Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

A good question for today would be whether a fraud on the scale of the one being consummated at the Copenhagen "earth summit" has even been attempted before in human history. I've been trying to think of examples. Things like the fake Protocols of the Elders of Zion come to mind - a hoax out of Russia around the turn of the last century. It has been very consequential in the lives of Jews, and remains an issue in most Middle Eastern countries today, where state media continue to present this most vicious of all anti-Semitic slurs as historical fact.

A good question for today would be whether a fraud on the scale of the one being consummated at the Copenhagen "earth summit" has even been attempted before in human history. I've been trying to think of examples. Things like the fake Protocols of the Elders of Zion come to mind - a hoax out of Russia around the turn of the last century. It has been very consequential in the lives of Jews, and remains an issue in most Middle Eastern countries today, where state media continue to present this most vicious of all anti-Semitic slurs as historical fact.

Back in September, the City of Houston agreed to buy all the solar power from a proposed NRG $40-million solar plant on a 25-year power purchase agreement, or PPA. The deal called for NRG to foot the bill for the plant, and the city to pay for the power at a rate of 8.2 cents per kilowatt-hour for the first year. What this meant, in real-world terms, was that NRG would supplant some of the solar output with power from other plants, giving the city an effective rate of 8.2 cents, though the agreement overall calls for Houston to pay 19.8 cents per kilowatt-hour. If built, the 10-megawatt solar plant would have been the biggest in the state, providing up to 1.5 percent of the city's electrical needs at a locked-in price on 90 percent of production - a fixed rate that would have served the city well if Reliant Energy raised its rates due to rising costs of oil, gas or coal. Reliant Energy's generation mix is 39.8 percent, followed by natural gas at 23 percent and coal at 22.5 percent - the former two prices likely to rise as the recession eases and tension over Middle East oil prices and production rises.

Back in September, the City of Houston agreed to buy all the solar power from a proposed NRG $40-million solar plant on a 25-year power purchase agreement, or PPA. The deal called for NRG to foot the bill for the plant, and the city to pay for the power at a rate of 8.2 cents per kilowatt-hour for the first year. What this meant, in real-world terms, was that NRG would supplant some of the solar output with power from other plants, giving the city an effective rate of 8.2 cents, though the agreement overall calls for Houston to pay 19.8 cents per kilowatt-hour. If built, the 10-megawatt solar plant would have been the biggest in the state, providing up to 1.5 percent of the city's electrical needs at a locked-in price on 90 percent of production - a fixed rate that would have served the city well if Reliant Energy raised its rates due to rising costs of oil, gas or coal. Reliant Energy's generation mix is 39.8 percent, followed by natural gas at 23 percent and coal at 22.5 percent - the former two prices likely to rise as the recession eases and tension over Middle East oil prices and production rises.

President-elect, Barack Obama, has had a very favorable view of renewable energy, and has presented some specific plans about how to increase the renewable portfolio in the United States. Below is a lis of items in his proposed Comprehensive Energy Plan, with attention to both short term and long term objectives. Comprehensive Energy Plan * Provide short-term relief to American families facing pain at the pump. * Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050. * Help create five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future. * Within 10 years save more oil than we currently import from the Middle East and Venezuela combined. * Put 1 million Plug-In Hybrid cars -- cars that can get up to 150 miles per gallon -- on the road by 2015, cars that we will work to make sure are built here in America. * Ensure 10 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025.

Inhabitat has a report from Bulgaria on the continuing impasse between Russia and the Ukraine over Russian gas exports - Gazprom Crisis Engulfs Europe. Home heating price increases have certainly been a major concern for recession-strapped households in northern climates, but the possibility of having one's heat completely shut-off in this new era of natural resource 'muscle flexing' and bitter political show-downs is perhaps a whole new energy policy boiling point in Europe and beyond. Russia's decision this week to turn off the flow of gas from its Gazprom pipelines to the Ukraine, which in turn forced many European countries to rely on their (in some cases virtually nonexistent) gas reserves, demonstrates the dire need to identify alternatives to Siberia and the Middle East for our massive oil and gas dependencies. Given that my family and I are currently in Bulgaria for six weeks, we are experiencing the Gazprom gas cut-off crisis first-hand. This issue will not be going away any time soon, despite the band-aid patches that will crop up over the next few weeks and months.

It's a common misconception: The United States imports most of its foreign oil from the Middle East. Not quite. Not even close. As the table below indicates, dependence on oil from the Persian Gulf represents barely 10 percent of total domestic oil consumption, and most of that oil comes from Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Wednesday called for a "clean break" from the Bush administration's energy policies, which she says rely too much on importing foreign oil. In a policy speech, the Alaska governor said the recent drop in gas and oil prices shouldn't deter consumers and lawmakers from seeking alternative energy sources. She cast energy independence as a national security issue, saying dependence on oil from the Middle East made the U.S. more vulnerable to terrorist threats.

I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil - Alan Greenspan (2007) The Guardian had an interesting article recently on the auction of 40 billion barrels of Iraqi oil reserves. The biggest ever sale of oil assets will take place today, when the Iraqi government puts 40bn barrels of recoverable reserves up for offer in London. BP, Shell and ExxonMobil are all expected to attend a meeting at the Park Lane Hotel in Mayfair with the Iraqi oil minister, Hussein al-Shahristani. Access is being given to eight fields, representing about 40% of the Middle Eastern nation's reserves, at a time when the country remains under occupation by US and British forces. Two smaller agreements have already been signed with Shell and the China National Petroleum Corporation, but today's sale will ignite arguments over whether the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was a "war for oil" that is now to be consummated by western multinationals seizing control of strategic Iraqi reserves.

John McCain said it. Right out loud in the third debate. "Obviously, we had to take Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait or it would've threatened the Middle Eastern oil supply." The first gulf war was about defending access to oil after all. McCain reiterated the theme later on, as he has in past debates, when he said that we need to "eliminate our dependence on the places in the world that harm our national security."

Peak oil theory states that oil will have a beginning, middle, and an end of production, and at some point it will reach a level of maximum output. It is estimated that approximately half of all oil...

Current worldwide rig count and U.S. Rig count, Middle East, Canada. Number of active drilling rigs. Inflation adjusted price of crude oil