Next month, KPLU commentator and Strategic News Service publisher Mark Anderson will be hosting his annual FiReGlobal West Coast conference in Seattle. He tells KPLU’s Dave Meyer that he’s going to take some of the top minds in the computing industry and turn them loose on solving problems facing the Northwest.

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Last week included four eventful days at the annual Future In Review conference put on by the Strategic News Service. This year, the last at San Diego’s Hotel del Coronado [FiRe 2010 is moving to the Terranea; future FiRe locales aren’t yet scheduled – Ed.], was the best of the five I have attended, of the seven that have been held. (Full disclosure – I am on the planning committee, offering my thoughts as a futurist consultant and speaker.)

What began as a high-level conference about the 5-year future of technology has become over time a 360-degree look at the issues and challenges facing the world, the near-term potentials in technology, and the need for concerted system-wide action to produce a more just and prosperous world. This is quite an evolution and has made the FiRe conference one of the most influential global events each year.

You can read more about FiRe 2009 here, and also learn how to register for FiRe 2010, which will be held in the Los Angeles area (Palos Verdes) next year.

FiRe is the kind of conference that begins early each day and runs more or less non-stop till late evening. Thus this report hits only the highlights, for me.

Two themes dominated the program – “earth in peril” and “technology driving the economic rebound.”

Here are tech innovations discussed in the general program that seemed particularly important…

…The Cloud. This concept is subject to hype and is dismissed by many for that reason. Simply defined it means the ability of servers to hold all personal data and to run applications so that personal computing machines can go back to the future as terminals that access the cloud. In practice it may mean that you could walk up to any terminal, anywhere, and access your own “desktop” that actually resides in a variety of servers. One Cloud expert explained to me that this would enable schools, for example, to resurrect obsolete computers, turn them into terminals, and provide inexpensive high-level computing to everyone. There are many hurdles to jump before this becomes a robust and stable reality, but the cloud is a clear trend in future computing.

…The Gigabit Age. A great story around the world, less so in the U.S., is the continuing installation of much-improved bandwidth via fiber and wireless. We learned about an economic stimulus project in Australia, for example, to replace copper wires with fiber to something like 90% of all buildings and homes, enabling Australia to leap ahead in the information economy by providing net speeds dozens of times faster than available in the U.S. This $43 billion project would cost $350 billion in the U.S., but the U.S. is spending only $7 billion on enhanced bandwidth as part of the stimulus, a missed opportunity. In Australia, a key driver for more bandwidth is the Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder project.

…The Web Becomes the Stream. As we move beyond Web 2.0 into an ever more interactive network, in which users send as much material as they consume, via social nets and video sites, and so on, it becomes obvious that we are progressing from the Internet through the Web to the Stream. It is the constant flow of information that matters. (When Sonia Sotomayor is nominated to the Supreme Court, within about 90 seconds her bio on Wikipedia has been updated.) No static website or traditional media company can keep pace.

…Electric Cars Progressing. Elon Musk brought the Tesla Roadster for more test drives (below is my turn), but more importantly reported a just-completed agreement with Daimler to partner in producing the Tesla Motors sedan set for delivery in 2011, at half the cost of the Tesla sports model, with a 300+ mile range on a single electric charge. (Elon also reported on progress with [his company SpaceX’s] private space launch, including the contract with NASA to be a cargo delivery vehicle for the space station.)

Other Tech Tid-bits – Mark Hurd, CEO of HP, explained why printing will continue to grow when only 20% of current printing is digital. He also noted that they build manufacturing capacity overseas so that they can manufacture close to the buyers; only 8% of their cost is labor, so cheap labor is not the driver; being close to customers is. This was interesting.

Apple is reported to be purchasing 7-inch screens; the question is for what?

Thorium Power may be the nuclear fuel of the future – it is more abundant than uranium, cannot be processed into weapons grade material, decays in about 75 years instead of thousands, and can be used in current reactor designs. Since the energy future may depend on getting energy from many sources, this may keep nuclear in the game.

