Center for a New American Security

A million thanks to Mike McCarthy and Amanda Hahnel, our two fabulous interns who provided you with news and analysis on this blog this fall. You're likely to still see a few pieces from them pop up in 2010, as they did more work than we had days to fill. They will be missed!

I'm skipping the news today - there is not much on the natural security front, but enough other important news for the nation to keep you all busy. If I see anything good today, I'll Tweet and Facebook it for you. We'll be taking tomorrow off to recover, so we'll see you all next Monday. Happy New Year!

1. Lithium: Not Just A Nirvana Song
2. 5 Questions with Someone Interesting: Gregory Johnsen
3. Beware of Climate Change Denialism: You’re the Target
4. 5 Questions with Someone Interesting: David Axe
5. Reading Old Magazines: Rare Earth Elements and Security 

• Reuters reports that recent snowstorms in the United States have claimed approximately 100 million bushels of corn, driving corn futures up 1 percent (a six-month high).
• More and more U.S. military officers are studying operational energy as part of their graduate coursework, according to DOD Energy Blog.
• A South Korean consortium led by the state-owned Korea Electric Power Corp has been awarded a $40 billion contract to build four 1,400 megawatt nuclear reactors in the United Arab Emirates, Reuters also reports. 
• In the wake of the failed bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight by a young Nigerian, The Washington Post explores some of the challenges facing Nigeria, including ill access to potable water. Meanwhile, the Financial Times explores Yemen’s rise to the top of the national security agenda, including its long-term challenges with dwindling oil production and poor access to water.
• The Sandusky Register offers an interesting profile of a decade of environmental initiatives and environment-related news, including climate change and natural disasters. 

David Mamet's 1977 play The Water Engine could have taken many forms. Mamet could have taken his basic premise—guy invents engine that runs on water—and easily turned it into a contemporary thriller, a futuristic sci-fi story, or a legal drama. But he chose to set the story in 1934 Chicago, during the Century of Progress Exhibition, because the Exhibition's theme—scientific innovation—dovetails perfectly with Mamet's own theme: where technology is concerned, businesses will always emphasize profit over utility. The Exhibition's unofficial motto—“science finds, industry applies, man conforms”— becomes an ironic counterpoint to this story of avarice and betrayal.

The story is simple. Charles Lang, a young factory worker, invents an engine that runs on distilled water. With the water, and a simple battery to spark the ignition, Lang's engine can put out eight horsepower—enough to power a modern lawnmower or tricked-out La-Z-Boy. Lang tries to get a patent, but the first lawyer he approaches betrays him and brings in industrial agents to intimidate and blackmail Lang for his secrets. Even before meeting the lawyer, Lang worries for his safety— for someone who’s never seen a Michael Clayton-style paranoid corporate thriller, he seems oddly cognizant of the danger he’s in—but he’s still powerless to stop the threat campaign against him.

• The San Francisco Chronicle profiles the progress made in U.S. energy policy during 2009.
• Some private corporations have started to track their own carbon dioxide emissions as part of a voluntary campaign to understand industry’s carbon footprint, The New York Times reports.
• Reuters reports that the Obama administration is slated to make loan guarantees to help revitalize America’s nuclear power industry.
• The Philadelphia Inquirer reports on some of the environmental issues that are causing tensions between the United States and Japan over the U.S. base closure on Okinawa.
• The Department of Defense has initiated a study to look at the long-term effects of smoke plumes emitted from burn pits at many of its overseas bases, according to Armed Forces Press Service.

Is it just me, or since Copenhagen are we seeing more and more reports on non-success stories (for lack of a better term) on clean energy and climate change? The past year provided countless stories of quick fixes, perfect policy concepts, start-ups and new clean-tech gadgets, with far fewer on overcoming policy hurdles, implementation or sustained innovation.

We bloggers will be on a break starting today, but will return next week. Look for our weekend review, natural security news, our 2010 wish list, and more starting Monday. Happy Holidays everyone!

Photo from beautiful Columbus, Ohio courtesy of Flickr.

