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Paul Merrell

From Energy War to Currency War: America's Attack on the Russian Ruble | Global Research - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5421554

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Russia China de-dollarization blowback

shared by Paul Merrell on 29 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • Putin announced that Russia has cancelled the South Stream project on December 1, 2014. Instead the South Stream pipeline project has been replaced by a natural gas pipeline that goes across the Black Sea to Turkey from the Russian Federation’s South Federal District. This alternative pipeline has been popularly billed the «Turk Stream» and partners Russian energy giant Gazprom with Turkey’s Botas. Moreover, Gazprom will start giving Turkey discounts in the purchase of Russian natural gas that will increase with the intensification of Russo-Turkish cooperation. The natural gas deal between Ankara and Moscow creates a win-win situation for both the Turkish and Russian sides. Not only will Ankara get a discount on energy supplies, but Turk Stream gives the Turkish government what it has wanted and desired for years. The Turk Stream pipeline will make Turkey an important energy corridor and transit point, complete with transit revenues. In this case Turkey becomes the corridor between energy supplier Russia and European Union and non-EU energy customers in southeastern Europe. Ankara will gain some leverage over the European Union and have an extra negotiating card with the EU too, because the EU will have to deal with it as an energy broker.
  • For its part, Russia has reduced the risks that it faced in building the South Stream by cancelling the project. Moscow could have wasted resources and time building the South Stream to see the project sanctioned or obstructed in the Balkans by Washington and Brussels. If the European Union really wants Russian natural gas then the Turk Stream pipeline can be expanded from Turkey to Greece, the former Yugoslav Republic (FYR) of Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary, Slovenia, Italy, Austria, and other European countries that want to be integrated into the energy project. The cancellation of South Stream also means that there will be one less alternative energy corridor from Russia to the European Union for some time. This has positive implications for a settlement in Ukraine, which is an important transit route for Russian natural gas to the European Union. As a means of securing the flow of natural gas across Ukrainian territory from Russia, the European Union will be more prone to push the authorities in Kiev to end the conflict in East Ukraine.
  • From the perspective of Russian Presidential Advisor Sergey Glazyev, the US is waging its multi-spectrum war against Russia to ultimately challenge Moscow’s Chinese partners. In an insightful interview, Glazyev explained the following points to the Ukrainian journalist Alyona Berezovskaya — working for a Rossiya Segodnya subsidiary focusing on information involving Ukraine — about the basis for US hostility towards Russia: the bankruptcy of the US, its decline in competitiveness on global markets, and Washington’s inability to ultimately save its financial system by servicing its foreign debt or getting enough investments to establish some sort of innovative economic breakthrough are the reasons why Washington has been going after the Russian Federation. [13] In Glazyev’s own words, the US wants «a new world war». [14] The US needs conflict and confrontation, in other words. This is what the crisis in Ukraine is nurturing in Europe. Sergey Glazyev reiterates the same points months down the road on September 23, 2014 in an article he authors for the magazine Russia in Global Affairs, which is sponsored by the Russian International Affairs Council — a think-tank founded by the Russian Foreign Ministry and Russian Ministry of Education 2010 — and the US journal Foreign Affairs — which is the magazine published by the Council on Foreign Relation in the US. In his article, Glazyev adds that the war Washington is inciting against Russia in Europe may ultimately benefit the Chinese, because the struggle being waged will weaken the US, Russia, and the European Union to the advantage of China. [15] The point of explaining all this is to explain that Russia wants a balanced strategic partnership with China. Glazyev himself even told Berezovskaya in their interview that Russia wants a mutually beneficial relationship with China that does reduce it to becoming a subordinate to Beijing. [16]
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  • It is because of the importance of Irano-Turkish and Russo-Turkish trade and energy ties that Ankara has had an understanding with both Russia and Iran not to let politics and their differences over the Syrian crisis get in the way of their economic ties and business relationships while Washington has tried to disrupt Irano-Turkish and Russo-Turkish trade and energy ties like it has disrupted trade ties between Russia and the EU. [9] Ankara, however, realizes that if it lets politics disrupt its economic ties with Iran and Russia that Turkey itself will become weakened and lose whatever independence it enjoys Masterfully announcing the Russian move while in Ankara, Putin also took the opportunity to ensure that there would be heated conversation inside the EU. Some would call this rubbing salt on the wounds. Knowing that profit and opportunity costs would create internal debate within Bulgaria and the EU, Putin rhetorically asked if Bulgaria was going to be economically compensated by the European Commission for the loss.
  • It is clear that Russian business and trade ties have been redirected to the People’s Republic of China and East Asia. On the occasion of the Sino-Russian mega natural gas deal, this author pointed out that this was not as much a Russian countermove to US economic pressure as it was really a long-term Russian strategy that seeks an increase in trade and ties with East Asia. [10] Vladimir Putin himself also corroborated this standpoint during the December 18 press conference mentioned earlier when he dismissed — like this author — the notion that the so-called «Russian turn to the East» was mainly the result of the crisis in Ukraine. In President Putin’s own words, the process of increasing business ties with the Chinese and East Asia «stems from the global economic processes, because the East – that is, the Asia-Pacific Region – shows faster growth than the rest of the world». [11] If this is not convincing enough that the turn towards East Asia was already in the works for Russia, then Putin makes it categorically clear as he proceeds talking at the December 18 press conference. In reference to the Sino-Russian gas deal and other Russian projects in East Asia, Putin explained the following: «The projects we are working on were planned long ago, even before the most recent problems occurred in the global or Russian economy. We are simply implementing our long-time plans». [12]
  • According to Presidential Advisor Sergey Glazyev, Washington is «trying to destroy and weaken Russia, causing it to fragment, as they need this territory and want to establish control over this entire space». [18] «We have offered cooperation from Lisbon to Vladivostok, whereas they need control to maintain their geopolitical leadership in a competition with China,» he has explained, pointing out that the US wants lordship and is not interested in cooperation. [19] Alluding to former US top diplomat Madeline Albright’s sentiments that Russia was unfairly endowed with vast territory and resources, Putin also spoke along similar lines at his December 18 press conference, explaining how the US wanted to divide Russia and control the abundant natural resources in Russian territory. It is of little wonder that in 2014 a record number of Russian citizens have negative attitudes about relations between their country and the United States. A survey conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center has shown that of 39% of Russian respondents viewed relations with the US as «mostly bad» and 27% as «very bad». [20] This means 66% of Russian respondents have negative views about relations with Washington. This is an inference of the entire Russian population’s views. Moreover, this is the highest rise in negative perceptions about the US since 2008 when the US supported Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in Tbilisi’s war against Russia and the breakaway republic of South Ossetia; 40% viewed them as «mostly bad» and 25% of Russians viewed relations as «very bad» and at the time. [21]
  • In more ways than one the Turk Stream pipeline can be viewed as a reconfigured of the failed Nabucco natural gas pipeline. Not only will Turk Stream court Turkey and give Moscow leverage against the European Union, instead of reducing Russian influence as Nabucco was originally intended to do, the new pipeline to Turkey also coaxes Ankara to align its economic and strategic interests with those of Russian interests. This is why, when addressing Nabucco and the rivalries for establishing alternate energy corridors, this author pointed out in 2007 that «the creation of these energy corridors and networks is like a two-edged sword. These geo-strategic fulcrums or energy pivots can also switch their directions of leverage. The integration of infrastructure also leads towards economic integration». [8] The creation of Turk Stream and the strengthening of Russo-Turkish ties may even help placate the gory conflict in Syria. If Iranian natural gas is integrated into the mainframe of Turk Stream through another energy corridor entering Anatolia from Iranian territory, then Turkish interests would be even more tightly aligned with both Moscow and Tehran. Turkey will save itself from the defeats of its neo-Ottoman policies and be able to withdraw from the Syrian crisis. This will allow Ankara to politically realign itself with two of its most important trading partners, Iran and Russia.
  • Whatever Washington’s intentions are, every step that the US takes to target Russia economically will eventually hurt the US economy too. It is also highly unlikely that the policy mandarins in Beijing are unaware of what the US may try to be doing. The Chinese are aware that ultimately it is China and not Russia that is the target of the United States.
  • The United States is waging a fully fledged economic war against the Russian Federations and its national economy. Ultimately, all Russians are collectively the target. The economic sanctions are nothing more than economic warfare. If the crisis in Ukraine did not happen, another pretext would have been found for assaulting Russia. Both US Assistant-Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and US Assistant-Secretary of the Treasury Daniel Glaser even told the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives in May 2014 that the ultimate objectives of the US economic sanctions against Russia are to make the Russian population so miserable and desperate that they would eventually demand that the Kremlin surrender to the US and bring about «political change». «Political change» can mean many things, but what it most probably implies here is regime change in Moscow. In fact, the aims of the US do not even appear to be geared at coercing the Russian government to change its foreign policy, but to incite regime change in Moscow and to cripple the Russian Federation entirely through the instigation of internal divisions. This is why maps of a divided Russia are being circulated by Radio Free Europe. [17]
  • Without question, the US wants to disrupt the strategic partnership between Beijing and Moscow. Moscow’s strategic long-term planning and Sino-Russian cooperation has provided the Russia Federation with an important degree of economic and strategic insulation from the economic warfare being waged against the Russian national economy. Washington, however, may also be trying to entice the Chinese to overplay their hand as Russia is economically attacked. In this context, the price drops in the energy market may also be geared at creating friction between Beijing and Moscow. In part, the manipulation of the energy market and the price drops could seek to weaken and erode Sino-Russian relations by coaxing the Chinese into taking steps that would tarnish their excellent ties with their Russian partners. The currency war against the Russian ruble may also be geared towards this too. In other words, Washington may be hoping that China becomes greedy and shortsighted enough to make an attempt to take advantage of the price drop in energy prices in the devaluation of the Russian ruble.
  • Russia can address the economic warfare being directed against its national economy and society as a form of «economic terrorism». If Russia’s banks and financial institutions are weakened with the aim of creating financial collapse in the Russian Federation, Moscow can introduce fiscal measures to help its banks and financial sector that could create economic shockwaves in the European Union and North America. Speaking in hypothetical terms, Russia has lots of options for a financial defensive or counter-offensive that can be compared to its scorched earth policies against Western European invaders during the Napoleonic Wars, the First World War, and the Second World War. If Russian banks and institutions default and do not pay or delay payment of their derivative debts and justify it on the basis of the economic warfare and economic terrorism, there would be a financial shock and tsunami that would vertebrate from the European Union to North America. This scenario has some parallels to the steps that Argentina is taken to sidestep the vulture funds.
  • The currency war eventually will rebound on Washington and Wall Street. The energy war will also reverse directions. Already, the Kremlin has made it clear that it and a coalition of other countries will de-claw the US in the currency market through a response that will neutralize US financial manipulation and the petro-dollar. In the words of Sergey Glazyev, Moscow is thinking of a «systemic and comprehensive» response «aimed at exposing and ending US political domination, and, most importantly, at undermining US military-political power based on the printing of dollars as a global currency». [22] His solution includes the creation of «a coalition of sound forces advocating stability — in essence, a global anti-war coalition with a positive plan for rearranging the international financial and economic architecture on the principles of mutual benefit, fairness, and respect for national sovereignty». [23] The coming century will not be the «American Century» as the neo-conservatives in Washington think. It will be a «Eurasian Century». Washington has taken on more than it can handle, this may be why the US government has announced an end to its sanctions regime against Cuba and why the US is trying to rekindle trade ties with Iran. Despite this, the architecture of the post-Second World War or post-1945 global order is now in its death bed and finished. This is what the Kremlin and Putin’s presidential spokesman and press secretary Dmitry Peskov mean when they impart—as Peskov stated to Rossiya-24 in a December 17, 2014 interview — that the year 2014 has finally led to «a paradigm shift in the international system».
Gary Edwards

