Daily Oil Blog

Rice price seems to move up this recent months causing some households here to stock up prompted thailand to assure that there’s enough rice for all to ensure price stability.Indeed with rice as the food staple across Asia, rice production has become the talk of the town lately when Thai PM  suggested a rice cartel to be formed with her neighbouring countries.

Nothing concrete came out of that but the mindset to move towards a similar structure like opec with oil does raise some concerns.Fears of a small group will control the rice prices dictating the fate of billions of rice eaters will set off a series of fierce debates in the near future.

Thailand seems to think the low rice exports and expenisve oil imports is unfair to her and upset her trade balances and in a way the rice cartel will offset the imbalances.But there are serious issues on the table before any real talk of a rice cartel being form.

First, thailand must have the co operation of the countries which to form the cartel and also top importers of rice like china and japan. Both are big players not only in asia region but also the international stage of world trade.

Even if the external influences is solved, she must be able to control the supplies of her domestic output of rice farming which is not really possible in the forseeable future.With all the problems yet not overcome, rice production and prices will be open for business as usual.Politics aside, the filling of the stomach of the world populace comes first for better or for worse .

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19th of May is the celebration of Vesak day here in Singapore.For those in the west who do not know what’s a Vesak day is, it is the celebration of the birth and enlightenment of buddha.

My family though buddhists are never strict vegetarians but surprisingly my mum cook vegetarian meal today.Why the blues you may asked?The cyclones in Myanmar and earthquake disaster in PRC that killed tens of thousands ,the death toll is still rising.All this coincide with the Olympics 2008 held in China which is in Asia.

PRC military are rushing in but even then with the massive scale of human catastrophe in Sichuan china , the resources at their disposal may not be able to cope.Foreign rescue teams are allowed to help in the excavation efforts to save remaining people who survived but trapped under the rubbles.All this is being done when our crude energy are not being yet exhausted.

I’m never much of a religous person but after 911 my search for the meaning of life intensified, and the answers is never an easy one. Buddhism on the surface seems like a fatalistic faith , much more of a philosophy of life than a religion.Maybe that’s what life is all about, the fragility of men and coming to terms of one’s mortality.

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IQ and the wealth of nations seems to be on my mind the last few days..to correlate IQ with race seems to have a tint of racism putting jews, asians and whites on the average top and others below the intellectual ladder.But does IQ matters now fossil decline has started?

During the last century fuelled by abundent oil economy..many information has been unlocked and pass on to the masses thru public education and hence test scores of students began to become increasingly important. From industrial to information economy knowledge that the people have and able to apply in the broad spectrum will determine the success of any nations.

Hence eugenics became a serious topic for academics and politicians alike.The pursuit of human perfection to control our destiny but is it just a fallacy to measure IQ if it can be measured at all?Test scores no doubt measured memory and understanding of various subjects the students went thru but life is larger than classroom textbased knowledge.

All the present knowledge is fuelled by cheap fossil energy , we’re talking about medicine, engineering and a legal and social economic structure promoted and backed by crude oil.What used is the IQ of a top brain surgeon without the medicine and tools needed to operate on the patient?And all the research of nanotechnology of whiz kids will be redundant without cutting edge lab facilities.

So the final question does IQ still matters in the psot oil world?Sure the world will still have smart people but the guage of measurement will be redefined as paradigm shifted in the usage of our energy.

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America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.

Oscar Wilde

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Stockmarket guru Warren buffet proclaimed that the worst is over for the Wall street crisis.The Berkshire CEO cited that the global credit crunch has eased for bankers and FED may have saved the day by bailing Bear Stearns.

The subprime crisis will probably hit more Americans with personal mortgages and nasty ordeal will be inevitable but in April many Americans including the rest of the world will be glad that the Omaha investor positive analysis may calm the US markets and even bring a stablizing force in the investment communities worldwide.

