Dana Blankenhorn

OPIC

My one fault with the Biden Administration so far has been its leniency toward its enemies.

Republicans aren’t the loyal opposition anymore. Vladimir Putin isn’t just an adversary. Those who still support Putin are domestic enemies, and it’s there in the oath of office, that you protect against both foreign AND domestic enemies.

The spike in oil prices may be another opportunity lost.

The opportunity is to create what I call an Organization of Petroleum IMPORTING Countries (OPIC). While the U.S. is nominally an exporter, we are the natural leader of this group, which could include India, Japan, Europe, South America, most of Africa and even China.

The first task of OPIC would be to account for the elimination of Russian supply from the market. Each member would agree to a specified reduction in imports, or an import maximum. Each member government would deal with this shortfall however it saw fit. But if no one breaks the agreement, then you can go toe-to-toe with OPEC in the oil markets, searching for price stability.

Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members want price stability. They like price spikes, but they know they’re a short-term thing. Over time, over the next 10 years, they know that their net production will rise, while demand will fall. The Sun shines, the wind blows, rivers, and tides, roll, we live on a molten rock, and there’s also efficiency. Today’s cars, trucks, appliances, and computers all use much less energy than they did before. The increase in time between charges for your phones is all due to their becoming more efficient. The batteries are the same.

The Electric Car Bowl

While after-action stories about Super Bowl ads focused on cryptocurrency exchanges, electric car ads got more minutes.

That’s important because, if anything, electric cars are more imaginary than Bitcoin.

General Motors, Ford, Volkswagen, and a host of start-ups in the U.S. and China are all rolling out electric cars for 2022. They’re going after Tesla, now worth more than the rest of the industry despite representing less than 10% of the U.S. car market.

But while crypto is garbage, electric cars are real. And important.

On TV just now, I just heard someone ask why Russia is attacking Ukraine now, for the first time since 2014. The reason is the same. Oil and gas prices are near record highs. Russia is a huge exporter. The more Putin can control the market and scare the West that he might cut off supplies, the more money he makes. Ukraine isn’t costing him money. He’s making money on it.

But there’s a sell-by date, as the electric car ads show. The more we can drop demand for oil, by using electricity for cars, and devices like windmills and solar panels to generate it, the bigger the thumb we have on the price. U.S. shale oil producers cut production in response to falling prices, and banks aren’t backing any play to use debt to increase it, because they know what’s coming.

The next oil crash will be the last one.

Putin and the Saud family have no incentive to cut America a break, and every reason to boost the price. American producers have every reason to produce what they can now, but no incentive to invest in their long-term future.

The reason was all over your TV yesterday. Electric cars already dominate the luxury market. They’re headed directly for the mass market. Orders for electric vans and delivery vehicles continue to pour in. None of yesterday’s advertisers think things will be any different for them. Make all you can, make it today, and make money. Demand looks unlimited.

This is the most hopeful thing I can write for Valentine’s Day. Today’s crisis is going to pass. The war won’t be won on the battlefield, or at the negotiating table. It will be won as all wars are won, on the production line.

Wild America Stores

There is no difference between the wild environment and the built environment.

Cities and suburbs are as much a part of the ecosystem as any national park or wetland.

In the last few years my Atlanta backyard, a few hundred feet from a MARTA rail station, has been visited by deer, rabbits, and while turkey vultures, as well as a host of predatory and preying birds and other animals.

If you want to know where the environmental war is being fought, it’s around your house. Millions of people are fighting it. They’re putting up bird feeders, planting trees, running beehives, and letting their plants grow wild.

They’re doing it without retail support. That needs to change.

You will find seed and wild animal chows in hardware stores, pet shops, and even some specialty bird stores. What I’ve yet to see is anyone offering a full set of products and services targeting homeowners who want to create a more natural ecosystem where they live.

There are products for such a store, from feeders to water gardens, from birdbaths to salt licks. Such a store could also sell services. It could send out people to inspect yards and certify habitats. It could provide environmental education and learning products to young people.

Until now, environmentalism has mainly been pursued through non-profit channels, and politics. This is one reason why the environment is losing. The market’s will is all on the other side.

Drop me a line and let’s launch this puppy.

A Non-Standard Story of Solar Shingles

When I first covered renewable energy a decade ago, solar shingles were the Holy Grail. It was what everyone said they wanted to make. A solar shingle would be as efficient at creating electricity as a solar panel but would go on just like a regular roof, with a nail gun.

A lot of people tried and failed to create the product. Home Depot tried selling homeowner-installed solar panels. Elon Musk built a billion dollar “Gigafactory” in Buffalo, New York, supposedly to make solar shingles.

But at the truncated Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this year, a game-changing solar shingle finally debuted. Its story is almost as interesting as the technology.

The shingle is called Timberline. Sandia Labs helped develop it. The manufacturer is GAF Energy.

The shingles are slightly bigger and much heavier than conventional roof shingles, but they go on the same way, with a nail gun. GAF says it has invested $1 billion into the product, which converts 22.3% of solar energy hitting it into electricity. 

GAF itself may be more interesting than its shingle. It was once the U.S. arm of I.G. Farben, the Nazi chemical company seized after World War II.  Under Jesse Werner, it became a big roofing company in the 1980s. This included an outfit called Rubberoid, which owned an asbestos mine in Vermont. (Oops.) Under the name G.I. Holdings, it went bankrupt in 2001 but was still paying out to victims in 2011.

