#247 Mark & Steve – Energy #247 Mark & Steve – Energy #247 Mark & Steve - Energía #247マーク＆スティーブ・エネルギー #247 마크 & 스티브 - 에너지 #247 Mark & Steve - Energia

Mark:    Hi everyone, Mark here for another installment of EnglishLingQ. Mark: Hallo zusammen, Mark hier für eine weitere Ausgabe von EnglishLingQ.

Steve:    And Steve.

Mark:    Hi Steve.

Steve:    Hi Mark.

Mark:    Oh, yeah, you're here, too. Steve:    I am.

Mark:    I thought today was going to be a monologue. Mark: Ich dachte, heute wäre ein Monolog.

Steve:    Well, we can both do a monologue. Steve: Nun, wir können beide einen Monolog führen.

Mark:    Okay. Now I know today we thought we'd… Jetzt weiß ich, dass wir heute dachten, wir würden… Steve:    Let's talk about energy. 史蒂夫：让我们谈谈能源。 Mark:    …talk about energy, yeah. 马克：……谈论能源，是的。 It's obviously a very topical subject between oil and oil supply and the demands for oil and then, of course, the whole global warming climate change, green energy side, so it's probably quite a interesting thing to talk about. Es ist offensichtlich ein sehr aktuelles Thema zwischen Öl und Ölversorgung und der Nachfrage nach Öl und dann natürlich der ganzen globalen Erwärmung, dem Klimawandel und der Seite der grünen Energie, also ist es wahrscheinlich eine ziemlich interessante Sache, darüber zu sprechen. Steve:    Yeah. I have a vested interest because I'm involved in a sawmill and we have a lot of forest industry waste. Ich habe ein begründetes Interesse, weil ich in einem Sägewerk tätig bin und wir viel Abfall aus der Forstindustrie haben. 我有既得利益，因为我在一家锯木厂工作，而且我们有很多林业废弃物。 We use a very small part of it, just for our own dry kilns where we dry our lumber. Wir verwenden einen sehr kleinen Teil davon, nur für unsere eigenen Trockenöfen, in denen wir unser Schnittholz trocknen. 我们使用其中的一小部分，仅用于我们自己的干燥窑，用于干燥木材。 We also heat the mill, I mean the sawmill itself. Wir heizen auch die Mühle, ich meine das Sägewerk selbst. Riscaldiamo anche il mulino, cioè la segheria stessa. 我们还加热磨坊，我指的是锯木厂本身。 I mean it's very cold up there in the winter. Ich meine, im Winter ist es dort oben sehr kalt. 我的意思是冬天那里很冷。 It's minus 30 degrees or whatever. Minus 30 Grad oder was auch immer. 零下30度之类的。 But, we use a… 但是，我们使用...

Mark:    Yeah. To be clear, you use the chips… Um es klar zu sagen, Sie verwenden die Chips ... Per essere chiari, si usano i chip... 需要明确的是，您使用的是筹码……

Steve:    Not so much the chips. Steve: Nicht so sehr die Chips. 史蒂夫：没有那么多筹码。 I mean if you picture a log… Ich meine, wenn Sie sich ein Protokoll vorstellen … Cioè, se si immagina un tronco... 我的意思是，如果你想象一个日志......

Mark:    …or the sawdust. Mark: … oder das Sägemehl. 马克：……或者锯末。 Yeah?

Steve:    Yeah. Again, the sawdust goes into it, it's what's known as hog fuel. Wieder geht das Sägemehl hinein, es ist das, was als Schweinebrennstoff bekannt ist. Опять же, в него входят опилки, это то, что известно как топливо для свиней. 再一次，锯末进入它，这就是所谓的生猪燃料。 It includes bark, it includes broken branches or sometimes the logs come in and there are bits and pieces of dirty wood and stuff that all goes into this general category of what we call hog fuel. Es enthält Rinde, es enthält abgebrochene Äste oder manchmal kommen die Baumstämme herein und es gibt Stücke und Stücke von schmutzigem Holz und Zeug, das alles in diese allgemeine Kategorie von dem gehört, was wir Schweinebrennstoff nennen. 它包括树皮，包括折断的树枝，或者有时进来的原木，还有一些脏木头和东西，这些都属于我们所谓的生猪燃料的一般类别。 So this is biomass when they talk about different sources of energy, biomass. Das ist also Biomasse, wenn sie über verschiedene Energiequellen sprechen, Biomasse. Now we leave a lot in the bush because when they bring in the logs they only bring in clean logs, so branches and the very small tops known as the rattails. Jetzt lassen wir viel im Busch, denn wenn sie das Holz einbringen, bringen sie nur sauberes Holz ein, also Äste und die sehr kleinen Spitzen, die als Rattails bekannt sind. 现在我们在灌木丛中留下了很多，因为当他们带来原木时，他们只带来干净的原木，所以树枝和非常小的顶部被称为鼠尾草。 Because a tree, you know, starts, you know, three feet in diameter at the trunk, at the butt, and it's tapered so that it ends up as a very small piece, which is the last shoot of the tree trying to go up to the sky kind of thing, right? Denn ein Baum, wissen Sie, beginnt mit einem Durchmesser von drei Fuß am Stamm, am Stamm, und er verjüngt sich, so dass er als ein sehr kleines Stück endet, das der letzte Trieb des Baumes ist, der nach oben zu streben versucht in den Himmel, oder? 因为一棵树，你知道，从树干开始，直径三英尺，在臀部，它是锥形的，所以它最终会变成一个很小的部分，这是树试图向上生长的最后一根枝条上天之类的东西，对吧？ And the branches grow sideways. 树枝横着生长。 You've seen a tree. 你见过一棵树。 Mark:    I understand how a tree works.

Steve:    You've seen a tree. So, anyway, all of the branches and the tops and all of this stuff is not used for anything. Now we do ship our hog fuel to the pulp mill. Теперь мы отправляем свиное топливо на целлюлозный завод. 现在我们将生猪燃料运送到纸浆厂。

Mark:    The stuff in the bush, though, that's just left there? 马克：灌木丛里的那些东西，只是留在那儿吗？ Steve:    It's just left there. 史蒂夫：它就在那儿。 Mark:    Do you burn it or do you leave it? 马克：是烧掉还是留下？

Steve:    In some cases they might burn it. 史蒂夫：在某些情况下，他们可能会烧掉它。 Because they burn and scarify and this tends to improve the performance of the forest land when we plant. 因为它们燃烧和划伤，这往往会在我们种植时改善林地的性能。

Mark:    Right.

Steve:    And I guess, to some extent, these are nutrients that are required in the forest. 史蒂夫：我想，在某种程度上，这些是森林所需的营养物质。

Mark:    Right.

Steve:    We can't strip it clean, but if you look at places like Sweden they pull a lot more out of the forest and biomass there is a huge part. 史蒂夫：我们不能把它剥离干净，但如果你看看像瑞典这样的地方，他们从森林和生物质中提取了更多的东西，其中很大一部分。 Like 25% of their energy comes from forest industry waste, so we could do more with our forest industry waste.

Mark:    Right.

Steve:    What is required is that the cost of energy increase so that we can justify making the investment because it's not cheap and we have looked into it. 史蒂夫：需要的是能源成本增加，这样我们才能证明投资是合理的，因为它并不便宜，我们已经研究过了。 We went to Italy to see a very good bit of technology there where they use hot oil to drive the turbines, which means we don't need a Steam Engineer. 我们去了意大利，在那里看到了一些非常好的技术，他们使用热油来驱动涡轮机，这意味着我们不需要蒸汽工程师。 For a small scale power station, as we would be look at building, we want to reduce our costs and a Power Engineer is an expensive person that has to be there 24 hours a day that we'd rather not have to have. 对于小型发电站，就像我们在建造时一样，我们希望降低成本，而电力工程师是一个昂贵的人，必须每天 24 小时都在，而我们宁愿不必拥有。 So we've looked into all of this, but the cost of doing it is much higher than the value of the energy. 所以我们已经研究了所有这些，但这样做的成本远高于能源的价值。 Mark:    Right.