• China will establish a rare earth reserve system in 2010, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced in the People’s Daily Online.
• The New York Times reports that the Nabucco pipeline should be viewed as a bridge between Turkey and Europe.
• Developing countries have begun to criticize the climate change accord that came out of Copenhagen, the Financial Times reports.  Meanwhile, some developed countries point fingers at China for the near collapse of talks, an accusation they flatly deny, The New York Times reports. India has reported that it is happy with the outcome of the talks and that its national interest has been "safeguarded," according to BBC.
• Green Inc. reports that Anchorage may face a shortage of natural gas as residents prepare for rolling blackouts.
• Meanwhile, Trade Arabia reports that the United Arab Emirates will build a food stockpile to help ensure food security in the region.

One of the great things about working in a new program area like Natural Security is that we’re constantly reassessing how to best address our research area. Recently, the implications of agriculture and food security on national security have been gaining prominence. When President Obama outlined his new strategy for the war in Afghanistan, he specifically noted that revitalizing the agricultural economy of that country was a step towards security. Elsewhere, reports on the links between climate change and agriculture and the importance of agriculture at Copenhagen have put our food system in the spotlight.

• According to Yemen’s news agency SABA, the UN is working to increase food security in Yemen, a country urgently in need of increased stability. Additionally, Reuters reports that the UN is calling on Middle Eastern states with oil wealth to help increase the food security of their less-fortunate neighbors.
• In a Newsweek interview, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton describes “reaching down” to the lower levels of the State Department to ask a critical question: “'What are we doing on food security?' There were riots last year. You look at changing climate patterns, migration patterns. Food is going to become more and more of an issue.” Meanwhile, Forbes notes that China is taking steps to secure its own food supplies.
• Stars and Stripes reports on what could become a crucial component of the NATO effort in Afghanistan: the ability to feed the starving portions of the Afghan population.
• In the end-of-the-year spirit, DOD Energy Blog offers its take on the Top Ten DOD Energy Events of 2009.
• Perhaps one bit of positive news coming out of Copenhagen: countries worked out a draft agreement to implement a working group reducing agriculture-based greenhouse gas emissions, according to Green Inc.

The big story for many of us this weekend was, of course, the monster blizzard that slammed the East Coast on Friday night, continuing through Sunday, stranding thousands during this peak travel season just before the holidays, including me. (I was supposed to fly out on Saturday afternoon, but to no avail. I am, at the time of this writing, stranded in the nation’s capitol. Though with any luck, by the time this is posted on Monday morning I will be airborne.)

Hundreds of thousands experienced power outages, while thousands of others were stranded as the northeastern corridor’s air, rail and road services were crippled by winter whiteouts and the nearly 2 feet of snow that covered many parts of the region.  In Washington, DC, snow accumulation from Saturday’s storm broke the city’s December snowfall record. Meanwhile traffic accidents claimed at least 5 people throughout the region.

The other big news, of course, was the announcement coming out of Copenhagen: the inability of global leaders to forge a binding agreement to address climate change – settling instead on a “take note” agreement, or “gentlemen’s agreement,” among the world’s major nations (The New York Times profiles the winner and losers of the so-called Copenhagen Accord).

An American civil affairs soldier surveys a canal that feeds into a recently installed solar powered water filtration system outside Zadan, Iraq. The filtration systems were recently installed by Iraqi contractors and can sanitize 15 liters of contaminated water per minute, providing safe drinking water to hundreds of nearby Iraqi families. According to officials with Multi-National Force-Iraq, "The filters collect and concentrate ultraviolet rays from the sun, killing harmful bacteria and providing safe drinking water for the local populace." The filtration system installed outside Zadan can currently supply 240 Iraqi families with 30 liters of clean water per day.

Photo: Courtesy of Multi-National Division - Baghdad. 

• Newsweek reports on the national security implications of a melting arctic.
• Danger Room reports that DARPA is exploring ways to "prevent or redirect natural lightning strikes;" an interesting way to adapt if climate change causes more frequent and intense storms. 
• Rear Admiral David Titley, Oceanographer of the Navy and director of the Navy’s Task Force Climate Change, told delegates in Copenhagen that “The U.S. Navy is committed to addressing global climate change using a science-based approach,” Navy News reports.
• President Obama calls on China to do more to mitigate climate change during his speech at Copenhagen, according to an A1 The New York Times story and Green, Inc. blog. Meanwhile, The Financial Times reports that President Obama will meet Premier Wen Jiabao to try to broker a deal the two parties can stand by.
• According to Green Inc., the U.S. Department of Agriculture has pledged $90 million over the next four years to combat climate change. 
• The New York Times also reports that new dams and development along the Mekong could create distrupt of destroy livelihoods.

