Is This the Real Threat to Oil?
Tolling Bells By Bisi Ojediran, Email & Tel: bisiojediran@thisdayonline.com, 08079861689 (Sms only),

Nigeria’s hopeless overdependence on crude oil is the reason the country was badly hit by the global economic crisis. But it would seem that with the vigorous search for fresh energy sources, the country will always be punished for this complacency. There is another energy source which is already being celebrated as “a wonder…that may save the planet.”
I don’t believe the world can wean itself off crude oil consumption soon, and I am not one of those who claim Nigeria’s oil reserves will dry up in the next decade. There are many interesting possibilities offshore, but don’t let me bore you with numbers.
Indeed experts say prices will continue to rise not only because of China’s large appetite, but also the competition for available energy sources will also be played in India, a resurgent East Asia, Japan and other regions.
The point is that any factor or development that reduces global demand for oil as we just witnessed in the economic meltdown, is sure to distabilise Nigeria’s revenue stream and its monocultural economy.
The belated admission of the country’s vulnerability to the global economic crisis again spurred the usual rhetoric about the much needed economic diversification. But now that the oil market is getting bullish again and some relative peace is being restored in the volatile Niger Delta, the promise is likely to remain on paper, where it always belonged.
That is not unexpected in a country that is more preoccupied with sharing the national cake baked from oil than wealth creation. With short-term forecast of rising oil prices, the country will habitually forget the pains of the last few months.
Even the more traumatic ones are easily forgotten. Why not? Money, oil money, enjoyed mostly by a few in a highly skewed income distribution environment, breeds amnesia and blunts pain. Why else is the country visibly indifferent to the sad reality that its economic status is a sharp contrast to its natural and human resources?
What convincing explanation is there for the irony that the eighth largest exporter of oil imports all of its petroleum products needs? That most of the national infrastructure, including electricity supply, are epileptic; that over 70 per cent of the population are poor; and that the country’s true federalism (some want to call it fiscal federalism) has been lost to oil?
How can a nation be blind to what other oil producers have done with oil money, even when its rich and mighty have found a haven in Dubai?
Of course it is also easy to understand why the country has forgotten that since our forefathers made fire by rubbing pieces of flint together to make sparks and depended on sun and wood for energy, the source of energy has continued to change. Fossil fuels – coal, natural gas, and oil – are in vogue now. The first major use of fossil fuels began during the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century. But it was not until the beginning of the 20th century that coal displaced wood as the dominant source of fuel for the new industrial economy.
However, since the 1970s when an OPEC embargo against the United States, made people begin to think about a world without oil, quiet efforts have been on to reduce overdependence on oil.
Besides it was not lost on the world that although in the 1980s the three major fossil fuels accounted for 82 per cent of the world’s commercial energy production, they are only available in a fixed supply, and are being rapidly depleted.
Also fossil fuels are coming under pressure from growing consensus over global warming. For example, earlier this year, leaders from the world’s emerging economies and G8 countries agreed to reduce global warming, caused in the main by the use of fossil fuel.
Enter Lithium, the new wonder! Lithium-ion batteries are integral to the automobile industry’s plans to wean itself off fossil fuels. In the last few years, Lithium, the lightest of all metals, which is the key ingredient in the rechargeable batteries that keep cell phones and laptops humming, has been promising a revolution in energy consumption.
Before now, Lithium was a minor commodity, used in small quantities by manufacturers of glass, grease and mood-stabilizing drugs. No more. Demand skyrocketed as Blackberry and iPods became popular. Between 2003 and 2007 the battery industry doubled its consumption of Lithium carbonate, the most common ingredient used in lithium-based products. The Lithium-ion battery is now seen as the magic for the hybrid and electric car revolution.
Experts believe that just as gas engine made petroleum the world’s biggest commodity, the electric car, an option being desperately explored, could do the same for Lithium. It’s already on track to replace up to 148 billion barrels of oil.
According to Money Morning, starting in early 2010, automakers on the planet will begin flooding the market with electric-powered cars: Mercedes launches its S400 HYBRID sedan early in 2010, with the E-Class, M-Class, and GL-Class tailing it closely; Tesla Motors has delivered its American-made Roadster, an all-electric two-seater sports car and plans to debut its Model S sedan in 2011;Nissan has retooled a factory in Tennessee to produce 150,000 pure electric cars, called The Leaf; Ford is bringing out the pure electric Transit Connect commercial fleet van in 2010 and plans to invest $550 million to retool a Michigan truck plant to manufacture a pure electric Focus in 2011; and Chinese car makers Hafei and Coda are planning to bring a mass-produced electric car to market in California in fall 2010.
Also General Motors is banking on the new technology for its rebirth. It is counting on Lithium-ion batteries to power its revolutionary new electric hybrid car, the Chevy Volt, starting in 2010.
Overall, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has projected that hybrids will be 20 per cent of the U.S auto market by 2015, while J.D. Power predicts that hybrids and electric cars will make up 50 per cent of cars in Europe by 2015.
Although it has been argued that there simply isn’t enough economically recoverable Lithium on the planet to support the auto industry’s ambitious plans, ongoing and future investment in Lithium belie that claim.
Reports indicate that the world’s biggest energy players are staking in Lithium. Here are some examples: Korea and Japan are collecting over 150,000 tons of potential reserves in Western Australia.
The U.S government recently provided $8 billion (this first step in a $25 billion loan programme) to gear up production in the U.S., and China has announced plans to jack up production 461 per cent by 2011.It just laid out $429 million to build the country’s largest refinery on the Yangtze River – even as they send troops into Tibet to lock up new reserves.
Even NASA is getting into the act with a multi-million contract to develop the next generation Lithium-ion technology for rovers, landers, and astronaut packs.
And here is the lesson for Nigeria: The United Arab Emirates, the world’s third largest oil-exporter, has announced a 40 per cent stake in a company developing the technology to fire up this technology.
There is need for Nigeria to be futuristic with oil earnings, at least to fully develop the gas industry.