Steve:    So…but…

Mark:    As in most things the market forces tend to provide incentives of disincentives to provide for green energy, I guess. Марк: Как и в большинстве случаев, рыночные силы, как я полагаю, имеют тенденцию обеспечивать стимулы или препятствия для обеспечения зеленой энергии. 马克：我猜，在大多数情况下，市场力量往往会提供激励措施来提供绿色能源。

Steve:    Well, that's true. Mark:    Unless the government steps in with incentives. 马克：除非政府采取激励措施。

Steve:    Well, if they have these green, you know, carbon credits. 史蒂夫：嗯，如果他们有这些绿色的，你知道的，碳信用额。 In Europe, a lot of places, a lot of the coal-fired stations are mixing in wood, whether in pellet form or some other form. 在欧洲，很多地方，很多燃煤站都在混合木材，无论是颗粒形式还是其他形式。 So that if 15% of their energy source is biomass then they've reduced their CO2 emissions by that amount because wood is CO2 neutral. This is all carbon dioxide that's above the surface of the earth, so the tree grows absorbing CO2 and when it dies it decomposes or it burns and it gives off CO2. Mark:    Right.

Steve:    But it's all CO2 neutral, so therefore you're reducing the amount of CO2 that, in effect, you're pulling up out of the ground and basically belching out into the air, right? So if the government says or either they legislate you must have 30% wood, we'd love that. Mark:    Right.

Steve:    You know if they said you must have 30% wood then we could get rid of our wood and get paid for it.

Mark:    Right.

Steve:    Because it costs us money to bring it in, right?

Mark:    The wood waste you mean.

Steve:    The wood waste, yeah. So, anyway, I'm interested in this. And, of course, we see the price of oil, which crashed to, whatever it was, $40 some odd and I think it's up to $70 now. И, конечно же, мы видим цену на нефть, которая рухнула, как бы там ни было, до 40 долларов с лишним, а сейчас, я думаю, до 70 долларов. Mark:    Right.

Steve:    But, on the other hand, I was reading a book about China. The growth of their economy and across the scale of that country, 1.3 billion people is growing at 7-8-10%, the increase in the number of cars, their appetite for oil. And they're out now all over the world competing with the big multinationals, the Shell and the BP and the Total out of France and now the Chinese are out there competing, so there's this tremendous competition for oil. They are finding new sources off the coast of Africa or they're looking at the Antarctica, but by the same token if a country like China and India increase then there's going to be tremendously increased demand. What's also happening is China, in order to get at the oil and as a newcomer, they're going into places like Africa and they have made a major contribution to improving the economic situation in Africa building roads and infrastructure and railways and dams. And, of course, Africa now finds that they have a lot of oil, so they're starting to do better so they have more cars. I can't see that the price is oil is going to stay low. Mark:    Well, I mean I guess this argument or hypothesis and I guess you're angling toward the peak oil hypothesis or that we're going to run out or the price is going to go through the roof. Марк: Ну, я имею в виду, что я догадываюсь об этом аргументе или гипотезе, и я предполагаю, что вы склоняетесь к гипотезе пика нефти или к тому, что она закончится, или цена взлетит до небес. Steve:    So we can get paid for our wood waste. You understand my…

Mark:    Well I guess that's your angle, but…  I mean people have been talking about this for a long time, I mean since, I don't know, the ‘70s at least. We're going to hit peak oil, which is the most oil we'll ever have before our reserves start to be depleted forever… Steve:    Right.

Mark:    …or just the fact that we're running out, the price is going to be $150 a barrel. But, in fact, the more the demand increases the more supply we seem to be finding, like there's more oil today than ever before. Steve:    Right.

Mark:    So there is that certain amount of scare mongering in that. Марк: Так что в этом есть определенная доля паники. I mean people believe that, yes, we're running out, but in fact that hasn't proven to be the case, yet. Steve:    Right.

But…

Mark:    And…

Steve:    Yeah?

Mark:    …what's more, if, in fact, we did start to run out, which would then drive the price up, then your wood waste energy source starts to make sense. Steve:    Or other high-cost oil…

Mark:    Or high-cost oil, right.

Steve:    …or natural gas, shale gas, all these other things.

Mark:    Or this, whatever, undersea methane or whatever it is.

Steve:    Yeah, there are lots of different options out there. However, I still believe that…someone said we all have a tendency to overestimate short-term change and underestimate long-term change, so that people would overestimate how quickly this peak oil is going to be achieved. Тем не менее, я по-прежнему считаю, что… кто-то сказал, что у всех нас есть склонность переоценивать краткосрочные изменения и недооценивать долгосрочные, чтобы люди переоценивали, насколько быстро будет достигнут этот пик добычи нефти.

