December 2004

Threshold News

The Incredibles: Information Superheroes

Threshold Information offers custom knowledge services to answer specific business, science, and technology questions and to monitor events outside the corporation. “Custom knowledge services” – what exactly does that mean? Our work is known variously as: information services, business research, and secondary information searching. My personal favorite of the moment is “Get Smart” and “Stay Smart” services.

But none of these phrases adequately convey the special skills and experienced judgment, the mastery of expensive and complicated tools, and the pure intelligence required to deliver the quality of service that Threshold does.

To ensure that our clients become accurately informed and stay that way on complex business and scientific issues from A-Z, Threshold researchers have to be pretty darned good at what they do. In fact, they have to be information superheroes. Their superpowers have been developed over years of experience and by dint of hard work and commitment to a service ideal. Technically expert, business savvy, and committed to maintaining excellence – that’s our team. I’m very proud to be associated with them, and grateful.

If you need business or science intelligence superservices, call The Incredibles at Threshold Information. And if you think you’ve got what it takes to be an information superhero, I’d like to hear from you, too.

Cynthia Lesky
President
Threshold Information

Picture yourself as an information superhero

Do you have:

A broad and continually updated knowledge of headline developments in business and science?

Intimate and constantly updated knowledge of how information is retrieved from at least eight subscription content vendor platforms, and what is covered in each of their hundreds of discipline- and industry-oriented databases?

The creativity to imagine where relevant data might be found on the hidden Web, in journals, market studies, newspapers, books, and government filings and the patience to actually tease it out?

The ability to evaluate, analyze, and communicate large volumes of often esoteric information?

The commitment to deliver accurate insights in convenient format, on time and under budget, every time?

Opportunities In Business

Bridging to the post-oil economy

As this is being written, oil is at $49 a barrel, up from $30 a year ago. Oil prices will decline again, but the long-term trend will be higher prices. Demand for oil is growing, particularly from India and China. Throughout the world, oil production is peaking, country by country, leading inevitably to greater control by fewer countries, mostly in the Middle East, higher prices, and, eventually, shortages.

Looking at this from a purely business perspective, we know that high oil prices lead to inflation through higher energy and transportation costs. High oil prices can push up interest rates and trim economic growth in all industries. For instance, the food industry is impacted by the rising price of oil-based inputs like fertilizer, by transportation costs, and by greater processing costs.

When we consider “opportunities in business,” we much prefer to think about new ways to approach the market, creative ideas for enhancing brand value, and other initiatives geared to short or medium horizon activities. Weaning our whole society away from oil dependence is on quite another level of complexity. And because the benchmarks are expressed in decades rather than months, we may think it is out of our hands. But from the perspective of many of us, twenty years is beginning to seem like not such a long time.

Energy economists speak of a “bridging” strategy that may take three decades or more to get us to a point of significantly reduced reliance on oil. This bridging phase will consist of a mix of oil, natural gas and coal, hydrogen internal combustion engines and fuel cells for cars, wind, biofuels, and solar for specific applications, and, not least, conservation. But it must begin soon. The companies and individuals that start across this bridge first will reap the greatest benefits from what is, after all, a business opportunity.

The most fundamental impediment to moving proactively into the energy future is ignorance. In spite of the fact that the U.S. uses 25% of the world’s oil, we in the U.S. are woefully uninformed about energy issues. Europeans, with their $5.00 a gallon gas, are much more conscious of the state of the world’s resources, and consequently, farther along that bridge to the future. Germany, for instance, is on track to get 15% of its energy from alternate sources by 2010.

What will it take to begin to understand the implications of facts like these?

Driven by the developing Asia-Pacific economies, world oil demand is growing at its fastest pace since the mid-1980’s. China’s consumption, for instance, increased 11.5% from an already high base in 2003.

The U.S. is the world’s third largest producer of oil, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia, but has fallen to tenth place in the international ranking of proven reserves.

In the U.S., one in seven gallons of oil is used for transportation. Raising the CAFÉ standards is the single most important thing we can do to decrease oil use.

If you are interested in learning more, each of these links will lead you to more Internet resources and organizations.

To learn more:

Oil Depletion Analysis Center

Statistical Review of World Energy

For a daily look at oil, natural gas, and electricity prices, see Bloomberg.com's Energy Prices. The Nymex Crude (New York Mercantile Exchange) price is the most tracked by journalists.

Here’s WTRG's chart tracking current oil prices.

To do more:

The Alliance to Save Energy promotes energy efficiency to achieve a healthier economy, a cleaner environment and greater energy security.

Smart energy choices for business from the California Energy Commission.

The EPA provides an energy performance rating system which businesses have already used for more than 19,000 buildings across the country.

To participate in the public discourse:

Most environmental organizations offer convenient ways of staying on top of specific legislative and regulatory activities and one does not usually have to join the organization to use that group’s legislative action communication services. A couple of those with a tighter focus on energy:

National Resources Defense Council's “Break the Chain” of oil dependence action link.

Alliance to Save Energy action page.