. In terms of who should pay for these demonstrations the report writes “the government must play a significant role”.

It sounds that if the coal industry has its way, it won’t be using carbon capture for many decades.

Instead of waiting until 2013 or even 2035, the coal industry could be building IGCC power plants with carbon capture now. The rush to build conventional coal pulverisation plants is extremely short sighted as these plants could be operating for the next fifty years or more.

In the first instance I advocate maximising our use of clean renewable energy. At the moment wind power is being used to generate only 0.5% of electricity in the United States. Using existing technology wind power could cost effecively generate a significant portion of many countries electricity supply. Significant sums of money should also be invested in making solar power and wave power more cost effective, as well as investments in energy long shots such as cellulosic ethanol and fusion power. If we are going to continue to use coal as global society as a major source of energy, which seems pretty much inevitable for at least the next few decades in key countries such as the United States, China & India, then we should be building IGCC power plants with carbon capture and retiring existing dirty coal plants now. If there are unforeseen problems with carbon capture, we need to find out now rather than in a few decades time. The coal industry's business as usual attitude is simply not acceptable.

Jeff Goodell in his recent book “Big Coal” concludes, “coal gives us a false sense of security, if we run out of gas and oil, we can just switch over to coal… the most dangerous things about our continued dependence on coal is it preserves the illusion that we don’t have to change our thinking”.

Further Reading:
“Big Coal” by Jeff Goodell
“What to Do About Coal?” in Scientific American September, 2006

Lively Discussion of Coal to Liquids

Coal Vision by the Coal Based Generation Stakeholders Group

Mountaintop Removal

A Quick Guide to Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

When Will Coal Production Peak?

Keflavik Moves On

A couple of days ago, the last part of the US military base at Keflavik on Iceland was closed down.

It's a historic move showing the new times we are living in.

For close to a generation, Keflavik was the by far most important military installation in northern Europe. It was the linchpin of Atlantic and Northern security during the cold decades of the Cold War.

Operated primarily by the US Navy, the mission centered on the runways, command and control as well as intelligence facilities at and around Keflavik was to prevent any Soviet naval break-throughs towards the Atlantic supply lines connecting the United States and Western Europe, as well as facilitating Western movements up towards the northern parts of the Atlantic.

From here, important parts of the vast sub-surface and air patrol system that sought to track Soviet nuclear submarines as they exited their base areas up on the Kola peninsula or beyond and heading towards the Denmark Strait between Iceland and Greenland were run.

In addition, there were the aircrafts for the air defence of Iceland and the very large radar stations on northern and eastern parts of Iceland.

It was no coincidence that one of the books trying to look into how a possible Soviet surprise attack against the West would look started with a very cleverly executed raid against Keflavik. It was the key installation.

But no it's all gone. Left are empty hangars and large living quarters for the thousands of soldiers and families that were stationed there.

It's a new world.

Ban Ki Moon Takes Clear Lead

Yesterday's straw poll in the Security Council made it likely that Ban Ki Moon would in fact emerge as the next Secretary-General of the United Nations.

He was the only one of the contenders that did not receive one or more discouraging votes from permanent members of the Security Council, as well as receiving encouraging ones from 14 out of the 15 members.

And number two in the race - Shashi Tharoor from India- immediately gave a concession speech and pledged his support for Ban Ki Moon.

More important than this were statements by the ambassadors of both China and the United States. China's Permanent Representative said that it was "quite clear" that Mr Moon was the candidate, and John Bolton for the US said that he would be "surprised" if there were any new names that would enter the race.

So much for my previous guess that this would in fact happen!

The Security Council now moves towards a formal vote next Monday. That might decide the issue, with the nomination of the Council then going forward for confirmation to the General Assembly.

Latvia's Vike-Freiberga came in a most honourable number three in this last straw poll, although with two permanent members - Russia? China? - casting discouraging votes.

But all in all it was a most impressive achievement by her and by Latvia.

Now we will see what happens on Monday.

Bosnian Challenges

If I was wrong in my predictions for the Austrian elections, it looks as if I was somewhat less unsuccesful in the Bosnian case.

With preliminary results in, we see a significant shift among both the Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Serb voters.

The old and traditional nationalist parties - SDA and SDS, respectively - have been outflanked and defeated by forces using more of nationalist rhetoric, although a general desire for change has in all probability also played a role.

The Bosnian Muslim seat in the Presidency will now be taken by Haris Silajdzic and the Bosnian Serb one by Nebojsa Radmanovic.

The former wants to abolish Republika Srpska, while the latter comes from a party that has recently started to toy with the idea of abolishing Bosnia. Eleven years after Dayton, that's not too encouraging a result.

But while things do look bad on paper I don't think there is any cause for alarm. And I would strongly caution against any thought of outside political intervention of the one sort or the other.

At the end of the day these gentlemen will have to find their own compromises if they want to live together. And with all of Europe - including, slowly and somewhat reluctantly even the Balkans - coming together they know that they haven't got much of a choice.

So Bosnia is to be congratulated to a well run and democratic election. That's good.

And then it is to be wished well in its attempts to live with the result.

That's democracy. Sometimes a messy thing - but always better than the alternatives.

The New Week

Another week of changes starting its journey.

On Friday we'll get the new government in Sweden. And there will obviously be a new government in Austria at some point in time.

We are still waiting for the election results from Bosnia to see what they might imply.

And that local elections in Hungary brought setbacks for the ruling Socialists was hardly surprising.

The week will also bring important local elections in Georgia - in the middle of its dangereous crisis with Russia.

My week will be somewhat more Stockholm than usual.

But on Wednesday and Thursday I'm off to Rome for meetings there with business and government representatives, including Prime Minister Prodi. It will be centered on the role and possibilities of Italy as globalisation accelerates.

And then I might head from there to Brussels for some informal talks on the question of Turkey's accession to the European Union. That's a subject that will also be in focus the coming days due to Chancellor Merkel's visit to Ankara in the weel.

Slowly, we see autumn arriving in Stockholm.