Summer Ice in Arctic May Be Gone by 2030
Virus is Seen as Suspect in Death of Honeybees
Friday, September 07, 2007
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With the arrival of Peak Oil, the curtain has closed on Act 1 of the drama Petroleum Man. What will happen in Act 2? Chekhov said, "If there's a gun on the wall at the beginning of the play, by the end it must go off." In the world's nuclear arsenal are many guns on the wall. If life copies art, will there be an Act 3 in which the players, having learned their lesson the hard way, live sustainably? To explore these and other questions... FTW's Act 2 Blog. Read, comment, take heart! Orkin
21 comments:
Staging Nuke for Iran?
http://tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/sep/05/staging_nuke_for_iran
"Now maybe there is an innocent explanation for this? I can’t think of one. What is certain is that the pilots of this plane did not just make a last minute decision to strap on some nukes and take them for a joy ride. We need some tough questions and clear answers. What the hell is going on? Did someone at Barksdale try to indirectly warn the American people that the Bush Administration is staging nukes for Iran? I don’t know, but it is a question worth asking."
Global Credit Rout May Paralyze Infrastructure Loans
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=email_en&refer=asia&sid=a4O7jkgN4rWM
We are going to hit Iran. Big Time.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AlasBabylon/message/33441
"I have a friend who is an LSO on a carrier attack group that is planning and staging a strike group deployment into the Gulf of Hormuz. (LSO: Landing Signal Officer- she directs carrier aircraft while landing) She told me we are going to attack Iran. She said that all the Air Operation Planning and Asset Tasking are finished. That means that all the targets have been chosen, prioritized, and tasked to specific aircraft, bases, carriers, missile cruisers and so forth."
and these military manoeuvers are being relayed on the phone and blogged? hmm...
Kazakhstan puts pressure on Western oil companies
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/06/business/oil.php?WT.mc_id=rssbusiness
The growing worldwide trend of energy nationalism.
OPEC Out Dips in August
http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=49966
John Kingston, Global Director of Oil at Platts, said, "OPEC faces a real dilemma at its upcoming meeting. On the one hand, prices have climbed back up toward the $75 level, and the supply/demand balance projects a tight market in coming months, which might encourage OPEC to raise production. But when the organization looks at Friday's U.S. employment figures, and considers the ramifications of the US subprime mess, it will be concerned that a significant slowdown in demand could be around the corner. With that in mind, it is difficult to see a scenario in which it will vote to raise output, given that based on our survey, production is rising slightly regardless."
Consumers Hold Key to Economy's Future
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070907/economy_what_next.html?.v=4
Now the picture is turning decidedly mixed. While many corporations continue to report strong earnings and predict solid growth for the year, companies from Apple to Office Depot to Harley Davidson have signaled their concerns about consumer spending.
Consumers, whose spending accounts for roughly 70 percent of the economy, have already started pulling back, said Joel L. Naroff, president and chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors. If the pullback accelerates "it almost sets off a domino effect. Businesses, which are increasingly uncertain in their spending decisions, could say, 'Why spend into a recession?' Then you've created one."
Will Abe quit?
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39195
Empty sloganeering, subservience to the neocons, scandal... These go a long way toward summing up PM Abe's year at the helm.
Abe's party (the LDP) now finds it has to contend with the political camp that would rather see Japan return to becoming a part of East Asia, instead of being a US franchise.
You probably heard about this by now, but hey...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/10/AR2007091000596_pf.html
Gas prices just went up...
Shockwaves from melting icecaps are triggering earthquakes, say scientists
High up inside the Arctic circle the melting of Greenland's ice sheet has accelerated so dramatically that it is triggering earthquakes for the first time.
Scientists monitoring the glaciers have revealed that movements of gigantic pieces of ice are creating shockwaves that register up to three on the Richter scale.
... As the reality of the unprecedented thaw becomes apparent, the consequences are outstripping the capacity of scientific models to predict it.
... The accelerating thaw and the earthquakes are intimately connected, according to Mr Kallio, as immense slabs of ice are sheared from the bed rock by melt water. Those blocks of ice, often more than 800m deep and 1500m long, contain immense rocks as well and move against geological faults with seismic consequences. The study of these ice quakes is still in its infancy, according to Professor Correll, but their occurence is in itself disturbing. "It is becoming a lot more volatile," said Mr Vallio. Predictions made by the Arctic Council, a working group of regional scientists, have been hopelessly overrun by the extent of the thaw. "Five years ago we made models predicting how much ice would melt and when," said Mr Vallio. "Five years later we are already at the levels predicted for 2040, in a year's time we'll be at 2050."
This dramatic warming is being felt across the Arctic region. In Alaska, earthquakes are rocking the seabed as tectonic plates – subdued for centuries by the weight of the glaciers on top of them – are now moving against each other again.
... "Mean temperatures have remained below zero here since medieval times," said Professor Callaghan. "Now, over the past 10 years we have exceeded zero, the mark at which ice turns to water." Professor Correll said: "We are looking at a very different planet than the one we are used to."
Wisconsin Tops Minnesota
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2007/09/wisconsin-tops-minnesota.html
Ethanol is freeing us from foreign oil... NOT!
When Is "Global Peak Energy?" According to Publicly Available Data, Probably Sooner Than You Think
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2960
Asian stocks fall on US economic fears
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3124f1d6-5f40-11dc-837c-0000779fd2ac.html
Interesting article on the honeybees.....but one wonders what is weakening the honeybees' immune systems to leave them vulnerable to a virus? Here the cellpones/bioengineered crops/poinsons, etc., must surely play a complex role.
Rosneft warns China over oil supply post 2010
Saw this article reprinted in the local rag(Belleville News Democrat)last night.I thought you especially might be interested Jenna if you haven't already seen it.:
Daily News probe finds WTC contractors with mob ties, fraud
Can saltwater be burned as fuel?
David - re: saltwater
they say "the fuel - nothing more than saltwater" but that is deceptive. There is energy being provided from the radio-wave apperatus which in turn is getting energy from where? An electrical outlet, no doubt.
What is the EROEI (energy returned on energy invested)? I'm not asking you, merely posing the question I would ask them. Most likely (especially considering the steps that are involved from electric generation, transmission, and conversion to radio waves to make the salt water burst into flame) there is a LOT more energy being used that is released in the form of flame.
Rice farmer - that Kazakhstan article is interesting. Taking lessons from Russia it appears. Off topic, harvest your rice yet?
Can saltwater be burned as fuel? -- This item turned up some time ago, and now I see it's being recycled. The answer is yes, but the next question is, how much energy does the machine use? The energy output has to be substantially greater than the input, or it's useless.
$80 oil barrels, record low for the dollar, Abe resigns, Russian bombs, Israel attacks Syria, gigantic earthquakes...what day for news!
Concerning the salt water energy...
I wonder if this process is a more efficient way to produce Hydrogen than from electrolysis? We could have windmill farms or solar cells producing electricity to run RF generators to produce hydrogen to run our cars.
I feel like it could be tweaked in the EROEI area to where it could be a useful source of obtaining energy (hydrogen) by using the green energy of the sun and ocean. Not that this would solve the worlds energy problems...but I wouldn't mind having one in my backyard. :)
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