Several years ago I was coaching a high school debate team in Boston and my students were asked to debate increasing alternative energy incentives in the United States. As one would expect, the debate became one about the effects of climate change. Some students used the tactic of arguing that climate change was a positive phenomenon. They mainly cited an author who wrote that CO2 emissions increase plant growth – in fact this became such a popular point that I heard it argued about five times a tournament, and never well. After digging around a bit more, what I found was that most of the students making this argument were basing their conclusions on one-sided evidence: literature that examined only one aspect of climatic effects on agriculture that negated the net result of increased global emissions (such as melting ice caps and rising sea level that destroy coastal vegetation).

With that in mind, for this week’s Reading Old Magazines I decided to look at a 1994 Nature study by Cynthia Rosenzweig, a senior research at NASA’s Goddard Institute, and Martin L. Parry, currently at the Grantham Institute, but previously a co-chair of Working Group II at the IPCC, called “Potential Impact of Climate Change on World Food Supply.” (pdf) Parry and Rosenzweig used the latest climate change models to determine the impacts of increasing CO2 emissions on agriculture, although they only looked at the atmospheric effects and not water acidification. They then applied the results to a trade model that examined how shifts in growing patterns would affect worldwide food distribution models.

• Foreign Policy features a story about the possibly feckless future of Russia's influential natural gas firm, Gazprom.
• The BBC reports that at this point, even the Danish delegation is trying to tamp down expectations of a grand climate deal to emerge from its capital city. The Washington Post reports that China, too, remains doubtful.
• The Marine Corps will soon be deploying its first battlefield-ready solar power unit to Afghanistan, according to the intrepid DOD Energy Blog.
• The Pakistan Observer features a column about water security problems in Pakistan, a country whose stability is a keen interest of the United States.
• A NASA news story reports that California has experienced major groundwater loss since 2003, which could have “major implications for the U.S. economy, as California's Central Valley is home to one sixth of all U.S. irrigated land, and the state leads the nation in agricultural production and exports.”

If you put your ear up to the Oval Office and listen very carefully, you can hear the gentle sound of ocean waves lapping. That’s because the presidentially-mandated Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force (hereafter “the task force”) has just released its full report to supplement the interim report (pdf) already released in September. We have covered issues relating to the task force periodically on this blog, but I wanted to create a one-stop reference on the task force for you, dear readers.

President Obama authorized the task force on June 12 (pdf). It is an interagency effort, guided by the Council on Environmental Quality and consisting of representatives from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of the Interior, the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Navy, and other agencies. The task force was charged with “developing a recommendation for a national policy that ensures protection, maintenance, and restoration of oceans, our coasts and the Great Lakes. It will also recommend a framework for improved stewardship, and effective coastal and marine spatial planning.” (Note: though I hail from the greatest city in the country, I’m not going to focus on the Great Lakes here). To this end, task force members traveled the country and held a series of public meetings (pdf all) to gather information on ocean issues. These matters may appear to be solely the purview of environmental policy makers, but the world’s oceans raise major security issues for U.S. national security policy makers as well.

• Some major diplomatic heavyweights are publishing op-eds on climate change. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote in the International Herald Tribune on America’s goals for an agreement on climate change that emphasizes U.S. leadership on the issue. Meanwhile, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen published a piece in the Huffington Post about NATO and the security implications of climate change.
• Liquid-coal technology goes commercial as several airlines sign MOUs with Rentec, a manufacturer of the fuel, Green Inc. reports.
• The New York Times reports in a page A1 story that there are major safety concerns associated with China’s rapid expansion of nuclear power.
• Bangladesh is in the final stage of testing a new flood resistant strain of rice that could survive underwater for two weeks, BBC reports.
• The New York Times also reports on an “all but completed” deal at Copenhagen to compensate countries for preserving their forests.
• World Policy Journal released an entire issue focused on water issues in world politics.