A smart grid will dramatically reduce energy consumption, especially if humans become part of the “smart.” A recent test in Colorado by Accenture energy showed that installing a small screen on the refrigerator in homes that monitors electricity usage around the house and makes the numbers visible led to a 50% decrease in energy consumption. Knowing what is going on in real time makes a difference.

Calit2 “FiRe Lab” Open House at UCSD: Larry Smarr once again organized an evening at Calit2, the future of computing and telecommunications program at UCSD. I will blog about some specific things there in the future as well – highlights included progress with super-hi definition screens and real-time telepresence, life-like robotics, and the use of wide arrays of sensors to learn about geographic information.

…FiReStarters – the breakthrough companies. Each year at FiRe new companies are nominated to be “FiReStarters,” those early-stage companies with a compelling product or service and a chance to change the world. This year there were 13 companies. One of my tasks was to interview the principals in these companies for short web-video introductions. Those videos will roll out over the next weeks, and I will blog about each company separately, but here are a couple of standouts:

Smaato – bringing order and scale to the world of mobile advertising.

Blue Mars, from Avatar Reality – soon to debut a robust, multi-user, next-generation online virtual world.

SIMtone – bringing cloud computing closer to reality and making it greener.

Vesta Health Systems – developing a technology platform for a simple, strong disinfectant effective against virus and bacteria.

Earth in Peril

The second and dominant theme at FiRe 2009 was “earth in peril.” This was kicked off by the opening dinner keynote from Professor V. “Ram” Ramanathan. Dr. Ramanathan is a distinguished researcher in climate science and global warming. His databased explanation of where global warming is now was sobering to all, even those most knowledgeable on the subject. His program title, “Practical Strategies for Solving the Climate Problem,” was intriguing, and he delivered. It turns out that while CO2 is the biggest long-term problem in that we are producing so much, and it is so long-lasting in the atmosphere, the other greenhouse gases offer some hope of faster success in reducing global warming. Methane, soot, and other greenhouse emissions are easier to reduce, and what is already in the atmosphere dissipates in months or years, not centuries. Thus, if we can eliminate these greenhouse gases soon, the impact will be immediate, and will buy time for the more difficult problem of reducing CO2.

Beyond climate change, there was a major emphasis on the health of the oceans and ocean species. Roger Payne and Lewis Douglas from the Ocean Alliance reported on new research showing chromium to be a problem pollutant in ocean species. Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society reported on the battle with the Japanese over whaling. And film director Louie Psihoyos presented a premier showing of his documentary The Cove, winner of Sundance and Cannes festival awards. This powerful film highlights the plight of dolphins and the secret industry that kills them. The film opens theatrically in August 2009.

CTO Design Challenge – The Global Water Shortage

A final feature of the FiRe event has become the “CTO Design Challenge.” Chief technology and information officers are given a problem to solve, and a couple of days to solve it. This year the challenge was the looming water shortages in and around San Diego [and the world – Ed.] The team did an outstanding job which we will report more fully as well, but a highlight was the idea of covering canals with anti-evaporation covers, and those with solar cells to collect energy to run the pumps and provide excess energy from an already established right-of-way. Great idea.

Final thought – best FiRe yet. Join the party next year.

Tigo Energy was nominated by SNS Member Rick LeFaivre, Managing Director of OVP Venture Partners (http://ovp.com).

Tigo Energy’s Jeffrey Krisa, Vice President, Sales & Marketing, states: “This year there will be over $500M in lost economic value from the PV solar installations made in 2008 due to the inefficiency of harvesting power output from the modules. While the solar industry invests heavily to bring new photovoltaic material to market to address future cost and efficiency, Tigo Energy has developed a Distributed Inverter System Solution which will immediately return from 7-20% upside power from today’s traditionally architected systems. As a “CapEx neutral” system, achieved through the re-partitioning of system electronics, the value of increased power generation is available to the system owner in the first year. Operational expenses (cost-of-ownership) are also reduced through increased system reliability, safety enhancements, and advanced module-level management for granular maintenance and warrantee service.”