But it's like the story, you know if you have a pond, a lily pond, and the lilies double every day and they're covering the pond, right, these lilies… Mark:    Right.

Steve:    …on what day is the pond half full of lilies? If it takes 30 days to fill the pond with lilies on which day is the pond half full of lilies? It's the 29th day. Mark:    Yes.

Steve:    You understand my point.

Mark:    Yes.

Steve:    So it gets back to this idea that we tend to get all excited, oh, it's going to change, it's going to change. It doesn't quite change as quickly and then we, basically, let our guard down. But, in the long run, there is no question that the demand is going to outstrip the supply, but there are fixes, you know, energy conservation, better utilization and stuff. But the big change, in terms of the need for oil, is that up until I would say the ‘80s, economic growth really only took place in Europe and North America and Japan.

I've had a long involvement with China when I was learning Chinese and read a lot about their history and stuff. If you look at China since 1949, from 1949 to 1979, if you take those 30 years, nothing happened in China in terms of economic growth, nothing. In the last 20 years there has been phenomenal economic growth.

Mark:    Right.

Steve:    And they are now taking that capability where they, as a low-wage call it third world country, found the secret to rapid economic development. Стив: И теперь они используют эту возможность там, где они, как низкооплачиваемая страна третьего мира, нашли секрет быстрого экономического развития. They are very good at construction. They build things fast, they're good at production and stuff like that and they're now fanning out and taking these lessons to other countries. And I don't know as much about India, but India is also developing. So if we see development now starting to happen outside of North America, Western Europe, Japan, across 5/6th of the population of the world, then I think we're going to start to see some very dramatic increases in demand for oil. That's my point, I rest my case, now move on to another subject. Это моя точка зрения, я заканчиваю свое дело, теперь перейдем к другой теме. I think I've squashed you pretty thoroughly on that subject. Я думаю, что я довольно тщательно раздавил вас на эту тему. Mark:    You know I think to suggest that demand for oil is going to increase doesn't take a Ph.D., but I'm not sure what your point is. Okay, demand for oil is going to increase.

Steve:    Right.

Mark:    Are you worried that we're going to run out of oil? Марк: Вы беспокоитесь, что у нас закончится нефть? Are you worried that prices are going to become too high and that there will be riots because people can't afford to drive their cars anymore? I mean what's your point, basically? Steve:    My point is, simply, that the price of oil is going to go up very high so that we can get paid for our wood waste. I think that my truly altruistic and ecological…

Mark:    Well, you made a statement earlier about supply or demand outstripping supply. Марк: Ну, ранее вы сделали заявление о том, что предложение или спрос превышает предложение. But I guess once the prices become…if that, of course, demand exceeds supply prices will go up and people will find alternative energy sources. Но я думаю, как только цены станут… если, конечно, спрос превысит предложение, цены вырастут, и люди найдут альтернативные источники энергии.

Steve:    I agree with you there.

Mark:    I mean I don't think it's anything we need to worry about, things will happen. Steve:    I agree with you there as well.

Mark:    We need that, actually, to encourage development of alternatives.

Steve:    Well, I mean I couldn't agree with you more. And I think, to some extent, one of the contributing factors to the economic crisis we're in right now is the $150 oil. However, we will get used to $150 a barrel oil because we used to have $5 a barrel oil.

Mark:    Right.

Steve:    And if someone had suggested when we had $5 a barrel oil that the economy of the world would continue to function at $50 a barrel people wouldn't have believed them. They'd say that would be a catastrophe and like half the people would be out of work, so I agree with you. And if we have $1,000 a barrel oil people will find different ways and get by with less energy, so I firmly believe, I agree with you, that people will adapt. Either they'll find different sources or they'll find ways of living that manage to do with less energy. Mark:    What bothers me are the artificial types of stimulus like carbon trading and carbon taxes…

Steve:    Well, this depends on…

Mark:    …and those kinds of things. I just don't think there's a way to apply them evenly. They're artificial and so they provide artificial stimulus and encourage economic activity in areas that maybe there shouldn't be economic activity. Steve:    Okay.

