Water, water, everywhere…..

Increased melting may or may not cause the Greenland ice sheets to come loose and plow into the oceans, raising world sea levels several meters. I certainly hope the rise is slow. Might be possible to deal with it in measured moves. I think that increased moisture from the melting will evaporate, and combined with  increased heating from greenhouse gases, will lead to stronger storms and more precipitation in many areas. As groundwater sources are used up, more seawater might be needed to create potable water as well.

In Israel, there has been a strong push to create drinking water from seawater. Hopefully enough capacity will be constructed to prevent severe shortages. The Sea of Galilee (or Kinneret, providing 27% of potable water) is just 6.5 cm above the “red line” set by the government, denoting a level that should not be breached by pumping. However, it may well be breached, but then there is the “black line”:

Barring unforeseen miracles in the coming week, the Kinneret’s water level will drop below the 213 mark sometime next week. The question thus arises: Will water continue to be drawn from the Kinneret for the People of Israel to drink, bathe, water their crops and lawns, and wash their cars?

The answer, a water economy official told Arutz-7, is yes. “You must understand,” he said, “that the Red Line is merely a recommendation. The government definitely tries to make sure not to reach that level, but it really has no choice but to continue drawing water even beyond the 213 mark.”

However, he added, “in the past few years, the government has designated a Black Line, at 215 meters below sea level, and that is something that truly cannot be breached.”

The second and third largest water sources (aquifers) are also in bad shape. There are plans to increase desalinization capacity from 135 million cubic meters to 235 by next year, and then add 600 million cubic meters more by 2013. If that happens, then the pressure should be relieved.

I need to investigate what the power requirements are for these plants, and how much of the water is pumped back into bodies of water (The Med? The Dead Sea?) I guess the Dead Sea might be a good choice if geographically convenient, since it might not actually increase the salinity. Is allowing the higher salinity waste water to completely dry in the sun, and then harvest the salt worthwhile? Is there land in the Negev to do this on the scale that would be needed? I do not know the answers to these questions.

Maybe water issues can actually help promote peace in the Middle East, rather than cause tension. There is discussion of an ambitious canal from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea that will also include a 1 billion cubic meter per year desalinization plant! The private sector is excited, since hotels and greenways, and greenhouses may spring up along the canal, but there are ecological/commercial concerns to be answered first:

The issue for the Dead Sea is it is slowly dying, dropping by one meter per year due to evaporation and diversions by Israel, Jordan, and Syria. The surface is now about 420m below sea level. But pumping in water from the Red Sea poses problems because the two bodies have different densities. The Dead Sea also is rich in calcium while the Red Sea is rich in sulfate, and mixing the two could create gypsum, which would interfere with the lucrative business of extracting potash from the Dead Sea.

It’s not an insignificant worry. Potash is highly sought-after for making fertilizer, and Dead Sea Works, a subsidiary of Israel Chemicals, and Jordan’s Arab Potash Co. produce about $3 billion worth every year, plus $1 billion in byproducts such as bromine and magnesium. No wonder, then, the companies are calling for a thorough review before the project gets approved.

Still, most experts think the only way to save the Dead Sea is to pump in water from someplace else—either the Red Sea or the Mediterranean. That’s the view of Michael Beyth, former chief scientist of Israel’s National Infrastructure Ministry, who served as the head of the Israeli team that helped draw up the tender for the World Bank feasibility study. But Beyth and others oppose adding the ambitious tourism and agricultural projects proposed by Tshuva.

I think these concerns highlight what the world will face in the future – a tradeoff between energy use, water use and food production (fertilizer use).

An interesting site with some water facts, including estimates of worldwide totals.

Mid season Battlestar Galactica thoughts

Well, the cliff hanger was kinda Planet of the Apes, but I did like it. Overall I am still unhappy about Tigh being a cylon. I wonder if they will explore the details of how these model were “planted” before the show wraps. I am glad Lucy Lawless is back. I wish they had more of Richard Hatch and Mark Sheppard. But if I have to settle for lots of Katee Sackhoff, Tricia Helfer and Grace Park, I think I can suffer through that!

Obviously it will be interesting to find out who the fifth of the final five is. I am interested why D’Anna stated that only 4 of the final five were in the fleet. How would she know? Was she that familiar with the whole fleet? Either this one is not entirely human, or it is someone important in the fleet and D’Anna did not want to admit that. I think that this second choice is the angle that will eventually be played, but I am sure that “people” will still be on Earth, so maybe that is how it will play out.