About the FiReStarter program: For the third year in a row, SNS is selecting 12 businesses – top startups or businesses with new startup technology – for world promotion, based on nominations by trusted strategic investment SNS Members. These businesses will be integrated into the FiRe 2009 program. The FiReStarters are businesses which we believe will change our world in a positive way. They are businesses we believe you should know about: the “2009 FiReStarters.” To see last year’s winning FiReStarters, go to: http://www.futureinreview.com/firestarters-2008.php.

For more information about the FiReStarter program, please contact the SNS Programs Director, Sharon Anderson-Morris/”SAM,” at: sam@stratnews.com.

Rather, I think it is more interesting to continue the very serious conversation about which exact crimes they have committed, who has committed them, and what kind of punishment they may expect to receive, a process that will begin hours (not days) after they relinquish power.

I want to say one quick thing about Obama’s comments on this, echoing Paul Krugman in today’s NYTimes: a) Obama would be making a huge mistake, despite the short-term advice being given him by inside counselors (the top one the son of an Israeli terrorist) about letting the Neocons and other criminals get off the hook; and, b) it isn’t up to him.

This latter view is worth pursuing:

Who cares what Obama decides to do about Bush? Excuse me, but I just could not care less. When criminals break the law, we don’t ask candidates-to-be if we should prosecute. I would suggest that ANY comments by the Obama team indicating a lack of will to prosecute would, of itself, be worth examining as being in some way accessory.

In other words, Obama: on this subject, please shut up. We are not interested in your first big mistake: not prosecuting the most evil and dangerous villains ever to misuse power in the U.S. government.

Therefore, regardless of the Obama political calculations, we should be resolved, as we have in past similar situations (Iran Contra, Watergate) to put these crimininals to trial.

There are so many crimes, it seems almost impossible to list them; I certainly won’t try to here, but will leave it to experts in each department and field to do so. Krugman says he has counted six different departments wherein crimes were committed; that seems too small a number, but it does not matter.

Here is a simple question: who is responsible for nearly a million civilian deaths in a faked war? There was never, ever a need for an Iraq war; and that statement will stand the test of history. Given its truth, we should not be talking about the few thousand GI deaths as the cost of the war, but should recognize that the United States, without cause or any particular aggression on Iraq’s part, and without any proven concern for its own safety, did cause the deaths of between 600,000 and 1,000,000 civilians in that country.

Let’s see now, is Dick Cheney ready to stand up and pay for this? Exactly how, Mr. Cheney, are you planning on doing that?

One million civilian dead.

And then we have the increasingly-correct pattern I have discovered about the entire Bush administration: it was about nothing smaller or larger than regular old Texan self-dealing. If you are familiar with Texas political history, self-dealing is kind of like getting up in the morning. But, for the rest of us in the Union, self-dealing is unethical and often illegal.

The story of the Bush administration will fall into prosecutorial parts, all of them very large, and all of them worth the effort of pursuit and conviction:

1. Killling of Innocent Civilians. With no cause, and based upon lies and deception, the Bush administration invented a war which led directly to the deaths of about 1 million civilians. Welcome to Hell, boys. If the reconstituted Justice Department doesn’t get you, Satan surely will. I’m glad y’all are so religious, that’ll be worth five points.

2. Self-dealing. Richard Clarke noted your map showing an Iraq already divided between oil companies nine months before you declared war. In fact, self-dealing is the single term that describes the entire Bush time in office. Everything the Bush folk did was, in some way or other, self-dealing. Specifically, historians will be working for years to figure out how you managed to milk $3T (trillion) out of taxpayers and transfer it to – - well, that is the interesting question, isn’t it? Did it all go to Cheney, since he was the real president most of this time, and he retained real financial connections to Halliburton, and Halliburton got most of the money?

