The Peakist

Building programme is response to Russian move
UN to decide on seabed claims to huge oil deposits

Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Saturday August 11, 2007
The Guardian

Lancaster Sound, Nunavut, Canada. Global warming has made the Arctic’s oil and gas reserves more accessible Photograph: Louise Murray/Science Photo Library
  An international scramble for the Arctic’s oil and gas resources accelerated yesterday when Canada responded to Russia’s recent sovereignty claims with a plan to build two military bases in the region. (more…)

By Javier Blas in London

Published: August 10 2007 12:27 | Last updated: August 10 2007 12:27

Opec needs to increase its production in the short term as world oil supply is lagging demand, the industrialised countries’ energy watchdog warned on Friday. (more…)

By ELIANE ENGELER and ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS, Associated Press Writers
Sat Aug 4, 12:30 PM ET
 
BASEL, Switzerland - When tremors started cracking walls and bathroom tiles in this Swiss city on the Rhine, the engineers knew they had a problem

“The glass vases on the shelf rattled, and there was a loud bang,” Catherine Wueest, a teashop owner, recalls. “I thought a truck had crashed into the building.” (more…)

· Analyst argues wind farms and biofuels are not green
· Report’s look at negative aspects aims to end ‘taboo’

Ian Sample, science correspondent
Wednesday July 25, 2007
The Guardian (more…)

Researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology have developed an inexpensive solar cell that can be painted or printed on flexible plastic sheets.

“The process is simple,” said lead researcher and author Somenath Mitra, PhD, professor and acting chair of NJIT’s Department of Chemistry and Environmental Sciences. “Someday homeowners will even be able to print sheets of these solar cells with inexpensive home-based inkjet printers. Consumers can then slap the finished product on a wall, roof or billboard to create their own power stations.” (more…)

From Economist.com

Power generation: If people object to wind farms cluttering up the countryside, one answer might be to put them in the air.
(more…)

Ivan Semeniuk reports in New Scientist on the carbon threat from the US coal mountain: “AT THE back of Ernest Moniz’s mind a clock is ticking. Moniz is director of the Laboratory for Energy and the Environment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His mental countdown marks the narrowing window of time that remains for the US to address a looming environmental disaster fuelled by the burning of mountains of cheap American coal. (more…)

Does substantial mitigation of climate change, absent global economic collapse, presuppose social revolution? Is a global economic collapse resulting from oil and gas depletion the most likely scenario for substantial mitigation of climate change?

I find it difficult to articulate my political desires (for systemic socio-economic transformation) with the foreshortened timescale we are presented with within which to substantially mitigate climate change. I am wary that climate change can become the vehicle for political desires (my own included) such that realistic options may be rejected on ideological grounds - or to put it another way that the profound potential for climate change to act a vehicle for social transformation becomes an ideologically driven focus above and beyond the objective conditions of climate change. An illustration of the problem… (more…)

By the end of today, the average British person will be responsible for the same amount of carbon emissions as the average person in the world’s poorest countries will produce all year. The startling statement is revealed today in a report by the World Development Movement (WDM), which says that while the least developed countries do not contribute to global warming, the millions who live there are most vulnerable to the consequences of climate change. Eight days into the new year, the average UK citizen will be responsible for the production of 0.21 tonnes of carbon dioxide - the same amount as the annual tally for a person in countries such as Zambia. (more…)

To prevent massive pollution and slow its growing contribution to global warming, China will need to make advanced coal technology work on an unprecedented scale.
(more…)

By Yuras Karmanau in Belarus Published: 04 January 2007 - The IndependantAlexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian President, hit out at Russian leaders yesterday over gas price increases, calling the move “shameless” and threatening to charge Moscow for military facilities and oil transit across his country.

The remarks from an agitated Mr Lukashenko came days after his government averted a New Year’s Day cut-off of Russian natural-gas supplies by grudgingly agreeing to pay twice the previous price this year and more in the future.

The gas dispute was part of a struggle over Russia’s moves to end years of preferential treatment that have helped Mr Lukashenko keep his country’s Soviet-style economy running and maintain his grip on power.

Belarus has stopped importing Russian oil as it seeks to persuade Moscow to reconsider a new customs duty on exports to its former Soviet neighbour, saying the additional charge makes oil too expensive and could badly damage the economy.

Source

Study finds enough electric capacity to ‘fill up’ plug-in vehicles across much of the nation

If all the cars and light trucks in the nation switched from oil to electrons, idle capacity in the existing electric power system could generate most of the electricity consumed by plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. A new study for the Department of Energy finds that “off-peak” electricity production and transmission capacity could fuel 84 percent of the country’s 220 million vehicles if they were plug-in hybrid electrics. (more…)

In a recent study, fuel cell expert Ulf Bossel explains that a hydrogen economy is a wasteful economy. The large amount of energy required to isolate hydrogen from natural compounds (water, natural gas, biomass), package the light gas by compression or liquefaction, transfer the energy carrier to the user, plus the energy lost when it is converted to useful electricity with fuel cells, leaves around 25% for practical use — an unacceptable value to run an economy in a sustainable future. Only niche applications like submarines and spacecraft might use hydrogen.

See the whole article over at physorg.com:

http://www.physorg.com/news85074285.html

New Solar Cell Breaks the “40 Percent Efficient” Sunlight-to-Electricity Barrier

(more…)

The small town of Tarko-Sale lies just below the Artic Circle in the remote north-western corner of Siberia.

In mid-winter there is permanent night as the temperature plummets to -50C. In mid-summer there is permanent day accompanied by tropical heat and swarms of mosquitoes.

For many this would be the precise definition of hell on earth.

But the town has a quiet, contented atmosphere. The buildings are modern and well-kept. There are smart office blocks.

“People love this land, people are proud of it,” says Elena who lived here for many years.

(more…)