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Natural Gas-Gobbling Bacteria May Help Combat Oil Leaks

A type of bacteria that eats natural gases may provide a small defence against leaks such as BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010 and curb global warming, a scientific report said on Monday. The study identified a strain of microbe able to grow on both methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, and propane. Both are found in unrefined natural gas and scientists had previously thought that bacteria could only grow on one or the other. In consuming both methane and propane the bacteria prevent the gases reaching the atmosphere, Britain’s University of East Anglia said of the report written by two of its scientists in the journal Nature. That means the microbes "could help mitigate the effects of the release of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere from both natural gas seeps in the environment and those arising from man-made activity such as fracking […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Ukraine Says That Militants Won the East

It is by now a well-established pattern. Armed, masked men in their 20s to 40s storm a public building of high symbolic value in a city somewhere in eastern Ukraine, evict anyone still there, seize weapons and ammunition, throw up barricades and proclaim themselves the rulers of a “people’s republic.” It is not clear who is in charge or how the militias are organized. Through such tactics, a few thousand pro-Russian militants have seized buildings in about a dozen cities, effectively establishing control over much of an industrial region of about 6.5 million nestled against the Russian border. Day by day, in the areas surrounding the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, pro-Russian forces have defied all efforts by the central government to re-establish its authority, and on Wednesday, Ukraine’s acting president conceded what had long been obvious: The government’s police and security officials had lost control. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Balcombe oil plans spark outrage

The British Friends of the Earth said they were frustrated with council members in West Sussex County who voted in favor of oil operations near Balcombe. "We are extremely disappointed that councilors have not listened to local people," Friends of the Earth campaigner Brenda Pollack said in a statement Tuesday. "This is an attempt by Cuadrilla to set the wheels in motion for dirty fossil fuel extraction." Last week, Cuadrilla Resources said it would apply for permission to drill up to four exploration wells at sites near Balcombe. The village was the scene of demonstrations against the controversial drilling practice, hydraulic fracturing. While last year’s campaign didn’t involve hydraulic fracturing, the company said it now wanted approval to employ the technique. Pollack said that, instead of fossil fuels, the British economy should embrace more renewable forms of energy. The council heard public reaction to […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Greenpeace attempts to block Russian oil tanker

Greenpeace International activists are attempting to prevent a Russian tanker carrying the first oil from a new offshore platform in the Arctic from mooring at Rotterdam Port. The environmental group said Thursday it has sent two ships, Rainbow Warrior III and Esperanza, plus rubber rafts, paragliders and activists on shore, to meet the Mikhail Ulyanov, a tanker chartered by Russia’s state-controlled oil company, Gazprom OAO. Activists have painted the words "No Arctic Oil" in large letters on the hull of the Russian tanker, while rubber rafts are blocking access to the ship’s mooring place, the group said. Greenpeace opposes oil production inside the Arctic Circle, warning of the danger of a spill in a pristine and difficult-to-reach area – as well as the threat of worsening global warming caused by using fossil fuels. In September, 28 Greenpeace activists and two freelance journalists were arrested and charged […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Natural gas – Thoughts of a Lapsed Physicist

For those of us who follow energy issues closely, a long-standing, persistent question has been: Are methane hydrates for real? Are they a realistically large potential energy resource? The answer seems to be yes. Thirty years ago the information available to answer these questions was not available. Today the literature on methane hydrates (also known as methane clathrates, methane ice, fire ice) is extensive and growing. This blog post attempts to capture the main points I came away with in a detailed review of the subject. To this energy wonk it was both fascinating and disturbing – fascinating in nailing down a lot of details about a potentially new and very large energy resource, and disturbing in that it again raises serious concerns for me about our lack of a national energy policy. I will explain further. First a word about clathrates and hydrates: clathrate is a general term […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple