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When this column first appeared in 1997, the price of oil in 2007 dollars was about $20 per barrel. This week it is $122 per barrel -- more than six times as high. Many things besides the price of oil have changed in those 11 years. Thanks to Moore's Law a new PC today is typically 25-30 times as powerful as the machines we had in 1997 yet costs less than half as many dollars to buy. Consider inflation and the cost of computing is even lower. Our new PCs are substantially more energy-efficient on a per-MIP basis, too. Though the bigger shift of attitude might simply be that now we care about how much power our computer is using versus simply not noticing a decade ago. Back then data center power consumption was inconsequential compared to the cost of Internet bandwidth. Today Google builds its data centers where the power is, not where the fiber or even the users are. Power is everything in modern computing and is becoming ever more important to our lives in general. The high cost of energy is starting to cause real pain in our society and real pain is, unfortunately, about the only incentive strong enough to make us change our ways.

I know a little bit about the oil business, which is at the root of our energy crisis today. At one point my job was to write about the international oil industry. I worked off and on in the Middle East back then and attended OPEC meetings in Vienna and Geneva during an earlier oil crisis when prices went for a moment to $43 per barrel and we all held our breath then, too. I was sitting in the lobby of OPEC headquarters in Vienna that day when Carlos "The Jackal" came in the door, told the sleepy off-duty Vienna cop providing security that he was from "the Palestinian delegation" and walked right into the big meeting, taking the oil ministers hostage.

Given that I know a little bit about the energy business, then, and I still have friends in it, here is what's going to happen over the next 2-3 years. The price of oil is going to come down substantially, but probably never to pre-9/11 price points. At least half of the current price for crude oil is driven by speculation and market manipulation as it was during the original oil crisis of 1973 (I have an interesting story about that in this week's links). But unlike '73, today our flexibility is less and our excess capacity is less, too. High prices will cut demand, spur exploration, and force governments to open new areas for exploration, but it is doubtful that we will EVER see oil prices under $60 per barrel again.

This is not all bad. Just as high oil prices spur exploration they also encourage conservation. With $2.50-$3 gas with us probably forever, we're finally starting to learn to do things somewhat differently, though it isn't at all clear to me whether these lessons will stay learned after prices subside somewhat.

Which brings me to the moral of this story -- the importance of platforms and standards, and when and how to abandon or change them. This applies to ANY capital-intensive technology, whether it is computing or energy or transportation.

The life expectancy of a car in the U.S. is about 10 years, during which it will pass through an average of three owners. I use cars as an example because they are an intrinsic part of any American energy crisis and we generally all own one. This automobile life expectancy means that any technology improvement has to trickle into the market because only about 10 percent of the total fleet is replaced each year with new cars -- the only cars that are likely to have the latest technology. So if some car company comes up with a way to get 100 miles per gallon, it is likely that no more than 10 percent of us will be getting mileage like that a year from now. The rest of us are stuck with old technology until we can afford to change: we're on the old platform.

Platform, in this automotive example, means some significantly different technology that offers real advantages though usually at a cost. Hybrids, diesels, electric cars, fuel cells, hydrogen, and ethanol cars are all examples of platforms.

If we want revolutionary change -- change where nearly everyone moves to the new platform in short order -- that is usually going to require heroic action on the part of government or the occasional mad scientist. If the mad scientist were able to offer a car that got 100 miles per gallon, was safer than the current standard, yet cost substantially LESS to buy, then maybe more of us would transition more than the traditional 10 percent replacement model suggests. Governments, on the other hand, could simply outlaw the old cars and force us to upgrade, though it still might not happen if we couldn't afford the new cars.

What's key here is the push and pull of platform change. We see this all the time in computing where somebody comes up with a clever new idea but for that idea to succeed we all have to get new computers. How likely is that? Well it depends on how great the improvement being offered. With computers I can tell you that the improvement has to be pretty darned substantial to inspire us all to jump. That's because Moore's Law is going to give us a 100 percent improvement anyway on our next PC without having to throw away any software or peripherals. So inspiring a revolution in computing generally requires a performance improvement of 10X or more.