Mexican Oil Woes

The problems at PEMEX are accelerating, and it looks like substantive solutions are not close. First, there was the promise of large new fields. This field was trumpeted to contain 10 billion barrels of oil in early 2006. When the Noxal-1 well was drilled however, it appears that only natural gas will be flowing in significant quantities from this field:

Speaking on Mar. 14 from the drilling rig in 935 m of water 63 miles off Coatzacoalcos, Fox said the then as-yet-untested well had the potential to produce 10 billion bbl of oil (OGJ, Apr. 17, 2006, p. 35).

However, after the well operated by state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos reached a total depth of 4,000 m, the fourth interval tested has flowed 9 MMcfd of gas from a reserve estimated at 245 bcf, said IHS Energy, Houston.

From later 2006, this article in the SF Chronicle described the decine of a smaller field

Situated in the hot, swampy lowlands of southeast Mexico’s Tabasco state, the Bellota complex was built in 1992 and remains one of the country’s most modern petroleum facilities. But daily output from surrounding fields has fallen to only 35,000 barrels of oil, about one-quarter of the average during the 1990s, said Rodriguez, the oil-field boss.

The nation’s largest producing area, the Cantarell offshore oil field in the Gulf of Mexico, is facing a similar decline, though on a much larger scale. Its current production of 2.1 million barrels per day — which makes it the second-largest single oil field in the world, after the Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia — is expected to fall to anywhere between 1.4 million and 520,000 barrels per day by 2008, according to government estimates.

If the worst-case projections turn out to be correct, Mexico’s oil exports to the United States could decline by as much as 1 million barrels a day from its current 1.5 million

For comparison to the prediction made above, here is data on Cantarell from January 2008:

Crude output at Cantarell, the third-largest crude field in the world, fell 1.3 percent in January from the previous month to 1.24 million barrels daily, the lowest since December 1999. The offshore field accounted for about 42 percent of Mexico’s oil output in January. The field peaked in December 2003 at 2.19 million barrels, or about two-thirds of Pemex’s production that month.

And here is some data from May 2008:

Crude output from Mexico’s struggling Cantarell oil field fell in May for the eighth month in a row to 1.038 million barrels per day, its lowest level in more than 12 years, Energy Ministry data showed on Thursday.

But its May output fell again, from 1.074 million bpd in April, to stand at its lowest level since January 1996, according to Energy Ministry data.

So the decline of Cantarell is closer to the upper end of the projection of two years ago, but it is in very serious decline. Overall production at PEMEX for the year 2007 was down 5.5% from 2006, and barely above 2000 levels. Here is a nice site with info about Cantarell and some recent updates. From the Oil Drum, a post from early 2007 that has details about the geology of the field and the type of oil that is produced

The legislative branch in Mexico is resisting changes to the law to allow PEMEX to modernize:

Sit-in protests in Congress by leftists in April forced discussion of the bill to be delayed while lawmakers sit down for weeks of televised debates which are set to last until late July.

Now there are plans to try and build a new refinery in Mexico to reduce the country’s dependence on imported gasoline and other refined products. Currently about 40% of gasoline is imported. The story does not have details about the proposed size of the refinery – perhaps it will depend on the site chosen. Still, it sounds like if construction is slated to begin in 2010, then it would be 2012 at least before anything could be refined, and who knows what Mexico’s production levels will be then. At least they would not have to export the oil and reimport the finished product, which will be more expensive than it is now.

There will be some tough choices ahead for PEMEX, and the government finances, as production drops with no easy replacements to be had.

In the future, I hope to delve into the changes of Mexico’s oil imports to the US in the last few years.

Housing Woes and Urban Living

In May, housing prices slid again in California. Although the numbers seem bad, it appears that prices are back down to 2004 levels in Southern California :

The median home sale price in six Southern California counties sank to $370,000 in May, down from $505,000 a year earlier, according to DataQuick Information Systems.

DataQuick said that was the biggest annual decline it has recorded since it began tracking prices in 1988. The last time the median was lower was in March 2004, when it was $364,000.

It would be nice to see a plot of prices from 2000 to current. I will put that on the to-do list. I recently looked around on Zillow and found a 576 sq. ft. house (2 bed, 2bath!) here in San Jose that sold about a year ago for $350,000. WTF? Looks like things are getting back to 2004 prices here too. While that must be painful for recent buyers to swallow, it might mean that since 2000, the gains in housing are still above “historic” levels.