NO COMMENTS: Chukwuma Soludo

T his is the section where Tolling Bells reports high profile issues that require the hmmm response. No comments! The other day at the airport, I overhead two gentlemen in a harmless, but interesting discussion over the governorship aspirations of former CBN Governor, Charles (ah, sorry) Chukwuma Soludo. Luckily, both were good listeners so I didn’t need a tape recorder to store their conversation.
The man in a brown suit, a lawyer, spoke first: “I don’t understand this Soludo man o. Give it to him, he is an intellectual, so I wonder why he did not return quietly into international consultancy to enjoy whatever he earned from CBN. Consulting for the World Bank, where his friends Ngozi Iweala and Oby still are should be fulfilling. Now, people are saying all the dirty things against him. I hear even a court has barred him from parading himself as a candidate, and some people are saying he is in the race for the immunity governorship provides. They say at least the PDP will protect him. I am a lawyer o, but I am not cut for this Anambra or Ekiti politics. Who send am sef?”
The other man, a civil servant, had finished the Coke he was drinking. He adjusted his long, white robe, cleared his throat and spoke slowly: “What immunity? Does Lamido Sanusi look like your kind of man to cover up crime? Don’t you think by joining the race, Soludo has rather over-exposed himself to attack? I am not sure I also understand Soludo o, but as a civil servant I have been close enough to public figures to know that many of them find it difficult to return into obscurity after so much, call it, showmanship in power. The psychology of human motivation is a difficult subject, but I think he makes sense by saying that elite indifference to politics is a crime against humanity and that personal inconvenience should not keep people out of politics. Problem is that as far as I remember, Anambra has been ruled by elites, yet…”
At that point their flight was announced.
The lawyer was quick to chip in this: “I salute his courage but I hope it is not a courageous mistake.”
“Professors are known to be calculating, so let’s wait and see,” the civil servant grabbed his can of Coke forgetting he had emptied it down his tummy. They both laughed over that and strolled away.