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05.22.12- Iraq Meeting Will Decide War 
The meeting, this week, in Iraq to negotiate Iran’s nuclear program will decide whether or not the world will go to war. The meeting is between the East (Iran, China and Russia) and the West (U.S., UK, France and Germany). If the meeting goes well, war will be avoided. If the meeting goes badly, the world will be heading for war. If yesterday’s CNN interview with Iran’s Finance Minister, Shamseddin Hosseini, is any indication, the upcoming meeting will be a disaster. When asked if Iran would allow inspectors to scrutinize all its nuclear facilities, Hosseini said, “There are conversations and dialogues taking place currently, but there cannot be a hegemony and a double-standard in the treatment of member countries such as Iran. If these principles can be understood and applied with mutual respect, I think we will be in a much better place. If we don’t, we will witness an increase in international oil markets. Read More |
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05.21.12- How the fracking mess is about to make the mortgage mess worse
One fact ought to tell you all you need to know about the risks faced by homeowners signing leases for natural gas drilling on their property: Wells Fargo & Company, both the largest home mortgage lender in the United States and a major lender to the country's second largest producer of natural gas, Chesapeake Energy Corp., refuses to make home loans for properties encumbered with natural gas drilling leases. This salient fact comes from an article (PDF) written for the New York State Bar Association Journal by attorney Elisabeth N. Radow. Read More |
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05.19.12- Immune to the Financial Crisis
Attention: Our “Crash Alert” flag is flying.
What’s going on? Yesterday, we drove into Washington, DC, to the Argentine embassy. Friends from Salta were hosting a wine-tasting. It seemed strange to see our Argentine friends — who live in a remote corner of the country — in our nation’s capital. But it was a pleasure to see them…and taste their very strong, high altitude malbecs. Washington has largely escaped the financial crisis. There is plenty of money in the city, but hardly anyone in town knows anything about economics or finance. It is politics they care about. That’s how they get money, in the old fashioned way — by taking it away from someone else. Read More |
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05.18.12- Oil price still falling
The price of oil continues to decline as supplies grow in the U.S. Benchmark U.S. crude on Wednesday fell by 57 cents to $93.41 per barrel in New York. It dipped to a seven-month low of $91.81 earlier and is down about 12 percent overall since the beginning of May. Brent crude, which helps set the price of oil imported into the U.S., fell by 87 cents to $110.58 per barrel in London. Prices fell after the government reported that U.S. oil supplies grew last week by 2.1 million barrels. That's more than analysts expected. Storage levels are now the highest in nearly 22 years. Prices tend to decline when more oil is available. Read More |
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05.17.12- VW Passat 78.5 MPG
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05.16.12- America's Abundant Natural Gas: Ready to Squander
This is not a story about the environmental concerns over fracking, the hydraulic fracturing of shale to release natural gas. That story is for another time. This story is about the supply of natural gas in the U.S. It’s the shale gas that has turned dwindling natural gas reserves into a bonanza. Or so it’s thought. Take a few moments to read the following paragraph from the U.S. Energy Information Administration's Annual Energy Outlook 2012 (Early Release edition). It's on their website. Read carefully. I'll wait. Read More |
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05.15.12- How You Can Profit From the Market's Next Big Collapse
Despite falling 50% over the past year, many natural gas stocks are about to enter another major decline. And if you know what's going on here, you can use this coming decline to make huge capital gains over the next 12 months. The key idea in this coming trade is something called "reserve write downs." It will cause billions of dollars of market valuation to vanish... overnight. Some very well-known energy firms (that you might own) will suffer huge share price declines. Here's how it's going to work... Read More |
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05.14.12- Fukushima: Hanging by a Thread
It is becoming clear that we, our children and our entire civilization is hanging by a thread. It is a very sorry thing to report that we have literally shot ourselves in the foot with a big nuclear shotgun full of radioactive particles of the worst conceivable kind. It has taken a year but finally “a U.S. Senator finally got off his ass and went to Japan to see what is going on over there. What he saw was horrific. Read More |
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05.12.12- The Oil Industry's Deceitful Promise of American Energy Independence
Faced with increasing political obstacles to oil and natural gas exploration in many countries around the world, the oil industry is focusing again on the United States. The industry is using the deceitful promise of energy independence to cajole Americans and their policymakers into relaxing environmental regulations and opening protected public lands and restricted offshore areas to drilling.The oil and gas industry would like you to believe that American energy independence is just around the corner. The question is, why do they want you to believe it now? After all, if energy independence were that easy to deliver, the industry would have done it a long time ago. Read More |
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05.11.12- The Energy Wars Heat Up