Federal Loans Fund Big-Ticket Energy Projects At Firms Outside Of U.S. | Fox News - 0 views

www.foxnews.com/...y-projects-at-firms-outside-us

Abengoa Solyndra Obama-Crony-Socialism Watermelon-Shakedown

shared by Gary Edwards on 05 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 05 Oct 11
     
    Solyndra II - The Spanish company, Abenoga has recieved a massive DOE taxpayer funded "investment".  Looks like another example of corrupt Obama crony socialism and blatant money laundering for the Socialist party, USA. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), such solar thermal power is far and away the most expensive option that it considered in projecting the cost of new electricity technologies over the next four years.Using a complex calculation known as "levelized cost," EIA says that solar thermal energy will weigh in at $311.60 per megawatt/hour, vs. $210.70 for more conventional solar paneling, and $113.90 for "advanced nuclear."Click here for the EIA cost estimatesCompared to more conventional energy sources, solar thermal is even pricier -- much pricier. The EIA says that natural gas-fueled energy plants, even using advanced techniques to remove carbon from their emissions, would cost $89.3 per megawatt/hour, while ordinary gas fueled natural gas generation would cost $66.10.A conventional coal-fired electrical plant -- anathema in green circles -- would provide energy at $94.80 per megawatt/hour, and one equipped with "clean" coal technology and sequestration of carbon emissions would provide electricity at a cost of $136.20 per megawatt/hour.The second-most pricey option on the EIA list, after solar thermal, is energy from wind turbines placed in the ocean, which comes in at $243.20 per megawatt/hour.In other words, even that difficult and costly-to-produce energy source is projected to cost only three-quarters as much. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/22/federal-loans-fund-big-ticket-energy-projects-at-firms-outside-us/?intcmp=obinsite#ixzz1Zs0en100
Gary Edwards

Interview with Harold Hamm: How North Dakota Became Saudi Arabia - WSJ.com - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...4226204576602524023932438.html

Harold-Hamm Oil-Natural-Gas Energy Obammunism Jackboot-Obammunism watermelons

shared by Gary Edwards on 01 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 01 Oct 11
     
