The Federal Opposition's resources spokesman David Johnston says the proposed Commonwealth nuclear waste facility will be a small-scale operation for low level waste and it will most probably be in the Northern Territory.
Resources Minister Martin Ferguson is expected to receive a report on four possible sites in the Northern Territory before the end of next month.
A group of American advisers led by a small State Department team played an integral part in drawing up contracts between the Iraqi government and five major Western oil companies to develop some of the largest fields in Iraq, American officials say.
In November 2002, before the invasion of Iraq, then secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld told Steve Kroft of CBS that U.S. saber-rattling toward Iraq had "nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil." In 2003, Rumsfeld called the assertion that the United States had invaded Iraq to get at its oil "utter nonsense." ("We don't take our forces and go around the world and try to take other people's . . . resources, their oil. That's just not what the United States does.") In 2005, speaking to American troops in Fallujah, Rumsfeld reiterated the point: "The United States, as you all know better than any, did not come to Iraq for oil." Strong denials for sure, but were they true?
The American Petroleum Institute (API), the trade organization for the oil and natural gas industry, has just begun running a feel-good commercial that argues "America's future" lies in drilling out domestic reserves of oil and natural gas off our coasts, in our western lands, and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Here's what the ad says:
"* Sale would be one of the largest utility deals this year
* E.ON shares down 0.1 pct, sector unchanged
Germany's E.ON, the world's largest utility by sales, may sell its U.S. unit in what could be one of the biggest deals in the industry this year, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
"It'd be good to get rid of that business," said a person from within E.ON familiar with the management's strategy.
"Our debt is a real burden for us."
E.ON had bought the E.ON U.S. unit, formerly known as LG&E, in 2002 as part of its 9.6 billion pound ($14.30 billion) takeover of Britain's Powergen, but the overseas operation remained separate while it was integrating European operations such as energy trading."
This week global activist group Avaaz began airing a spoof ad that takes direct aim at ExxonMobil's cheery ad campaign featuring scientists talking about how they're making the clean energy of the future. A company spokesman responded to the ad: "They seem to be critical of our desire to communicate our positions on climate change, which we don't understand."
Funny -- we don't understand your position on climate change either, ExxonMobil! (zing). You say you want to make the world cleaner through chemistry, but then you lobby hard to make sure that won't happen. See the videos -- and help get Avaaz's ad on CNN -- below.
Today, Secretary Steven Chu announced that the Department of Energy has closed on its loan offer of $5.9 billion to Ford Motor Company to transform factories across Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, and Ohio to produce more fuel efficient models. The loan is part of the Department's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program, which supports the development of innovative, advanced vehicle technologies to create thousands of clean energy jobs while helping reduce the nation's dangerous dependence on foreign oil. The loan for Ford Motor Company is the first to be finalized since the program was appropriated in the fall of 2008.
This announcement builds on steps taken by the Obama Administration earlier this week to require an average fuel economy of 35.5 miles per gallon in the year 2016. That standard will reduce oil consumption by an estimated 1.8 billion barrels, prevent greenhouse gas emissions of approximately 950 million metric tons, and save consumers more than $3,000 in fuel costs. The funding announced today will help Ford meet those targets.
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