The ongoing housing crisis is a tale about greed to overextending of credit to borrowers who lack the means to make the payments of the housing loans.In the end, borrowers must pay back to the banks and the high default rate display the weakness of the market that brought forth the real estate foreclosures that spillover worldwide.

There’s no free lunch in free market economics, ultimately someone got to pay and it’s no joke even in April when the fools are borrowers who overstretch themselves.

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In vitro meat seems to be gaining ground when scientists succeeded in creating the cultured meat 3 years ago.And animal rights group like PETA seems to be betting on it to be on the supermarkets in mass quantities soon.

Meat without blood is tasteless cause it lacked uric acid and the cultured meat is bland but nevertheless healthier without the blood vessels however researchers wants to take a step further and create the blooded meat to give it the taste that consumers want.

However something is needed to create something and “embryonic myoblasts” are needed to begin the in vitro meat production. This will give companies to exploit the livestock for gains similar to the farms who killed their livestock in cruel ways.The only difference is that the in vitro process happens in a lab does not make it more humane.

The whole process is confinement, rape and abortion of non human animals for in vitro meat production to be cultured.I will not bother you with the technical details but to say it’s to save the lives of livestock animals does not hold water.The use of fertilised egg and non human animal skeletal muscle cells will be a ongoing debate for years to come.

It seems that modern men failed to grapple high tech does not not really mean high ethics and we’re not talking about tinkering with some machines here but living things like us that’s a food source for homo sapiens from the dawn of mankind.

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It’s getting more common for corporate giants to get involved in Green activities because in a way it’s good for their image .Here comes the latest banking giant JP morgan Chase organisng a run on this coming wednesday here in singapore.

The T-shirts will be 100% cotton with eco friendly ink.Street banners made from recycled materials.Taking public transport to race site and the cups and bottles are also from recylced plastics.

By the way, this even is held in 12 cities to raise money for non profit interests, for those interested one can sign up at the Jpmorgan website.It seems to be more of a company focus but at least the registration is made online for the interested particpants.

Corporations wield enormous influence in our modern economy and way of life and of course they can do much more to promote green living .Hope more will do more than a green run..

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As you guys can see in recent weeks, the oil spike up to more than 110USD per barrel and to go to 120USD this year will not be much of a shock to most of us.Though I’m not a motorist in the small island I’m living, the high oil price will definitely cause a dent in my pockets in public transport like bus and train rides.

Please understand that Singapore is not Dubai that’s sitting on Oil reserves but is an importer of energy , maybe that’s why I’m worried about this precious resources dwindling and I’m not really a subscriber that oil is abiotic that grows like oil palm trees like my neighbouring country does.

Like any other big cities worldwide that are used to the conveniences of Oil economy , the power down will not just be going back to using candles and cycling, the effects will be more catastophic as the dismantling of the crude society starts to commence.The best bet when the time comes, it will be in stages rather than sudden shocks to the industrialised world

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Is there no Latin word for Tea? Upon my soul, if I had known that I would have let the vulgar stuff alone”

Hilaire Belloc

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It seems like the coal industry is having another fallacy about the reserves to supplement the fossil demand in our world.Is the 200 year reserve supply figures too optimistic in US?From Richard heinberg report.US coal production has passed its peak since 1998!

Down in China, the coal reserves reports has not been published for more than a decade. And as we speak , world reserve of coal estimate has been down by 60%!Meanwhile coal consumption of the world has not been stopped partly due to higher oil prices, this is not a joke considering coal provide one quarter of the world energy consumption.

Global Coal Peak

Global coal production will peak around 2020 according to the experts ,after oil and gas.China being the largest producer will be peaking around next 5 to 10 years followed by USA and we’re not talking about the best grade coal either.

Total global coal reserves sits at 900plus  billions ton.A little more than half is of high quality energy grade whereas the rest is of lower quality.We’re cleaning up the coal for a higher air quality in a self centred manner whether we like it or not

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