What will power the next superpower??

Life is a flow of energy, and it requires a flow of energy to sustain itself. No wonder it is true for nations and more so for Superpowers!!
World has had superpowers before and it doesnt look like we are going to be deprived of one in the future as well.
Romans and Greeks probably did it on the basis of their agricultural prowess.Not surprising given that we did have these energy guzzling machineries in that era.
British did it on coal and steam engine. This brought about an industrial revolution and an inflexion point in human history.
USA carried that forward but on a magic liquid called the black gold a.k.a oil.
All the erstwhile empires lost their prominence on the world stage with loss of control on the source of energy or an alternative source coming about.And it also not surprising that the empires perished trying to get hold of these resources.
Greeks, Roman and British Empires were all victims of their own expansionary and imperialistic ambitions.These ambitions were not whims and fancies of the empire but became a requirement as needs of the empire and its people grew. It became the pre-requisite for sustenance.
Today we recognise US as the sole superpower.Oil is what powered it to these heights. It won the World Wars on oil.It achieved the highest state of living in the history of human civilisation, driven by oil.But as i have argued before, think we are at the begining of the end of the US era of dominance.
Just that i will be seeing it from the perspective of energy.
US was largely self sufficient in oil through a big part of last century. But its oil production peaked out in 1970s. and since then it has become increasingly dependent on others for its oil requirements. It was not that big a problem till the dependency was limited to its friends like UK. And also a big bear market commodities helped it sail through in the last quarter of the century.
But now it imports more than 60% of its oil. And more importantly, increasingly from not so good friends like Venezuela. UK production also seems to have peaked out with North Sea struggling.Like all good old empires US is now trying to get control of as many resources as possible. First to bear the brunt was Kuwait under the pretext of saving it from Iraq. US troops has still not left Kuwait a decade after the war is over. US has a massive troop presence in Saudi Arabia as well.Then came Saddam Hussein. Since they could not find any other valid reason to oust him, weapons of mass destruction were introduced as a pre-cursor to an ultimate invasion on Iraq's sovereignity.US presence in the Middle East is not at all funny.It is just doing what it has to do to survive.These regions are the last rich source of oil as we know it today. Next on the cards is Iran.
But then it is here that the picture changes. Because now China comes into picture.It is equally hungry to feed its own people and cannot possibly allow US to have an overwhelming presence and dominance in the region.So a war with Iran is fraught with th risk of plunging the whole world into a massive conflagration, which you might want to call the Third World War or Second Cold War.
Oil would be one of the reasons for the possible war besides many others including water.
But whoever comes out victorious from this clash has to sustain itself and oil may not be the answer this time.We have to turn to some other sources.
Alternatives:
Natural Gas: This is at present seen as an alternative, but the question is the same. Is their enough gas? and if yes where??...hope we dont again get to the Middle East for a very big part of the answer.
Wind Energy : Big source but not likely to have a the capacity to feed humans given its limitations in the sense wind speed, open land requirement etc.
Cold Bed Methane, Geothermal and so many others but they are a few decades away before making any meaningful contribution.

Think the source to bet on is the Sun. Everyday we get energy from the sun which ten of thousands of times the energy requirement for the whole year.The potential is much bigger than wind because of the retail penetration potential it has. You can have your power generator on your terrace.Clean and environment friendly. Solves so many problems that it almost sounds like an elixir for all our energy problems.The only problem as of now is the economic viability.But that after all is a relative measure.
5 of the biggest oilfields in the world have been producing oil from 1940s maybe. the last big discovery of oil was more than 3 decades ago. Ghawar, the oil field which supplies 5 mbpd oil out of a total world production of 84 mbpd, requires 15 million barrels of water to be pumped in to sustain the pressure to sustain production.The estimated reserves of these oil fields have been calculated to be the same over the last 25 years with no significant efforts for futher exploration.Mind you we are drawing oil from these fields big time and it is a little hard to digest that the reserves are still the same.
I believe oil will go beyond 100$. its a question of time and a time which is not too distant in future.And when that happens other sources of energy will follow suit given their supply limitations. Except maybe the Sun.

My bets are with the sun. How about you??

Of Hegemonies, Monopolies and Leaderships....

Disclaimer: a lot of views in the article are based on conviction and gut feel and i may not have any numbers to support my views...

lets look at media first...
Unlike in politics, incumbency is a boon in the media business. Its a headstart people will give their right hand for. And also unlike politics, its very difficult to remove an incumbent in media.
We have a very interesting situation in Mumbai. We are witnessing one of the most interesting battles in this media fiefdom called the "newspaper".
Times Of India has been the undisputed lord of this fiefdom in Mumbai.And that for decades.But now we have two candidates trying their might on the "as-of-now" impregnable fortress.Both Hindustan Times and DNA have in their own way started their journey, which they also understand is a going to be a long one and not necessarily successful.
lets see what was the state of ToI before these guys came in:
- Decades of dominance has made it complacent.
- Editorials are more often than not an apology for the meaning of the word.
- It was on its way to becoming a complete tabloid.