    A USA Oil and Natural Gas revolution - WSBJ Stephen Moore interview Harold Hamm of Continental Resources.  Hamm recounts his discussion with the watermelon in chief, Obama. (Green on the outside and red on the inside).  Seems Obama really believes his green energy will totally replace oil and natural gas within the next five years.  What an idiot. excerpt: Harold Hamm, the Oklahoma-based founder and CEO of Continental Resources, the 14th-largest oil company in America, is a man who thinks big. He came to Washington last month to spread a needed message of economic optimism: With the right set of national energy policies, the United States could be "completely energy independent by the end of the decade. We can be the Saudi Arabia of oil and natural gas in the 21st century." "President Obama is riding the wrong horse on energy," he adds. We can't come anywhere near the scale of energy production to achieve energy independence by pouring tax dollars into "green energy" sources like wind and solar, he argues. It has to come from oil and gas. You'd expect an oilman to make the "drill, baby, drill" pitch. But since 2005 America truly has been in the midst of a revolution in oil and natural gas, which is the nation's fastest-growing manufacturing sector. No one is more responsible for that resurgence than Mr. Hamm. He was the original discoverer of the gigantic and prolific Bakken oil fields of Montana and North Dakota that have already helped move the U.S. into third place among world oil producers. How much oil does Bakken have? The official estimate of the U.S. Geological Survey a few years ago was between four and five billion barrels. Mr. Hamm disagrees: "No way. We estimate that the entire field, fully developed, in Bakken is 24 billion barrels."
Gary Edwards

Conventional fuels from concentrated sunlight | Discover | University of Minnesota - 0 views

discover.umn.edu/...al-fuels-concentrated-sunlight

syngas energy Clean-Energy

shared by Gary Edwards on 23 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 23 Feb 14
     
    "Simulated sun, authentic opportunity" At the University's Solar Energy Laboratory, the process begins with an indoor solar simulator in the form of seven mirrored, 6,500-watt lamps that concentrate the light on a 10-centimeter spot with an irradiance of 3,000 suns. (One "sun" equals 1,000 watts of solar energy falling per square meter of surface.) With this concentrated radiant energy, one can generate temperatures of more than 3,600 F in a chemical reactor. There, carbon dioxide and water are split to form carbon monoxide and hydrogen, the two components of syngas. Davidson, along with mechanical engineering professor Tom Chase and their students, have developed two prototype reactors to split water and CO2. Deploying these technologies in the Earth's sunbelt could yield enough renewable energy to significantly exceed the world's current needs, the researchers say. "More sun falls on Earth in one hour than is consumed globally in a year," Davidson notes. "Harvesting the sun to meet our energy needs is a challenge with a huge payoff." Of course, it's a little more complicated than focusing concentrated sunlight into a reactor filled with carbon dioxide and water. The key to the technology rests with using metal oxides in a reduction/oxidation cycle to reduce the temperature required to split water and carbon dioxide. "Metal oxides allow you to split water and carbon dioxide at temperatures achievable with modern solar concentrating devices," Davidson explains. In the reactor, the metal oxides go through cycles in which they strip oxygen alternately from carbon dioxide or water-forming carbon monoxide or hydrogen, respectively-then release the oxygen as a byproduct. The syngas formed from the carbon monoxide and hydrogen can be converted into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, methane (natural gas), or other products. Davidson and her colleagues have produced syngas this way in their laboratory. They have moved from bench top experiments to demonstration in proto
Gary Edwards

Jim Kunstler's 2014 Forecast - Burning Down The House | Zero Hedge - 0 views

www.zerohedge.com/...14-forecast-burning-down-house

Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 08 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 08 Jan 14
     
    Incredible must read analysis. Take away: the world is going to go "medevil". It's the only way out of this mess. Since the zero hedge layout is so bad, i'm going to post as much of the article as Diigo will allow: Jim Kunstler's 2014 Forecast - Burning Down The House Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/06/2014 19:36 -0500 Submitted by James H. Kunstler of Kunstler.com , Many of us in the Long Emergency crowd and like-minded brother-and-sisterhoods remain perplexed by the amazing stasis in our national life, despite the gathering tsunami of forces arrayed to rock our economy, our culture, and our politics. Nothing has yielded to these forces already in motion, so far. Nothing changes, nothing gives, yet. It's like being buried alive in Jell-O. It's embarrassing to appear so out-of-tune with the consensus, but we persevere like good soldiers in a just war. Paper and digital markets levitate, central banks pull out all the stops of their magical reality-tweaking machine to manipulate everything, accounting fraud pervades public and private enterprise, everything is mis-priced, all official statistics are lies of one kind or another, the regulating authorities sit on their hands, lost in raptures of online pornography (or dreams of future employment at Goldman Sachs), the news media sprinkles wishful-thinking propaganda about a mythical "recovery" and the "shale gas miracle" on a credulous public desperate to believe, the routine swindles of medicine get more cruel and blatant each month, a tiny cohort of financial vampire squids suck in all the nominal wealth of society, and everybody else is left whirling down the drain of posterity in a vortex of diminishing returns and scuttled expectations. Life in the USA is like living in a broken-down, cob-jobbed, vermin-infested house that needs to be gutted, disinfected, and rebuilt - with the hope that it might come out of the restoration process retaining the better qualities of our heritage.
Gary Edwards

A New Solyndra Everywhere You Turn: Obama Using Your Tax dollars backing some "risky" e... - 0 views

www.cbsnews.com/...ing-some-risky-energy-projects

Obammunism CBS-News Solyndras-Everywhere Clean-Energy Taxpayers-getting-cleaned Obama-bundlers

shared by Gary Edwards on 18 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 18 Jan 12
     
    A CBS News report has discovered 12 Clean Energy Firms that Received $6.5B in Taxpayer Money.  All are in Solyndra bankruptcy lsimilar Financial Trouble.  It gets worse.  The CBS News investigation found a clear pattern of the government pouring your tax dollars into clean energy projects wretched with crony democratic party political ties.  It's payback time for the Obama campaign finance bundlers.  This isn't clean energy.  This is the taxpayers getting cleaned by Obama and his corporatist supporters.  Awful, disgusting stuff.  At least Mitt Romney and Bain Capital used their own money. excerpt: Solar panel maker Solyndra received a $528 million Energy Department loan in 2009 - and  went bankrupt last year. The government's risky investment strategy didn't stop there, as a CBS News investigation has uncovered a pattern of cases of the government pouring your tax dollars into clean energy.
Paul Merrell

Gazprom still remains best option for Europe - journalist - News - VoR Interviews - The... - 0 views

voiceofrussia.com/...ion-for-Europe-journalist-4430

U.S.-foreign-policy Europe Russia Gazprom Obama lies

shared by Paul Merrell on 07 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Paul Merrell on 07 Jun 14
     
    "According to the Oxfam charity organization, strained relations between Russia and the West because of the situation in Ukraine highlighted the need for Europe to reassess its energy priorities, and speaking at the G7 summit in Brussels yesterday, US President Barack Obama announced that the G7 is going to strenghthen energy security in Central and Eastern Europe. Pepe Escobar, Asia Times roving correspondent, shared his opinion about this development with Radio VR. Speaking at the G7 summit in Brussels yesterday, US President Barack Obama announced that the G7 is going to strengthen energy security in Central and Eastern Europe because of the situation in Ukraine. What kind of security measures can be taken here? Seriously, he doesn't even know what he is talking about and he has absolutely no clue about new energy policy, because the Europeans themselves still don't have a unified energy policy. Their energy policy is to complain about Gazprom, because they consider themselves hostages of Gazprom. They tried to diversify, for instance with the Nabucco pipeline project, which was a soap opera that lasted for years and in the end totally collapsed, because they couldn't agree on anything. So, the myth that the Americans are trying to sell to the American and the European public opinion is that there is a shale gas and they can start exporting it virtually tomorrow. This is completely absurd. Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_06_06/Gazprom-still-remains-best-option-for-Europe-journalist-4430/" Pepe Escobar riffs on the reasons that Europe is utterly dependent on Russian fossil fuels and why Obama's proposal to supply Europe with shale gas is the product of sheer ignorance. Escobar is being over-polite. Obama knows that many winters will pass before American shale gas can be shipped to Europe in amounts that even approach Europe's requirements. With what are Europeans to cook their meals and heat their homes in the meantime? Short story: Obama is fl
Paul Merrell

Americans Want America To Run On Solar and Wind - 2 views

www.forbes.com/...erica-to-run-on-solar-and-wind

energy-policy polls solar wind

shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • Americans “overwhelmingly” prefer solar and wind energy to coal, oil, and nuclear energy, according to a Harvard political scientist who has conducted a comprehensive survey of attitudes toward energy and climate for the last 12 years. Americans see natural gas as a bridge fuel that falls somewhere in between, offering some benefits over traditional fuels but more “harms” than solar and wind, said Harvard Government Professor Stephen Ansolabehere during a December appearance at the University of Chicago. “Americans want to move away from coal, oil and nuclear power and toward wind and solar,” said Ansolabehere, introduced as “the leading energy political scientist in the world” to climate scientists, physicists, economists and public-policy experts at The Energy Policy Institute of Chicago (EPIC). Ansolabehere described solar and wind energy as “hugely popular, overwhelmingly popular.”
  • So popular, in fact, that they easily cross the partisan divide that polarizes Americans on so many other issues. About 80 percent of Americans said they want solar and wind energy to “increase a lot,” and another 10 percent or so want it to increase somewhat. “In order to get 90 percent, that means a lot of Republicans like solar and wind—more than coal. Everybody likes those sources. This is non-partisan.”
  • Ansolabehere began surveying Americans on their energy preferences in 2001, when engineers and scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, including now-Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, asked him to gauge public support for a plan to address climate change by building 300 new nuclear power plants. Ansolabehere found that even Americans who worry about climate change don’t support nuclear power. While such a result would not be surprising post-Fukushima, it surprised the engineers, who were envisioning a nuclear renaissance. “People who were concerned about global warming did not want the technology that they were going to put forward. For the engineers, this was a show stopper.” Ansolabehere’s findings might also be a show stopper for the Obama Administration’s “all-of-the-above” energy strategy.
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  • “There are very few conservationists, people who want to use less electricity overall,” he said. “There are also very few people who say all of the above, and this is an interesting note because I don’t know if you remember a few years ago the Obama administration decided this would be a good thing to campaign on, this all-of-the-above strategy. It might have been a good idea to placate West Virginia coal miners, but in fact there aren’t a lot of people who want all of the above in the energy sector.”
  • But Ansolabehere also found that Americans do not have a good grasp of the true cost of solar and wind, nor are they willing to shoulder that cost. They believe solar and wind are cheaper than nuclear power and oil, which they perceive to be the most expensive sources. “The average member of the American public has the picture about right,” he said. “People have the relative harms about right. People have the relative costs for traditional fuels about right. They’re way too optimistic about [the cost of] solar and wind, and the caution is that if you inform them, you’re going to get lower support.”
Paul Merrell

Oil Can't Compete With Renewables, Says National Bank of Abu Dhabi | Latest News | Eart... - 0 views

www.earthisland.org/...ays_national_bank_of_abu_dhabi

war & peace oil solar wind report pipelinestan-wars

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • You wouldn’t expect a bank in the oil-rich Middle East to be touting the future of renewable energy over that of oil. But that’s just what the National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) is doing with its new report, “Financing the Future of Energy: The opportunity for the Gulf’s financial services sector.”
  • Aimed primarily at investors and focusing on financial performance and potential, the report found that fossil fuels just weren’t keeping up with solar and wind, and were less likely to do so in the future, even if oil prices dropped much lower than they are now. “It provides insights into how that community might engage with public and private sector stakeholders to create a more energy efficient economy, turning the aspirations of the region into a reality that will attract the attention of the rest of the world and unlock significant financial opportunities,” says the report’s introduction. Energy demand is expected to triple in the next 15 years in the rapidly growing Persian Gulf region — already the biggest energy consumer per capita in the world — a demand far outstripping the current supply. Yet, despite the recent plunge in oil prices, the report says that that demand will be more efficiently filled by renewables, offering more reliable and lucrative investment opportunities than oil.
  • “Some of the report’s findings may surprise you, as they did me,” writes NBAD CEO Alex Thursby in the report’s introduction. “For example, renewable energy technologies are far further advanced than many may believe: solar photovoltaic (PV) and on-shore wind have a track record of successful deployment, and costs have fallen dramatically in the past few years. In many parts of the world, indeed, they are now competitive with hydrocarbon energy sources. Already, more than half of the investment in new electricity generation worldwide is in renewables. Potentially, the gains to be made from focusing on energy efficiency are as great as the benefits of increasing generation. Together, these help us to reframe how we think about the prospects for energy in the region.” Among the report’s surprising findings are that fossil fuels are already uncompetitive with solar in terms of price, and that would be true even if oil fell as low as $10 a barrel. And with the supply of fossil fuels finite and increasingly difficult to extract, the bank believes that almost all future investments will be in renewables.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • You wouldn’t expect a bank in the oil-rich Middle East to be touting the future of renewable energy over that of oil. But that’s just what the National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) is doing with its new report, “Financing the Future of Energy: The opportunity for the Gulf’s financial services sector.”
Gary Edwards

'Clinton death list': 33 spine-tingling cases - 0 views

www.wnd.com/...-list-33-most-intriguing-cases

Clinton-Body-Count

shared by Gary Edwards on 05 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 05 Feb 17
     
    "(Editor's note: This list was originally published in August 2016 and has gone viral on the web. WND is running it again as American voters cast their ballots for the nation's next president on Election Day.) How many people do you personally know who have died mysteriously? How about in plane crashes or car wrecks? Bizarre suicides? People beaten to death or murdered in a hail of bullets? And what about violent freak accidents - like separate mountain biking and skiing collisions in Aspen, Colorado? Or barbells crushing a person's throat? Bill and Hillary Clinton attend a funeral Apparently, if you're Bill or Hillary Clinton, the answer to that question is at least 33 - and possibly many more. Talk-radio star Rush Limbaugh addressed the issue of the "Clinton body count" during an August show. "I swear, I could swear I saw these stories back in 1992, back in 1993, 1994," Limbaugh said. He cited a report from Rachel Alexander at Townhall.com titled, "Clinton body count or left-wing conspiracy? Three with ties to DNC mysteriously die." Limbaugh said he recalled Ted Koppel, then-anchor of ABC News' "Nightline," routinely having discussions on the issue following the July 20, 1993, death of White House Deputy Counsel Vince Foster. In fact, Limbaugh said, he appeared on Koppel's show. "One of the things I said was, 'Who knows what happened here? But let me ask you a question.' I said, 'Ted, how many people do you know in your life who've been murdered? Ted, how many people do you know in your life that have died under suspicious circumstances?' "Of course, the answer is zilch, zero, nada, none, very few," Limbaugh chuckled. "Ask the Clintons that question. And it's a significant number. It's a lot of people that they know who have died, who've been murdered. "And the same question here from Rachel Alexander. It's amazing the cycle that exists with the Clintons. [Citing Townhall]: 'What it
Gary Edwards

Scribd: Obama Green Energy Investment Scam - Your money, his campaign funding - 0 views

www.scribd.com/...71156564

Obammunism Solyndras Solyndras-Everywhere

shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 19 Jan 12
     
    The Solyndras are coming!  The Solyndras are coming!  Thanks to Republican congressman Darryl Issa, California, and his investigation into the Obama Energy Department, we now know that Obama has funneled $6.5 BILLION in taxpayer money into a growing collection of Solyndras.   The Solyndras are turning out to be bankrupt green energy companies headed by wealthy investors actively bundling and raising campaign finance funds for Obama.  Ex: Solyndra investor George Kaiser raised over $100,000 for Obama's election campaign, and got a kick back / bankruptcy bailout of over a half Billion Dollars from the Energy Department.  Not enough to save the already failed Solyndra, but enough to make the bundlers and fund raisers whole.  Lesser shareholders and over a thousand employees took the hit. Thanks to Rep Issa, we now know that the Obama - Solyndra scam was actually a formula for transforming (moving) taxpayer funds into private bundler investments.  Awful stuff.  Corruption on steroids in that the Energy Department knew far in advance of the bankruptcy filings that these companies were going down.  Yet the bailout funds were still approved.  Also note that Obama bundlers, banksters, and financiers have open access to the White House.  The visitor log is itself an explosive indictment of the corrosive crony socialism - banksterism that has become the hallmark of the Obama regime. Most of the money for the Solyndras comes out of the failed $1 Trillion Obamulous bill passed by his socialist party early on his administration - February of 2009.
  • Gary Edwards on 19 Jan 12
     
    Awful stuff. We are no longer a republic. This is fascism.
Paul Merrell

Kerry had up to $1m stake in voided gas partnership | The Times of Israel - 0 views

www.timesofisrael.com/take-in-voided-gas-partnership

U.S.-foreign-policy Kerry Israel conflicts-of-interest Noble natural-gas

shared by Paul Merrell on 27 Jun 15 - No Cached
  • S Secretary of State John Kerry in the past held up to a million dollars worth of shares in Noble Energy, the US-based firm that co-owns Israeli gas rigs in an arrangement that the antitrust authority has demanded be broken up because it forms a duopoly.
  • The revelation came as the security cabinet was set to vote on defining the gas issue as possessing security or political implications, enabling it to bypass the Israel Antitrust Authority. The controversial move will allow the state to accept a compromise deal with the Leviathan and Tamar natural gas field owners despite the authority’s objections that it leaves operators Noble Energy and the Israeli Delek Group with too much control of the gas rigs. Details of Kerry’s share-ownership were revealed by the freedom of information site Opensecrets on Thursday and were based on Kerry’s financial declarations from 2013. Kerry apparently held between $500,000 and $1 million of Noble Energy shares and sold at least some of them in 2015 at a time when their value had slumped. The US diplomat was reportedly instrumental in putting together a September 2014 deal between the Jordanian government and the owners of Israel’s Leviathan gas field.
  • In December he pushed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to sign energy supply deals in the region involving Noble, after the deal with Jordan fell through following objections by the state trust-buster. “We continue to engage and we support all parties to move forward with the natural gas deal signed between Noble Energy and entities in Jordan and Egypt,” State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said on December 30. “We strongly believe that these deals would enhance energy security in the region.” Rathke did not disclose Kerry’s financial interest in the energy company at the time. Antitrust Authority Commissioner David Gilo on December 23 voided the partnership allowing Noble and Delek to develop the Leviathan and Tamar gas sites in the Mediterranean Sea over objections regarding the price at which the companies were preparing to sell gas to the Israeli economy.
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  • In May, Gilo resigned in protest after the government pushed forward a proposal that would leave the US conglomerate and its Israeli partner as the sole operators of both offshore gas rigs.
  • While the revised draft being pushed by the government would reduce Noble’s holdings in the Tamar reservoir from 36 percent to 24% within six years and remove its veto rights in the partnership, the Texas-based company would still have the privilege of marketing gas from both reservoirs. In April Netanyahu together with Energy and Water Minister Silvan Shalom authorized the sale of natural gas from Israel’s Tamar gas field to private clients in Jordan. Under the terms of the $500 million deal, the Tamar natural gas reservoir partnership was to sell 1.87 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Jordanian companies Arab Potash and its affiliate Jordan Bromine over the next 15 years. In 2013, Israel decided to export 40% of the country’s offshore gas finds, in an effort to transform Israel from an energy importer to a major world player in the gas market.
Paul Merrell

Russia suspends cooperation in Nuclear Energy Sectors with the USA - nsnbc internationa... - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...ar-energy-sectors-with-the-usa

war & peace Russia U.S.-foreign-policy disarmament nuclear-cooperation

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • The decree, published on the Russian Cabinet’s website, states that: “In connection with the imposition of restrictions on cooperation with the Russian Federation in nuclear energy by the United States of America … to suspend the agreement between the government of the Russian Federation and the government of the United States of America on cooperation in research and development in the nuclear and energy sectors of September 16, 2013″. The Russian Foreign Ministry has been instructed to send a written notification of the suspension of the agreement to the United States. An explanatory note in the decree explains that “the actions taken by the US in connection with imposing sanctions against Russia have directly affected the areas of cooperation envisaged by the agreement. … The regular extension of anti-Russian sanctions by the US, which include the suspension of the Russian-US cooperation in nuclear energy, requires countermeasures against the American side”.
  • The decree also announces the termination of an agreement between the Rosatom State Corporation and the US Department of Energy. “To accept the proposal of the Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation and the Russian Foreign Ministry agreed with the Russian Defense Ministry, the Russian Federal Security Service and the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service on terminating the executive agreement between the Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation and the US Department of Energy on cooperation in conducting research of the possible conversion of Russian research reactors for the use of the low enriched uranium fuel of December 7, 2010,” the decree reads. The agreement was signed on June 14, 2013. The bilateral framework on threat reduction aimed at long-standing US – Russian partnership on nonproliferation. This framework of the agreement was built on the 1992 Agreement between the United States of America and the Russian Federation Concerning the Safe and Secure Transportation, Storage and Destruction of Weapons and the Prevention of Weapons Proliferation, commonly known as the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Umbrella Agreement, which expired on June 17, 2013.
  • The, now suspended, agreement also stipulates future joint nuclear security activities in the Russian Federation that will be conducted under the 2003 Framework Agreement on a Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Programme in the Russian Federation (MNEPR) and a related bilateral Protocol signed on June 14, 2013 in Washington, D.C.
  • Paul Merrell on 06 Oct 16
     
    In the U.S., we are led by psychopaths.
Paul Merrell

Europe plunged into energy crisis as Russia cuts off gas supply via Ukraine | Daily Mai... - 0 views

www.dailymail.co.uk/...a-cuts-gas-supply-Ukraine.html

war & peace economic-warfare Russia EU gas supply Ukraine

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • Russia cut gas exports to Europe by 60 per cent today, plunging the continent into an energy crisis 'within hours' as a dispute with Ukraine escalated. This morning, gas companies in Ukraine said that Russia had completely cut off their supply.Six countries reported a complete shut-off of Russian gas shipped via Ukraine today, in a sharp escalation of a struggle over energy that threatens Europe as winter sets in.Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Romania, Croatia and Turkey all reported a halt in gas shipments from Russia through Ukraine. Croatia said it was temporarily reducing supplies to industrial customers while Bulgaria said it had enough gas for only 'for a few days' and was in a 'crisis situation'.
  • Russia cut gas exports to Europe by 60 per cent today, plunging the continent into an energy crisis 'within hours' as a dispute with Ukraine escalated. This morning, gas companies in Ukraine said that Russia had completely cut off their supply.Six countries reported a complete shut-off of Russian gas shipped via Ukraine today, in a sharp escalation of a struggle over energy that threatens Europe as winter sets in.Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Romania, Croatia and Turkey all reported a halt in gas shipments from Russia through Ukraine. Croatia said it was temporarily reducing supplies to industrial customers while Bulgaria said it had enough gas for only 'for a few days' and was in a 'crisis situation'.
  • The dispute, coupled with Israel's military operation in Gaza, also pushed oil up to a three-week high of $49.91 in New York yesterday. Russia, whose main export is oil, stands to benefit from a recovery in prices. 'Without prior warning and in clear contradiction with the reassurances given by the highest Russian and Ukrainian authorities to the European Union, gas supplies to some EU member states have been substantially cut,' the EU said in a statement.'The Czech EU Presidency and the European Commission demand that gas supplies be restored immediately to the EU and that the two parties resume negotiations at once with a view to a definitive settlement of their bilateral commercial dispute,' the presidency and the Commission said in a joint statement.They added that the EU would 'intensify the dialogue with both parties so that they can reach an agreement swiftly'.
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  • The EU demanded the two sides reopen talks as the row immediately sparked fears of gas supply shortages and rising energy prices in the UK.The UK is suffering one of its coldest nights this century with temperatures plunging to as low as -10C.Though Britain is one of Gazprom's largest importers - relying on the company for some 16 per cent of consumption in 2007, according to The Times, the gas is supplied through a complicated swap scheme that means supplies themselves may not be affected.Prices, on the other hand, rose during trading in London today.
  • Overnight the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered the state energy giant Gazprom to cut supplies to and through Ukraine by around three-fifths amid accusations its neighbour has been siphoning off and stealing Russian gas. Ukraine says the Russian move has been prompted by payment and price disputes, a row between the two that has become almost annual. The effects of the dispute on the rest of Europe however is stark, said Ukraine's main gas supplier. Around 80 per cent of the gas European Union countries receive from Russia comes through Ukraine. While Germany and France are much more exposed, it is reckoned in some estimates that 15 per cent of Britain's supplies come from Russia through pipelines into the UK's east coast.
  • 'They [the Russians] have reduced deliveries to 92million cubic metres per 24 hours compared to the promised 221million cubic metres without explanation,' said Valentin Zemlyansky of the Ukrainian gas company Naftogaz. 'We do not understand how we will deliver gas to Europe. This means that in a few hours problems with supplies to Europe will begin.'Wholesale gas prices have already risen on the back of the rallying price of oil, up 50 per cent in the last fortnight to more than $48 a barrel on the back of Middle East tension over Israeli incursions into Palestinian-held Gaza.
  • Eastern and central European countries are already reporting supply problems, including the Czech Republic which has the current presidency of the EU. The EU as a whole depends on Russia for 25 per cent of its gas supplies.
  • Paul Merrell on 15 Jan 15
     
    Ukraine stealing Russian gas and Putin sends a strong message to the EU. My guess is that the EU will tell the U.S. in no uncertain terms to control its puppet. Conceivably, this might be the triggering event for the EU to begin the transition to de-dollarization and warmer relations with Russia. You can bet that Foggy Bottom will be working late into the night on this.   
Paul Merrell

Israel Grants Oil Rights in Syria to Murdoch and Rothschild - Craig Murray - 0 views

www.craigmurray.org.uk/...yria-to-murdoch-and-rothschild

war & peace Israel Golan-Heights oil Genie-Energy

shared by Paul Merrell on 31 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • srael has granted oil exploration rights inside Syria, in the occupied Golan Heights, to Genie Energy. Major shareholders of Genie Energy – which also has interests in shale gas in the United States and shale oil in Israel – include Rupert Murdoch and Lord Jacob Rothschild. This from a 2010 Genie Energy press release: Claude Pupkin, CEO of Genie Oil and Gas, commented, “Genie’s success will ultimately depend, in part, on access to the expertise of the oil and gas industry and to the financial markets. Jacob Rothschild and Rupert Murdoch are extremely well regarded by and connected to leaders in these sectors. Their guidance and participation will prove invaluable.” “I am grateful to Howard Jonas and IDT for the opportunity to invest in this important initiative,” Lord Rothschild said. “Rupert Murdoch’s extraordinary achievements speak for themselves and we are very pleased he has agreed to be our partner. Genie Energy is making good technological progress to tap the world’s substantial oil shale deposits which could transform the future prospects of Israel, the Middle East and our allies around the world.” For Israel to seek to exploit mineral reserves in the occupied Golan Heights is plainly illegal in international law. Japan was succesfully sued by Singapore before the International Court of Justice for exploitation of Singapore’s oil resources during the second world war. The argument has been made in international law that an occupying power is entitled to opeate oil wells which were previously functioning and operated by the sovereign power, in whose position the occupying power now stands. But there is absolutely no disagreement in the authorities and case law that the drilling of new wells – let alone fracking – by an occupying power is illegal.
  • Israel tried to make the same move twenty years ago but was forced to back down after a strong reaction from the Syrian government, which gained diplomatic support from the United States. Israel is now seeking to take advantage of the weakened Syrian state; this move perhaps casts a new light on recent Israeli bombings in Syria. In a rational world, the involvement of Rothschild and Murdoch in this international criminal activity would show them not to be fit and proper persons to hold major commercial interests elsewhere, and action would be taken. Naturally, nothing of the kind will happen.
  • Paul Merrell on 31 Mar 16
     
    From Wikipedia: "Genie Energy's Strategic advisory board is composed of: Dick Cheney (former vice president of the United States), Jacob Rothschild, 4th Baron Rothschild, Rupert Murdoch (media mogul and chairman of News Corp), James Woolsey (former CIA director), Larry Summers (former head of the US Treasury), and Bill Richardson, an ex-ambassador to the United Nations and energy secretary."
Paul Merrell

CIA watchdog 'accidentally destroyed' copy of 'torture report' | TheHill - 0 views

thehill.com/...ed-only-copy-of-torture-report

war & peace CIA torture Senate-Intelligence_Committee-Report copy-destroyed

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 May 16 - No Cached
  • The CIA’s inspector general has accidentally deleted its only copy of a controversial Senate report about the agency’s history of brutal interrogation techniques, opening a new front in the long battle over the document.Like many federal agencies across Washington, the spy agency watchdog was handed a copy of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s full, 6,700-page report about the CIA’s former methods shortly after it was completed. The full version of the report remains classified, however a 500-page executive summary was released to the public in late 2014.ADVERTISEMENTBut at some point last summer, both the electronic copy and a hard disk were destroyed, the watchdog told Congress.Sen. Dianne FeinsteinDianne FeinsteinCIA watchdog ‘accidentally destroyed’ copy of ‘torture report’ Overnight Energy: Senate rejects Iran measure, clearing way for energy spending bill Senate votes down Iran amendment to energy spending bill MORE (D-Calif.), the driving force behind the 2014 report, sent letters to the CIA and Justice Department on Friday confirming that the spy agency’s inspector general “has misplaced and/or accidentally destroyed” its copy of the report.According to Yahoo News, which first reported the development, the deletion was described as “inadvertent.”
  • Paul Merrell on 17 May 16
     
    Yes, it's just too easy to delete uncomfortable facts. Now if they'd just start making keyboards without a delete key ...
Gary Edwards

Startup turns carbon dioxide into fuels - 0 views

phys.org/...rtup-carbon-dioxide-fuels.html

syngas synfuels energy Clean-Energy carbon dioxide

shared by Gary Edwards on 23 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • The research has received funding from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFSOR), the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy (DOE). The collaboration between Liquid Light and the University was supported by the DOE Small Business Innovation Research program and the AFOSR Small Business Technology Transfer program. Princeton's agreement with Liquid Light allowed the company to continue to collaborate with Bocarsly and his research team. Before long, new discoveries were emerging. "They started noticing interesting chemistry that we wouldn't have predicted," said Bocarsly.
  • The Princeton scientists did some additional studies, and made a surprising discovery: They could turn CO2, which contains only one carbon, into a compound with a carbon-carbon bond, which vastly increases the possibilities for creating commercial applications. This was radical because although the reaction is certainly possible, it is highly unlikely to happen because so many other competing reactions are occurring. "Everyone who electrochemically reduces CO2 today makes compounds with only one carbon," said Bocarsly. "Nobody makes things with carbon-carbon bonds." He paused. "But we can." "That was a very 'wow' moment," recalled Cole, "because we thought that our process could only make methanol. But now we were finding that we could make a variety of products, and that is what makes this technology commercially interesting." She said Liquid Light scientists can now make more than 20 different products from CO2.
  • One of the chemicals Liquid Light can make is isopropanol, commonly known as rubbing alcohol and an important industrial chemical. Another is butanol, which could be commercially important as a fuel. Liquid Light's technology offers the potential to make these chemicals at lower cost than today's methods, which involve starting with fossil fuels such as petroleum and natural gas.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Why does pyridinium work so well as a catalyst for the reaction? Based on its structure, the ring-shaped molecule is an unlikely catalyst for this reaction because it shuttles just one electron at a time. But to convert CO2 to methanol requires six electrons, and to make higher-carbon molecules takes even more electrons. Bocarsly and his team — in collaboration with Steven Bernasek, professor of chemistry — are doing studies to understand the steps in the chemical reaction, and they are making rapid progress. "There are clearly some intermediate products formed during the reaction that do not sit around for a long time and are not there in very high concentrations," said Bocarsly.
  • The Princeton team also is studying the factors that determine which products can be made from CO2. The researchers have found that very subtle changes in the electrode surface can lead to production of different chemicals. For example, CO2 plus a pyridinium catalyst and a platinum electrode make methanol. However, the same catalyst and a different electrode give a different product. The team published its findings on how the reaction is affected by catalyst concentration, temperature and pressure in the journal ChemSusChem last year.
  • Citing government statistics that the United States generates about 5.5 billion metric tons of CO2 per year, Teamey said it will not be hard to obtain the starting materials for this new industry. However, the CO2 needs to be relatively pure, a requirement that rules out gasoline tailpipes and coal-fired power plants. Instead, said Teamey, the CO2 could come from manufacturing facilities, such as fertilizer manufacturers and cement plants, which according to Teamey emit some 100 million tons of high-purity CO2 each year.
  • Gary Edwards on 23 Feb 14
     
    "Today, carbon dioxide (CO2) is a hot topic. Scientists around the globe are searching for ways to store, dispose of, or prevent the formation of the greenhouse gas, which is a major driver of global climate change. Liquid Light hopes to take this concept one step further and harness waste CO2 as a source of carbon to make industrial chemicals and fuels. The technology behind the process is simple: Take CO2 and mix it in a water-filled chamber with an electrode and a catalyst. The ensuing chemical reaction converts CO2 into a new molecule, methanol, which can be used as a fuel, an industrial solvent or a starting material for the manufacture of other chemicals. Liquid Light's founders include Bocarsly and his former graduate student Emily Cole, who earned her Ph.D. from Princeton in 2009. Cole helped revive efforts in Bocarsly's lab to study the conversion of CO2 into usable fuels, which led to the launch of Liquid Light and an ongoing collaboration that Bocarsly said has been extremely positive for his research team at the University. "We've made some discoveries that wouldn't have been made in a university setting, and this has really accelerated the research," Bocarsly said. "It is a very productive relationship." Back in the 1990s, a former Ph.D. student of Bocarsly's named Chao Lin conducted some of the earliest experiments on turning CO2 into methanol. He used palladium metal as the electrode and pyridinium, an inexpensive ring-shaped molecule, as the catalyst. By plugging the electrode into an electrical outlet, he could drive an electrochemical reaction that converted CO2 into methanol. As Bocarsly recalled, Lin was quite excited about his success. However, said Bocarsly, "We published that finding in 1994 and there was approximately zero interest in it." The work languished until 2005 when Cole, then a new graduate student, told Bocarsly she wanted to work on a clean-energy project. She took up the challenge of reproducing Lin's results, but this time
Paul Merrell

Finian Cunningham - Brussels Sabotages EU Energy with South Stream Politicking - Strate... - 0 views

www.strategic-culture.org/...-south-stream-politicking.html

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Russia South-Stream pipelinestan

