francisco. 1860 san francisco has mature d and it is isn't the tough town as before. you have the brothels but they are further back and all of the same activities are happening but they are more discreet. and the rampant lawlessness you can read about in books where you here about the australia ducks and thugs is fantastic reading but by this time that has mostly passed so i would not say it plays an enormus role in their work. >> is there a top research that you did for this book? >> i would say 75% happened at the bay cliff at berkeley. it was invaluable. there is such good scholarship around mark twain. you can go see his letters and correspondence so when it comes to researching twain it is straight forward. with the other characters i had to dig deeper into archives because their work isn't as widely known so that was more detective work which i enjoyed. i was here in san francisco, oakland and a couple collections on the east coast and in los angeles but i was mostly in berkeley. any other questions? thank you so much for having me. [ applause ] i will be here signing books so if you want it signed i will be right here. thank you for coming. >> our special book tv programming in prime time continues tomorrow night with highlights from book fairs and festivals beginning with the los angeles times and then a gun control debate and later from tucson a discussion on charity. that is here on c-span2. the house this weeks takes up its third of the 2015 spending bills. we covered the appropriate process and are joined from capital his. this is a wide rangeing bill and give us an idea of what is in it is how much congress wants to spend >> $52 billion and that is $400 million less than the current levels. this is a super wide range spending bill. it funds the department of commerce, justice and science agencies and touches issues like abortion so this is a wide ranging bill. >> i want to ask you about the gun issues. the highlights say the bill advan advances and does that mean the debate on the floor will not see gun debates? >> not at all. this ate up of the majority of the time and because of the recent shootings we are expecting to see many of the same gun amendments in addition to perhaps new ones. >> tomorrow tweeting about this bill you said that they break down the obama 15 request and link to the chart that is showing that the ocean administration is getting a chunk of the office and the national institute of standards and technology. is the request about the same in terms of percentage? >> it is about the same. but one interesting thing they want to is cut 25% from the climate research side and they want to move that funding to weather satellites. so interesting shift there. democrats are opposing that so we will see what happens with that on the floor. >> and in addition to the gun issue, there is word on the issue of medical marijuana and law enforcement may come up. >> there is an interesting combination of lawmakers from company that are look to back this. state's rights and conservative republicans and your most liberal members who are looking to include a provision that would bar the justice department from prosecuting medical marijuana users for it states where it is legal. this has been brought up in previous years and turned down in committee but given the increasing poll numbers for the legalization of marijuana nationwide the number of supporters this gets on the house floor is something we are watching. >> the heritage foundation is opposing the bill writing on the spending in the bill. they are writing that congress should require nasa to expand contracting for provide space rockets. the proposed budget has funds for food for a trip to mars despite nasa has no plans for an expedition to mars. does this have an impact on members? >> absolutely. especially the republicans so we will watch how many break the heritage. >> this is the last bill for frank wolf of virginia. what will his legacy be in terms of this bill and the overall process? >> you will see a lot of provisions in there that are his legacy issues particularly related to gun violence which has been an issue in his northern virginia district and he cares about science and he is proposing the highest funding for the national science programs. so he is going to step out and support the money for science that the republicans would send other places. >> thank you for the update. >> a forum on russia's influence on national gas suppliesupplies. and we will look at writers including michael sims on his book the adventures of thoreau. on the next washington journal, a lack at the role climate change and energy issues are taking into the 2014 elections. our guest is elena shore and then james brown executive director of the s.t.e.m. coalition discusses the obama plan to train more science, engineering and math teachers and later we talk about the recent article on why gm is swerving from apology to anger in the crisis. >> one of the stories that resonated with me was the moment when there dithering about whether or not they need to inject sea water into unit one. it is a matter of -- the clock is ticking and they are just about down to the wire. and the plant superintendent who would have at a make -- to make the final call is desperate. they had to get water in there. everybody wanted a say and the top officials are himing and halling. and they get an order from a super visor at tepco that the government hasn't signed off on this and he has to hold off. he has already started! and so he basically calls one of his staff people over and says i am going to give an order but ignore it. and he loudly proclaims we will halt the sea water injection when they didn't. to me that was a human element in that story in which in japan for ignoring the rules and kind of acting on your own isn't rewarded. here was a moment where a guy knew if he didn't act thinks would go worse than they were going. >> more about the meltdown at the fukushimas plant. part of booktv this weekend. up next, a forum on russia's influence on natural gas supp supplies for europe and asia. >> good morning and thank you for coming out. i think this is one of the most exciting programs we have had. i happen charles ebinger and we are delighted to have everybody. i would like to thank edward chow and our own cliff gaddy and i would like to say it is a particular honor for me to sponsor this event because there are very few people professionally you can say in the jace of jonathan stern that we have known each other for 40 years and met each other when we was working on soviet gas. it is a delight to have him and james henderson here. without further ado, let me introduce jonathan stern and he will kick us off. jonathan? >> thank you very much, charlie and thank you all for coming. we appreciate the opportunity to launch our book here. i want to say in terms of protocol as far as the press is concerned the first launch is in london next tuesday so in a sense we are not here. this is actually the first time we have presented the book in public in this way. we come from a small institute part of oxford university and we are some of few people doing research on the unfashionably subject of oil and gas. you can see the title of the book. we are going to give you a snapshot of had issues. some of issues. we will not talk about the ukraine crisis in the presentation but would be happy to talk about it in the q and a. this is the first book i have win since 2005 and the subtext of that book was would the russian's be able to develop enough supply for all of the markets they could deliver do. and now the question is no longer that. the question is can they deliver gas to rapidally changing markets where the pricing conditions and they are facing much more competition than was ever the case in the past? and the idea is not to go through all of the numbers. it is just to give you an idea of the complexity of the situation. the russian government faces a very, very complex mixture of supply sources and markets which have to be managed on an ongoing basis as those markets have -- are -- changing rapidly. i am still listening to people who keep saying things like what are they doing in europe? is this due to political or commercial issues? these are the kind of compl complexities we'll be addressing in the presentation and addressed in the book. let me locate you in terms of the importance of gas in the macroeconomic picture. people and particularly journalist tend to talk about oil and gas in the russian economy not realizing the two are not comperable. this shows you and i hope you can see, the three charts share the gdp and gas is significant and they share in export where gas is 12.5% compared with oil at 54% and the share of budget revenue. gas is very, very important in the russian energy balance but it isn't important in the big financial picture of the russian economy. this is another way of look at it where the top two light blue and dark blue bars are the money the russian government earns from the gas taxes as opposed to the green bars which is the money from oil. those people that keep saying we must try and impact on the financial aspects of gas because this will punish the russian economy haven't got the picture remotely right. let me rush on and show you the big issue with gas problems on long take programs. the reason this is really important is that americans, some of you i can see i recognize, will remember an era before the 1980s when there were long term take home contracts in the country but that hasn't been for a long time. they are still alive in europe. these bars, the top gray line, this line is the 85% take home pay and this is the current situation. so what you see here are the contractual commitments for those of you not familiar with cubic years if you divide by ten you get a per day. what we are saying in the chart up till the mid 2020's european buyers are obligated to by closer to 15 billion cubic per day with legally binding arbitration. so all of the discussion on how europe can reduce their dependence on natural gas, if europe wants to break the contracts it would need to spend $400-$600 billion euros. that is not going to happen. there is a difficult dependence math people try to do saying this country is dependence on this country for this percent of its gas supply and that is not helpful on a country basis let alone a european bases. the thing you need to keep in mind is traditionally virtually all of russia's gas supply went through ukraine hence the problem we are having. but that has been diversified because of the lack of the truck the russian's have had in the whole post-cold war era due to non-payment and what the russians contrued as sacred gas. this has been the problem that the russian's haven't been able to control the supplies flowing through ukraine. as a lack of that control they have built pipelines of which the first you see here and better here. where we have two pipelines now up and running. but despite the fact that we have probably around 5 and a half billion cubic feet of deliverability they have not and are not running at that rate. and that is principally due to complex regulation in the eu which means there has been a constraint on the amount of pipeline capacity that gas probe has been allowed to use. that might have been resolved but due to the ukrainian situation and the brussels situation it hasn't been resolved. that is a simple problem compared to this one. which is the new pipeline making landfall in bulgeria. we will talk more about this if people are interested. but there are regulatory problems with the new regulation in europe connected with the fact the new regulation hasn't been written so it is difficult to comply. but the model for how it will work conflicts with the new principles of the regulation. and this is very important because the really big problems in january of 2009 and if we have a crisis in the next few months and weeks will be and have been in southeastern europe. romania, serbia and other areas that experience the huge problems in january of 2009. and that is why this is a very important pipeline for one aspect of european gas security but as i am sure you will appreciate it is considered a threat in relation to other aspects of gas and energy security. so that is a brief snapshot of the europe part of this book and some relations to what -- the events of the moment. i will pass it on to james henderson now who is going to talk about other aspects of the book. >> thank you. so one of the interesting questions, the biggest question that we try to ask in the book is what is going to happen to gas problem because that is by far the largest producer and reserve holder in russia in terms of gas and the largest exporter into europe and the former soviet union and the larger seller of gas in the domestic market and the reason for the title "the russian gas matrix: how markets are driving change" is because what we have served since the book in 2005 and the economic problem in 2009 to put it frank is gas has become the least desirable option in the market and the biggest question is how is gas responding to the change and the need to find customers for its gas. i think the best way to explain how the shift came about is a combination of factors. the first was the stagnation of gas in europe as the crisis and as the government started the shift toward renewables. the second was the gas revolution into the united states leading to cheap coal. the third was the rise in the oil prices which meant oil related gas prices in europe suddenly became expensive. all that was happening and leading to if you like a reduction in the demand for russian gas at the time when on the supply slide they had made a fundamental decision around 2006 they were going to develop a huge new region in northern siberia because there was a concern that russia might not have enough gas to supply the markets. and the events coupled all together with the massive development of a new gas supply led to a perfect storm for gas problems which is somewhat reflected up this graph. and what we try to address in the book is how gas problems eventually has started to address the issue of its gas being the least desirable option and is now trying to develop stratgies to solve that problem. the dark blue on here is -- sorry, gas problems, historic fields the big soviet legacy fields that have been in decline and you can see very sharp decline and this is why the question was raised about the question of the malfields and the malfields are the light blue, the third tier of blue. and so essentially in 2013, gas problem outlook for the blue fields production isn't going to rise at all really over the next 20 years. as it faces this new demand outlook. and this contrast with the outlook it had only a year earlier in 2012 which is reflected in the high case as they now call it the blue line and where you can see it downgraded the forecast by quite a bit. it had been a gross projectory and now it is flat. but nevertheless the light blue expands so what happens is committed to developing gas in a more expensive regionf of russia and it is now becoming dependented on hire priced gas and has a lot of it and access of it because of the commitment to the development of the fields. it is being forced to cut back its production expectations so what we have in russia now is a gas bubble. an oversupply of gas. there is a lot of gas to be produced by the company and by independents as they are called. we have a competitive market developing in russia and also in the export market for russian gas. the other thing to point out is all of the growth you can see is going to come from the east which is another new thing that is developed in the book and last week of course gas from finley signed the agreement which we can discuss in greater detail. gas problem in the west is fighting significant competition in all of the western markets. has a flat production outlook and a lot of gas to produce but not enough markets to sell it in and all of its growth is coming in the east. this just talks to the theme of the mal. the shift from the west siberian areas up to the northwest with the massive new pipeline that is being put in and the potential development of this area as supplements which are being pushed further out and you can see also at the top the mg project when i will talk about in a little bit. but the shift away from the core areas into the expensive developments and this essentially gas that is tied into the new source of higher cost gas. in contrast with the gas problem story the other key theme in the russian gas supply story has been the immergence of independent producers and now the force of the national oil company which is moving much more into gas and this graph demonstrates the theoreticle growth of were introduction and you can see essentially it could more than double by 2020. in reality what i think will happen because of contracts that have been signed with customers particularly in russia is domestic independence will peak. we see the shift either way because they have been forced to compete with the independent sector who has under cut them. so the gas share could fall below 4% by 2020 and the further element of competition that is emerging is in the export market where they are now allowed for the first time every to sell gas to customers outside of russia in the form of lng and are preparing to do that. so they are under threat from domestic and international peers. this slide just makes the point i made at the beginning that essentially there is a lot of russian gas looking for a market. what i have done here in the graph on your left is just to say what was gas saying it can produce in 2012 and miller has outlined the capacity of 6 billion cubic meters per year and i show historic and independent production in 2012 and 2020 and you can see there is a huge potential surplus. it is theoretical of course but a lot of gas is available. and within that position in russia gas is the high cost producer is essentially becoming the swing producer if you like of russian gas which of course puts it in a difficult position but a position of strength as well as i will describe at the end. it is high cost gas but in global terms it is competitive in western markets and in asia. in terms of moving to competition, this shows you russia's lng plans and highlights that gas controls the existing production from suckling two and in fact rose f has a competing project on the same island which it plans to bring on stream with exxon by 2019. and most relative and immediately, nov tech is planning to sell gas into asia and into europe and we are seeing the first elements of competition for gas problems in the core european market as well as in the new asian market. and you know, i think that competitive threat has much as anything else may have catalyzed them to get it done this year because significant pressure was bill building up to get an asian deal done. in terms of the asian deal we can talk more about the details but the foundation will be the in in infustructure that is build by the option on the left via the pipeline that will run on the china border here and on to the lng plant there. these two pipelines will become the foundation of the strategy that could be russia producing and exporting. this is a fundamental shift in russia's export strategy. it is hugely important in terms of foreign policy and domestic development of eastern region and provides gas with the ability to reestablish itself as the dominant force in the russian gas sector. a quick word about central asia. we talk about the shift in russian strategy in central asia from being the dominant buyer of gas to now taking a subordinent role to china. we have seen russia and gas accept a loss in the region as the commercial realities has meant that the they are sending much more of their gas east than north and we would expect that to continue. we don't see exports from central asia into the russia rebounding and remaining into the 20-30 bc for the foreseeable future. just to conclude, given the half hour is up. this graph at the end is intended to show that although some of the issue we addressed in the book are problems as markets have changed and driven a change in strategy particular at gas prom. russia is in an interesting competitive position relative to europe and asia. the vast amount of their infrastructure is west toward the european market and we believe despite the fact that gas prom is quite high cost in the european context it is competitive and to put a number on that, we calculate that the break even price of the mg at the german borders is $7-$8 which is competitive with anything we could see that could arrive in europe to compete with that. toward asia, the new pipeline that will be built and reserves that develop will provide gas at $10-$11 and again allow russian gas to be competitive