The power of oil . . .

IRANIAN OIL has all sorts of political complexities, a lot of which are not immediately apparent to those of us who rely on orthodox news sources and commentary. Indeed, as we see, the Iranian nuke project and the posturing over Hormuz is rather a side-show, a distraction for American conservatives to dick-thump over.

ALJAZEERA has a report by Pepe Escobar, who is the roving correspondent for Asia Times, titled "All aboard the New Silk Road(s)", where he believes that Iran, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the US are all scrambling to get the upper hand across Eurasia. Add Russia to the mix and we have a three-ring circus here, folks, as the Great Game continues.

In the complex chessboard where the New Great Game in Eurasia is being played, both Kings are easy to identify: Pipelineistan, and the possible, multiple intersections of a 21st century Silk Road.  

Few have noticed a crucial meeting that took place during the recent Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Tehran, between senior Foreign Ministry diplomats from Afghanistan, India and Iran. Their ultimate goal; a new Southern Silk Road connecting Iran to Central and South Asia through roads, railways and last but not least, major ports.

The crucial Silk Road port in this case is Chabahar, in Sistan-Balochistan province in southeast Iran. Tehran has already invested $340 million to complete 70 per cent of the port construction - a decade-long project.

But with US and EU sanctions biting harder and harder, Tehran expects Delhi to come up with a closing $100 million. India has already invested $136 million to link Chabahar to Afghanistan's ring road system.

One does not have to be Alexander the Great to notice the fastest connection between Kabul and India would be through the fabled Khyber Pass. But that does not take into account the accumulated historical venom between Islamabad and Delhi - their constant promises to increase cross-border trade notwithstanding.

With Chabahar linking Iran directly to Afghanistan and India, in theory Pakistan is sidelined. But it's much more complicated than that.

• • •

Enter Pipelineistan - via the key Iran-Pakistan umbilical cord in the making: the 2,700 kilometre-long IP gas pipeline, from Iran's gigantic South Pars field through Balochistan and Sindh and into Punjab.

According to National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) managing director, Javad Oji, the stretch from Iranshahr in southeast Iran to Zahedan and the Pakistani border is 90 per cent ready. The 900 kilometre-long pipeline on the Iranian side should be active one year from now. It's up to Islamabad to finish its stretch.

Totally in character in terms of interminable Pipelineistan soap operas, IP used to be IPI (Iran-Pakistan-India) - but Delhi pulled out, forced by relentless pressure from the Bush and Obama administrations.

And it's here that the going gets really tough - because there's nothing Beijing would love more than turn the former IPI into IPC.

Now, add the confrontation between China and its neighbors bordering the South China Sea and further North over deep-sea oil deposits, and the future has all sorts of interesting possibilities.

Pepe has another article, in Tom's Dispatch, "Tomgram: Pepe Escobar, Pipelineistan Goes Af-Pak", which points out that

Iran's relations with both Russia and China are swell -- and will remain so no matter who is elected the new Iranian president next month. China desperately needs Iranian oil and gas, has already clinched a $100 billion gas "deal of the century" with the Iranians, and has loads of weapons and cheap consumer goods to sell. No less close to Iran, Russia wants to sell them even more weapons, as well as nuclear energy technology.

And then, moving ever eastward on the great Grid, there's Turkmenistan, lodged deep in Central Asia, which, unlike Iran, you may never have heard a thing about. Let's correct that now.

Gurbanguly Is the Man

Alas, the sun-king of Turkmenistan, the wily, wacky Saparmurat "Turkmenbashi" Nyazov, "the father of all Turkmen" (descendants of a formidable race of nomadic horseback warriors who used to attack Silk Road caravans) is now dead. But far from forgotten.

The Chinese were huge fans of the Turkmenbashi. And the joy was mutual. One key reason the Central Asians love to do business with China is that the Middle Kingdom, unlike both Russia and the United States, carries little modern imperial baggage. And of course, China will never carp about human rights or foment a color-coded revolution of any sort.

The Chinese are already moving to successfully lobby the new Turkmen president, the spectacularly named Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, to speed up the construction of the Mother of All Pipelines. This Turkmen-Kazakh-China Pipelineistan corridor from eastern Turkmenistan to China's Guangdong province will be the longest and most expensive pipeline in the world, 7,000 kilometers of steel pipe at a staggering cost of $26 billion.

So, the players are making plans, but the future will be different from our expectations, it always is. My guess, my stupid opinion is that technology will have some surprises, and that 30 years from now, petroleum oil will be a 3rd world fuel of decreasing importance.

H/T — Daniel

India tries GM agriculture . . .

GENETICALLY-MODIFIED plants have a lot of people very nervous: the subject brings up a lot of automatic negative knee-jerk, reflexive, unthinking, thanks to Monsanto and their GM tar-baby of Round-Up-resistant GM crops.

GM cotton

But GM plants are beneficial, and modifying genetics has been done by gardeners even before Gregor Mendel and his pea-pods, and later, with the discovery of the DNA double helix by Watson and Crick from Rosalind Franklin's X-ray diffraction image. And that's why India has started to get with GM crops, according to an article in io9 by  Tim Barribeau, "How genetically modified crops are helping poor farmers in India" — and no Monsanto shake-down.

Franklin's X-ray image

The debate about widespread use of genetically modified crops is still contentious. On one hand, you have the strong-arm tactics from the likes of the Monsanto corporation. On the other, there are stories like this. By using a special form of genetically modified cotton, smallhold farmers in India have been able to substantially increase their crop output — and quality of life.

The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America has an abstract of this program in PDF that gives more details of how well this is working.

A crappy day in the Arabian Sea.

The Indian Naval Submarine Sindhughosh collided with the merchant ship MV Leeds Castle in the Arabian Sea off Pakistan yesterday.

The 2500-ton INS Sindhughosh, with a crew of 53, sustained only superficial damage to its conning tower, Indian navy spokesman Nirad Sinha said.

But according to naval official,s who asked not to be named, the vessel was seriously damaged.

The navy declined to comment on the extent of damage to the Cayman-registered merchant vessel or reveal its current whereabouts.

"The ship MV Leeds Castle was in restricted waters and in that area the depth is not much and hence the mishap," the spokesman said.

The submarine has been towed to a naval dockyard at the western Indian city of Mumbai.

The naval officials said the submarine was submerged and had its radars off and periscope down when it slammed into the ship off India's Diu island, 400 nautical miles from Mumbai. Diu lies 70 nautical miles from Pakistani waters.

The fact that Sindhughosh was towed back to port would indicate that damage is far more extensive than "superficial". There is a lot of speculation about what actually happened and why, none of it apparently coming from very well informed sources.

There is something which caught my attention however. This piece, issued right after the collision, contains a little nugget. While it discusses the various ramifications of the collision within the context of its effect on the Indian Navy (and the fact that the submarine and crew were extremely lucky that the prang happened while at periscope depth), Canada's name suddenly leaps out.

The second ramification is the absence of a Deep Sea Rescue Vehicle (DSRV). The Canadian contract for a DSRV is under investigation of corruption. Indian Navy has not purchased another one. It is a wake up call. The status of India-U.S. agreement for Submarine rescue is not yet clear.

That's the first I've heard about that... and I love a good hunt.

Update: Jay in comments has already started to do some digging into the Canadian connection. His comment is worth reading since there may be nothing at all to the suggestion that there is corruption surrounding a Canadian-made Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle for the Indian Navy.

We'll keep looking.

Shri Vilas Muttemwar has more guts than John Baird

OK. I did not know that India actually has a ministry of new and renewable energy. I mean, a whole ministry dedicated to finding new and renewable sources of energy.

And what does this kind of ministry do? Well, some pretty interesting stuff.

India will subsidize the running of solar power plants to help develop a renewable energy infrastructure, where high costs can be prohibitive, the minister for renewable energy said on Wednesday.

Renewable energy accounts for about 7.5 percent of India's installed generation capacity of 127,673 MW, a rate that compares favorably with much of the rest of the world.

Renewable energy infrastructure?

You can look for those words on the Canadian Environment Ministry website but you'll be wasting your time. They aren't there.

You may also want to know that Canada already has a higher percentage of renewable energy resources than most countries at 17 percent, most of it from hydroelectric power. India at 7.5 percent is already above the world average.

It's called doing something.