But that is being way too simple about all of this. Let’s just assume that, starting with Enron, Kenny Boy Lay, and moving through Cheney’s top-secret energy committee meetings, on into the Iraq War, you used every opportunity, not to serve your country, but to serve your friends. With $3T in cash. Oww! Gee, some large number of people are SURELY going to jail on that one. $10B in cash missing in boxes in the first weeks of the Iraq War, and today, maybe $350B missing so far, with so much more still undiscovered — WOW! George, there is no other word for this kind of theft from the taxpayer other than, well, breathtaking.

Don’t worry. We will find it. And we will find your fingerprints, and those of your self-dealing Texas pals, eventually. It might take three or four years, but we have time.

3. Perverting the Justice Department, and Justice, itself. Others have written eloquently about this; it was, generally, mirrored in the EPA, and in other government agencies. I personally think your goofy AG Gonzalez will serve time, and many of his mis-guided screwballs will also go to jail. Mssr. Yoo is first in line for writing 8th grade level deceptive opinions on why torture etc. was legal. Other appointees made for purely political purposes will come next.

In a brief not-quite summary: in addition to killing millions of innocent civilians without cause, self-dealing trillions of dollars to Halliburton, KBR, and your own family, and doing your best to destroy the Rule of Law and Bill of Rights in this country, there remain thousands of other, smaller, but also important, crimes, for which you

The Defendants, civilians
George W. Bush
Dick Cheney
Donald Rumsfeld
Douglas Feith
Richard Perle
Larry Franklin
Paul Wolfowitz
Condoleezzaa Rice
John Yoo
Alberto Gonzalez
Unnamed John Does in the Justice Department
Unnamed John Does in the EPA
Unnamed John Does in the other departments of government
“Scooter” Libby
Karl Rove

Are hereby charged to answer, on the xxth of February, at XXXX in Washington, DC.—-

The world is watching, and, more importantly, so is the nation. Even more important, so are the criminals who did these really, really horrible things.

This prosecutorial decision is not up to the Obama Transition Team. This is about breaking the law.

Krugman says that, without punishment, you will continue doing what your Dad did in Iran Contra.  BTW, George, I did in fact notice that your very first act in office was to extend the secrecy of your father’s archives, beyond their usual time coming public.  So: Iran Contra.  Daddy started it, You continued it.

I think Krugman is right: if no one is punished for the most flagrant and greatest violation of U.S. laws in history by (illegally?) elected politicians, how can we go forward?  How can the world, knowing that the Z Team is just waiting, in reserve, to come back onto the field and do it all over again?

Neither the country, nor the world, can afford it; nor can we afford even the doubt about it.

We need to be clear: when you intentionally, flagrantly, break the law, we will come after you.  Even if you are or were an elected official.

That is the most well-loved aspect of America, and it is the part of America we most want to keep.

So, Mssr. Obama, please don’t discuss this publicly at any greater length.  If I wanted you to be the person who decided whether the law mattered or not, I would have voted for you as the Decider, instead of as the President.

Put some steel in that backbone, and get used to having it there.  Your widest road to failure is paved with having no personal stand.   We all like Henry Clay when it comes to geographical compromise.  None of us would espouse the same approach to murder, or abrogation of the Bill of Rights.

The Bush Team is going to jail, and one hopes, quite soon.  Of course, then we’ll have to face the ultimate self-dealing question: Can a President pardon himself and all of his self-dealing friends for crimes in the future, for which they have yet to be charged?

The answer is no, but I have no doubt he, and they, will try.  They have already proved to us that they have no personal shame.

In this month’s conversation, Strategic News Service publisher Mark Anderson tells KPLU’s Dave Meyer about hot money and the oil bubble.”

Listen now: http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kplu/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1373074

Not long ago, I wrote in the SNS Newsletter www.stratnews.com and here that I thought the whole “peak oil” theory was wrong. At that time, I suggested that not only had there been several large “elephant” discoveries since the theory’s announcement (the theory suggests no more elephants, or big discoveries), but that more were yet to come.