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • The European Union’s ruling elite just hammered another nail into its creaky coffin this week with the critical loss of the South Stream gas project. Russian President Vladimir Putin may have been the one to formally pull the plug on the project while on an official visit to Turkey, but most observers can see that it is EU politicking that lay behind the collapse. Putin said that continual obstruction to the South Stream project from Brussels had made it unviable. Putin said that Russia would henceforth be applying its energy resources elsewhere and unveiled a new pipeline route to Turkey from the Black Sea. It was reminiscent of how Russia has directed new energy trade with China and Asia over the past year partly as a result of Western unilateral sanctions and obstinacy. And who could fault for Russia for that?
  • the contradictions betray an ulterior agenda. The EU’s «probity» over the South Stream is just a cover for its own petty political reasons and a direct corollary of the Washington-Brussels aggressive agenda toward Russia over Ukraine.   Reactions to the news of the project’s cancellation were also indicative of which party was to blame for the debacle. The governments of Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovenia and Serbia described the decision as a blow. The tone of chagrin was deafening. Tellingly they did not rebuke Russia over the decision. Indeed, the Hungarian government said it was Russia’s right to cancel the project given the backdrop of wearisome wrangling by Brussels. While Slovenia’s prime minister Miro Cerar said he was «not surprised» by Russia giving up on the $40 billion undertaking, which was to come into operation in 2018 following its commencement last year.   The above countries were to have acted as key transit partners and stood to gain billions of dollars worth of fees over the long-term supply of gas to Europe. The pipeline was being contracted to supply some 63 billion cubic metres of natural gas from Russia to Central and Southern Europe, including Austria and Italy. That represents about 40 per cent of Russia’s total supply of gas to Europe in 2013. The South Stream route would thus have been a critical component of European energy security and would have reduced gas costs for millions of households. 
  • Both Brussels and Washington have piled intense pressure on the Eastern European countries that were key to the project. Bulgaria, one of the newest and poorest members of the EU, was singled out for acute pressure from Brussels and Washington.   ‘Bulgaria halts work on the South Stream after US talks,’ reported the BBC back in June this year. Among the US Senators to have lobbied the government in Sofia was John McCain, the self-styled champion of the neo-Nazi and anti-Russian Kiev regime in Kiev that Washington and Brussels helped to install in February.   Bulgaria’s reported halt to the South Stream due to American «talks» finally became a matter of full suspension two months later, in August, after Brussels conducted more «talks». The exact nature of this coercion is not sure. But it is not hard to imagine how all sorts of financial leverage could have been exerted by Brussels and Washington on the vulnerable Bulgarian government. 
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The reaction of Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovenia and Serbia to the South Stream collapse of course expressed disappointment over the impact on their economies. But their muted regret was more a reflection of consternation with Brussels for its policy of antagonism with Russia. Brussels’ high-handed slapping on of sanctions against Moscow and its repeated baseless accusations of Russian expansionism in Ukraine have led to the present juncture of badly frayed relations. That has, in turn, put the kibosh on what would have been a critically important improvement in Europe’s energy security, with financial benefits to several countries and millions of EU citizens.   It’s one thing for Brussels to be cavalier towards Russia; it’s quite another for the same elitist power centre to be cavalier towards its own increasingly hard-pressed citizens and their best interests. 
  • he debacle over the South Stream clearly shows that the European political elite have no interest in the welfare of its ordinary citizens or poorer member states. It is reported that cancellation of the project will cost manufacturing firms and other businesses at least $2 billion in the immediate term. These firms include German and Italian pipe manufacturers. Thousands of jobs across recession-hit Europe are thus being put at risk by political games that Brussels is playing against Russia for its own arcane geopolitical reasons in cahoots with Washington. 
  • Paul Merrell on 06 Dec 14
     
    The U.S. demands obedience, not loyalty, from the EU --- and gets it. 
Paul Merrell

U.S. Seen as Biggest Oil Producer After Overtaking Saudi Arabia - Bloomberg - 0 views

www.bloomberg.com/...er-after-overtaking-saudi.html

oil fracking U.S.-production Big-Energy

shared by Paul Merrell on 07 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • The U.S. will remain the world’s biggest oil producer this year after overtaking Saudi Arabia and Russia as extraction of energy from shale rock spurs the nation’s economic recovery, Bank of America Corp. said. U.S. production of crude oil, along with liquids separated from natural gas, surpassed all other countries this year with daily output exceeding 11 million barrels in the first quarter, the bank said in a report today. The country became the world’s largest natural gas producer in 2010. The International Energy Agency said in June that the U.S. was the biggest producer of oil and natural gas liquids. “The U.S. increase in supply is a very meaningful chunk of oil,” Francisco Blanch, the bank’s head of commodities research, said by phone from New York. “The shale boom is playing a key role in the U.S. recovery. If the U.S. didn’t have this energy supply, prices at the pump would be completely unaffordable.”
  • Oil extraction is soaring at shale formations in Texas and North Dakota as companies split rocks using high-pressure liquid, a process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The surge in supply combined with restrictions on exporting crude is curbing the price of West Texas Intermediate, America’s oil benchmark. The U.S., the world’s largest oil consumer, still imported an average of 7.5 million barrels a day of crude in April, according to the Department of Energy’s statistical arm.
  • “The shale production story is bigger than Iraqi production, but it hasn’t made the impact on prices you would expect,” said Blanch. “Typically such a large energy supply growth should bring prices lower, but in fact we’re not seeing that because the whole geopolitical situation outside the U.S. is dreadful.”
Paul Merrell

Weak Federal Powers Could Limit Trump's Climate-Policy Rollback - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...nald-trump-global-warming.html

climate-change renewable-energy Trump

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • With Donald J. Trump about to take control of the White House, it would seem a dark time for the renewable energy industry. After all, Mr. Trump has mocked the science of global warming as a Chinese hoax, threatened to kill a global deal on climate change and promised to restore the coal industry to its former glory.
  • We do not know for sure that the New York wind farm will get built, but we do know this: The energy transition is real, and Mr. Trump is not going to stop it. Advertisement Continue reading the main story On a global scale, more than half the investment in new electricity generation is going into renewable energy. That is more than $300 billion a year, a sign of how powerful the momentum has become.Wind power is booming in the United States, with the industry adding manufacturing jobs in the reddest states. When Mr. Trump’s appointees examine the facts, they will learn that wind-farm technician is projected to be the fastest-growing occupation in America over the next decade.The election of Mr. Trump left climate activists and environmental groups in despair. They had pinned their hopes on a Hillary Clinton victory and a continuation of President Obama’s strong push to tackle global warming.
  • Now, of course, everything is in flux. In the worst case, with a sufficiently pliant Congress, Mr. Trump could roll back a decade of progress on climate change. Barring some miraculous conversion on Mr. Trump’s part, his election cannot be interpreted as anything but bad news for the climate agenda.Yet despair might be an overreaction.For starters, when Mr. Trump gets to the White House, he will find that the federal government actually has relatively little control over American energy policy, and particularly over electricity generation. The coal industry has been ravaged in part by cheap natural gas, which is abundant because of technological changes in the way it is produced, and there is no lever in the Oval Office that Mr. Trump can pull to reverse that.The intrinsically weak federal role was a source of frustration for Mr. Obama and his aides, but now it will work to the benefit of environmental advocates. They have already persuaded more than half the states to adopt mandates on renewable energy. Efforts to roll those back have largely failed, with the latest development coming only last week, when Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, a Republican, vetoed a rollback bill.
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