Dana Blankenhorn

The Coming Energy Glut

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 38 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.

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Even Noubar Afeyan, the MIT professor and entrepreneur I interviewed this week, does not believe it's possible.

The idea of an energy glut is so fantastic, so far outside normal business experience, as to be inconceivable, he told me. Especially given the millions now entering the global middle class in India, in Africa, and in Latin America. Of course they'll want TVs and cars and the other trappings of American life. They will compete financially to get them. And that will keep energy prices high for at least a decade.

But the U.S. is already in an energy glut. Natural gas prices here remain stubbornly below $4/mcf. The “spread” between U.S. oil prices and global prices narrowed to a few dollars recently, but has since expanded again. And E85 ethanol (which actually contains just 15% alcohol) is priced at nearly 50 cents/gallon below the price of regular gasoline.

Liberal Ennui

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 37 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.

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These are hard times to be a liberal. In some ways, it's harder than in the Bush years. At least then we had someone to hate.

When you're in power, you're naturally playing defense. When you're in the 5^th year of a Presidential cycle, you're also expecting bad things to happen. Lincoln didn't survive 1865, McKinley didn't survive 1901, FDR's 1937 was an annus horribilus and the horrors that were unearthed about Nixon in 1973 destroyed him.

Compared with that, the problems Barack Obama has faced are minimal. The economy hasn't been great but it's growing. Syria almost blew up on us but it didn't. Every effort to inject fear has been followed by a relief rally. Health reform is coming into force. Next year's off-year elections don't look like a disaster.

Still, liberals are mostly pissed at this Administration. The NSA revelations have a lot to do with it. The fact that the crooks who got us into the Great Recession are still walking around free. The fact that the President's legislative initiatives aren't just stalled, but they're being slowly reversed, in both state houses and the Capitol.

Advice For a Young Fiction Writer

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 37 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.

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While on vacation recently I learned that my daughter Robin, in addition to her talents studying urban wildlife, is also becoming something of a fiction writer.

This caused me, while still on our cruise ship, to write the following, which I now offer to the rest of you in hopes it helps, just a little, with those struggling to write good fiction:

Dear Robin:

Fiction is hard. Wish I could do it better.

Anyone who starts in to write fiction is in for a lot of hard work. Creating worlds, stories, and people who never really existed is the most difficult task you can imagine -- it is a feat of pure imagination. Anyone who does it, anyone who succeeds at it, becomes a hero in my book. 

Here is what I've learned, and often failed to apply, in writing fiction.

People Are No Substitute for Wild Mothers

by Robin Blankenhorn

Sometimes I wonder about people.

This thought comes from a few news stories I found today. One you might have heard of, and one you probably wish you had.

The first involves the mother whose son was mauled to death by African Dogs, or Painted Dogs, in a zoo. 

Is it sad? Yes, no human being should go through what she did with her son, simply put it hurts all those involved.

My visit to Norway

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 36 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.

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Norway is a sort of made-up place.

Its history as an independent state only goes back to 1905, when the people “asked” for independence and Sweden gave it, because it would cost Sweden too much to keep it.

Sweden didn't know about the oil. Back then, oil was refined for kerosene and paraffin. It mainly existed for heat and light, not transportation. It was inexpensive, and plentiful.

Back in 1905 Texans had just found it in vast pools just a few hundred feet down, at Spindletop. No one imagined that demand from gasoline-fueled cars would become so vast as to make oil into black gold, or that technology would advance to the point where you could drill for oil over four miles deep from far offshore.

What's now Norway had, by 1905, been the property of other Scandinavian kings for 300 years, first belonging to Denmark, then being given to Sweden in the aftermath of Napoleon's defeat.

Morality Is Not An Absolute

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 35 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.

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This Clue is a bit late getting posted because I was having my first long vacation in three years.

I traveled with my daughter, who writes for us on Urban Wildlife Policy. We did a 10-day cruise of Norway, then spent a week in northern England, mainly based in Sheffield. (Go Wednesday.)

I learned a whole lot. And the most important lesson is this.

Morality is totally objective.

The best way to illustrate this is with our visit to England. We're supposed to be a lot like England. They're our best friends. We can understand them when they speak, sometimes.

But on questions of morality, it turns out we're not like them at all.