Here is BusinessWeek from Nov, 2007:

“Petrobras announced Nov. 8 it has found between 5 billion and 8 billion barrels of light oil and gas at the Tupi field, 155 miles offshore southern Brazil in an area it shares with Britain’s BG Group and Portugal’s Galp Energy. Tupi is the world’s biggest oil find since a 12 billion-barrel Kazakh field was discovered in 2000, and the largest ever in deep waters. Perhaps more important, Petrobras believes Tupi may be Brazil’s first of several new “elephants,” an industry term for outsize fields of more than 1 billion barrels.

“Initially, Tupi will produce about 100,000 barrels a day but may ramp up to as much as 1 million before 2020—more than the biggest U.S. field in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay—”

This week, Brazilian hopes were proven true, as the new Carioca field was announced, fought over, re-evaluated, commented on, and re-drilled. Here is some text from Bloomberg:

Petroleo Brasileiro SA’s offshore Carioca prospect may hold 33 billion barrels of oil, enough to supply every refinery in the U.S. for six years, making it the third-largest oil field ever discovered.

Additional wells must be drilled to develop a “more conclusive” estimate, the Rio de Janeiro-based company said in an e-mailed statement. Only Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar and Kuwait’s Burgan fields are bigger: Ghawar holds as much as 83 billion barrels of crude, while Burgan has up to 72 billion.

Petrobras, as the company is known, rose almost 6 percent. U.S. depositary receipts of Repsol SA, a partner in the field, surged as much as 21 percent to $44.85, the stock’s largest daily gain. New York-based Hess Corp., which owns stakes in two nearby prospects, had its biggest intraday gain since 1981.

“If all of those barrels are recoverable, that’s a very significant find,” said Dick Gibson, a geologist who’s been advising oil and natural-gas producers since 1975. “That whole area off the coast of Brazil is becoming a new oil province.”

The Carioca field, also known as BM-S-9, is located beneath a layer of salt in the deepwater Santos Basin off Brazil’s southeastern coast, where Petrobras in November announced the discovery of the 8 billion-barrel Tupi field.

`Giant Field’

“This would be a giant field under any circumstances,” Merrill Lynch analysts Frank McGann and Shariff Koya said today in a note to clients. “If it were recoverable oil and gas, it would potentially dwarf Petrobras’s existing reserves.”

Brazil holds an estimated 12 billion barrels of crude reserves, South America’s second-largest deposit behind Venezuela, according to London-based BP Plc. If the 33 billion- barrel estimate for Carioca is confirmed by additional drilling, Brazil’s reserves would surpass those of Libya.

Carioca is 66 times larger than the Jack field discovered by Chevron Corp. in the Gulf of Mexico in 2004. San Ramon, California-based Chevron says it will cost more than $3 billion and almost a decade to bring the field into production.

for more, go to:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aHnLYLgBAlfM&refer=home

While others fight over whether the find will double or triple Brazil’s announced oil reserves, it’s clear that a brand-new field, underneath the salt dome off Brazil’s coast, will be one of the largest global finds of all time.

Although it will take as much as ten years to bring this to market, those won’t be idle years, as others speed up the feverish activity of finding new oil at today’s $110+ per bbl price. This will put a lot of pressure on those who want to keep the price high, as exploration teams come back with more and more finds, and the occasional elephant.

Can supply grow faster than demand? I imagine, particularly if the Western world continues to pursue an avenue of weaning itself asap from petroleum.

Today, producers have consumers exactly where they want: supply and demand, fed by Chinese futures contracts and speculators, have created a fake demand number equal or slightly higher than the supply. What would it take to deflate that price pressure? Not much. Just bringing fake demand down by perhaps a point or two would do it.

Don’t go long on oil, except in the short term. There’s plenty of it, and more where that came from.

http://satellitesky.blogspot.com/2007/11/new-elephant-oil-field-discovered-in.html