Six Recent Clashes and Conflicts on a Planet Heading Into Energy Overdrive Conflict and intrigue over valuable energy supplies have been features of the international landscape for a long time. Major wars over oil have been fought every decade or so since World War I, and smaller engagements have erupted every few years; a flare-up or two in 2012, then, would be part of the normal scheme of things. Instead, what we are now seeing is a whole cluster of oil-related clashes stretching across the globe, involving a dozen or so countries, with more popping up all the time. Consider these flash-points as signals that we are entering an era of intensified conflict over energy. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, Argentina to the Philippines, here are the six areas of conflict -- all tied to energy supplies -- that have made news in just the first few months of 2012: Read More |
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05.10.12- Visualize Gasoline
Next time you find yourself in traffic, try this nifty thought exercise. Ignore the cars within your field of vision and imagine instead the contents of their fuel tanks. Visualize gasoline flowing up and down the highway. Let’s assume the typical American car carries seven gallons of refined petroleum product in its tank at any given moment (a 15-gallon tank half-full). That’s a lot of liquid to be carting around. In fact, gasoline is the second-most-consumed fluid in the US after water. Each American household consumes an average of 350 gallons of water per day and 2.5 gallons of gasoline; milk, coffee, and beer clock in at .15 gallons, .12 gallons, and .1 gallons respectively. If you do this visualization exercise, you might find yourself seeing rivulets, streams, and—in the case of big freeways—rivers of gasoline coursing across the land. For the US as a whole, 400 million gallons of gasoline enter the flow every day. Read More |
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05.09.12- The Inflation’s In The Poverty
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) produces excellent research. In March of 2010 I discussed their report, Energy Use in the US Food System, which noted that the energy-cost intensity of food production was expanding. (see: the Gregor.us blog post Paris Over Amherst: Food Energy and Credit). Given the strong advance in energy and food poverty the past few years, as reflected in soaring participation in SNAP (food stamp programs), the USDA has produced a new piece of research just last month, Alleviating Poverty in the United States: The Critical Role of SNAP Benefits. Read More |
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05.08.12- Fukushima reactor No. 4; human civilization on the brink
The news you are about to read puts everything else in the category of “insignificant” by comparison. Concerned about the 2012 U.S. presidential election? Worried about GMOs? Fluoride? Vaccines? Secret prisons? None of that even matters if we don’t solve the problem of Fukushima reactor No. 4, which is on the verge of a catastrophic failure that could unleash enough radiation to end human civilization on our planet. (See the numbers below.) The resulting releasing of radiation would turn North America into a “dead zone” for humans… mutated (and failed) crops, radioactive groundwater, skyrocketing infant mortality, an explosion in cancer and infertility… this is what could be unleashed at any moment from an earthquake in Japan. Read More |
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05.07.12- Mebiol’s Futuristic Hydrogel to Grow Food on Desert Sand
Here’s another futuristic invention that could completely change the future of agriculture in a desertifying world. Substituting an industrially produced hydrogel for soil makes it possible to farm on sterile desert sand. Similarly to Pink LEDs Grow Future Food with 90% Less Water, this amazing sci fi technology allows the farming of the desert, with 80 percent less water than needed in traditional farming. The hydrogel technology is the invention of Waseda University Visiting Professor Yuichi Mori, who has years of experience in developing polymeric membranes for use in medical technologies such as blood purification and oxygen enrichment. Read More |
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05.05.12- Will quantum fusion
This situation however seems to be changing following a lengthy interview with a fellow out in Berkeley, California by the name of Robert Godes of Brillouin Energy. He has been working in this field for the last ten years and says that he not only has a reliable heat-producing device, but also understands the physics behind it - which he calls the Quantum Fusion Hypothesis. He says that this theory of just how low-energy nuclear reactions work has allowed the development of a device which produces heat immediately and reliably. Most interestingly, Godes says he has shared his insights with scientists at the Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratories and SRI International, one of the leading US laboratories investigating the phenomenon. He says that both have verified that his theory does indeed work and that they can now produce heat from hydrogen every time they try. Read More |
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05.04.12- Quick Preview of
Soon, the BP Statistical Review will release its annual update to 2011 global energy data. Each year I slowly tinker with projections for global consumption, among the various energy sources, from oil to coal to natural gas. I’ll make a few calls here, today. But first, let’s take a look at where we stand in this regard, according to last year’s report (which recorded 2010 data). | see: Global Energy Use by Source 2010. When the 2011 data is released sometime in the next 8 weeks, I expect to see the following changes. First, global production of crude oil was flat in 2011 compared to 2010. While it’s possible that BP could record an increase nevertheless in global oil consumption–implying that oil came out of inventories to meet demand—I am going to drop oil’s share of global consumption as other sources rise. Read More |
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05.03.12- Too hot not to notice?