There is a similar effect to be seen in the adoption of new energy technologies. That list of platforms I rattled off a few paragraphs back offer advantages but not without cost. Hybrids and diesels are the easiest to accept, but both are a bit more expensive. Electric, fuel cells, hydrogen, and ethanol are more expensive, too, but they also require infrastructure changes like finding new ways to manufacture, transport, store, and sell fuel. You won't go on a long road trip in your electric car until there are reliable places to plug in and recharge, for example.

This is our dilemma: we want to make radical energy improvements but these typically require expensive platform changes and platform changes can take a decade or more to happen.

A better solution would be to leave the platform alone and find a single variable that could be changed for everyone practically overnight.

Cars are the key to U.S. energy consumption. The dominant automotive platform here, whether you drive a truck, a car, or a motorcycle, relies on gasoline-fueled internal combustion engines. That's the platform we are unlikely to change quickly. So how do we leave that platform intact and unchanged, ask nobody to significantly sacrifice, yet still achieve the noble (and Nobel) goals of lower fuel consumption, lower greenhouse gas emissions, lower pollution levels, dramatically lower oil consumption, lower cost, and lower geopolitical vulnerability for our country? There's only one way I know to accomplish this: change the fuel.

This happened to a certain extent in Brazil during the '70s and '80s by embracing ethanol. But ethanol has less energy per gallon so fuel consumption goes up and mileage goes down. Ethanol can't be shipped in pipelines also used for oil. Cars have to be modified to run on it and even then there are issues about internal corrosion. Ethanol is far from perfect. What's needed is a replacement for gasoline that looks and feels and tastes just like gas to your car but isn't made from oil. Then the platform could remain completely unchanged yet my 1966 Thunderbird (and the world) could benefit starting with the very next tankful.

There is such a fuel, developed by a husband and wife team of scientists working in Indiana in cooperation with Purdue University. This new fuel, called SwiftFuel, is right now intended for airplanes, not cars, but the lessons are the same.

Piston-powered airplanes have a unique fuel problem. Their high-compression air-cooled engines require higher-octane fuel to avoid destructive engine knock. This higher octane is achieved through the use of tetraethyl lead as a fuel additive. Remember lead was outlawed from car gas in the U.S. more than 30 years ago to good effect: we all have significantly less of the toxic metal in our bodies than we used to. But lead is still used in aviation fuel, which accounts for an infinitesimal portion of total U.S. gasoline consumption. Lead is on its way out for aircraft use, too, with international treaties scheduling its demise in 2010.

If we aren't going to retire all the little airplanes in America -- force a total platform change -- we'll have to come up with a replacement for tetraethyl lead. The additive used most for this is ethanol added to gasoline to bump up the octane number. But ethanol does a number on seals and hoses typically used in aircraft to an extent that it is specifically prohibited by the Federal Aviation Administration from being used in certified aircraft. At the same time, U.S. energy policy is moving toward the mandated use of ethanol in ALL motor fuel, meaning there may be nothing available two years from now to fuel your Piper Cub.

Enter SwiftFuel, the Splenda of motor fuels because it is made from ethanol yet contains no ethanol. SwiftFuel is the invention of John and Mary Rusek from Swift Enterprises in Indiana. To your airplane SwiftFuel looks and tastes just like gasoline. It has an octane rating of 104 (higher than the 100 octane fuel it replaces) yet contains no lead or ethanol. SwiftFuel mixes with gasoline, can be stored in the same tanks as gasoline, and be shipped in the same pipelines as gasoline. It is made entirely from biomass, which means it has a net zero carbon footprint and does nothing to increase global warming. Its emission of other polluting byproducts of burning gasoline are significantly lower, too. SwiftFuel has more energy per gallon than gasoline so your airplane (or your car) will go 15-20 percent further on each gallon.

Oh, and based on an average $1.42 per gallon wholesale cost for the ethanol used as its feedstock, SwiftFuel costs $1.80 per gallon to produce, meaning that it ought to be able to sell for $3 per gallon or less no matter what happens in the Middle East.

Heck of a deal.