Electric Scion

I am keeping my 2005 Scion xB. (I tell everyone it stands for eXtra Boxy.)

The xB gets 30 miles to the gallon, which was sweet in 2004. For the first year I had it, so many people wanted to check out the interior I felt like a dealer.

The Scion now has 168,000 miles on it. As I have aged, I have started to notice the lack of seat padding. The inside feels tinny because it is – it’s all sheet metal and plastic to get the best mileage from a Corolla chassis.

Point is I should be in the market for an electric car. But I’m not.

I blame the car companies.

There’s no good reason an electric car should cost what it does. There is a reason, however. The reason is Tesla. They started with the luxury end of the market and have gradually moved down toward the mass market. But a Tesla is still pricey. So is every other electric.

The Creativity Economy

The Creativity Economy is why Trumpism won’t win.

Technology created the Creativity Economy. Creativity is now the gating factor to economic growth. America has more creativity than any other country, thus more growth.

This means more than having talent. Lots of places have talent. But the Creativity Economy has needs that go beyond having talent. Talent must be taught, and it must be free to learn. It must be mentored. Most importantly it must be empowered. Anything, or anyone, who says “no” to a creative person is harming the economy.

Creativity has many dimensions. The Creativity Economy draws from all of them. Whether your talent lies in organizing, in selling, in technology or explaining it, in music or art, the Creativity Economy needs you. Many business leaders don’t have degrees in business. Part of nurturing the Creativity Economy is giving people the freedom to change their path.

Dealing With China

I have a dog in the China policy fight.

Our 30 year-old son has a job waiting in Taiwan. He just needs a visa. Taiwan is slow-walking it because of COVID. China’s belligerence toward Taiwan means we have worries.

Most of what is being written about America’s China policy is bullshit. It’s Cold Warriors anxious for a fight, Republican apparatchiks looking to take Biden down, human rights activists who see China “getting away with it.”

Here’s what I think. Xi Jinping is in trouble. He pretends to be Mao but he’s not. There is opposition to his policies kept inside an opaque party. Jack Ma is still a party member.

China has huge debts. Property debts, government debts, corporate debts. There’s still room to maneuver because the Yuan trades at 6.45 to the dollar. That’s not a manipulation. If China were manipulating the currency it would trade at 7 to the dollar or more.

China has an energy crisis and an environmental crisis going on at the same time it’s the world’s biggest producer and buyer of solar energy. The floods that overtook the country this summer are a lot like California’s fires and Louisiana’s hurricanes, but they’re happening to 20 times more people.

Who is Xi Jinping?

What kind of man is Xi Jinping? It’s the most important question in the world right now.  

Cold warriors want you to believe that Xi is the reincarnation of Josef Stalin, an absolute dictator bent on world domination. A lot of big investors believe this. That’s why the values of the biggest Chinese companies, the ones I call “Cloud Emperors,” have been cut in half this year.

But China’s policies toward tech aren’t extreme, not by the standards of American liberalism. Let small suppliers choose their markets? Enforce antitrust laws against predatory acquisitions? Raise taxes, so prosperity flows from the middle class out instead of from the top down? Why, yes.

It’s true Bernie Sanders would never give the state a monopoly on personal data. Even Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wouldn’t dare limit children to an hour of screen time a day. China’s “Great Firewall” runs both ways. Western data can’t get in, and Chinese can’t get their data out. This includes financial data, as the Bitcoin ban makes it harder for capital to flee.

But Xi’s got bigger problems than anyone here imagines.

Despite being the biggest producer of solar panels and electric cars, China is still like the Cuyahoga River in Randy Newman’s song Burn On.  The Evergrande Crisis, $300 billion in unpayable debt that must be wound down, is like the 2008 crisis that nearly took down the U.S. economy.

Young workers are revolting against a work culture called “996” – working 9 to 9 6 days a week. Those are the people whose support Xi is coveting. The people who grew up under a rising tide of prosperity since 1978 are no longer willing to pay the price  while the economic elites have everything all to themselves. If Xi stood in an honest election, I think he’d win.

Electrify My World

When we moved to our current house in 1983, the heavy rail MARTA station next door seemed futuristic. Between 1983 and 2020 my wife took the train to work nearly every day, while I worked from home.

Today MARTA and the urban design it was meant to serve are obsolete.

Electric motors can be made in any size. Batteries are more efficient and cheaper. The cloud means warehouses can break bulk for less than physical stores. The pandemic let my wife recapture 3 hours each day, for chores and for living. She’s not giving that time back.

Work can happen anywhere. The world I wrote about 30 years ago in my book A Guide to Field Computing has arrived. An iPad can do the work of a PC, a phone, and a TV, plus it’s rugged enough for use in a manufacturing plant or warehouse.

Atlanta Density Done Right

If you want housing density, make neighborhoods more attractive.

That means adding small parks and amenities people can enjoy within an easy walk before you add housing. If the area doesn’t have them, build commercial-office structures with apartments on top. If you do this backwards, you’re building a slum.

Cities are changing. So is transportation. If I can get most of what I need within a mile, I can use an electric bike unless I need Costco. Maybe I won’t even need Costco. Then rent a van for vacations, use something like Uber for nights out, and we’re good.

Lots of urban people already live this way. The idea of maintaining a car when you’re only using it an hour per day (or less) is wasteful.

But this only works if your area is walkable. This only works if you can get coffee and essentials around the corner, if your lawyer or accountant is nearby, if you can walk your dog and find a park in 10 minutes, with trees and benches to sit on.

Atlanta knows this.