Yesterday morning I took the Red Line up to the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies to attend a presentation by the head of the Energy Information Administration (EIA), Dr. Richard Newell. The event, “EIA’s Updated Energy Forecasts to 2035,” projected America’s energy profile for the next 25 years. This presentation was a preview of the EIA’s full projection, which should be unveiled in the next few months.

Dr. Newell first laid out the assumptions made by EIA researchers, which are mainly too complex to render here. However, one important example is that the EIA assumes that current laws and regulations will stay the same and that there will be no significant breakthroughs in energy technologies (alternative energy vehicles, or otherwise). With these assumptions in mind, here are some of the highlights from the projection:

• By 2035, crude oil will be trading at about $224/barrel (nominal 2035 dollars; this is projected to be about $135 in 2008 dollars).
• The ratio of oil to natural gas prices will be high, and oil will be about three times as expensive as gas.
• Non-fossil fuel energy use will rise, but in 2035, 78% of U.S. energy use will still rely on fossil fuels.
• Coal use will rise by 12%, mostly for electricity generation. Natural gas use will rise by 7%, and nuclear power use will rise by 11%.
• Energy efficiency will cause energy use to drop, but structural shifts will be even more significant (e.g., a continued shift in the United States away from a manufacturing-based economy and towards a service-based economy).
• Ethanol will be a significant biofuel, and its use in the United States will triple by 2035. However, liquid biofuels will not account for a significant portion of total energy consumed in the United States.

All of this may be disheartening for anybody hoping for more renewable energy use in the near-to-mid-term. Still, the EIA predicts that in 2035 that a greater portion of electricity will be produced from domestic sources of natural gas, resulting in a modicum of increased energy security. Also, biofuels and renewable energy production will be growing at steady rates, which could help eventually wean the country off petroleum dependence (but not likely by 2035).

Dr. Newell noted that interested energy-heads can poke around the EIA’s website to check previous projections against the actual energy numbers that were consumed. He also noted—when asked directly—that the EIA has historically fared better in predicting quantities of energy consumed than it has in predicting prices of individual energy sources. It will be interesting to check the site in 2036 to see how well this projection predicted the future.

• The Washington Post reports that with the decision to send additional troops to Afghanistan, “getting aviation and diesel fuel to U.S. air and ground forces there” could be one of the biggest challenges. Meanwhile Danger Room features a post about DOD efforts to reduce energy costs in its warzones, including a “renewable energy test site” in Kabul. DOD Buzz also notes the imminent logistics cost of the surge in Afghanistan, much of which goes to energy.
• The Department of Energy is becoming a contender in the clean-energy venture capital market—so much so that even The Wall Street Journal is weighing in.
• Forbes reports on Chinese President Hu Jintao's recent visit to Kazakhstan, and what it means for China's energy ambitions in the region.
• According to the BBC, climate negotiations are “back on track” in Copenhagen after a walkout by developing countries earlier in the day. Meanwhile, The New York Times reports on how melting glaciers are affecting Bolivia and raising its Copenhagen profile.
• Russia's ITAR-TASS reports on Russian President Medvedev's call for an international energy security treaty.

You couldn’t swing a dead polar bear this weekend without hitting hundreds of reports and commentaries about Copenhagen or Climategate, so I’m going to focus my attention elsewhere.

Last week we CNASers gathered around for an informal lunchtime chat, and several of us voiced concern about the recession, lack of confidence in Wall Street, and – my favorite topic of conversation – informal markets. I don’t consider black markets by necessity threatening, wrong, or bad, but at times less-than-legal dealings become large, interesting, and potentially disruptive.

This weekend, The Washington Post reported on just such an event. It turns out that “Drug traffickers employing high-tech drills, miles of rubber hose and a fleet of stolen tanker trucks have siphoned more than $1 billion worth of oil from Mexico's pipelines over the past two years.”

Following on our theme of blogging about last weekend’s visit to the USS Harry S. Truman, we offer a shaky and hopefully entertaining photo of two natural security bloggers – Christine on the left and Will on the right – as the photo of the week. Here we are strapped into a C-2 COD (Carrier Onboard Delivery), a critical logistics aircraft which they told us was the safest plane in which to land on the carrier.

