Post by from “The Oil Crash” – Translation from Spanish by Max Iacono

by Antonio Turiel

“All told,” I say, “I would say that if France has invaded Mali,  it’s for the uranium.  You know that don’t you?”  

“Of course I do!  Everyone knows it.”

Night was falling,  cold,  rainy and dark,  over Bordeaux.  I found myself looking at my friend, once my boss.  He was looking at the ground and then continued in a calm voice:

“France has 89 nuclear power stations, 59 of which are commercial.  83% of the electricity produced comes from nuclear sourcing.  We can’t do without uranium.”

I didn’t say anything and we continued walking.  I had lived for several years in France and at the time I didn’t quite understand how to interpret the curious display of cynicism and pragmatism with which the French public accepted certain kinds of barbaric actions  which their government committed in the name of “La France”.

*******

For a few weeks, France has been at war.  Several thousand soldiers and dozens of armored vehicles have been deployed to the battlefront in Mali.  The objective:  to prevent the advance of the Islamic front which has rebelled in the north of the country after the fall of Gheddafi in Lybia, and also due to the fear that the country could transform itself into one of the various nests of Jihad which is threatening the western world.  Or at least this is, broadly speaking, the official explanation.

Gheddafi had kept himself in power thanks to mercenary units formed starting with various Tuareg desert tribes,  and these mercenaries,  -upon the fall of the Lybian dictator, -and together with the training and military equipment they had received,- took refuge with their cousins in Mali.  In Mali and in Niger, for several years and periodically from time to time,  various armed groups rebelled calling for and seeking better living conditions for the Tuareg.  However this time their military capacities were considerably more significant.  In just over a year the Tuareg took control of two thirds of the country and without Mali’s weak and corrupt army being able to do much to stop them:  That the problem has the character of a civil war is evidenced also by the fact that not just a few of the various army units switched sides, something also indicating that Mali’s government does not have the unconditional support of its population.

In fact before France began its bombings on the 11th of January, both factions had agreed to a cease fire and were negotiating a peace accord.  Nonetheless, France pretended to present the internal conflict as a battle for democracy and against Islamic fundamentalism and organized a coalition of African countries as a defense force.   And this, so as not to appear like the old colonialist power which interferes in the affairs of its ex colony.  And it even managed to secure a UN resolution to justify the intervention.  But the support of its allies was nonetheless lukewarm.  Other than some words of support from the United States and some cargo airplanes from its European allies, France found itself alone in its fighting in Mali, while the African coalition force is yet to arrive. The fact is that France started to deploy its troops without waiting for anyone else as soon it found itself facing the real possibility that the government of Mali could fall,  and that the Tuareg could come to power.

What is driving France in this manner in Mali?  It is neither petroleum nor gas, primary resources whose potentially exploitable quantities in the country are not significant,  and which also easily could be obtained elsewhere.  Nor is it the precious metals that the country is rich in.  Rather, what is driving France to act at this time is uranium and, moreover, from a double perspective, that is, both short-term and long- term.

In the long term exploiting the uranium mines in Mali will be fundamental to satisfying the Gallic hunger for uranium on which depends its entire industrial model – one of which they are also often proud,  given that they consider the nuclear energy which is produced as indigenous (notwithstanding the fact that the base fuel, uranium, is obtained outside the country)

The quantities of uranium in Mali are significant but not spectacular, -(if one considers that at Falea there are roughtly 5,000 tons of natural uranium which is equivalent to recharging ten times – once every 18 months-  a nuclear power plant of one Gigawatt capacity,   and that the exploration phase for additional uranium is not even yet complete)  But in any case, these mines will be indispensable in the future.  And in the short term, the aspect for which Mali is crucial for France is for the transportation of uranium from Niger – not to be confused with Nigeria.  This is indeed truly fundamental for French industry:  One third of the uranium which is consumed in the old metropolitan country comes from the territory of Niger.  And the uranium resources of Niger are truly important and significant and  are among the largest in the world….

France has suffered many setbacks in Niger, which just like Mali , is one of its old colonies.  Throughout the years the governments of Niger have been rather docile and have allowed the extraction of their uranium at low cost and without having to include or internalize the costs of the environmental damage that extraction generated.  The majority of the mines are open-pit surface mines which degrade the living conditions of the peoples of Niger nearby, who often have been placed under military influence or control whenever that became necessary.  This has generated frequent revolts, strikes and increasing difficulties for the exploitation of such mines,  also due to the armed persecution on the part of separatist groups near the border with Mali.   In fact certain experts are of the opinion that behind the precipitous French action there was also the need to reinforce the security of the mines, and the observable  facts tend to confirm this directly.

To the difficulties of exploiting Niger’s uranium which already existed for some years,  now also can be added the more recent competition in the field with China, which has obtained various mining concessions in Niger and is expanding rapidly its own operations in that country.  Incapable of competing with such a powerful country,  the French company Areva opted for seeking collaboration and partnership in some mining projects, also in an attempt to lower its costs.  And this is fundamentally because the resource which it desperately needs is becoming ever more scarce, expensive and dangerous to extract in addition to now also having to be shared.

All of this scarcity on the part of our cousins on the other side of the Alps (the original article was in Spanish) takes place in a general global context  which is not at all flattering or encouraging:  Uranium is becoming more rare and scarce.  At the moment a relative stagnation is occurring in its extraction. :  According to data from the World Nuclear Association,  2012 is the the second year in a row during which global extraction has decreased.  (54,660 tons in 2010, 54,610 in 2011 and 54,221 in 2012)  Even if such oscillations of production which are observable in the historical data -coupled also with the Fukushima disaster- have decreased slightly uranium demand, there continues to be a considerable difference between the uranium which is extracted and that which is consumed;  the latter having been up to now covered by the re-cycling of uranium from Russian nuclear warheads that were being dismantled in keeping with the Megatons to Megawatts program.  Unfortunately that program will run out precisely this year, in 2013, and will not be renewed or continued, and therefore we also can expect a deficit of uranium whereby one easily can foresee a fairly serious scenario of fresh problems in its supply;  and perhaps even the precipitous arrival of the feared “peak uranium”.  And it is within this ever more tense and tight market for uranium that France is now playing out its own “raison d’etre”.

This war by France is yet another of the various wars for resources, similar to other preceding ones, and to others which will follow it.  The only thing which differentiates it from those which surely will follow it, is the extent of desperation by the aggressor.   The Industrial France which arose again with force in the twentieth century,  is now agonizing.  Its financial condition is not nearly as good or as healthy as is thought,  and probably will become prey to the same vultures which have not stopped observing and watching Spain, even if at the moment the opposite is being pretended.

France is playing with an important part of the survival of its industrial model in trying to assure its supply of uranium from Niger and Mali.  If it were now to fail, the vacillating economic and industrial fabric of France would not be able to allow itself another war.   This war is the Song of the Proud Gallic Rooster.  Perhaps its last.

Cheers, AMT

Ian Dunlop, is an energy expert, director of “Australia 21,” member of the Club of Rome, and more. On climate change, he is an extremely effective speaker who doesn’t do any pill sugaring; as you can see in the video above. The slides he presents are also avaliable on-line. From this set of slides, here is the conclusion:

The climate crisis in three easy charts

I’m preparing to pivot back to climate crisis, starting with some reformatting of the earlier Climate Series posts — the transition to WordPress wasn’t kind to them — and the organization of this material into book form. (There’s also a climate-themed novel in the works; thriller fans, stay tuned.)
As a result, I’m doing serious study to refine both the concepts (or rather, the explanation of them) and the dating of coming events (the crisis in its various stages).

The first part of that pivot includes two media appearances this week. I’ll be on Virtually Speaking With Jay Ackroyd this Thursday (May 2) at 9 pm ET to discuss climate crisis for a full hour, followed by a Sunday appearance with Avedon Carol as part of the Virtually Speaking Sundays weekly media panel.
It’s the climate discussion I want to focus on here, and I’d like to do it by focusing on three diagrams and a few references back to my earlier climate pieces.

Climate catastrophe will usher in a new geologic era

Long-scale earth history is divided into Eons, then Eras, then Periods. But in fact, prior to the Cambrian Period, when life on earth exploded in number and variety, earth history is the story of non-life or small single- or multi-celled life. And starting with the Cambrian period, there’s just one “eon” anyway. It’s eras and periods we care about.

So let’s start there, with the Cambrian Period and the flourishing of life on earth. Consider the chart below:

The divisions across the top are geologic periods, starting with the Cambrian (“Cm”), the period of “visible life”‘ — meaning a proliferation of hardshelled species. It’s the big explosion of life on earth. The numbers across the bottom are millions of years ago. The spikes show extinction events, with the percentage of marine species going extinct expressed on the vertical or Y axis.
The chart doesn’t call them out, but starting with the Cambrian period, we’ve had three geologic eras (the larger divisions):

The Paleozoic Era runs from the start of the graph to the big spike at 250 million years ago on the X axis. It encompasses six geologic periods and ended in the greatest mass extinction event on the planet — geologists call it the “Great Dying”.

The Mesozoic Era runs from the Great Dying at 250 million years ago to the big spike at 65 million years ago, the event that wiped out the dinosaurs — and every other large species. That cleared the way for mammals to grow big and thrive.

We’re now in the Cenozoic Era. Keep those transitions in mind — when mass extinctions change which groups of species can evolve and rule, it’s the end of an era and the start of another. Now look at the chart again. The whole chart shows 540 million years, and just three geologic eras. The next extinction event on the scale of the one at 250 million years ago, or the one at 65 million years ago, will change the shape of life on earth and usher in a new era. Ready for that?

[Update: For a chart that shows geologic eras, periods and their subdivisions in one place, click here. Opens in a new tab.]

Where does man fit in?

Great question — where does man fit in? Answer: We come in very late.
First, notice the last three geologic “periods” at the top-right in the chart above. The period marked “K” is the Cretaceous, the period at the end of the Mesozoic Era. The next period (“Pg”) is the Paleogene, the one that marks the start of the Cenozoic (new life) Era. The period after that (“N”) is the Neogene, which ended just 2 million years ago. The period after that, not shown, is the Quarternary Period, our current one.

The Neogene-Quarternary boundary is the start of the time of great glaciers, and the best way to show that is with the chart below, showing earth temperatures mapped across the geologic periods (at the left end) and geologic epochs (the rest of the chart).

Click here to open the full version in another tab. It’s a big, interesting chart. (Source here.)

First, get oriented. On the Y axis is global temperature using change — in °C — from global temperature in the year 1800 as the norm or zero mark. (The global pre–Industrial Revolution temperature is generally the mark from which other global temperatures are measured, unless otherwise noted. To convert from °C to °F, just double the number; you’ll be pretty close.)
On the X axis, the first big division — from 542 million years ago to 65 million years ago — represents the first two geologic eras, the Paleozoic and Mesozoic (which unfortunately aren’t called out on this chart). “K” at the top and bottom is still the Cretaceous Period, and the end of the Cretaceous Period is also the end of the dinos and the end of the Mesozoic Era.

In this respect, both charts are the same. Man hasn’t showed up yet — our mammal ancestors were the equivalent of field mice in that world, small prey with soft shells and hiding skills.

But before we look at the rest of the X axis, notice that in the left-most part of the chart, the Y axis shows a huge change in global temperature relative to pre-Industrial norms. Looks like a monster spike, especially the first one, doesn’t it?

But let’s not get distracted. Let’s set some markers in this chart in the horizontal (time) dimension. The whole rest of the chart — the part after the period called “K” — shows the  Cenozoic Era (“new life” or Age of Mammals).

From here to the right, the chart’s subdivisions show Epochs, which are sub-parts of Periods.

[Update: For a chart that shows the relationship between eras, periods and epochs, click here. it will help you stay oriented.]

Jump through the next five divisions — the epochs marked “Pal” through “Pliocene”. That takes you through the Neogene Period (“N” in the first chart) and to the start of the modern Quarternary Period, the one we’re in, and the one we’re interested in.

The epoch of the Pleistocene, which starts the Quarternary Period (again, see the chart), is the great age of glaciers. Homo habilis evolves at this time, a little over 2 million years ago. Homo erectus evolves shortly afterward. Each starts in Africa — now you can probably guess why — and each leaves Africa and spreads across the globe. (Homo erectus, by the way, lasts a long time on this earth. Longer than us by a lot.)

Homo sapiens evolved much later, in the Pleistocene — the age of glaciers, remember — just 250 thousand years ago, almost died out in Africa, but rebuilt our numbers, then spread out of Africa like our cousins. Because that was the glacier age, we’re still hunter-gatherers like the the rest of our cousins. The big beasts of the earth are creatures like woolly mammoths and sabre-tooth tigers, and we’re all alive on a fairly frozen planet with glaciers coming and going.

At the end of the Pleistocene is another extinction event. At the same time that the last glaciers recede (see chart), the big mammoths and tigers (et al) die off. Simultaneous with a noticeable change in climate, what we call “human civilization” begins. You can see that above, around 12–10 thousand years ago [corrected] as the planetary temperature stabilizes. From then until almost now, planetary temperature is pretty stable. Notice it doesn’t take much of a wobble to mark the “Little Ice Age”.

Just two more points to make in this piece and I’m done.

First the bad news

Folks, that little climb in temperature you see near the right end of the graph above is just the beginning. Remember the Cambrian spike at the left end of the graph? Take another look and note the increase — about 7°C. Now here’s Figure 21 from the Copenhagen Diagnosis, a report prepared by … oh … every single one of the world’s top climate scientists for the benefit of our world’s “leaders,” who met in 2009 to discuss how to pass the climate buck one more time:

What you see is temperatures from 500 AD to about 2000, with a number of prediction scenarios going forward. See the scenario called “A1FI”? It’s the one in red. That’s the one we’re on if we don’t stop spewing carbon. I call it the “do nothing” scenario — otherwise known as the “Keep David Koch Happy” scenario.
All you need to know? We’re on track for about +7°C — the peak temperature in the big Cambrian spike — by the year 2100.

Now the good news

Despite all this doom-and-gloom, it’s not over yet. Truly. By my calculation, we have a 5–10 year window to avoid the catastrophe. It won’t be easy — we’re past the point where any transition will be smooth — but we can make the transition and survive as a civilized species, humans in a recognizable world.
But two things are needed:

1. This has to be our top priority, which means you and everyone you know has to be fully aware and in full battle gear. (For reference, it’s called “hugging the monster.”)
2. It’s us vs. David Koch and all of his friends and enablers. Tackling any other enemy is tackling a dummy while the game is being played.

Educate your friends, and put a wrench into the Koch machine. How’s that not a plus?

If the Koch Bros keep getting rich, we move backward. If Barack “Hope & Change” Obama approves Keystone, we move backward. If the U.S. develops “domestic oil” resources, we move backward. For every new car (“carbon-delivery system”) sold, we move backward. People need to know this and think like this. We can stop the crisis, but only if we stop carbon. It’s that simple; and that stark.

But it’s also doable, and we’re the species that’s most equiped for “doable.” It’s what our big brains are for.

I’ll have more in the weeks and months ahead. I haven’t given up, not by a long shot. But you can’t pull out of a tail spin if you don’t admit you’re in one. Me, I think we can pull out.

[Updated for clarity and to correct two typographic errors, one in naming and one in the age of our species. We're 250 thousand years old, not 250 million. Also updated to add links to a chart showing all eras, periods and epochs in relationship to each other.]
GP

Here is a perfect example of the phenomenon that I called the “Seneca Effect” and which is at the origin of many types of collapse.

“It would be some consolation for the feebleness of our selves and our works if all things should perish as slowly as they come into being; but as it is, increases are of sluggish growth, but the way to ruin is rapid.“  Lucius Annaeus Seneca 4 AD – 65 AD

h/t Grinzo See also “The Frog that Jumped out“

Image from CelsiasThe round number of 400 ppm of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has no special physical significance. The dreaded atmospheric “tipping point” that will lead us to climate catastrophe could have been passed already, or perhaps it co…