Jim and Sara Nuttle illustration in “America’s New Map”
Ours is a rare country when it comes to mineral rights—the exploitation of underground natural resources. In most of the world, the state owns subsurface resources no matter who owns the surface property. Americans, in legal possession of any such blessed land, can lease mineral rights to extractive companies in return for royalties paid. This ruleset, inherited from English common law, fueled the so-called fracking boom of the last two decades. By so incentivizing private landowners, America’s energy companies were able to aggressively scour the country to exploit new reserves using new technologies.
The “fracking” (hydraulic fracturing) of previously inaccessible oil and gas deposits involves drilling into “tight” deep-rock formations and fracturing them through the high-pressure injection of liquids (water mixed with sand and chemicals). This process frees oil and gas deposits that flow up to the surface, along with the wastewater, and are subsequently captured and transported via pipelines. While fracking comes with more environmental costs than traditional oil and gas drilling, it has revolutionized the US energy sector, elevating it to first place in the world in both crude oil and natural gas production for the first time in decades. In the early 2000s, fracking accounted for less than 10 percent of US oil and gas production; it now accounts for more than half of each.
We all saw the debate (still raging) about whether or not the Biden Administration should approve the development of LNG (liquid natural gas) export facilities. For now, Biden is punting on the issue but likely will, in my estimation, approve all such developments once re-elected.
The WAPO piece poses the key question:
At the core of the debate over whether to allow more exports is a thorny question: With governments across the globe pledging to transition away from fossil fuels, how much more natural gas does the world need?
The answer is, a lot more.
“It comes down to economics,” said Kenneth Medlock, senior director at the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University. “Production just keeps growing in the United States, which keeps prices low. And then we keep seeing major demand growth in the rest of the world.”
Here’s the flow by region:
Clearly, Asia is a big target, but what has changed is Europe’s new unwillingness, post-Ukraine, to rely on Russian gas. There’s no arguing that Europe is doing well on de-carbonizing its energy profile, but a big part of that is getting off coal and even oil to generate electricity with natural gas — particularly if you want to go EVs in your auto fleet as Europe is mandating. Renewables is not covering all that anytime soon.
Point being (1) we cannot let allies down at this moment and (2) this is a good overall development for reducing carbon emissions while the great energy transition continues to unfold.
Simply put, we and Europe are on a good pathway, but there is no magical leap possible where we, in the foreseeable future, get off gas like we’re getting off coal and oil. Thinking otherwise is unrealistic and, frankly, unstrategic.
2) China is a far more natural development partner of Africa than America will ever be
The data point is compelling enough, as is the continuing ambition to expand cooperation:
China has remained Africa's largest trading partner for 15 consecutive years, with bilateral trade reaching a record 282.1 billion U.S. dollars in 2023, a Ministry of Commerce official said on Wednesday.
"Economic and trade cooperation is the ballast and propeller of China-Africa relations," said Ministry of Commerce official Jiang Wei said at a press conference.
China's State Council has approved a general plan to build a pilot zone for in-depth China-Africa economic and trade cooperation.
According to the plan, China will establish the pilot zone as a platform for opening-up to and cooperation with Africa that has a certain level of international influence by 2027.
Having been deeply integrated within globalization, it is only natural for China to lead the integration of next-up regions, like Africa. That interest and ambition is good for the world because it trumps anything else being offered by the West.
As always, it is not a competition between China and perfection but between China and a general and abiding low interest and effort from the West.
What I watch here is not how the West responds, but, ultimately, how India competes.
Biden is all-in on Morning Joe (fine) and Fareed Zaharia (better). I don’t have a problem with that so much as a bemused observation about how Boomers, the generation that grew up in such a concentrated fashion on TV, produces these presidents like Trump and Biden who seem, even in their old age, so addicted to it.
So much so that their own staff and people seeking to influence their decision see, in these venues, more direct impact on the mind and attentiveness of POTUS.
It’s quaint and a bit sad really, because it speaks to how Boomers have slipped into a sort of media Alzheimer’s. I can’t help but think of the book and movie “Being There.”
"If you have a milkshake and I have a milkshake, and I have a straw, my straw reaches across the room and starts to drink your milkshake. I. Drink. Your. Milkshake! I drink it up!"
Well, the big straw in this instance is India’s demographic dividend and the milkshake is global value chains starting to see India as better than shrinking/aging China in that regard.
From the NYT piece:
India is quietly grabbing from China more manufacturing of Apple’s iPhones and other electronics gear.
It is happening in South Indian industrial areas on muddy plots that were once farmland.
In Sriperumbudur, people call Apple “the customer,” not daring to say the name of a company that prizes its secrets.
But some things are too big to hide. Two gigantic dormitory complexes are springing up from the earth. Once finished, each will be a tight block of 13 buildings with 24 rooms per floor around an L-shaped hallway. Every one of those pink-painted rooms will have beds for six workers, all women. The two blocks will house 18,720 workers apiece.
It’s a ready-made scene from Shenzhen or Zhengzhou, the Chinese cities famous for their iPhone production prowess. And it’s no wonder.
India’s effort here is intense and will only grow more desperate with time, because the demo-div they’re climbing is huge and they are well aware, from recent, neighboring history, what it takes to achieve lift-off:
India desperately needs more skilled jobs, and factory work creates them like nothing else. Last year, India overtook China to become the world’s most populous country, and its working-age population is speeding ahead. But turning that demographic bulge into an actual advantage means making India’s workers more productive. Half of them still depend on small farming.