The ethanol used to make SwiftFuel can be any type, according to Mary Rusek, president of Swift Enterprises. The pilot plant they are building in Indiana will, interestingly, make ethanol from sorghum, not corn. The Ruseks claim that sorghum, which isn't a typical U.S. crop, can produce six times the ethanol per acre of corn, turning on its head the argument that ethanol production consumes more energy than it produces. China, the third largest producer of ethanol after Brazil and the U.S., is switching entirely to sorghum for its ethanol production.

The FAA is already testing SwiftFuel with the goal of approving it for use without modification in all aircraft, leaving the platform unchanged while improving its impact on almost any scale. Hopefully by the 2010 cutoff for tetraethyl lead SwiftFuel will replace the 1.8 million gallons of 100LL aviation fuel used every day.

"But what about cars?" I asked Mary Rusek. "We don't say much about that," she replied. "The aviation fuel market is tiny and has a real need we can fulfill so everyone wants us to succeed. Cars are different and we don't want to make any enemies."

I hope that SwiftFuel is a success. I hope it fulfills all Mary Rusek's claims. But if SwiftFuel doesn't succeed, I also hope that isn't because entrenched oil interests kill it. Yet I don't think many of us would be surprised if that is exactly what happens.

Last month, I moved to Spain, and I took my TV with me. Not the actual TV set, but my shows. As I write this, I’m watching a live episode of “Larry King Live,” where politicians and pundits are discussing the implications of the Obama victory. It’s 9:00 in the morning here in Spain, and even though I’m having breakfast, late-night Larry King and everyone else is truly live, thanks to Slingbox.

The Slingbox is a device that allows for “placeshifting,” letting me watch live (or taped) TV programming in any other place in the world where I have an Internet connection. In simple terms, I can watch my U.S. TV on my computer in Spain almost perfectly. And in my case, the device has allowed me to keep tabs on what’s going on back home so closely that it almost feels like I’m still there.

U.S. TV Abroad: The Way it Was

I’ve spent large chunks of my life living outside of the U.S. and have been very well integrated into the places I’ve lived, reading the local paper and engaging as much as possible in local media. But the one media indulgence I have always missed is U.S. television.

Living in Latin America in the late ’90s, I could access a bit of American TV. Sony has a television channel throughout the region which broadcasts shows from the States. Plus I could watch reruns of “Seinfeld” and “Friends” with subtitles. Then there were standalone channels available in Mexico, with some rather random selections such as E! Entertainment channel, which broadcast original U.S. shows with localized programming. This was almost enough back then, but I remember a fellow expat neighbor who would come back from her visits home with VHS tapes of stuff she had recorded to supplement the limited viewing options. I would jump at the chance to join her in watching month-old episodes of “20/20” and “The People’s Court.”

Then there was the Internet. Before broadband, dial-up service in Mexico, for whatever reason, wasn’t bad at all — better than the one I had in the U.S. — and I could even access a couple of broadcast news clips online from time to time. But because of the connection and the technology of the day (probably Real Player), the video was choppy and watching TV content was frustrating.

Real, Live TV Online, Straight from Home

Before moving to Spain, I made several trips abroad and would think, “I could really live here.” The thought was normally followed quickly by another: “If I could only watch American TV.” I know it sounds vapid when you put it like that, but try watching an episode of Family Guy dubbed into Spanish. The humor doesn’t translate.

Unlike a lot of my snobby Bay Area or New York City acquaintances that claim they don’t watch TV or (and I question this one) don’t even own a TV, I’m not ashamed to say that I can’t live without it. From “Good Morning America” to CNN to The Discovery Channel, my media diet consists of a healthy helping of broadcast news and another of mindless fluff — with a daily dose of PBS to round things out, of course.

The dilemma of how to get that while living outside of the United States was haunting me until I found the Slingbox. Would I see the finale of “Dancing with the Stars”? What about “Nightline”? “Frontline”? Comedy Central?!