The Williams River was so languid and lovely last Saturday morning that it was almost impossible to imagine the violence with which it must have been running on August 28, 2011. And yet the evidence was all around: sand piled high on its banks, trees still scattered as if by a giant’s fist, and most obvious of all, a utilitarian temporary bridge where for 140 years a graceful covered bridge had spanned the water. The YouTube video of that bridge crashing into the raging river was Vermont’s iconic image from its worst disaster in memory, the record flooding that followed Hurricane Irene’s rampage through the state in August 2011. It claimed dozens of lives, as it cut more than a billion-dollar swath of destruction across the eastern United States. Read More |
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05.02.12- Welcome to the 2012 Hunger Games
The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins’s bestselling young-adult novel and top-grossing blockbuster movie, is all about this very moment in so many ways. For those of you hiding out deep in the woods, it’s set in a dystopian future North America, a continent divided into downtrodden, fearful districts ruled by a decadent, luxurious oligarchy in the Capitol. Supposedly to punish the districts for an uprising 74 years ago, but really to provide Roman-style blood and circuses to intimidate and distract, the Capitol requires each district to provide two adolescent Tributes, drawn by lottery each year, to compete in the gladiatorial Hunger Games broadcast across the nation. Read More |
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05.01.12- Viridity Captures Train Braking Power, Sells It to the Grid
The startup captures Philadelphia train braking energy, stores it in a Saft battery, and plays it into lucrative energy markets. Electric-powered trains have been capturing the energy from regenerative braking for years now. But besides reducing power bills, they haven’t done much with the energy they’ve saved. Philadelphia-based startup Viridity Energy is seeking to put a grid value on that energy with a new battery-backed, grid-connected system installed with the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA) train system. After a year and a half of work, Viridity is now turning on the 800-kilowatt battery backed system, and will soon start bidding its energy reductions into demand response and frequency regulation markets. Read More |
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04.30.12- Fukushima: A Nuclear War without a War: The Unspoken Crisis of Worldwide Nuclear Radiation
The World is at a critical crossroads. The Fukushima disaster in Japan has brought to the forefront the dangers of Worldwide nuclear radiation. The crisis in Japan has been described as "a nuclear war without a war". In the words of renowned novelist Haruki Murakami: "This time no one dropped a bomb on us ... We set the stage, we committed the crime with our own hands, we are destroying our own lands, and we are destroying our own lives." Nuclear radiation --which threatens life on planet earth-- is not front page news in comparison to the most insignificant issues of public concern, including the local level crime scene or the tabloid gossip reports on Hollywood celebrities. Read More |
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Breaking Point: The End Of The Cheap Energy Economy
Americans consume 20 million barrels of oil per day and FutureMoneyTrends asks what will happen when the price of gas reaches $4, $5, or $6 per gallon. Between exponentially rising fuel prices and stagnant wage growth for those employed, American consumers were broken in the lead up to the start of the depression recession in 2008. The situation is massively worse now than at the bottom in March 2009 (from $2.00/gallon to $3.92 currently) and that is where they take up the narrative of where we go next as the cost to drive has more than doubled in the space of three years and is on an unsustainable path; either as a nation of consumers facing de minimus wage growth, or the lack of firms' ability to pass this cost on to consumers leading to more unemployment. As the unreality of the S&P 500 passing back above 1400, a reflection back on the real economy is sobering to say the least. Read More |
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04.27.12- The Family Farm Is Being Systematically Wiped Out Of Existence In America
An entire way of life is rapidly dying right in front of our eyes. The family farm is being systematically wiped out of existence in America, and big agribusiness and the federal government both have blood all over their hands. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the number of farms in the United States has fallen from about 6.8 million in 1935 to only about 2 million today. That doesn't mean that there is less farming going on. U.S. farms are producing more than ever. But what it does mean is that farming is increasingly becoming dominated by the big boys. Back in 1900, about 39 percent of the U.S. population worked on farms. At this point, only about 2 percent of all Americans now live on farms. Big agribusiness, the food processing conglomerates, and big seed companies such as Monsanto completely dominate the industry. Unless something dramatic is done, the family farm is going to continue to be wiped out of existence. Read More |