• Yesterday during his acceptance speech in Oslo, President Obama announced that with climate change, “our common security hangs in the balance,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
• Meanwhile, The New Security Beat compiles a list of forthcoming events at Copenhagen about the security implications of climate change.
• Each member of the European Union has agreed to commit between $3.1 billion and $3.6 billion per year to help poor countries deal with climate change, BBC and The New York Times report, respectively.
• Senators Kerry, Lieberman, and Graham unveiled new climate change legislation yesterday timed to draw attention to U.S. domestic efforts at Copenhagen, Green Inc. reports.
• Competition for oil continues in Iraq as the country starts its second round of bidding for new oil field contracts today. Unfortunately electricity generation still lags, underscoring the infrastructure problems of working in Iraq, The Financial Times and The New York Times report.
• Finally, yesterday the White House announced the nomination of our own Sharon Burke, CNAS VP, launcher of our natural security work and fearless leader here at the blog, as Director of Operational Energy Plans and Programs for the Department of Defense. Congratulations, Sharon! 

Earlier this week my colleague Christine Parthemore and I wrote about CNAS’s recent excursion aboard the USS Harry S. Truman, a Nimitz-class carrier whose tactical air wing consists of F/A-18C/D Hornets and F/A-18E/F Super Hornets. For this week’s Reading Old Magazines I wanted to look at the history of the F/A-18 fleet, specifically around concerns over fuel performance. I dug up an interesting story by Lyndsey Layton of The Washington Post from March 25, 2003, just days into Operation Iraqi Freedom: “Modified Fighter Jet Lends More Fuel to the Fight.” (Subscription required. It is obviously not an old magazine, but some days an exception is in order) Layton’s piece does a great job of framing operational energy security in the context of yesterday’s battles and today’s wars.

According to Layton, shortly after U.S. combat operations in Iraq began, the U.S. air campaign shifted from bombing fixed Iraqi targets to bombing soldiers and weapons in the field. However, the U.S. Navy quickly realized that the fuel performance of its strike fighters was impeding its ability to carry out protracted missions that required jets to loiter in the skies above Iraq.  “For those missions,” Layton wrote, “pilots [needed] to circle over Iraq for long periods, awaiting calls to strike Iraqi units menacing U.S. ground forces making their way toward Baghdad.”

• Britain's Daily Mail chronicles a new UN report claiming that climate change will increase world hunger between 10 and 20 percent by 2050.
• The Australian reports on Japan's possible plans for a “resource grab” of rare earth elements, which are used in many Japanese electronic products and hybrid car engines.
• In Copenhagen today, U.S. climate negotiator Todd Stern told developing countries they will not get a free pass on cutting emissions but instead need to make their own commitments, according to Scientific American. Meanwhile, the BBC reports on scientists from the Scripps Research Institute who will argue at Copenhagen today that the UN's numbers have underestimated the climate change problem.
• Multi-National Force Iraq reports that U.S. forces in Baghdad are working with Iraqis on solar-powered water filters to ensure water security.
• Navy News reports that the Department of the Navy received the Platts Global Energy Award for its environmental efforts.

For today’s Top 5 list I decided to examine the most prominent energy chokepoints around the world. Since shocks to oil transit systems in any one region can affect prices worldwide, it’s good practice to know the basics of these chokepoints.

The Strait of Hormuz

Perhaps the best-known and most fretted-over chokepoint is the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. The reason is simple: about 20 percent of the world's traded oil (between 16 and 17 billion barrels per day) transits this passage, which is 21 miles wide at its narrowest point. There are also potential dangers specific to the Strait of Hormuz, namely Iran’s oft-analyzed potential to mine the strait to temporarily slow or stop freighter traffic. Caitlin Talmadge’s 2008 International Security article gave an open-source technical explanation (pdf) for how the strait could be mined, and a report from the Office of Naval Intelligence examines Iran’s overall naval strategy in the Gulf (pdf).  If you’d like to earn a full certification in my proposed new international relations subfield known as “Hormuz Mining Studies,” there are yet (pdf) more analyses readily available. Many of these analyses, however, are careful to note that Iran would suffer serious economic consequences from shutting the strait down, and analysts tend to agree that an Iranian mining campaign would be an operation of last resort.