Or would I have to resort to the not-so-ready-for-primetime online TV services that have been cropping up over the last year? Last year I wrote about the future of TV online and my observations weren’t very positive, because these services are less than accessible. The difference between something like Joost or Hulu and Slingbox is that the latter is just regular old TV. No selections based on what the networks want you to see, no downloading, no blocked access (most of these services require a U.S. IP address) and no money out of your pocket — except the one-time device fee and whatever you pay for cable.

The choice of what to watch is as much yours as it is when you are at home. All you need is to hook the box up somewhere in the U.S. In my case, I had my mom hook it up in Texas so what I get here is whatever is available to anyone in the Houston area.

Another thing I couldn’t stand about the online TV experience back when I wrote that post was the leaning forward rather than kicking back involved in watching and controlling online television. Desperate to replicate a normal TV viewing experience, I’ve found a rudimentary way around that. I connected my Macbook via a video adapter to my television so that it acts as a monitor, and then connected a headphone-type of cable to run sound from the computer to the television. It’s all very wiry and unattractive, but it allows me to kick back and relax.

A less technical and unexpected virtue of Slingbox has come in the form of a cultural reality check. After living in Bay Area isolation for so many years, I’m once again exposed to local programming from my home state of Texas. I’m reminded that at any time of day on at least three channels one can watch some kind of religious programming or high school football, and that not everyone in the world will be voting Democrat this election season. It’s almost like being home again.

Less Than Perfect

Placeshifting TV via Slingbox, with all of its advantages, is not without its flaws. A pretty important one isn’t related to the device itself — it’s the time difference. As I mentioned, when I log on to Slingbox, I’m watching whatever people in Houston are watching at that very moment. With a seven-hour time difference, that means that if I want to watch in the early afternoon, Spanish time, my options rarely go beyond “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” and infomercials for ProActiv acne treatment. However, I have found that it works in my favor for shows I never could watch before because I was working during the day. And if I could get my mom to figure out how to set up TiVo, this wouldn’t be such a problem.

Then there’s the broadband issue. My service here is extremely spotty. Sometimes it’s great and I can watch an hour-long show with no skipping in the video stream or sound; other times I can’t get an Internet connection at all. If your television depends on a less than stellar broadband connection, you aren’t guaranteed TV all the time.

But perhaps the biggest disadvantage is having to be tethered to a computer. While I can technically kick back and watch TV, my “remote” (my laptop) is connected to a short cable, and I have to get up to change the channel or adjust anything. Because I don’t want wires stretched across my living room nor my laptop running all day, I have to pack it all up and set it up again when I want to watch. This means I watch a lot less Slingbox than I do local TV.

Last year Sling Media, the makers of Slingbox, announced the upcoming release of a new device called Slingcatcher which would put an end to all the wires and the need for a computer to watch live TV anywhere. When I heard about this, I immediately bought into the idea and was ready to get the thing (it has a remote!) only to find that the company has missed its launch date by several months and the Slingcatcher is still in development. If this device ever does make it to market, and does everything they say it will, this important disadvantage will no longer be an issue.

Unlike Mark’s experience with Slingbox back in 2006, I feel this device is something that serves a real purpose and that I actually need (I feel guilty using the word need for a gadget, but I mean that in the way someone might need a TV). But I can see why it might seem useless to someone who isn’t living or traveling abroad. The other uses, such as watching on a mobile device, also aren’t appealing to me. I like TV, but not so much that I need to be watching it everywhere I go.

The Slingbox, however, has kept me feeling close to home. It’s a scary thought, but I wonder how much of our own identity — both as individuals and as a nation — we derive from television. Watching U.S. TV, the humor clicks (for the most part), the language is spoken with a familiar accent, and there is a feeling of home. Even though thousands of miles separate you and you’re up when no one else is, there’s something comforting about the ability to be in touch with what’s going on in real time.

What do you think? Do you think the idea of placeshifting TV is appealing or is it useless? Do you use a Slingbox or another device to watch your TV remotely? Do you use Slingbox for other purposes, such as watching local sports when away from home? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Jennifer Woodard Maderazo is the associate editor of PBS MediaShift. She is a writer, blogger and marketer, who also covers Latino cultural issues at VivirLatino.

Slingbox logo image by Thomas Hawk and Slingbox mobile image by Dan Dickinson, both via Flickr.

Lately, I’ve been experimenting with taking one day each week away from work completely. You might think this would be an easy task as there’s a “weekend” each week that allegedly offers up two full days of rest. And yet, as I work at home, the shiny big screen of the iMac beckons at all hours, and I am often in front of its white glow the first thing every morning and the last thing at night.

So, being that I am Jewish — though not very religious — I decided to shut down the computer each Friday night at sunset until Saturday at sunset, the traditional time of the Jewish Sabbath. I make exceptions when I need to get directions or check for a personal email. I still use my cell phone but try to limit it to personal calls only. While this day of technological rest can be a difficult routine, it has allowed me to stretch my time, spend more hours outside and be with people more in face-to-face settings.

And I’m not alone. The concept of a “Technology Sabbath” is becoming more widespread, both in religious circles and among bloggers and media people who are overwhelmed with the always-on nature of the broadband Internet and smartphones. And that overwhelming feeling is exacerbated by instant messaging, social networking and services such as Twitter, that allow us to do more informal communications electronically rather than in person.

Back in 2001, students at the Christian liberal arts school Seattle Pacific University took a week-long Technology Sabbath and only used technology for classwork. The Seattle Times reported that students started talking more in person rather than relying on frequent emails, played dodgeball instead of video games, and met in a “live chat room.” Could it be? “Chat” from mouths and a “room” with real walls?

As I started taking my own Sabbaths each Saturday, blogger/author Ariel Meadow Stallings was starting a public version of something similar called 52 Nights Unplugged (with its own blog, naturally), in which she planned to unplug from the Internet, DVDs and cell phone every Tuesday night for a year. According to her rules, Stallings allows herself to use a digital camera, iPod and receive phone calls.

After a New York Times article on taking “secular Sabbaths” mentioned her project, Stallings became a media sensation overnight, appearing on “The Today Show,” “ABC World News,” and in a story on CNN.com. Stallings has been amazed by the international interest in her project.

“The response from the mainstream media has genuinely shocked me,” Stallings told me via email. “I knew this was an issue amongst my fellow geeks (one person even calls it ‘Nerd Attention Deficit Disorder’), but it wasn’t until the media inquiries started rolling in that I realized this was a national issue and then an international issue. The story’s been picked up in the UK, Italy, Australia, Columbia…clearly, it’s not just a geek issue or even just an American issue.”

Stallings even set up a custom Ning social network for people who want to unplug regularly, and quickly got more than 300 people to join it from around the world. Perhaps it’s good to be plugged in so you can learn more about unplugging.

Going Further

Those with a religious bent have an easier time finding a moral basis for their Technology Sabbath. There’s the passage from the Bible, from Exodus, that’s part of the Ten Commandments: “For six days you shall labour and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work.” For a Technology Sabbath, there’s a lot to disconnect: No work, no computer, no Internet, no phone, no Facebook, no Twitter, no Flickr, no FriendFeed, no text messages.

Joe Carter has mixed his love for technology and evangelical Christianity for years, as a blogger at Evangelical Outpost and web communications director for the Family Research Council. He just took a new job as managing editor for Liberty Wire, an online magazine that will launch in August. Carter wrote an eloquent story about becoming enthralled with technology and needing to take an Info-Techno Sabbath:

Am I the only one that has sung a hymn about spending eternity worshipping God and secretly believed that heaven must be an incredible bore? (No e-mail? No blogs? No YouTube?)

Carter was inspired by Kevin Miller’s book, Surviving Information Overload, to start taking one day off each week from technology, the media and the Internet. He tries to go from sundown-to-sundown (just like the Jewish Sabbath), and tells others to choose the 24-hour period that works best for them. And Carter tries not to be too strict about the rules.

“Because my problem is the information overload, rather than the technology itself, I turn off every device that works to force-feed me non-essential info,” Carter told me via email. “Some tools, particularly my computer and iPhone, are significant distractors so they are avoided completely. But others, such as TV and radio, can be used for other purposes. While I avoid NPR and cable news on my ‘Sabbath’ I have no qualms about listening to music in my car or watching a video with my family.”

I undertand the pull of a Sabbath for a religious person, but what about secular people who are media junkies — or who work in the media field? Isn’t it our jobs to be totally connected at all times just in case Microsoft drops its bid for Yahoo on a Saturday night?

“Those of us who work in media and technology (my job overlaps both) often make excuses for why we can’t disconnect from our devices,” Carter said. “But I suspect that we don’t have any more need to be tethered to our technology than any other types of business people or knowledge workers. The truth is that we don’t want to be disconnected, though we desperately need the break.”

One person I found through a Twitter query was Paul Wiggins, an assistant editor and web producer for Fairfax Community Newspapers in Sydney, Australia. Wiggins, 48, told me he goes completely without computers and his smartphone from the close of business Friday until Monday morning’s commute.

“During the six and a half weeks of annual leave time, the office cannot contact me,” he told me via email. “Getting away from computers helps folks to engage with their communities, which is what we are supposed to be all about…My house is in a wireless blackspot and I’d need to get wiring done to get broadband access.”

But Wiggins is far from being a Luddite, as you can see from this picture of him at work doing online editing. The difference between Wiggins and the rest of us overwired folks is that too much of our lives take place online, making it more difficult to disconnect.

Slowing Down the European Way

Not surprisingly, the idea of disconnecting is more ingrained in culture in Europe, where people have more work holidays than in the U.S. MediaShift associate editor Jennifer Woodard Maderazo, who recently moved to Barcelona, told me that most of her work colleagues in Spain and Europe had never heard of taking tech holidays because it’s a given that they wouldn’t do work when away from their offices.

“Most people I asked about tech holidays said something along the lines of ‘Spain isn’t like the U.S; people know how to disconnect,’” she said. “In other words, they don’t have to take a tech holiday because they shut all of that down and relax after work. One executive doesn’t carry a Blackberry and says his friends and colleagues don’t either. While he still checks email even when on ‘regular’ holidays, he only does it once a day and at a certain time of day, to ensure that it doesn’t cut into his personal time with family and friends. The exception of course would be early adopters like bloggers and people who are on social networks, who are definitely not the majority here.”

When Maderazo put out a call on Twitter for more connected types, she found that people were already trying to disconnect at least one day per week — if not more. Noelle Sadler, an American who works at an ad agency in Barcelona, told Maderazo she is especially good at disconnecting when out of town.

“I [unplug] as often as I can,” she said. “Leave the phone, laptop, etc., at home and disconnect. Even my watch sometimes. Very relaxing. Usually just go on a tech strike because I’m out of town…a luxury. I should try it here at home in Barcelona sometime!”

Internet entrepreneur Jose Luis Antunez has a more hectic work life, and hasn’t taken an official vacation since 2001. Rather than take a real Technology Sabbath, he simply switches devices when everyone is on holiday.

“The concept of ‘tech holidays’ doesn’t officially exist in Spain,” he said. “What happens is that those of us who are always blogging, Twittering, etc., just go off the PC and laptop during the summer (like the rest of Spain) but we continue to use the cell phone for those things.”

But beyond just taking a vacation or one-day Sabbath from technology and the Internet, perhaps we need to consider our obsessive use of technology at all times of day (and night). I wonder whether I need more strict guidelines about when my work day actually ends and when time off begins. I would be scared to actually add up the time each day that I do work vs. the time I am relaxing away from the computer.

Ariel Meadow Stallings, for one, has decided to do more than just her weekly night unplugged.

“I’m definitely working to integrate what I’m learning from unplugged night into the other six nights a week,” she told me. “The biggest issues for me are mindfulness about the passing of time, and intention about what I’m doing at any given moment.”

What do you think about Technology Sabbaths and unplugging from work on a regular basis? If you live in another part of the world, what is your cultural norm for taking time away from work and technology? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Fishing photo by Javier Garcia; photo of Ariel Meadow Stallings by Ariel; photo of Paul Wiggins at workstation by Paul Wiggins, all via Flickr.