But society is allowed to set certain…have certain values and if a majority of people…. For example, I've mentioned this before, in our forestry operation we have to invest $7 to $14 a cubic meter to renew the forest. We plant, we scarify, we do a whole bunch of stuff. There is no economic return on that stuff because our trees take 90 to 100 years to grow. First of all, I'm not going to be here and, second of all, if I took that $7 a cubic meter and put it in the bank I'd be better off than trying to guess what those trees are going to be worth 90 years from now. Mark:    Right.

Steve:    No economic case for it, except that the government says thou shalt reforest. Стив: Экономического обоснования для этого нет, за исключением того, что правительство говорит, что ты должен восстановить леса.

Mark:    Right.

Steve:    Because we like to see trees and, therefore, we look upon it not as an investment that's going to be coming to maturity in 100 years, we look at it as a cost. Mark:    Right.

Steve:    And so if the government says we think, the majority of people decide and, yes, there are scientists on one side and on the other side of the argument. But if the government says we think that global warming is, you know, human-activity induced, global warming is a problem, (B) we are in a position to mitigate it and, therefore, we are going to force people to reduce their carbon emissions or encourage them to do so and one way is through these carbon credits. I mean that's a societal decision and then they can apply. They can say, alright, you are a coal-fired or a gas-fired generating station, you have to use X amount of biomass or renewables that's a law. Yeah, they just put that in there.

Mark:    A law I prefer more than some kind of a trading system. Some kind of trading system is…

Steve:    Well it depends what's more effective, I have no idea. I don't understand this cap and trade, lots of stuff I don't understand. Mark:    Yeah. I mean I don't thoroughly understand it either. But they have some deal in the States now where they were going to auction off licenses -- I can't even remember -- to major polluters. And now they're giving them away free and it's all going to be based on which state you're in, I'm sure. Pretty soon any kind of a system like that is no longer going to be fair.

Steve:    Is this brought to us by the same people who came up with all the derivatives and fancy financial instruments…

Mark:    Maybe, maybe.

Steve:    …clever people?

Mark:    I mean I think initially they were hoping to raise money from auctioning off these pollution licenses or whatever they are.

Steve:    And as with any other distortion of free trade it's going to be used for other purposes. And the Americans are already saying that they were going to discriminate against products that come from countries where they don't feel that those countries are doing as much as the U.S. in terms of reducing their carbon emissions or whatever, so there's a whole protectionist thing that's going to come into the picture, too. M;    Well there's that and then, of course, this whole “Buy American” thing that's been in the news here lately. Steve:    Well that's a whole other issue, yeah. Mark:    They've said any money that's targeted for infrastructure from their stimulus package has to source all their contracts through American businesses. Марк: Они сказали, что любые деньги, предназначенные для инфраструктуры из их пакета мер стимулирования, должны поступать по всем их контрактам через американские предприятия. Steve:    But, but, there was an article in the National Post, the Canadian newspaper, pointing out that the Americans…there's several levels of public procurement, right? There's the federal, there's the state and there's the municipal. Mark:    Right.

Steve:    And I think the federal level is open, it's more the state and municipal level where they have this “Buy American.”  Any country that has signed an agreement with the United States to open up the sort of secondary levels of public, you know, procurement to international competition, those countries are exempt from this provision. Because Canada for all of our chest thumping and criticizing the U.S., the provinces and the municipalities, especially the provinces, have refused. We have to have free trade agreements between the provinces because there are restrictions on trade between the provinces…

Mark:    Right, right.

Steve:    …and we don't have free competition. In other words, provincial procurement in Canada favors buy Canadian. And because we wouldn't sign those agreements we are now behind the eight ball vis-à-vis the Americans. И поскольку мы не подписали эти соглашения, мы сейчас отстаем от американцев. And we're not the only ones; I mean all these different countries. Everybody points to the other country as a bad actor and, yet, if you look around in the European market, Canada or any of these places, Japan, you name it, China, Korea, I can only imagine, is full of all kinds of these obstacles. So the Americans aren't the only ones. Mark:    No, I'm sure, I'm sure. Well, I think we…

Steve:    …solved a few problems.

Mark:    …solved a few problems there. Hopefully that made things a little less clear for everybody.

Steve:    We should have arguments on these things, Mark. We end up agreeing too much, it's not so much fun for people. Mark:    I know.

Steve:    Okay.

Mark:    Anyway, we'll talk to you again next time. Steve:    Thank you.

Mark:    Bye.

Steve:    Bye.