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Russian amnesty bill to include Greenpeace crew

Russia’s parliament on Wednesday amended an amnesty bill to include the 30-member crew of a Greenpeace ship detained after a protest at a floating oil rig in the Arctic. The State Duma Wednesday morning adopted final amendments to the bill which gives amnesty to thousands of Russians, mainly minors, invalids, veterans, pregnant women, and women with children. The vote is expected on Wednesday afternoon. The amnesty was extended to suspects of hooliganism, which means that charges against 30 people abroad a Greenpeace ship who were detained after a protest in Russia’s Arctic in September are likely to be dropped. The bill is also expected to release Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina, the jailed members of the Pussy Riot punk band who are serving two years in prison on charges of hooliganism for an impromptu protest at Moscow’s main cathedral. Pyotr Verzilov, Tolokonnikova’s husband, told The Associated […]

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Britain opens up much of countryside to fracking

An area more than two-thirds the size of England is to be opened up to shale gas drilling and other forms of exploration under plans set out on Tuesday that ministers said could produce thousands of jobs and other economic benefits. However, if fracking companies rush to exploit shale deposits, some areas may also experience “significant negative effects”, according to an environmental assessment of the move by the Amec consultancy, including a “substantial burden” on wastewater treatment plants. Depending on how many sites are eventually drilled, towns and villages could see lorries hauling water and other materials along their roads up to 51 times a day, the consultants said, adding that up to 150 shale gas licences could end up being awarded around the country. In addition, fracking companies could consume nearly a fifth of the water currently supplied to energy, water and waste industries each year. These impacts […]

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High Speed Trains are Killing the European Railway Network

The Étoile du Nord Paris-Amsterdam (1927-1995). Almost as fast as the high speed train, but two to three times cheaper.   High speed rail is marketed as a sustainable alternative to air traffic. According to the International Union of Railways, the high speed train "plays a key role in a stage of sustainable development and combating climate change". As a regular long-distance train traveller in Europe, I have to say that the opposite is true. High speed rail is destroying the most valuable alternative to the airplane; the "low speed" rail network that has been in service for decades. The introduction of a high speed train connection invariably accompanies the elimination of a slightly slower, but much more affordable, alternative route, forcing passengers to use the new and more expensive product, or abandon the train altogether. As a result, business people switch from full-service planes […]

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Global oil reserves up

As a continuation to last week’s article titled "Oil industry’s R&D deactivates ‘peak’", and as reported by the 2013 BP Statistical Review of World Energy, the world has increased its global oil reserves by 15 billion barrels in 2012 reaching a total of 1,669 billion barrels by end of 2012. These additional global reserves amounted to 647 billion bbls between 2002 and 2012, the highest in the last few decade, was achieved despite the exponential cumulative global consumption of more than 300 billion bbls during the same period. It is worth mentioning here that 50% of today’s global reserves are located in the Middle East region and more than 72% with OPEC countries. The 26% over the 2002 figure can be directly correlated to the exponential Research & Development (R&D) investment that has been spent by the oil industry in the last decade. Although the literature lacks specific quantitative […]

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Forget Peak Oil, The World Is Heading to ‘Peak Food’

The world may be nearing the upper limits of agricultural production, raising questions about how we will feed a more crowded planet. US researchers say yields of about 30 per cent of crops, including rice and wheat, have decreased abruptly or have plateaued in recent years. Most future projections that would ensure global food security are typically based upon a constant increase in yield. However, this new research reported in Nature Communications , suggests this may not be possible. Past trends have been dominated by the rapid adoption of new technologies which allowed for an increase in crop production. Kenneth Cassman and colleagues at the University of Nebraska characterise past yield trends for cereal, oil, sugar, fibre, pulses, tuber, root crops, rice, wheat and maize, as evidence against a projected scenario of crop yield increase. Their data suggest the rate of yield gain has recently decreased or stopped for […]

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The human over population is near

The human overpopulation is near over populated Earths maximum capacity Overpopulation remains the leading driver of hunger, desertification and species depletion across the planet. Conservative estimates report that China’s most recent food crisis, between 1958 and 1961, led to the starvation of over twenty million people, in part due to the erosion of China’s natural capital. Uncontrolled human fertility led to a depletion of the land’s fertility. Previous famines were worse. Over the years, hundreds of millions died a horrible death of hunger. Their misery should teach a sobering lesson about insouciant disregard for the balance between human numbers and natural resources. It gives little satisfaction for sustainable population advocates to point out that the past twenty years saw an […]

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Oil futures trended lower in Asian trading hours Tuesday but geopolitical issues and an uptick in economic data kept a floor on the two oil price benchmarks.

Oil futures trended lower in Asian trading hours Tuesday but geopolitical issues and an uptick in economic data kept a floor on the two oil price benchmarks. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in January traded at $97.37 a barrel at 0504 GMT, down $0.11 in the Globex electronic session. February Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange fell $0.08 to $109.33 a barrel. Better-than-expected U.S. industrial data had reinforced some market expectations that the Federal Reserve may opt for an early withdrawal of monetary stimulus. The meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee later this week remains the dominant theme for financial markets. "Trimming of the monthly $85 billion asset purchases is likely to dampen demand of commodities and hurt dollar-denominated crude as the greenback strengthens," Phillip Futures said in a note. Later Tuesday, the American Petroleum Institute–a trade body–will publish its […]

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WTI Oil Falls as U.S. Gasoline, Distillate Supplies Seen Rising

West Texas Intermediate fell amid speculation that gasoline and distillate stockpiles increased last week in the U.S., signaling ample supply in the world’s biggest oil consumer. Futures dropped as much as 0.3 percent in New York . U.S. gasoline inventories rose by 1.75 million barrels in the seven days ended Dec. 13, adding to three weeks of gains, according to a Bloomberg News survey of analysts before data from the Energy Information Administration tomorrow. The industry-funded American Petroleum Institute is scheduled to release separate stockpile data today. “Inventory figures will be important against a background of significant stockpile build-up,” said Ric Spooner, a chief analyst at CMC Markets in Sydney. “The market will want to see some inroads into that.” WTI for January delivery declined as much as 25 cents to $97.23 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange , and was at $97.38 at […]

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Global coal demand out to 2018 set to slow, says IEA

China will continue to drive global coal demand over the next five years, although growth is likely to slow amid uncertainties such as the country’s increasing adoption of cleaner technologies and implementation of coal consumption cuts in some regions, the International Energy Agency said Monday. The agency cut its average annual coal demand growth forecast for the 2013-2018 period to 2.3% from 2.6%, also citing increased competition from cheaper gas in the US. However, coal once again displayed the largest demand growth of all fossil fuels — including natural gas and oil — in 2012, at 7.697 billion mt, up 170 million mt on 2011. Launching its annual Medium-term Coal Market Report, IEA executive director Maria van der Hoeven said that in 2012, coal consumption in the world’s two largest markets, China and the US, was "abnormally weak." Article continues below… Request a free […]

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Energy Websites Fend Off Assaults

The Energy Department blocked about 2,200 attempts this year by users seeking to get data from its websites in ways that endangered equal access to the agency’s widely followed economic reports. The users were blocked because they asked for too much information or submitted too many requests for data, exceeding limits set by the agency. Officials disclosed the total in response to a request from The Wall Street Journal. The previously undisclosed number of blocked users is the latest sign of challenges facing government agencies and other information gatherers as they try to guard the data before releasing it to investors in an era of high-speed trading and nonstop technological advancement. It isn’t clear whether blocked users were traders trying to be among the first to see data such as gasoline prices and natural-gas storage; hackers hoping to snare the information before its release to the public; or unwitting […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple