Tragedy of the commons.  

Maybe as the cities become uninhabitable we could railroad the refugees to the shale deposits - and give each refugee a pup-tent, shovel and maybe a couple bic lighters to heat the shale...

Russian government to call for action on stalled Royal Dutch Shell project

Sakhalin-2 saga

Russia's upper house of parliament will discuss the Royal Dutch Shell-led Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project today and call for government actions over the venture. Sakhalin-2 has come under pressure over ecological and technical compliance from Russia's environmental agency.

 Analysts say this is part of a broader Kremlin strategy to gain control over the lucrative project. Russian Resources Minister Yuri Trutnev, who will inspect Sakhalin-2 next week, has said Russia is particularly upset by the doubling of costs at the project to US$20-billion, which will delay when the country gets its profit oil from the production sharing deal.

The Sakhalin-2 group, which also includes Japan's Mitsui and Mitsubishi, argues that it is not different from other big projects and its costs rose due to higher steel prices and the weaker dollar.

Good story. Some excerpts:

Proposition 87, however, aspires to affect the international oil market, so a look at California state politics is not the end of the story. Gal Luft is co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, but he spoke to The Journal on his own behalf as an energy expert. Luft said the real question is whether Proposition 87 can actually accomplish its objectives, given the economics of oil and what its cost would be on a global scale.

"I think the goal of a 25 percent reduction in [petroleum] consumption in California within 10 years is completely unachievable," Luft told The Journal. "There's no way, period." Luft scoffed at the billions of dollars allocated in Proposition 87 for research into alternative fuels.

"We have the technology today to move beyond oil. You need a deployment of existing technologies," Luft said.

Even some of the more practical portions of Proposition 87 don't go far enough for Luft. Though the measure would subsidize retrofitting public agency vehicles to run on an ethanol-gas fuel mixture, Luft said that it is aiming to fix the wrong problem.

"Their proposition does not have a clear idea of where the [ethanol] fuel will come from," he argued.

Luft worries that a research-heavy approach like Proposition 87 would focus on experimental "cellulosic" ethanol from biomass, rather than more tried-and-tested solutions.

Luft's final point was geopolitical. "All these [Western] companies, Exxon and Chevron and BP and Shell, all of them together are about 8 percent to 9 percent of the world's oil market," he noted.

If Proposition 87 does weaken U.S. oil companies like Exxon Mobil, said Luft, that plays into the hands of the state-owned giants like Saudi Aramco.

Debt holds U.S. troops back from overseas duty

Thousands of U.S. troops are being barred from overseas duty because they are so deep in debt they are considered security risks, according to an Associated Press review of military records.

The number of troops held back has climbed dramatically in the past few years. And while they appear to represent a very small percentage of all U.S. military personnel, the increase is occurring at a time when the armed forces are stretched thin by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We are seeing an alarming trend in degrading financial health," said Navy Capt. Mark D. Patton, commanding officer at San Diego's Naval Base Point Loma.

Pressurized Oxy-fuel System has no Pollutants and Captures CO2

ThermoEnergy Corporation  (OTCBB:TMEN - News) is developing a pressurized oxy-fuel approach known as the ThermoEnergy Integrated Power System (TIPS) which is a process designed to produce energy (electricity, steam) from coal, with integral carbon capture as liquid CO2 and near zero air emissions. Pressurized oxy-fuel technology addresses two major issues affecting the future use of the country's coal resource. These are:

1. Economic capture of criteria and toxic pollutants (such as mercury) from the diverse power and steam generators needed, and

2. Economic capture of CO2 from the larger power and steam generators used by utilities and large industrial facilities.

Once it is commercially deployed, TIPS will revolutionize the way the world generates energy from hydrocarbons. Based on reliable oxy-fuel chemistry, TIPS departs from the traditional oxy-fuel approach by pressurizing the entire combustion system.

The energy cost of separating air and pressurizing the oxygen is roughly 20% of the total energy contained in the coal.

Taking Credit, or Not, for Pump Price Slide

Oct. 20--WASHINGTON -- Oil company executives have been cringing at the poll results, economists all but screaming.

Nearly a third of all Americans believe the oil industry, in cahoots with the White House, is orchestrating the recent drop in energy prices to help Republicans in November.

So there was groaning again on Thursday when House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., issued a news release that was headlined: "Gas prices continue to fall during a Republican majority."

"Oh, that just fuels it," Jim Glassman, senior economist for JP Morgan Chase in New York, said with a laugh. "That will just reinforce suspicions. ... Leave well enough alone, for God's sake."