with future and current imports into china. so although russia has had to face significant competitive threats over the last 5-6 years as the markets that they sold their gas evolved they find themselves in a competitive and geoographically good position and going forward they could find themselves in a strong position over the next decade. i will stop there and woe are happy to take lots of questions. >> there are a lot of points for discussion and i thank you for the commendable piece of work you have done. if i may use the power of the chair because the commentator is going to be edward chow and cliff gaddy. if i may raise a question you ended your presentation on, jim, and i guess the question that emerges in my mind is if the chinease deal comes into life and the gas moving into the far eastern power markets, do you have views on what that means for competitive lng sources? i am thinking does this make it more difficult for canadian lng to come in and gulf coast lng from the united states? are we kidding ourselves with all of hoopla about the lng that it maybe subdude from the more optimistic forecast. >> i think the context is that assuming the deal goes ahead as as you say and gas from canada develops the infrastructure that is require we are talking about 38 of gas into northeast china into a market that is looking for 400 billion cubic meters of gas by 2020 if they meet their current target. so 10% of the supply for the market so there are plenty of room for supply and the chinese have developed a compass of supply. we have the western supply and the southern supply and supply on the eastern seaboard from lng and regasification is being expanded on the eastern sea board and the russian side is the northern aspect to the supply and there is increase from conventional and non-conventional sources so there is plenty of room for other things than lng. but it does set a bench mark price for imports into china because the chinese have set a bench mark and this deal looks like it is linked to oil and oil products as well and would deliver gas into the eastern coast at around 12-13 and btu which looks like the price of united states lng would be delivered. so we are starting to get a bench mark price which does make it more difficult or forces the higher cost lng particularly producers to assess how they will be in the chinese market. there is a gap for the volumes but we are converging on a price expectation which is lower than we have seen in the past couple weeks. >> ed? >> thank you charlie and jim and jonathan for putting the book together that is a contribution to the field. it is good to bring real base analysis to washington because here in washington we substitute perception for reality in policy making. i don't know about europe but that is always good to have prophets from overseas come to washington because sometimes they are not respected in their own country and i promise to do the same in brussels and london as the community arises. i think one comment on gas and the importance of gas to russia that i might make is that it is definitely true oil is all about money in russia. but gas is often about politics. domestic and foreign policies as well. and sometimes even personal politics as well. and you can see that in mr. putin's personal involvement in ukraine and the china deal that was just announced. mr. putin would rather have gas statistics at the drop of the hat any time he is given the opportunities. so this is something that is close to the russian leadership. but the question i want to read and it maybe a subtext of book and i will read it more carefully and that is in order to meet the various market challenges, rather fundamental structural reform of the gas structure in russia is needed. it amuses me they are called independent. it would be like calling exxon mobile and con independent. are they going to be limited? the so-called independents to serving the domestic market as they have clearly expanded their scope there or are the one ong one offs or do they pretend to something that is larger in the fuc future that will be a real liberalization of the gas market and one could easily explain ong and the special relationships rather than the systemic change over the horizon. if you were to become more response to the changing global market it seems some changes would be necessary. and unbundling would allow better access to pipeline capacity by more producers than just a privileged few. you think about the associated gas that is flared all over russia given supply isn't the issue. on ukraine it seems to me not only is ukraine currently relied upon for these half of gas problems exports to europe there is also a question of whether the availability of transit through ukraine allows gas prom to compete in a way that the expensive projects do not afford because they are expensive projects that need to be fina e financed and require the long term pay on part of the buyer in part order for the programs to be financed. so gas prom is not given the flexibility to price their gas to meet the stock market where it is rather than be stuck with long term take or pay contracts. i would be really interested to hear you talk more of the assessment of the recent deal in cha china. some of the russian pronoun pronouncements haven't been agreed upon by the chinese side and there is going to be a loan or prepayment required for the cost in terms of capital spending on gas prom's side. we don't have a lot of commercial term details. it is interesting in the slide that jim showed which was a gas prom forecast of the 2020 production from eastern siberia. it was modest in 2020 so maybe this deal will cause them to revise their forecast. how real is the deal and when and how might we be able to tell? one other point that is particularly interesting for europeans coming to washington to hear more about is the eu's compitation case against gas prom and maybe a report should be -- competition -- filled not too long from now. maybe by the fall. the other part of the picture you can help us fill out maybe is how interested in russia in the gas exporting forum? is this something that will not lead to anything or is this something in the longer run may have more legs than we seem to expect right now? i happen to be in another country last week and the minister there invited the gas turk to the meeting forum so a little bit about that would be interesting for the audience. >> you raised a lot of questions and before you address them i will ask cliff to make remarks. >> some of my questions will be the same so i will not repeat them. i want to say how happy i am to read the book and get a free copy which i think people in the audience are amazed with, too. this is an amazing book and i think it is going to be the go-to reference book for anybody that works on russia and energy issues. it doesn't have to be focused on gas at all. i spook as a consumer -- speak -- there is no way i can envision knowing a fraction of what i know without the book. i wanted to make the point that ed made to some extent. despite the title of the book talking about the marks and jonathan's remarks on the supply and demand. the book is more than just about the complexities of markets. it is also about the complexities trying to balance different interest and the tension between different interest. and this is largely between the political demands placed on the russian gas and to resolve the contention with the commercial demand. there is thee demands as the book points out being placed on gas proem. it makeed no sense to make it up to libing up to the profit potential without taking into consideration this is more than a profit maximizing entity. and a small percentage of russia's formal tax revenue is funded this way. it has the go-political role and this book talks openly about this in a real and sensible way and debunks the idea that gas is a weapon and points out it is a lever and a point of pressure. it is used and if you use it you will probably destroy your ability to use it in the future. and then the role of gas proem in russia which is economically and political and that boils down to gas proem's role in keeping an economy alive that is not always viable completely on its own. it reserves jobs and construction structures and input producers and a huge part of the defense industry is kept alive and was especially kept alive during the '90s by orders from gas proem for equipment from cables, pumps, aircraft, engines and so forth. it is a hugely important role. it is expected to play that role. perhaps more than anything else. it may only produce, gas proem, may only account for 5% of russia's tax revenue but that is formal tax revenue and if one were able to compute the imformal burdens social and political they play we would see it is an important role. the tradeoffs and contention is the overall themes of the book and i like that. it is two-fold message. the authors are identifying the huge nature of the complexities both in the market sense, competitive market and the beyond non-commercial complexities that gas proem faces. and bigger than people imagined and they will only grow larger. there was a positive message that jim ended the question on about real signs that gas proem and russia or the manager of the big russia incorporated we should say vladimer putin is able to see and adapt. maybe belatedly but who knows what he says publically is different than what he does. i have heard him poopooing shale gas and you tend take it seriously in the beginning then you wonder if it was a smoke screen. my sense is there is real capability for change in russia. it will not be the kind of change people are imagine but there is going to be change to adapt to the changing environment that gas proem is in and just to end on this personal note of putin's role which ed outlined or indicated clearly. he does regard himself as head of the whole energy sector and gas but he hedges his bets and has fallback options. he avoids making a commitment that he cannot get out of somehow. with that sort of mentality given the challenges that have been described in the book here -- we don't know exactly what sort of changes he might undertake. i think they could span anything with respect to domestic organization of the industry as well as foreign markets but we have to keep our eyes open. i think the gas sector, russia's energy-based economy is more resilient than many people seem to realize or indicate