Lets see what it is after these guys came in:
- It is a few more steps down the lane to becoming a tabloid.
- In fact it has come up with a new tabloid itself, "Mumbai Mirror".

as far as i can see it, a response from ToI is conspicuous by its absence.

And this complacency is reflected across the board for the whole group Bennett & Coleman itself.

ET- the financial newspaper - is also one tabloid.
I strongly believe Cartoon Network can poach a few talented artists from ET because it has got better cartoonists than journalists.
Quite a few times a personality like Penelope Cruz is on the front page. If you are thinking why should that be for a business daily, then you are normal.
Getting the Who's Who in Indian Inc. to take over the editorial is an obsession with ET which makes me believe that the post is probably filled in by a non-serious part-timer.This belief is also supported by the quality of editorials.
The research work is shoddy and appalling and quite a few of the news items seem to be planted.
ET sells the paper on Saturday and Sunday at an obscene 9 Rs. Thats taking the "bottomline" focus a little too seriously.

So much for what is considered to be the best business daily in the country. There is more but we will leave that for some other day.

Now lets come to Radio Mirchi, the group's FM radio arm.
- they tell us that only 5% of the listener are "out-of-home" type.I dont know when this research was done but i will be shocked if the result is similar if the survey is done today. In the last 3 years, we have sold millions of mobile phones and a decent percentage of them would have FM. 5% number comes from the Stone Age i believe.
But that doesnt stop them from floating this so called "fact" around to support the "fact" that people dont switch channels.
- One of their other researches point out that only 5% people recall RJs and are therefore are irrelevant in the broader sense of things.
I wouldnt mind being absolutely unimportant and get paid 3 lac per month for being so.
With no content differentiation,RJs are probably the only link you have to make people stick around with your channel.But for them this is "irrelevant".
- They feel RJs having contacts in Bollywood are really important. I think RJs able to connect with people are a thousand times better.
- No wonder their programming content is hopeless.

What will probably happen is:
- HT would probably give ToI a run for its money much before a lot of people expect, if at all they expect.
- ET has already shown a drop of 25% in its readership in the last one year.Its a question of time before a quality daily like maybe a Hindu Business Line or somebody else will topple ET.
- Radio Mirchi will be no different.

And if these things turn out as i think they will, BCCL will become even more bottomline focused and give us more even more crap. Because that is the way they believe they can make money.
This "give-crap-n-take value' relationship is not sustainable.
In short I see BCCL group not being the same dominant group as before.And thats an understatement.

now lets our attention to Chennai where Deccan Chronicle is trying to create a dent in the Hindu stronghold. DC's contention is that its not too difficult because Hindu is not contemporary and DC will give people what they want.
Well, this "tits"-n-"bits" approach is going to attract some "eyes"-n-"balls". But only for some time.
Again, betting in a "nuisance vs value" fight is a no brainer.

In the TV business, we have seen leadership change 2-3 times now.
First we had Doordarshan, a monopoly and so a default leader.
But it did have some very popular serials like "Hum Log" and "Buniyaad".
TV business is a little different from newspaper in the sense that value here is in "entertainment" whereas "information" is what matters in a newspaper.But DD never renovated itself.
And when Zee came along in the early 90's, people yearning for a change just grabbed it with both hands and the slide of DD began. And it is still sliding for a number of reasons.
"Hum Paanch" and "Tara" became talk of the town in every town.And Zee prospered. Everything Zee did seemed to be perfect.
But over a period the offerings lost their freshness and again there seemed to be a vacuum.
This is when Star TV, KBC and Ekta Kapoor came along and just blew away Zee in practically no time.We have had a Star monopoly on prime time since then.Again whatever Star did seemed to be perfect.
Today we are at a stage where Star offerings are turning stale. It needs a renovation or it is a question of time before somebody blows them away.
the most likely candidate seems to be Zee again. Its got the momentum going. Some of its operas have started to feature in the top rung of the ratings.
Zee will have to keep delivering on content and maybe we have another change in leadership on the cards.

Now lets come to airlines.
The domestic story about LCCs and their increasing market share is all well known.
But what is not well known is that Yash Chopra, Javed Akhtar and Shahrukh Khan are on the Board of Directors of Jet Airways!!!
I would not be surprised if you hear Shahrukh Khan make in-flight announcements a few days from now.
What is also not probably well known is that Jet agreed to buy Sahara Airlines for a meagerly sum of Rs. 2500 Cr, when all it was interested in getting was the parking lots and some other airport infrastructure.That Sahara was losing money with every flight that was taking off didnt probably come to the notice of Jet!!!
Fortunately Jet on-the-ground performance has still not reflected the events of the boardroom. But that doesnt necessarily augur well for the shareholders i think. Because that leaves the scope for a Rani Mukherjee or Preity Zinta to join the Board.
Other airlines are eating away at Jet and it busy digesting Sahara, which is essentially "nothing". God bless Jet's shareholders.Amen!!!

well here i go....