This is a profound transfer of power within globalization from China to India. It needs to happen but it needs to be as smooth as possible — not denying China so much as making it a stakeholder that sees, in such a shift, a continuing path forward for itself — rising up the production ladder while India is slotted in just below (for now). If this transition is interpreted in strictly zero-sum ways, therein lies the geopolitical danger. We need India and China to ultimately become partners in their sequential “rises,” as tricky as that sounds.
5) Biden Admin is still pushing for the same regional deal in the Middle East
It was a good idea before 7 October, and it’s the best of many bad ideas arisen since.
It’s the three-way deal between the Saudis, Israelis, and ourselves: we give KSA a defense pact; that gives them the diplomatic cover to cut some recognition deal with Israel; and Israel commits to some two-state solution deal.
The big question is, of course, now Gaza, and how much Israel wants to diminish that threat vector — for good.
For now, it is hard to see a match on that subject: Israel simply wants that diminishment too much.
And yet, it is Israel’s best escape hatch from this more general conundrum.
Add EVs to the Big Data-grabbing consumer items now viewed in geopolitical terms.
The Biden administration has warned that Chinese electric vehicles can pose a national security threat to the United States as they can collect huge amounts of personal information and may send it overseas.
Would we have this issue with European EVs? Japanese?
But it just shows what I am reaching for in my quantum grand strategy concept.
To me, an EV falls somewhere along the relational and transactional fields: geolocational tracking that captures relationships and consumption. It is a huge source of big data, no doubt.
The fear is, they get all that personal info and what do they do with it?
Get use to that stated concern concerning 5G, the IoT, and the AIoT.
It’s not pretty, but it’s the way of the world: cities grow fast, rural areas fall behind, triggering the movement from the land to urban areas and forcing ag to mechanize and dramatically increase its efficiency.
So much for the romance of the land.
India’s is experiencing this brutal dynamic now:
India's statistics office has forecast overall annual growth of 7.3%, the highest among major global economies, for the current fiscal year ending in March, fuelled by sectors like construction and financial services.
But growth in farm output, which contributes about 15% of GDP and employs more than 40% of the workforce, was seen slowing to 1.8% in the current fiscal year, from 4% a year ago.
India has long chosen the Ghandi/Jefferson path of development (the oft-mocked “Hindu rate of growth”). Modi is embracing his inner Hamilton, as he should.
It will be painful and messy and emotional, but it is necessary.
When mayors from cities including Carmel, Ind., and Oxford, Miss., went to China recently, they were feted in ways big and small. They test-drove the newest electric-vehicle models, some with seats that doubled as massage chairs. They were hosted by a deputy provincial governor and treated to aged Maotai, Mao Zedong’s favorite liquor, from one Chinese official’s private collection.
Their counterparts in China, starved of international visitors and potential investors during four years of pandemic and border controls, were “overjoyed” to receive the American mayors, said Min Fan, executive director of U.S. Heartland China Association, a U.S. nonprofit that organized the trip for six mayors to five cities in China late last year.
It is a smart move on China’s part, echoing what the Japanese eventually did to make them less of an export monster and more of a local partner (e.g., not shipping cars to America but building them here).
China inevitably embraces similar tactics, to include working vigorously through Mexico to exploit the USMCA as much as possible.
This subnational connectivity is good for all. It is stabilizing in ways our two national political systems are presently incapable of encouraging.
A shift towards a more sustainable global food system could create up to $10tn (£7.9tn) of benefits a year, improve human health and ease the climate crisis, according to the most comprehensive economic study of its type.
It found that existing food systems destroyed more value than they created due to hidden environmental and medical costs, in effect, borrowing from the future to take profits today.
Food systems drive a third of global greenhouse gas emissions, putting the world on course for 2.7C of warming by the end of the century. This creates a vicious cycle, as higher temperatures bring more extreme weather and greater damage to harvests.
Food insecurity also puts a burden on medical systems. The study predicted a business-as-usual approach would leave 640 million people underweight by 2050, while obesity would increase by 70%.
Redirecting the food system would be politically challenging but bring huge economic and welfare benefits, said the international team of authors behind the study, which aims to be the food equivalent of the Stern review, the 2006 examination of the costs of climate change.
Sophisticated war-game turned into a riveting documentary:
In “War Game,” a new documentary from Jesse Moss and Tony Gerber, these men are members of the Order of Columbus, an extremely religious, paramilitary organization that refuses to accept the results of a contested presidential election. This is not real. It’s part of an unscripted, real-time “war game” simulation being conducted by a nonpartisan veterans group called Vet Voice Foundation — inspired by a Washington Post op-ed from three retired generals who warned that the government needed to start preparing for another, even more deadly insurrection in the wake of the 2024 election.
Throughout the Trump years, I was of the firm belief that he would not leave the White House without a fight — no matter the electoral outcome.
I vastly underestimated Trump’s capacity for mischief and damage.
So, yes, planning for it being worse this time around makes a whole lot of sense. The rest of us (and we who believe in a peaceful process are an overwhelming majority) need to be better prepared for what happens when Trump loses again.
I also had that "sinking feeling" in the pit of my stomach that Trump would not leave office- try to hold on. I wish that instead of living in "interesting times" as the fortune cookies used to say, we lived in boring, uneventful, uninteresting times instead.
We could use some boring.
I also had that "sinking feeling" in the pit of my stomach that Trump would not leave office- try to hold on. I wish that instead of living in "interesting times" as the fortune cookies used to say, we lived in boring, uneventful, uninteresting times instead.