when they go forward on assumptions about past behavior and that is the story of the book indicating the challenges, tradeoffs and tensions and giving indications on how changes and adaptations have been made. >> thank you, gentlemen. >> i will pick up the specific points. i will leave jim the talk about china and independence. i will pick up a point cliff made about the role of gas proem. if you look at energy business models it is caught between the model of a traditional company into producing company where they are expected to provide energy for citizens at below cost. that is what they do almost everywhere in traditional producing countries. and one interesting point ed made about reform is the russian's have done well in relation to their peers for reforming their gas sector in relation to pricing and liberalization. i don't want to make too big of a deal of this. but if you take a look at the european countries in relation to price and liberalization you will see the russian have a long way to go. but in comparison to where they were ten years ago and where in my previous book predicted they would be they have done well. every cubic meter of gas sold in russia today is sold at a profit. maybe not a big one but that is a big thing to say about producing countries. and in our book from 2012 on gas pricing around the world what we saw outside is subsidy and unsustainable subsidy and putin did address that. certainly the third party regime isn't perfect but it exist and it is talked about in the book. it is relatively complex and it isn't going to happen any time soon but it is talked about. that is a step forward that anyone would talk about it. let me just catch you in a few ukrainian european things. as far as the ukraine availability transit and that that means going forward, i see this as a typical russian chess game. they have their pieces on the board in different pipelines and if necessarily they will move them around the board depending on the commercial and political situation. they would be happy for a resolution of the ukrainian situation which would create a mon -- non-hostile relationship. rather they will succeed with that, i would not venture an opinion. but normalization with the people in kiev is a priority. is it achievable given the kind of guy putin is? big question. the case against gas proem. yes we are closing in on what will need to be the statement of objection. this is what you call anti-trust. the key problem here is that the competitional authoritys are objecting to the continuation of oil pricing in potentially the central east european countries. gas proem is resisting this for all kinds of reasons. if they don't settle with the authorities with if the authorities see the state of objections and if this was an eu company there would be so appeal our objection but it isn't so they will appeal and those guys don't hurry so this could stretch on for the next new years. but i believe by the time this is finally resolved, if it goes all the way to the european court of justice, in contractual terms it will be settled, i would be surprised if the european court of justice tried to levy a fine for historical violations which the russians wouldn't pay anyway. how interested in advertising but not in tterested in reality. putin did a major speech last year about this which didn't represent anybody's policy apart from his own. but only three countries are really high profile. the russian, the iranians and the algerians but the iranians don't export gas and the others don't agree on anything. so this is something that journalist get very excited about about not many other people. >> talk about the independence and the deregulation of the russian market. and picking up the points about balance, it is interesting to think about whey the independents have seen an increase. and it comes down to the problem gas proem has it balancing their objectives to survive and operate as a commercial entity and try to make some profit to keep it going and develop. i think what we saw around post crisis was as the markets changed and gas proem failed to adapt there was a risk that the commercial inad quit that it would be loosing its dominant role and its ability to be a tool of foreign policy. i think pressure was being applied but from various angles and it isn't just about this issue. it is about vested in the as well. the owner of novco is related to putin or linked to putin and there was a notion that gas was failing and elements of competition and also elements of encouraging russia to start to develop its most competitive gas and get it into the market place was a driver and you saw that in the domestic market because gas was expensive and new fields needed a higher price to underpin their economics. we saw the pricing increasing by 15%. and at some point the independent producers found they had russia's cheaper gas and could undercut gas proem and from 2012-onwards when the contract expired they were allowed and encouraged to compete and set what was a quazi price in russia. they will be allowed to set prices above and below the regulated price and this is because gas proem's higher price was undermining the growth of russia and consumers were complaining about high energy prices. it means there was an incentive to encourage some competition and now we are seeing three big gas companies in russia and now we are starting to see this in the exporting market. gas proem's market share was one catalyst and the deal with china was another. we have seen it broken in a controlled patter. if you are a state company with offshore gas you can develop lng. if you are a company with lng defined in your license you can develop that. so those are two specific projects. so it is limited. but it was a poke at gas proem to say get your act together. and it is interesting that novtech signed the deal and there is now a joint venture with siberia. so we are seeing a balance between the commercial, political and vested interest. it would be a controlled process. looking forward, the next step could be third party access to the pipelines in the east. that is the next potential step towards a controlled liberalization of exports. there is no mention of the pipelines facing west and being liberalized in this faction. but you can see the step by step process in which the three companies try to find the balance in the east and then the west potentially and i think the liberalization process is a slow one and it will be many years before we see gas proem broken up but we are taking steps along the journey. in terms of the reality of the china deal, i see what you see and it is difficult to be conquered about it. from a commercial perspective, we believed that the price at which they appear to do the deal by some between $10-$11 is about the right price for both parties to make price. we estimate gas proem can make a reasonable rate of return assuming they invest efficiently in the program and we estimate the gas in china could be beneficial. it is appearing to be a balanced contract with lot of bells and nuan nuances it would seem to make sense to take the deal forward. commercially it looks sensible so i would not be surprised if it did proceed on the terms that we know. >> thank you very much. i think it is time to open to the floor. we ask that you please identify yourself and please keep your question a question and not a lengthy statement. and you can address it to a member of the panel but if anybody else want to weigh in we will proceed that way. over here against the wall? >> thank you. i wanted to go back to the idea of the perspective bubble and throw out a few reconcilations for the bubble. and one is you reform the price you sell to europe and make the gas more competitive. the second option is build a western route to china. you try to lower the price within russia and shove more gas in the russian economy or leave it in the ground for a better day. if you were to think about the four possible options how would you think about the attractiveness of each. >> the leaving it in the ground is what is happening now. even if you don't believe them saying they could produce 617 last year when it is 487, even if he is being lenient they have a lot of gas. what i think is interesting the most and we as an institute have conducted a public debate with gas proem on pricing and they are still saying the same thing. they have, after a lot of hard talking with their customers, they have adapted where they needed to adapt which is in the competitive market. so their prices are now competitive with hub prices and in europe. the way they have done it is incrediblely bizarre way of doing it. you have to pay and you get paid back to you pay too much. it is crazy way of doing but they did it. the question going forward is do they want to push more gas into europe? and here we come back to what we described in the 2012 book of the discriminating monopoly situation and they all do this which is how do i continue to compete in my main markets without crushing the price. and every so often they make a mistake and crash the market or they starve it and it goes up. but what is interesting with this quote unquote threat in europe prices in europe are falling and have fallen around 25% from the beginning of the year and that is telling everyone, which they should have known, gas is in trouble in europe. demand is falling and falling faster than domestic production. gas proem figured this out in 2013, lowered its prices and it creased its sales. >> i think the interesting thing about gas proem is it isn't competitive and at some points it has been cheaper than hub gas price which is why the volume is rebounding and i think the russian's are confidant that europe isn't going to find alternati alternatives and there is no doubt they can undercut lng in europe. if they want to they can undercut the competition. there is no reason to crash the price now. in terms of your question about what do you do with the oversupply. they were loosing money in the domestic market until 2009 when they first broke even. the price now is given or take the break even price delivered to moscow. we reached a level where it can make money and break even on the most expensive fields. they could pump more gas into the market but there is no need as the customers and producers found a level at which they are happy and the price isn't going up and going forward it looks good. in terms of the western pipe to china, absolutely, that you would love to do that. but the chinese are not falling that. they can see the gas strategy to play of the europe and chine market. i think gas proems best hope is to sell more gas or russia's best hope is sell more gas in the east using the new and existing pipelines and the western route is something in realistic term that is out 2030's before we see gas coming from the west siberia. >> the western route is where the lack of chinese comment is making us question. they are talking about the rate to get it up but drawing gas from a pool that is western siberia is precisely what the chinese don't want. it was specific that besides the determination of the route is the definition of those as the source of the gas which raises the suspicion in my mind that maybe they are going to try claw upstream eventually. the supply from china and if they develop the field with the usually way there might be a question down the road to bring up the question of equitly. >> tim and airial. >> thank you. i am tim with brookings. i would like to ask a question. you have hinted at the answer in the previous response but i would like to learn more about europe's desire to diversify supplies. it isn't new and it has been diversified in the light of the events. if i listen to you correctly with the background knowledge we have on the competitive of fuel sources in europe there is going to be an incrose creasing number of coal and then russian gas. if that is correct what does that tell us about how willing russia is to diversifdiversify. >> i mentioned that we are some of the few people working on the unfashionablely subject of oil and gas and this is because 99% of people in european university are working on energy and sustainable issues. let me tell you this is a horrible generalization but i think it is reasonable. for most of the old west states in europe and everyone under 35 this is the only subject that matters. the planet is at risk why are we bothering with this old hydro carbon stuff. this is the problem with promotion of code. the environmental committee hasn't understood what is happening. it is basically a manfesto for coal and to treat coal as an energy product. europe is nowhere with the trading scheme. this is something the commission will have to do as it picks up in the fall. i don't know how that will work out but what i do know is that i am confidantly expecting the coal to be resistant outside of germany. the question as alternatives to natural gas and this is a political alternative thing to say but there is no other alternative. probably in the whole of europe no more than a hundred wells have been drilled anywhere and mostly where they have been drilled they have been unsuccessful or massive resistance. my own country you drill a well, just drill it, and it is headline news and there is a punch up between environmentalist and police. this is for one well! the big gas cruse crisis in europe that no one talks about is north africa. egypt. and algerians haven't issued data even because we know what it will say. but once things get too serious no one can talk about it. east may is going to stay in the region probably. and so on and so on. so, this is something that many studies have been done and many consultants have gotten rich but it isn't anything new. >> there is a simple analogy with the situation. they have to look at the japanese example and say you can do that but there is a price and that is what the russians are saying. if you want to do that, go ahead. but you know, if you want gas at $10 come back and see us. and that is why the russians are keeping quite and letting it play out. i think the interesting delima is playied out and ridding euroe of one source of supply and they are being blocked from doing that for short term physical reasons. so we will see how that plays out. but you know of course that doesn't diversify europe but reduces its transit use. just to endorse his point. >> good morning. great presentation. cost of production. if you look at eastern siberia or if you look at the arctic, cost of productions are very high, this is land gas as opposed to offshore, but offshore that is shallow or offshore gunie they are signing new licenses as we speak, don't you think this will be to europe as well and the picture in the early 2020's is going to be different than what we see today where russia gas has an advantage for west siberia. and the second question is about ukraine. do you think they have viable options with gas coming from europe as lng or otherwise or lng even into the black sea with the floating terminals? thank you. >> well in terms of the outstream cost, the overall cost are high. the overall capital expenditures are expensive and russia is competitive. i think gas delivered to europe can be delivered at $7-$80 so i think it can compete with the offshore sources. i don't think octy gas is in our life. >> you are a young man -- >> i don't think i will see arctic gas coming out of. there is plenty of gas to satisfy the west demand. georgia is difficult with the helium issue but it is all about transportation cost. it is huge distance to market from both. but i think that, you know, russian gas up stream can be competitive and the interesting thing in the east is that we are going to see if gas proem fails to deliver, you will see the same thing happen in the east as we have seen happen in the west and that has been mentioned by the energy minister. ... >> there are complicated reverse flow options for the ukraine that we need to discussed throughout life. what the russians are clear about, because they saw this happen in 2012 and 2013 area this is all of it that they will be careful to try to place this in a way that wouldn't happen. but of this country can be run by people who would even give the place a chance or if we could just get some and this is something that we have to be a success. >> please use the microphone. >> thank you for the remarkable presentation. and it is quite astounding what you have been describing and my question is this. and we have the index that are having to mention slow climate change and etc. those occurred in copenhagen. so not in a 22nd clip through. including about environmental implications, greenhouse gas implications and etc., which as we know it swamping the west in terms of offshore issues and all of the above. and i am just wondering how and if that fits in both as a cost dimension and also as a strategic dimension of give and the exceeding acceleration of carbon fuels and i guess i would be particularly interested or this might be off topic of the exxon mobil center that is being constructed in st. petersburg to take on environmental corporate responsibility issues. >> let me try to address the reason why we haven't done very much in this really focuses on what this is about, which is not in that area. and that is about it. and there is some evidence of greater sensitivity to environmentally these when we develop their projects. and if you take a look at the developments on gas pumps sites, you will see a lot of references what we have done in order to try to counter the environmental problems that could have arisen. and so one of the things is very notable in europe, that while the gas industry has tried to play the climate card, it is almost very logical and this is part of the fact that it environmentalists tend to focus on me feeling mission issues which are unquantifiable and one of the reasons but not the only one there, they are so fundamentally opposed. and so that is kind of the start of the story. >> have i would just like to say that i think that for the rest of the year risks have been underestimating the impact in europe. and from what i have seen it has made one of the presentations outlining the traditional view of gas as a supplementary fuel to substitute this. and it has made some effort to demonstrate the benefit of gas or coal. and it has failed to make an impact. and in the east, of course, it's very obvious. and we have a natural environmental story. and it's quite clear about what is going on with gas substituted for coal and so forth. >> thank you kevin. thank you for that presentation. >> this is related to the u.s. role in what is happening to ukraine. and i think the reason that jonathan outlined, with the europeans quickly adopting punitive measures. but there has been a lot of talk here with legislation and draft legislation in congress that directly outline for this. i'd be interested to know your perspectives on what the effect would be of u.s. sanctions against this. and would that have an impact on this and what do you see as being the material effects of the u.s. sanctions against it? >> welcome i will start and i will ask my question to jim. but i have been very careful in saying that we have a political crisis with the russians and must not make that into an energy crisis ridden and we are completely supportive to the general view of annexation and i think that we need to be very clear in europe that we have an enormous amount to lose from this relationship. and so if we are going to impose significant costs on ourselves, let's be clear while we are doing it. and so we all hope that there is an any incursion in eastern ukraine and if the status quo is maintained, my guess is that there won't be any increase in sanctions into the industry sector. but the one thing that we should keep in mind is, of course, this is not a new situation and u.s. actions on soviet energy have the strongest antecedents. and i think the u.s. should look that from what happens between those episodes in achieving this and. >> i think the technology sanctions in the gas area and i was with with a few things that are of concern to that project and one is the political faction technology for this company and if there was a specific targeting of that, the back of her. and the other thing that is already having an impact as the financial sanctions of making things nervous about lending. and it's taking longer than expected for precisely that reason. but of course, what we are seeing in both instances just to complete the technology, the other two areas are all related and particularly this in the sea and then there is the unconventional from a number of companies now. and honestly that transfers technology as well. but the response of a number of issues is as we are seeing is you'd have to finance a lot of this stuff and it's not quite as easy certainly in terms of this and in terms of drilling in the unconventional side and you can get some of these to come from there as well. so on that front there is a sort of offshore that is kind of difficult and i can't see how they can drill in this without the support of these technologies and how that can impact things. so i think this is a massive pr event and that would be an interesting one to follow. >> unfortunately we are going to have to cut it off they are. i want to thank jonathan and jim very much for joining us and we are so pleased the you could be here. i would like you to think our gas. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> are special booktv programming continues with a look at early years of several writers including michael sims on his book the adventures of henry fro. a little less than an hour, wb be country and special and then mark twain's life in san francisco in the 1860s and his relationship with a group of writers known as the bohemians. >> c-span's new book, sundays at 8:00 o'clock, includes author malcolm gladwell. >> when you write, you don't write with -- with this kind of way. and so you shouldn't think about that issue at all when you sit down to write. what you should sit down to do is to write what you find interesting and to follow your own curiosity. so when i was writing to pinpoint, i can honestly say that i never for a moment try to imagine how well that would work. i thought that i was writing something cool. i wanted to write something that my father and mother would like. >> read more about this conversation another feature interviews for my book notes program. now available at your favorite bookseller. coming up next, michael sims and tse adventures of henry dorrellt he spoke in massachusetts for a little less than one hour.f >> the bottom line is that in like to type. thank you m so much for coming t today and i was wondering if it was going to rain on us. i was thinking that i shouldn't be worried about that becauset y this is henry david and she hase taken to quoting famous quotations by henry davidly skit thoreau. tonight she makes me you self-conscious about things like this. so thank you very much. there are wonderful times. i wanted to keep the 19th century in my head and not the 21st century. so i was completely immersed in the primary sources of the area with this fabulous three-dimensional aerial viewovo was conquered on july 4, 1885, the day that he moved into the cabin, i kept on the wall beside my desk and was completely surrounded by the atmosphere of the mid-19th century. so i was afraid to come here and i was afraid the parking lot might ruin it for me. so the very first thing that i would like to address is the pronunciation of his name. locals and scholars know that he was born david henry thoreau and accent on the first syllable. readers of his pronounced in thoreau if they didn't know him and know the time because it looks french and it translates well and his family washi from jersey from the island in the channel. so there were only two pr from the i ay pronunciation and they changed htif here. t so i just don't think it matters very much and i slipped in and out of it. and so very few of us would bother to do that, i think in crt depending on who we are talking about and having spenthm intimate or close time with them, as i said, i tend to call him henry and the book is a almt close-up almost novel like lookk at his early years and i don't mean anything fictional but very textured and detailed from they. primary sources.enry and so throughout the book i call him henry and no doubt i will fall back on. so i need to start appropriately by a quotation of ralph waldo emerson who said that he was free and strange.at was and the one that i keep comingir back to is that he was very strange and that was the exciting part with this personality and character and t. getting that on paper and at times it felt like i was having this be a part of this. bu od it worked. lot but when i looked at it almost vibrates with attention of getting all those different characters and personalities and the same great people a lot of times come down on one side or the other or feel that they ought to. they become eight thoreau he wa idolater or acolyte or theyo do decide that a critic of his own enemy of has come of it he was a fraud in some way or whatever.mn i felt no urge to do that, i don't have an ax to grind, i'm just interested in the reality. he was a very important writer to me in the beginning of my teenage years and hugely influential in my life or that i just am not interested in heroin worship any more than i'mfl interested in trashing him andam so i wanted all of those paradoxes and their together because that is what made it fun toeat write. it's a great deal of his life about various synonyms and alternatives and there was aficd huge amount on a very deep level and on superficial levels and overall year-long levels and daily effort in researching and writing of the book and i hope ihat shows. he was a paradox and it is whato makes him poignanty read about and i think the book is sort ofy have to wear full and half melancholy. it makes him funny to read about because he was a very sarcastici caustic wit and he can be veryas funny knowing that he was. unfortunately for me as a writet in many ways he was part of thiy in ways he was totally unaware of. which was almost more interesting. so inn't haveo my story becauset have to cover his entire life om trudge from significant accomplishment to significant accomplishment, i am able to look ahead, i don't analyze or criticize or critique. i just try to convey the story is much in the air that i possibly can. so i'm writing in that third person voice in and out of the minds of hawthorne and his wife and emerson and two or three ofi young children who are in were in the school run by henry and his brother john. joh and so all of those resources to meet a lot of different texture and make it feel more alive andt made it feelo more like a busyo. little movie to do. a friend of mine said are you o writing a movie or a book and ii said, welcome i found so much gorgeous original material that it feels like this at times beca because there is so much dialogue written down anus hour later by the participants.lse and they would write down what theirng a thoughts were across n be newselse would be writing a letter with experience of the same event and then there would be ather and new story talking d famous people were.detail c so there's so much texture and dialogue and detail that comes alive in a way that completely captured my by imagination.bihy and so i love the biography and i read biographies of cecily.d t f occasionally i get frustrated with some of themithm because they seem to forget that these people did not know thatso they would amount to anything. they didn't meknow they would become famous and they certainlr didn't know that anyone would be pouring over their lettersuld hs diaries 100 years later, or then would've been more discreet, definitely. and you can tell when certain writers do research and literature over the ywrears, thn they reach a certain point whent they think that they have becom important when they have signed over to their correspondences which gets to be more cautious. so it's very interesting. so they had none of that at the time. so there's a great deal of lively critique of each other and a lot of peoplepartic participating in gathering and then going home and saying i'm sure that he means well, but he's an idiot, or whatever. all of those details make it come alive. kept people dhinking and reminding myself that these people did not even know, just like us andld everyone in this room, if they would get through the day. they didn't know they would live until tomorrow. they certainly have no plans of ever being important. so i wanted to include something that i think occasionally disappears from biographical writing, which is the thing that keeps us getting up every morning and looking ahead, which is suspense. so if you don't already know th details of his life, i think he willabout be surprised about ey five pages because there is sobs much moree t to him than what ii encountered in high school whenr i loved high school and i love e the courses in english. but a lot of times when theou norton anthology of of literature, you're presented tht work and expect to have the marble bust of the icon. i didn't want to dust off the icon for my father had been donw plenty of time and ias wanted to find henry beforethor he was thu and before he was the patron saint of environmentalism and civil liberties and certainly le the man i who best expressed itw for the 19th century, the sense of how you live the life in own which you have self-respect andd a sense of w aorth and your ownl direction you are participating in the world at the same time. and i think no one else in theis air express all the things soprl completely well. book that so working on the proposal for a different book, which i don't eed to talk about here because when i was reading the diaries of hawthorne, who was someonei who married nathaniel hawthorney i bring them in a while becauset they knew this and i start within the data they moved and a wanted to impart this because they offer a different view than emerson seal. but also because they come in i after the story has been going for a while and because they are deeply in love, they are absolutely warm fuzzy come outh. and t of focus over each other. he and that contrast with which heg keeps havingir a crush with one girl after another and he was a man who the maid said that if he came through the back door o the house and went through the kitchen, anywhere that he encountered one.contr the contasrast seemed to me to have a little bit of poetic dift resonance to the story in an emotional depth and also ar different point of view from thg character coming and. so i was reading the diary and o came across a scene that hascanc absolutely no historical significance and so the is of n literary importance whatsoever, but it's a woln hdumerful humant moment that brought all of these things to life but had not really thought of them before. so i'm going to read as a couple paragraphs from my book that isn the result of my encountering diary a this scene andnd researching it. and piecing it together. so the winter of 1842 and 1843ls is up old difficult time in concord. with the thermometer sinking to its lowest point, despite their wherework, the hawthorne's were in sleepy hollow just east ofurd the square where indian corn laid aerate under snow. the newlyweds let down hillsweds together in their laughterls and echoed underneath the chestnut . trees that surrounded the hollow on all sides. the current flows quickly after ciooding lowlands for miles is providing widescreen services for skating.skaters they like to run and slide on the ice instead of skating, always boys or young men. few women skated. sarah alden bradford visited concord and 1820s and she impressed the locals by skating with energy and great, but concord women were slow t tof follow her during example these publicly. one afternoon, henry and emerson joined hawthorne for skating. party and she watched from the window as they paraded by on the river. at home on the ice he led the way with an energy and abandon a and as if suddenly ecstatic, they cavorted together and she found it slightly embarrassing. second in line was hobbling gliding across the surface with ers solemn grace with his adoring eyes a greek statuest propellingat itself. and then came emerson, seeminghe half-asleep and tilting forward at the waist until his top halfh wasal horizontal. as if he nabbed by reclining on the air itself and soon exhausted became endorsed thered rest and said that her husband reminded her of a tiger whose image reminded her of an ordinary situation. he deemed his famous kind smile at her and said he is such an agent, who can cope with them. thus began our search for whatba became the adventures of henry thoreau. the other book died on the vine, at least for now, there's a half written proposal in western wer pennsylvania. theal in adventures, i had to ie rent defend the title a little bit.tting w he was not an ivory towerhis idealists and a the thinker sitting with his chin in his in poem. he led a very busy life and inm this book halfway through his time at walden, he found ath progressive private school with fought his brother and he plots a forest fire that himself started and he faces his own onus is ono the deaths of various loved ones, one of whom literally dies in agony in his arms. he falls in love and he asked the same girl to marry him and is rejected by her that his brother had two months earlier asked to marry him and he was wrecked by her as well. so there is a lot of crazy spi wonderful adventures and are and he has a dramatic spiritual revelation atop a mountain wilderness in maine and he spends a very small unimportantn nightg in jail until he makes it important by reading the person who wrote best about the fict concept. creating about 25% fictional as autobiographical i as a narrator. night froms very interesting to me. for so was such fun to re-create the texture and the detail of all the things, like the night in jail, what could he hear and i don't mean to make this up or imaginary, what did he say in- his journal and so on. so i have to mention that he spent six months on staten island working as a tutor to emerson's brothers and trent brothers children. i and so i think that was the most fun i've ever had as a writer is taking him off manhattan and staten island and re-creating what it wase-crea like. but these people dodging the servts and they are driven by literary servants and they are c hoping workman driving giant blocks of ice, still covered in sawdust downtube basement level oyster bars and the vagabond slime of manhattan with wild fod stray pigs and they were the street. so getting all of these details with as much fun as i had ever had and so they keep coming back rspei just found it fascinating. so despite the glorious revelations of the human genome project, personality and character are still a mystery te and how he got to be the way he ans was and how he influenced others with that weird way that one person can be a catalyst and another person is not, all of those things were so much fun to try toher pers track down and ad same time asking myself what did itca sound like walking down a street in concord in 1841 at night on an average day. in the 1840 presidential campaign came through and it was the first grassrootsthat outrageously rowdy campaign of american history and it changed everything because it was it wal entirely about style and not eac substance. so they presented each of th presidential candidates, there was a largely fictional version oeach one set up against a ficti largely fictional version of thn other one and they went head to- tell and had almost nothing to do with the real people. and so getting all of these details was so exciting for me. i'm sure that you can understand that henry was not ar hermit, he was not a monk. he was caught up in the life of the town with his friends and family who are very doting and adoring individuals. he lived most of his life in concord and he admitted that he considered what he called homeopathic doses of gossip to be as refreshing as the rustlew of leaves and so many weird. surprises like that are part of this. so you realize because his becal family had a boarding house that was very rowdy and busy all the time. there was a private workspace and hang out where he could gew peace and quiet without hearing someone practice in the piano, going everything playing in the u kitchen, people going up and h down the different stairs everye morning. e o so he said that he was at his family's house every day or two in there is the classic line of who did his laundry and he helped to build a house of the family lived in and was there every couple of days to help keep running and working on it the and he constantly kept track of everything. handiest writer and a history of literature as far as useful tell.ix ag because that's a silly that we are not generally the most useful people in the world. he could fix anything andmak mae anything and i am still bragging about changing a doorknob sixerg after it happened. so he wasanging a d not like and literature that i've run across an part of it was he was very anchored in the real world.ll so reading one paragraph, a description of him in his college years, not all of his classmates knew the 5.7 inches distinctive shape, shoulders like a long arms contrasting short legs and some recognized him from a distance byn his unusual and purposeful stride which reminded them of indians.t he took a shortcut whenever possible, sometimes walking with his hands behind his back were t clenched into fists at his sidet during his years in cambridge he often keptlf himself. some students notice his earnest expression as he walked acrossas campus distracted as if looking for something that he had lost. he continued to dominate atended conversation and even turned it into a monologue, a and histion self-absorption becomes part of us.w friends it attracted young men who were equally serious loabout life. with few intimate friends who witnessed his love of natural history and his tendency of this more than people.sessionith this included his excited response to nature and love of s kittens and a noble life. of friends knew that because of hin practical side at six years old he is build his own vote and before improving it, his parents considered apprenticing him. another thing you won't find in the story. so for me the period that hecing begins to be really interestedr in is when he begins to dim disappoint anderson. because there is a deal of transcendentalists acting that sort of platonic and tons of the grand ideals behind theand everw realities that we see, that everything we see is an image of ae greater reality and everythg is in tweha stee sense lesson. as well as purely symbolic. so that is an outrageous implication and feel free to the jump on that. so at the point that he begins to be interested less than the t symbolic word, which is in ofim abstract terms and very a specifically paying attention to the particular food in frontn of him as an individual creature d that had a history and had experiences that were as real as he was i think at that point he became a little bit less interested to emerson and the interesting morsel to the rest of us. he was reading darwin and the huge fan and he was veryof speca prominent and could see the validity that he somewhere a whole lot older than some had in realized just not exactly surprising. so although my book ends halfway through the water near his command includes a wonderful moment when he is plummeting through the depths of walden hond which he had an image hes has used symbolically in the past and he very carefully goes out and carefully measures a detailed cross-section of the ba pond, every little corner and company and measured it precisely with what had been described as bottomless. t and he said no, it's actually wd this. so those are the kinds of ways he was becoming more and more attuned to this. one must when i want to make and i will be two more paragraphs from the book that t i think wiu give you an example of why was so excited about this book andei is so excited about him in writingexci it. the point i wanted to make it something that you see disappearing in the early ey sraphies of him, and later on something that i want to mention. it's the role of the women in his life and they start to vanish and an example is thenigt 1970 play, which is a very annoying flight because when robert lee was working on a they clearly did their research and then they played very fast and loose with it.t henry had two sisters who arewer very bright and they wrote letters to him in latin and they were an important influence on him and his mother and two and sisters were founding members of the antislavery society in one of the very important slavery societies that white women weree meeting the white rule on slavery and hugely influential. so all of those t are facts if u look at that are taken away.hens and they will take all of the eloquent words in both theirl bt sisters vanish andh disappear. so the girl that both boys proposed two, she becomes a sort of vapid bimbos student who is very smart and tough and interesting becomes a sort of nag and it's interesting to see therof this happening so there' definitely a tendency that part didn't fit the image. and so part of this was bringinf so many female characters back into it. and it makesgues me think the we point of which is that black mee are equal and real realize the white man and the play and they are presented pretty much with the same that is difficult to do with katharine hepburn.th so one last thing is as you knoo the 19th century was a time ofr rampant illness and there were very few safeguards against illness and disease which may bb the could be tasragic on anow. as w personal basis and so as we allt know every work of art or attempt at work of art and i am going to presume in this broad definition, it is a form of ana self-portrait and whatever you e are creating at whatever level, you drawn to this and i've knowa some that are not anything but objectively chosen. from a certain way and a certain angle at a certain time in their lives. so this was very much happening with metering this book. so while i was writing and researching this book, i wenthing was going on. my niece was killed in a tornadt and i went down to tennessee in response to that my 85-year-old mother had a severe massive stroke. so i spent a month taking care arn of her and then we learn that ma wife is pregnant with our first child. m so i realize that my mother will not meet our w child.uld so we had to help her and i'm fw typing this with just one hand i have photos and i may be the most pathetically doting father of all time and i would be holding a newborn son and his arm and realizing that there wea were sitting in the dark quietly talking and i realized that my handsci l had connected this foe generations in the circle of of haght became more real to me and writing became my way of t responding to all of it. the and so on that background note,s the idea of the circle of life,w the riskan of loss, i want to close this topic with a brief passage that is absolutely no historical significance in thisw time frame was great fun to write about in part because so many things are happening then delete the groundwork for what became our era. was insane dreamers have resumed to imagine instantaneous c communication and finally theref was the telegraph. and people had greeted the first form of movement that did not involve animals or wind and so that caing was changing in this way and henry was fascinated all various and then there was a development that came ograg at exactly the same time that is my favorite invention in was history. photography. and there was nothing before that was an accurate record and whenmove from england and the new world and just a letter oncy a year. so there is a spoiler alert hera and i don't think that will mess it up for you because it's a very short timeframe. and i think these moments and this image sums up the excitement of trying to to resurrect the past and the feel and the smell of it in the sense of their everyday lives. and i think perhaps it explains this as well and this is the aftermath of her son's death. it was the first generation to possess a new kind of memento a and this brilliant new inventioe that had been announced as recently as 1839 at a meeting the meeting of academies of sciences in paris was already being touted as a miraculous machine to preserve time. originally photographic orosures had taken hours days over the last couple of pru years a positive image reversed was produced directly on a silver copper plate and the result was so sensitive that it be isolated inside a frame or folding case.posu children posing for photographs had to be coaxed into premature [inaudible] and the previous autumn other friends and f haadmilyee membere stillunable to talk him to sit still l long enough to capture s image.only j only john.ble at his behest a day at the photography studio, while the was dressed in a dark girlish cr smock had sat w in a wooden armchair with his hands folded in his lap.d thus after his death they could gaze at a framed oval daguerreotype of waldo. his expression was solemn andwad far away in hair parted in thets middle of things sideways. his sculpted thin lips select his mothers had to remain ravens still.troll like theing p unrecorded movemef people strolling the colors will be enjoyed on the paris boulevard, even smiles fading as a way for enough light to sitims down. distilling memories magically drawn to fly. but the fleeting gestures and smiles and raised eyebrows and the sparkle of life were lost. ow much t. [applause] questi >> if i would've better person i would know how much time we have are questions and answers. >> okay, we are good. so someone here will tell me.as the q&a is my favorite part because i've had some rough idea of what i was for the scenic route. y so i encourage you to sayve anything that strikes you as interesting or ask a question that you always wonder about. >> now we know quite a bit more. and one of the episodes here, it seems as though i was wonderingm that john began. and his [inaudible] so i was trying to figure out what the source of that was. but do you have any more information about this? and this includes his spiritual journey as well. >> that's a very good point.is i i had sob many footnotes that te last second i was cutting and combining. it was possible that iaper snid this and it will magically. reappear in paperback. be i'm obsessively going over theei book right nveow. so it's entirely possible that i do that. but i can till you the background. henry was relaunched the questioner being aggressively ad gativecal about the world. but he was very calm and considered a gentleman and a used the phrase cleanly minded o gentleman. and they didn't want to hear ovetrsheromments by the boys.y buting he was very much oneht traditional and he wrote some in verses about dying and death that are quoted in his eulogy, a couple of verses from now. the he was much more traditional in many ways and also the handsome brother and the popular b srothr was patient with everyone and he didn't have the traits that make him so much interesting to writf about, their affection for each other was so interesting andeca john is the second most important character in this book. because their relationship is brothers are so interesting. but he was definitely much more traditional and was thinking and anch more religious in that way he quickly abandoned and became rather aggressive towards organized religion still considering there was a guy by a nature and humanity and behind the design of the world.intellig he had aen fairly sophisticated design as well. >> apparently he couldn't reallo risk is and he was considered so lighthearted and he really wasdd joking and he was dying right there. latierm he was beginning to arch and doc this finding this sarcastic renin seem to be on so many faces. and john was the moment that his jaw muscles were locking up toa. sit down and talk about poetry and literature it was sweet and funny and poignant and i have had a brother die on me as welle >> you mentioned uncivil this abuse because he was rebelling on taxes, so i wondered where hy would be in thinking where woulr he be now because they say that all different kinds of peoplelii take him as their own,. isn't le >> i have seen them quoted by democrats, episcopalians, democrats, republicans, all ofo it. it's great fun. it's not like they areell misrepresenting them. and they've said so many things so incredibly well the you can s pretty much pull him up with a thesaurus of wonderful phrases. and he paid his school tax and s he paid his road tax and he ppentually stopped paying for au while part of this that went to his supporting of the larger federal government toan w participate in supporting and still getting along with slave holdings in southern states and financing the mexican war, which is something the more progressive people considered a hugelyheng aggressive outpost.ht so i think now he would be billy said he could never resist andms the period in which he goes to jail is important he wasn't that original and so he was an especially when they were doing this version of that until ihury have a 1-year-old and by the time he is walking at the out the door he's beginning to think of ways to magnify the experience and i really think ac vast amount of american nonfiction goes back to him. and vaguely related e-mails that we have had, so all of those things have really been a part of this as we settle down and d it in the best times are fiwhen get up first thing in thelways morning planning ahead and sketching out proposals with various stages of completion. and so that gets rid of the th overlap. so the reason i mention that it that there are lots of ways to make this part of the clear work.oake and we have the anthology series to make of this income. lin and hee has this immortal line with what i have called a life that has to be exchanged for immediately or in the long run.. and so i would say that in ordee to have the time to think and to ride and to throw away a quarter of what i write and to waste time and spin my wheels and need to keep this very small of a low overhead and it really will wire is time to think. so that is more that you ask unless animated. >> you understand that if you don't ask the question, it may free associate. sumac honey that would work. >> was he one of the women that had something for louisa may alcott? >> not that i know of, she camee to town i believe in 1840. so she later had a bit of a crush on him and worked him into one of her later novels. so you have given me theshe hadu opportunity quote what i thinkle is the very best insult of the 19th century. brain ho she was, as you know, a very clear eyed sardonic wonderfulth. brain. i so she made this comment about henry. and these are the photos we all know which makes it look as ifl. it you had been to g tap hated and just not that handsome to look out. so got to be known that henry thought that was attractive and there are people here who canths correct me as well as i canrs remember very close to this end we think that his chin whiskerse will protect hisned virtue. and so now it would be shortened to no one is going to kiss that. [laughter] >> she did have a way withwork? words. write stuff yo >> details of the timeline is? >> oh, and theu timeline.ut part of it again, the idea thatk won't write stuff that you arebt excited about, but you have to survive in the real world and ai lot of this is timing. so think ahead about wanting to do a project and i've been thinking that i've written a lot of the anthologies and i know pj this corner backwards and forwards and i'm been a speakere hook nings like that. ando so the because of that i thought now would be a pretty good time. so my editor got on board and nt got very excitedo about it in o timeline needs to be quick in terms of this attention, i'm trying to do a substantive story reconstructed of the real