Hastert's assertion comes just days after a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that nearly as many Americans believe the drop in prices is all a plot as those who contend -- as economists insist -- the price decline has been caused by market forces.

Glassman doesn't think voters really believe the oil conspiracy theory.

"I think they know better," Glassman said.

"It's just kind of fun to talk about in political terms. I think people understand what's going on," he said.

The headline on Hastert's news release is certainly true. Gasoline prices, indeed, have dropped of late; the GOP is in control of Congress. And the statement makes no other overt connection between those two facts.

Instead, Hastert says simply, "Today's tumbling gas prices are giving Americans relief at the pump, and it's giving them more money to spend on their families."

Hastert spokesman Ron Bonjean denies any suggestion his boss might be helping to perpetuate a myth.

"Gosh no," Bonjean said. "If we had the ability to control gasoline prices, we would have had them low all year long. They'd be low forever."

Bonjean credits energy legislation pushed through by Republicans for the easing of the pain at the pump.

Opponents point out that energy prices hit their highs while Republicans have been in control.

"Only the Republicans would celebrate gas prices that cost 50 percent more today than when President Bush took office," said Jennifer Crider, a spokesman for Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.

In his statement, Hastert did wonder whether Pelosi might just have a "secret plan" to raise fuel prices if her party takes control of Congress.

After all, he said, she had voted for tax increases in the past.

Crider responded: "The plan is to lower the cost of gas, to roll back the tax giveaways to Big Oil and invest that in alternative energy and efficiency."

Corn is an extremely water intensive crop. A study conducted by professors at the University of California at Berkley and Cornell University concludes that 8,360 gallons of water are needed per equivalent gallon of gasoline in the form of ethanol from corn. The same study observes that the US consumes some 140 billion gallons of gasoline annually. Thus, six times the amount of water used for agriculture and all other purposes would be needed in order for ethanol to replace gasoline.

It would be some time before ethanol production could approach such a level, however, concerns over strains on the nation's water supply, due to ethanol production, have already arisen. For example, earlier this year, city officials in Champaign and Urbana Illinois voiced reservations over a proposed ethanol plant that would use about 2 million gallons of water per day, drawn from the same aquifer that supplies both cities. Illinois is the number two ethanol producing state behind Iowa.

This concern highlights the fact that prolonged depletion of the Country's major aquifers has already been occurring for some time.

Emil Bailey, A Dangerous Mix of Oil and Water (www.financialsense.com)

OPEC Exports to Slide in Month to Nov. 4, Oil Movements Says

OPEC's shipments of crude oil will fall 2.2 percent in the month to Nov. 4 from the preceding four weeks as the group makes good on its pledge to cut back production, consulting company Oil Movements said.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will load 24.5 million barrels a day onto tankers, down from 25 million barrels a day in the four weeks ended Oct. 7, the Halifax, England-based company said in a report yesterday. Shipments will be 2 percent lower than a year earlier.

China credits central controls as growth slows to 10.4% from 11.3%

China's annual growth slowed a little in the third quarter to 10.4 %, but the world's fourth-largest economy is still firmly on course to log a fourth consecutive year of double-digit expansion.

The slowdown, from 11.3% in the second quarter, followed a concerted campaign by Beijing to prevent a credit-fuelled investment boom from turning into a bust that could saddle the nation's banks with fresh bad loans.

"Excessive economic growth has been basically brought under control. This data shows that the tightening policies adopted by the central government have been timely and effective," Li Xiaochao, chief spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics, told a news conference yesterday.

But the third-quarter's annual growth rate was still the second strongest since the fourth quarter of 2003 and Mr. Li said the economy was likely to keep up the momentum in the fourth quarter.

Gross domestic product in the first nine months grew 10.7% from a year earlier, faster than any other major economy.

JPMorgan responded by raising its forecast for 2006 GDP growth to 10.6% from 10.0% and for 2007 to 9.5% from 9.0%.

Don't Let Exxon Decide Our Energy Future

In October 2005, Sec. Bodman contacted ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond and asked the National Petroleum Council (NPC), which Mr. Raymond Chairs, to do a study called the Global Oil and Gas Study. The study is to provide the administration with recommendations on the long-term direction of energy policy, from now until 2025.

At first glance, the study appears to be an investigation into peak-oil claims and policy responses. But in fact the scope is much larger. According to DOE, the NPC study is to provide the administration with policy options that assess "the potential contribution of conservation, efficiency, alternative energy sources, and technology advances" and determine "the potential long term impact of alternative energies that are plentiful, affordable, reliable and transportable." The DOE argues that the NPC is "well qualified to provide a balanced and informed perspective on strategies and action affecting the energy future for both the U.S. and for every country on earth." Yet, precursory research shows that the NPC has little experience doing studies that go beyond the self-interested viewpoint of the oil and gas industry to the interests of the nation and its national security.