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04.26.12- Flex-Fuel Humans
If you’re one of those humans who actually eats food, like I am, then a non-negligible part of your energy allocation goes into food production. As an approximate rule-of-thumb, each kilocalorie ingested by Americans consumes 10 kilocalories of fossil fuel energy to plant, fertilize, harvest, transport, and prepare. The energy investment can easily exceed a person’s household energy usage—as is the case for me. But much like household energy, we control what we stick in our mouths, and can make energy-conscious choices that result in substantial reductions of energy consumption. I now call myself a flexitarian, a term acknowledging that my body is a flex-fuel vehicle, but also that I need not be rigid about my food choices in order to still make a substantial impact on the energy front. Read More |
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As smart grid metering systems expand across the developed world, many are starting to ask whether the threats posed by the new devices, which officials promise will save energy and reduce end user utility costs, outweigh their benefits. In addition to documented health concerns resulting from radiation emissions and no cost savings being apparent, opponents of the technology argue that smart meters are violative of basic privacy rights and give the government yet another digital node of unfettered access to monitor and control personal electricity consumption. Now, an alarming new documentary suggests that security problems with the inter-connected and seemingly convenient smart grid may be so serious that they could lead to a catastrophic failure of our nation’s entire power infrastructure. Read More |
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04.24.12- Fukushima is Falling Apart: Are You Ready?
Thirteen months have passed since the Fukushima reactors exploded, and a U.S. Senator finally got off his ass and went to Japan to see what is going on over there. What he saw was horrific. And now he is saying that we are in big trouble. See the letter he sent to U.S. Ambassador to Japan Ichiro Fujisaki, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and NRC’s Chairman Gregory Jaczko here. But what is so ironic about this is that we have been in this heap of trouble since March of 2011. March 17th, to be exact, when the plume of radioactive materials began bombarding the west coast of California. Read More |
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04.23.12- Two Years After the BP Oil Spill: Is the Gulf Ecosystem Collapsing? 
The Gulf Ecosystem Is Being Decimated
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04.21.12- Airborne Wind Turbine in flight
Remember the Airborne Wind Turbine covered by Gizmag towards the end of March? The creators of the prototype, Altaeros Energies, has been in touch to show us a video of the prototype in operation and we can confirm that a) it flies and b) the turbine goes round. Though we wouldn't typically post an update with relatively scant new information, the combination of this product's uniqueness and the interest the original story garnered among Gizmag readers means we thought this was worth letting you know about. Also, it's nice to have a video without unnecessarily distracting and incongruous music suddenly blasting out of your cans, but perhaps that's just me. Judge for yourself... View Video |
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04.20.12- Zero Carbon Fuels
If planet-saving is one the things you want to do in life, you’re going to have to invent something. We can’t wait for government and policy to fix things. It has to be some kind of product that will do the job: Something you can buy. I have a suggestion of what to invent: A new kind of fuel to do everything from get us from A to Z as well as keep the lights on and our buildings warm or cool. But there are some stipulations. This new fuel has to be stored in low cost containers at ambient temperature and pressure. It has to be reasonably safe with normal or even clumsy handling. It can’t be another hydrocarbon like another biofuel. And, oh yeah, it has to be really, really cheap. In other words, it has to be something that’s a lot like gasoline or diesel fuel, or coal for that matter, but without the carbon. It’s the carbon in hydrocarbons that’s the problem. Read More |
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04.19.12- Fukushima:
Scientific experts believe Japan's nuclear disaster to be far worse than governments are revealing to the public. "Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind," Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president, told Al Jazeera. Japan's 9.0 earthquake on March 11 caused a massive tsunami that crippled the cooling systems at the Tokyo Electric Power Company's (TEPCO) nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan. It also led to hydrogen explosions and reactor meltdowns that forced evacuations of those living within a 20km radius of the plant. Read More |
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04.18.12- Ditching the Dollar
There's a major shift under way, one the US mainstream media has left largely untouched even though it will send the United States into an economic maelstrom and dramatically reduce the country's importance in the world: the demise of the US dollar as the world's reserve currency. For decades the US dollar has been absolutely dominant in international trade, especially in the oil markets. This role has created immense demand for US dollars, and that international demand constitutes a huge part of the dollar's valuation. Not only did the global-currency role add massive value to the dollar, it also created an almost endless pool of demand for US Treasuries as countries around the world sought to maintain stores of petrodollars. Read More |
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04.17.12- Brazil's Biofuel Boom 
Believe it or not, industry experts see biofuels accounting for up to 25% of global energy consumption by 2050. With this long-term vision in mind, Mark McHugh, president and CEO of consultancy firm CenAm Energy Partners SA, assesses the current biofuel industry from his base in Brazil, the seat of the growing industry. In this exclusive interview with The Energy Report, McHugh explains why specialized energy feedstocks are the solution to current technological and political growth constraints, predicting that biofuel investment returns may rival historic fossil fuel profit ratios. The Energy Report: The biofuels sector encompasses a range of products. Can you give us an overview of this commodity space and how production processes differ? |
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04.16.12- "Gas Price Redux"
It is truly amazing how much can change in four years. Or, more accurately, how little things change in terms of human behavior. Four years ago the US was mired in the last spike in gasoline prices heading into the summer. Virtually every media outlet was conducting daily interviews, polls, and newsbytes about how Mr. and Mrs. Average were dealing with the high gas prices. Today, we have a new norm, and the wires are rather silent on the high gas prices other than quietly reporting the national averages. We as a country have come to be comfortable with $3.50 gas. Gas is one of those strange commodities too because, unlike so many other things, almost everyone has a pretty good idea of the price they paid for their last tankful. What should be even more disconcerting are the misperceptions surrounding this latest increase in prices. There have been many factors blamed so far, such as America’s lack of energy independence, speculation, more expensive summer blends, high gas taxes, and supply and demand. Read More |
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04.14.12- THRIVE:
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04.13.12- Is a Water War between India and Pakistan Imminent?
A peaceful and stable Pakistan is integral to western efforts to pacify Afghanistan, but Islamabad's obsessions with its giant eastern neighbor may render such issues moot. Since partition in 1947, Pakistan and India have fought four armed conflicts, in 1947, 1965, 1971 (which led to the establishment of Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan) and the 1999 Kargil clash. But now a rising new element of discord threatens to precipitate a new armed clash between southern Asia's two nuclear powers - water. Read More |
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04.12.12- The War at the End of the Dollar
The history of the U.S. dollar is closely linked to U.S. involvement in a series of wars. The Bretton Woods Accord and the resulting world reserve currency status of the U.S. dollar were both byproducts of World War II (1939-1945). The Korean War (1950-1953) was followed six years later by the Vietnam War (1959-1975) which led to the end of the Bretton Woods system. Unfettered by the constraint of gold backing after 1971, the U.S. dollar became a weapon in the Cold War (1945–1991) between the U.S. and the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.). Each war corresponded with an increase in the U.S. money supply. The Gulf War (1990-1991) was followed by wars in Afghanistan, beginning in 2001, and in Iraq, beginning in 2003, and, simultaneously, by the U.S.-led War on Terror that began in 2001. Read More |
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04.11.12- Should we care about the human future? If so, how much?