While foreclosures are increasing, it appears that the worst might not be over. Subprime mortgages have been the leading culprit for the current levels of foreclosure, soon other types of mortgages will begin to reset, including option-ARM and Alt-A types. So it may be that the market is not really ready for a recovery.

The bigger current story in California is that most of the state is on fire. Northern California is being hard hit, due to an unusual lightning storm that moved in from offshore a couple of weekends ago. Many fires were started by the dry lightning, and any rain that began to fall evaporated on the way down, cooling the air and causing high winds as the cooler, denser air rushed down to the ground. The Western States endurance run has been cancelled for this year as a result of these fires. Hopefully the 4th of July fireworks tonight will not spark any more blazes!

The fire season has really started early this year due to a very dry spring. At the start of March, the Sierra snowpack was slightly above normal. However, almost no rain during March and April have lead to extremely dry vegetation all over northern California.

Following strong storms earlier in the winter, March and April were the driest those two months have been in the northern Sierra since record keeping began in 1922, state Department of Water Resources chief hydrologist Maury Roos said

This lack of water has lead to water restrictions from southern California to the east side of the SF Bay Area. Water “wars” have dominated the politics of southern California for decades. But with the recent decisions that more water must be diverted to the lower Owens valley and developers must document that there is water available for projects they are developing, it appears that government is slowly trying to find a sustainable balance between growth and the environment.

The current problem I see is that farmers are going to be squeezed first. While there are many ways to make farming less wasteful in its use of water, the money to implement those changes has to come from somewhere. If the future really is moving toward rational pricing of water, then food prices for things grown in the central valley will have to go way up. This will have the effect of squeezing homeowners even further. And some of the most distressed areas are near the central valley and down to the Inland Empire.

Another issue will be the situation with undocumented farm labor. Any further crackdowns will reduce the ability of farmers to harvest, and will crimp food supplies, putting upward pressure on prices. If water restrictions decrease the amount of land under cultivation, then perhaps a sustainable balance will be found sooner. The only drawback is that it will certainly result in higher food prices.

Rising gas prices have started a movement toward urban living, close to work and mass transit. Hopefully this trend will continue. However, it appears that every country in the world EXCEPT the US has seen the writing on the wall. I guess it is very hard to go against the car-centric culture that has thrived for decades in this country.

Downtown Jacksonville, Florida has been experimenting with a revitalization for several years. I am not sure what impact the drop in housing prices has had on downtown and Springfield, but prices had been rising for several years earlier this decade. The Penisula and The Strand on the Southbank have been impacted. I am not sure that construction on The Peninsula is continuing. The Strand has gone back to being an apartment building. I am not sure when it opens, or if it has already. San Marco Riverfront Village has been cancelled. And I read about a 68 story tower (hotel/condo) that was to go in near the stadium – I am sure that is dead. Prices for Old San Jose were slashed while I was there (about 50% on the high end units), so not sure if they have buyers for the units. The St. John is apparently delayed, as is East San Marco (and of course, the Shipyards!):

The East San Marco project, a mixed-use development from Regency Centers and the St. Joe Co., was slated to include a Publix store, five levels of condos and 27,000 square feet of additional retail. Developers say the mixed-use project will open eventually – but much later than the originally projected 2009 opening.

…The project, which was to total $86 million upon completion, likely will be pushed back 18 months to two years, according to Mike Shalley, a St. Joe consultant and owner of MKS partners, LLC.

…It was announced earlier this week that The St. John, an all-glass condo that was scheduled to break ground in 2006 and open next year, will be similarly delayed.

The LandMar Group, the developer behind a planned Shipyards condo tower, began doling out refunds to condo purchasers in October. And two condominium towers slated for the St. Johns Town Center will be reworked into an upscale hotel.

There is a great opportunity for Jacksonville to become a stronger commercial hub, with port facilities and good railroad infrastructure. I hope that the people mover becomes more than a joke, and can blossom into a real mass transit option. Unfortunately I think this would have to involve a line out to the beaches, maybe two – one along Atlantic Blvd, one along JTB. Not sure how much that would cost, or if there is political support for it. The powers that be that pushed Nocatee through need to get behind this. Hopefully, downtown Jax will grow, but it needs some things, like more grocery stores, to really thrive. I found one interesting site on urban living.