Tuesday, Oct. 17, the Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group steamed into the Persian Gulf to join the US naval, air and marine concentration piling up opposite Iran's shores. It consists of the amphibious transport dock USS Nashville, the guided-missile destroyers USS Cole and USS Bulkeley, the guided-missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea, the attack submarine USS Albuquerque, and the dock landing ship USS Whidbey Island.

The Iwo Jima group is now cruising 60 km from Kuwait off Iran's coast. As DEBKAfile and DEBKA-Net-Weekly reported exclusively two weeks ago, three US naval task forces will be in place opposite Iran in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea by October 21. The other two are the USS Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group and the USS Enterprise Strike Group.

http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=3401

Any clues?

"An action plan to cut Europe's energy consumption by 20% before 2020 has been outlined by the European Commission."

Despite Popular Belief, The World Is Not Running Out Of Oil, Scientist Says

If you think the world is on the verge of running out of oil or other mineral resources, you've been taken in by the foremost of seven myths about resource geology, according to a University of Washington economic geologist.

Say goodbye to the Taurus, Ford's '80s savior

After 21 years and nearly 7 million cars, Ford  is giving up on its iconic car

I fell in love with the Taurus the minute I set eyes on it.  It was such a revolutionary design, at the time.  I didn't care for the re-design they did in the mid-'90s, though.  It looked like so many other cars.  And there was less interior room.

The aerodynamic Taurus was born partly in response to the energy crisis of the '70s.  It died because Ford turned its attentions to trucks and SUVs instead of cars.  The Taurus is still Ford's best-selling car, but they're killing it anyway.

The spectre of hundreds of millions of environmental refugees

Mass movements of people across the world are likely to be one of the most dramatic effects of climate change in the coming century, a study suggests.

The report, from the aid agency Tearfund, raises the spectre of hundreds of millions of environmental refugees and says the main reason will be the effects of climate - from droughts and water shortages, from flooding and storm surges and from sea-level rise.

The study, "Feeling the Heat", says there are already an estimated 25 million environmental refugees, and this figure is likely to soar as rain patterns continue to change, floods and storms become more frequent and rising tides start to inundate low-lying countries such as Bangladesh or some of the Pacific islands.

The report cites examples of where water problems are already causing a mass exodus or movement of people. They include:

• Poor crop yields are forcing more and more Mexicans to risk death by illegally fleeing to the US.

• One in five Brazilians born in the arid north-east of the country are moving to avoid drought.

• The spread of the Gobi desert, at a rate of 4,000 square miles a year, is forcing the populations of three provinces in China to abandon their homes.

• In Nigeria, 1,350 sq miles of land is turning to desert each year. Farmers and herdsmen are being forced to move to the cities.

• The population of Tuvalu, a group of eight Pacific islands north-east of Australia, is already being evacuated; nearly 3,000 Tuvalans have left so far.
  

When Canada's Ontario province resolved to close its 5 coal plants a while ago, someone noted it might not have that much effect, since the fumes of 421 US coal plants reach Ontario.

154 new US coal-fired power plants, 1 "clean"

Thanks to the high prices of oil and natural gas, the electricity industry is turning back to coal, America's oldest and most abundant fossil fuel, to drive a new generation of power plants. The upshot is that even as politicians take the threat of global warming more seriously, the problem may get much worse.

Utilities are proposing to build 154 coal-fired power plants in the next 25 years, according to "Coal's Resurgence in Electric Power Generation," a recent Department of Energy report.

Most of those new plants would use conventional coal-burning technology, which would increase carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. coal plants by more than 50 percent by 2030, according to the Energy Information Administration, the analytic division of the Energy Department. A traditional coal plant produces three to four times more CO2 - a potent "greenhouse gas" that traps the sun's heat and helps raise the Earth's temperature - than comes from a modern plant that uses natural gas as its fuel.

Operators of 66 of the proposed coal-fired plants plan to adopt more efficient, advanced technologies - such as turning coal into a gas before burning it - that produce less CO2 and other pollutants, said Erik Shuster, an analyst at the National Energy Technology Laboratory in Morgantown, W.Va.

But the rest would continue to use a 50-year-old technology that burns pulverized coal to create steam. The exhaust going up the stack contains 12 percent to 18 percent carbon dioxide.
Only one power company, Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy Corp., is planning to capture part of the carbon and store it before it enters the atmosphere.