In virtually every institution in human society, we humans concern ourselves with the continuation of the species. We have children, we raise them in some sort of family, we educate them for the world of work and citizenship, and then we see them couple and start the cycle all over again. All the while we seek to defend ourselves from disease, violence, economic deprivation, in fact, anything that might cut short our lives or those of our children. It ought to be self-evident that human beings do care about the future. What I want to examine is whether they should and if so, how much. For this I will need to take you through some simple thought experiments which will test just how much you might do for the sake of human continuity and just how far into the future you might project your own responsibility. Read More |
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04.10.12- The Fuel Pools of Fukushima: The Greatest Short-Term Threat to Humanity
This detailed report by our Contributor Washington Blog must be read very carefully. The World is at a critical crossroads. The Fukushima disaster in Japan has brought to the forefront the dangers of Worldwide nuclear radiation. The crisis in Japan has been described as "a nuclear war without a war". |
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04.09.12- Fukushima Reactor 4: Life On Planet Earth in the Balance
Diplomat Akio Matsumura is warning that the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan may ultimately turn into an event capable of extinguishing all life on Earth. Matsumura posted a startling entry on his blog following a statement made by Japan’s former ambassador to Switzerland, Mitsuhei Murata, on the situation at Fukushima. Speaking at a public hearing of the Budgetary Committee of the House of Councilors on March 22, 2012, Murata warned that “if the crippled building of reactor unit 4 – with 1,535 fuel rods in the spent fuel pool 100 feet (30 meters) above the ground – collapses, not only will it cause a shutdown of all six reactors but will also affect the common spent fuel pool containing 6,375 fuel rods, located some 50 meters from reactor 4,” writes Matsumura. Read More |
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04.07.12- My 'Gasland' 'Tis of Thee
It is one thing to read about the fight over the environmental effects of hydraulic fracturing or fracking that are associated with natural gas drilling in deep shale formations. It's quite another to see that fight captured on film. The documentary film Gasland provides a compelling, if one-sided, portrait of the devastation visited on the lives of those who live closest to the drilling. |
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04.06.12- Self-sustaining solar reactor creates clean hydrogen fuel
It may sound too good to be true, but a mechanical engineer working out of the University of Delaware has come up with a way to produce hydrogen without any undesirable emissions such as carbon dioxide. The totally clean fuel production is made possible due to a new solar reactor created by Erik Koepf that only relies on concentrated sunlight, zinc oxide, and water to produce hydrogen. The reactor is capable of using sunlight to increase the heat inside its cylindrical structure above 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Zinc oxide powder is then gravity fed through 15 hoppers into the ceramic interior where it converts to a zinc vapor. At that point the vapor is reacted with water separately, which in turn produces hydrogen. Read More |
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04.05.12- How The Corn Lobby Will Kill Your Older Car
They may not need to ban old cars outright. Instead, they’ll just kill them off quietly – by poisoning them internally. With ethanol. Modern cars – cars built since the early ’90s - can stomach the stuff . They have engines designed to deal with corrosive, ethanol-doctored “gas” – and peripheral systems (hoses, seals, o-rings, lines, etc.) made to withstand it. Being computer controlled, they can also adjust themselves to deal with ethanol-laced gas. They may not get the best mileage they’re capable of delivering – because ethanol is less energy dense than gasoline – but at least they run ok. But with older cars – cars built before the early ’90s, before widespread use of ethanol-doctored fuel – you’ve got two problems. One of them is relatively minor – and easily fixed. Read More |
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04.04.12- The Upside to a Natural Gas Downturn
Isaac Newton showed us that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. That is why every downside force in the energy sector creates upside opportunities elsewhere. The challenge is finding them. It takes an understanding of the entire global energy machine to figure out what areas are benefiting from the changing landscape. From this perspective, North America’s shale gas revolution truly earns its accolade as a “game changer.” As many people now understand, the boom in natural gas reserves and production in the United States and Canada is changing the way North America will power itself in the future. Read More |
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04.03.12- Welcome to the New Third World of Energy, the U.S.
(Editor's Note: For today's Energy Missive, we are provided a foreward from Tom Engelhardt of TomDispatch.com) Here’s a simple rule of thumb when it comes to energy disasters: if it’s the nuclear industry and something begins to go wrong -- from Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979 to Fukushima, Japan, after the 2011 tsunami -- whatever news is first released, always relatively reassuring, will be a lie, pure and simple. And as the disaster unrolls, it’s not likely to get much better. The nuclear industry is incapable of telling the truth about the harm it does. So when the early stories appear about the next nuclear plant in trouble, whatever you hear or read, just assume that you don’t know the half, not even the quarter, of it. Read More |
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04.02.12- Sandia simulation suggests sunny skies for fusion reactors
In the beginning, there was the thermonuclear bomb - mankind had harnessed the energy of the Sun. Confident predictions abounded that fusion reactors would be providing power "too cheap to meter" within ten years. Sixty years later many observers are beginning to wonder if billions of dollars of effort has been lost in digging out dry wells. Now a new simulation study carried out at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, suggests that magnetized inertial fusion (MIF) experiments could be retrofitted to existing pulsed-power facilities to obtain fusion break-even. Fusion power results from combining the nuclei of light atoms to make heavier ones, while in the process releasing ~1% of their mass-energy. Research on controlled fusion power has focused primarily on two paths - magnetic confinement fusion and inertial confinement fusion. Read More |
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03.31.12- The Problem - Peak Oil - Part One Understanding and Looking Forward.
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Oil prices down about 12 percent since the beginning of May, gas pump price averages $3.73
