Reading 'Prelude' by Kurt Cobb

Want to learn about advanced oil extraction techniques and the issue of peak oil while having fun? Then read this book. Prelude is an entertaining info-novel about oil.

Cassie is a talented young oil analyst and works for an independent energy consulting firm in Washington D.C.. To learn about the frontiers of oil production she flies to the tar sands of Canada and a drilling platform in the Gulf many miles from shore. She meets Victor after a concert and strikes up a friendship with him. Victor is an accomplished musician, but in the past he was an energy commodity trader. He believes that the times of ever growing cheap oil are over and introduces Cassie to the concept of peak oil. He convinces her that her boss has secret information that would confirm his ideas about peak oil.

Obtaining the top secret information proves difficult and dangerous. But Cassie is undeterred. She wagers her secure and well paid job, and possibly her life, to know how much oil is left in the world’s most crucial oil fields. In the end she discovers that information and data alone do very little to change people's minds. She moves to Vancouver B.C. with Victor to grow a garden and share a simpler life.

The story is a little thin. It lacks excitement despite scenes of suspense and fear. Cassie’s reasons and motivation remain unclear. Is idle curiosity enough to justify breaking into her boss’s computer and stealing information or betraying the professional trust her mentor placed in her? The story is driven mainly by her naivety, but wouldn’t an oil analyst know that accurate data on the reserves held in total secret by the world’s leading oil producer would be protected at all costs?

The issues of our times are frustratingly hard to understand, because it takes a great investment of training and time to comprehend their complexity. I congratulate Kurt Cobb on writing this story. He folded the deadly serious issue of peak oil into a pleasant read. Now his readers must decide how much poetic license he took with the facts.

Horticulture with Ants

The New York Times reported today that ants are vital agents in fertilizing the savanna. Based on field work in Kenya's central highland researchers found that plants and trees atop termite mounts thrived significantly better. Plants grow about 60 percent larger and trees bear 120 percent more fruit.

Termites have the unique ability to break down dead wood and make the nitrogen and phosphorous in the wood available as nutrients. Furthermore, their activities loosen the soil.

Imagine if we invited ants to our wastelands, spaced their nests appropriately, gave them some wood waste and then allowed the natural process to revigorate the soil. We might think about such a process where applying commercial fertilizer is not economical.

We could even imagine such an ant assisted process to present an alternative to commercial fertilizer to keep our forests healthy.

The Birth of Fawns

Last Thursday, in our backyard, I saw a female deer and her newly born fawn still wobbly on its thin legs. I rushed for binoculars and a camera. To my utter amazement I witnessed the birth of two more fawns in the next hour. Unfortunately, it was a dreadfully rainy afternoon. Mother deer had to work hard to lick her newborns dry. First born even sought shelter under the bows of a cedar tree during one down pour. They seemed to be doing fine though despite the unrelenting rain.

I am so privileged to have observed the births and the wonder of new life.

If you like to see a slide show of the pictures I took, please let me know.

Green Walls and Vertical Gardens

In our urban world the ground - the horizontal landscape - is precious, in short supply. In contrast, there is a large supply of vertical landscapes totally unused except as the outside of a container like a building or a freeway. The hard surfaces of all these walls, facades and concrete barriers do their best to diminish the quality of life in a city. They bounce back noise, create their own wind patterns, increase summer temperatures and permit pollution to travel far.

Enter Patrick Blanc, the French botanist who used his extensive knowledge of plants to create living walls of breathtaking beauty and wondrous possibilities:
http://www.verticalgardenpatrickblanc.com/

We think about his ideas mostly for indoors, bringing a garden inside, but what if we applied the concept to the outer world?

Imagine then a different city: buildings draped in greenery, erupting in flowers in the spring and summer. The plants temper the climate by moderating temperature and airflow. They dampen noises.
Urban gardeners adapting to growing vegetables and fruit on the vertical spaces of houses. Their bounty a welcome addition to the local markets.
Green barriers all along our urban streets planted with specially cultivated plants that absorb pollution, calm the surface winds and absorb storm run off.

Imagine the beauty of such a city, its air perfumed with flowers, enriched with oxygen and cleansed of pollutants. Maybe the birds would come back to live among us. Maybe we could even hear them sing again. Would we be healthier in body and spirit?

Woven Nanofibers to Generate Electricity

Imagine a personal, portable generator that boosts a failing phone or powers a small LED flashlight to guide you safely through the dark. Need power? Just plug into your clothes.

Researchers are the University of California have an idea how such a 'power suit' might work. Millions of nanofibers woven into your clothes capture the energy of your every movement and harness them as usable electricity. The fibers are really fine and light so clothes should be comfortable and yet the fibers are strong enough to hold up to normal wash and wear.

There is a lot of buzz about the nanofiber project. The Pentagon hopes that soldiers could energize small appliances in the field independent of other power sources like heavy batteries. Outdoor enthusiasts could recharge their cameras, phones or flashlights without leaving the wild. But best of all, the rest of us wouldn't need to remember any more to charge our favorite device. We could just keep it in the pockets of our power clothes.

Once we are good at making power cloth, other applications beckon:

Kite Flying at night: hundreds of kite dance in the wind, their tales bend and twist in the wind generating the piezoelectricity that powers their crow pleasing light displays. The best kites are the brightest. Great skill is required in the building and handling of piezo kites. Their creators are the envied leaders of a new craze among young people.

Wind Sails and Flags: Sail boats carry at least one sail woven with nanofibers giving them another source of energy and reducing the need for heavy batteries.
Small flags generate the power for porch lights. Large, fixed flags or small sails on poles make walk lights independent of the power grid.

Fiber Kelp: Maybe we could even rethink our approach to generating power from the ocean and rivers. Instead of giant clunky cylinders, or huge barriers, electricity could be produced by tens of thousands of cloth streamers, bending with the current like giant kelp and being just as hospitable to marine life.