Steve LeVine (1)

“The Oil and the Glory: the Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea” (2007), by Steve LeVine, is an entertaining book about exactly that: pursuit of empire and fortune. Persuit of empire by the nations around the Caspian, specifically the pre-Soviet Russians, the Soviets, and the post-Soviet Russians, in their attempt to dominate the hydrocarbon resources of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. Persuit of fortune by the early oil barons in Azerbaijan - one of the most entertaining sections of the book -, and by the oil majors, the big companies that chased the discovered and as-yet-to-be-discovered oil fields under the Caspian. And not to forget, the various middle men who worked themselves into key confidence positions with the governments and companies, with no other objective that pursuit of huge fortunes, albeit not always successful.
Besides sketching the early history of the oil boom in Azerbijan, and then a long time nothing, Mr LeVine dedicates the bulk of the book to the scheming for interest, rights, concessions and bonuses between the governments and the oil companies, brought together by the middle men, who frequently got pushed aside, overplayed their hand, or were double crossed by rival officials in governments, the same governments that interpreted the notion of contracts and agreements as an interesting starting point, but not something not subject to a great deal of flexibility.
One of the most striking elements in the recent history of the Caspian is the kind-of afterthought given to the issue of pipelines, key to exporting and monetizing the oil to be discovered and produced. Here business interest regularly clashes with geo-political considerations. Compared to the gung-ho cowboy approach of the oil companies to obtaining rights, their laid-back attitude to pipes is incredible, and so are some of the proposed solutions, which leads one to question the common sense of quite a few of the players in this game. But fascinating it is!… (meer)

With all the geopolitical difficulties that come from a dependence on oil, and all the deleterious repercussions of car emissions, it would help a great deal if cars could all run on batteries. Thus, the efforts to realize such capabilities are not without interest or importance. One might well ask, what’s the holdup?

This book is the story of the effort by a fairly small group of scientists and engineers to invent, [actually, develop is a better descriptor], a battery sufficiently powerful, energetic, and dimensionally stable to provide power for a commercially viable automobile.

The author competently explains the electro-chemistry of batteries, in particular, the characteristics of lithium ion technology. It transpires that lithium based batteries have the greatest “energy density” [measured in kilowatt-hours per kilogram (kw-hr/kg)] of any known battery chemistry. This criterion is very important because a battery’s weight should be as light as possible for both the performance and the cost of any car it powers. Lithium-ion batteries developed for cell phones and other electronic devices typically have energy densities of less than 200 kw-hr/kg. General Motors estimated that a battery would have to have an energy density of nearly 400 kw-hr/kg to be an effective power plant for an automobile. Moreover, it would have to maintain that energy density through 1000 charging cycles.

Levine also does a good job of describing the technological hurdles that have to be overcome to reach those performance criteria. He focuses on the efforts of two institutions, Argonne National Laboratories, (a government-associated facility) and Envia Systems, Inc. (a Silicon Valley start-up company).

His description of the organizational and managerial struggles at both institutions, while accurate, did not interest me much. Who cares what building number at Argonne housed the battery team? And who cares whether various members of the team received promotions from A-6 to A-7? Dealing with petty jealousies may be an important aspect of research and development, but it makes for tedious reading or listening. Too much of the book is devoted to describing the managerial decisions taken at both institutions, and far too much is devoted to describing the preparation of a particular bid by Argonne to the Department of Energy.

Some of the tedium in the story might be justified if “the battery to save the world” had actually been developed. But, spoiler alert: alas, although the 400 kw-hr/kg criterion has been met in small, coin-sized cells, no large scale battery has yet been built that can maintain that energy density for more than a few cycles.

Part of the problem is that if you change any one part of a battery, there can be unforeseen consequences over time, which can’t be predicted by testing. Another challenge is finding the right composition of coatings for the batteries in order to stabilize the voltage. Efficient manufacturing processes represent yet another obstacle. There is much that can go wrong, and a great deal of money and effort is necessary to achieve success.

Thus, battery research must continue, and so the story has not yet ended. As of now, however, an affordable fully electric powered automobile is still a thing of the future. Elon Musk’s Tesla is a great performing car, but it is very expensive. Chevrolet’s Volt, while more affordable, is not fully electric. Stay tuned—on your battery powered radio.

Evaluation: This book may prove of most interest to those in fields of research and development, and especially in the management issues posed in those circumstances.

(JAB)… (meer)

The Caspian Sea is one of the most important oil regions in the world. However very little has been written about it. This book helps change that. Starting with the history of the development of the oil industry there, LeVine goes on to the modern day, detailing the way multinational oil companies came to dominate the region.

There is a major focus on the personalities involved, backed by interviews with nearly everyone written about. At the same time that can be considered the only mark against the book; it is very personality-based, and at times feels like its an attack on a few select people. I would also have liked to see more information about the effects it had on the Caspian states themselves, but I realise that can be difficult with their reluctance to contribute in something that would be critical of their regimes. It also seems rather short considering the magnitude of the subject; an extra 100 pages of details would certainly not have hurt.

As well, as the book was published in 2007, it is obviously unable to include the 2008 Russia-Georgia War and the repercussions of that conflict. So if you are looking for that, you will have to read other material.

Overall a decent book that helps explain why the Caspian region is as it is in regards to oil and natural gas.… (meer)