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Securing Uganda’s Oil Industry Urged But Repeat Terrorist Attacks Seen As Slim
Although the Ugandan government can boost the security of its fledgling oil industry from future terrorist attacks that may scare away certain investors, Africa analysts doubt violence replicating the twin bombs that struck during the World Cup final is likely. Somali militant group al-Shabab claimed responsibility for explosions that tore through the capital Kampala July 11 and killed more than 70 people. Infuriated over Uganda’s participation in the African Union Mission in Somalia – which may grow if Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni gets his way – al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab has pledged more terror. The oil industry has not been singled out as a target, but “one would naturally assume that it would be one of the areas that terrorists would look at,” warned Peter Pham, senior vice president of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, a New York-based think tank. The bombings underscore that the Ugandan government and its regional and international partners, both public and private, need to “perhaps devote more thought and resources to protecting the infrastructure that has been or is in the process of being built,” he said.. » read more
Pipeline Geopolitics: The Russia German Nord Stream Strategic Gas Pipeline.
In the postwar history of the Federal Republic, German Chancellors tend to disappear once they pursue political goals that deviate from the Washington global agenda too much. In the case of Gerhard Schroeder, it involved two unforgiveable “sins.” The first was his open opposition to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. The second, far more serious strategically, was his negotiations with Russia’s Putin to bring a major new natural gas pipeline directly from Russia, bypassing then-hostile Poland, to Germany. Today the first section of that Nord Stream gas pipeline has reached the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern coastal town of Lubmin on the Baltic Sea, making Lubmin into a geopolitical pivot for Europe and Russia.. » read more
Oil Price Rally Stumbles Friday on Negative Economic News
After clawing its way back above $75 a barrel on Thursday for the first time in four weeks, the benchmark oil futures contract fell back again on Friday on news of an unexpected decline in retail sales in the U.S. The end-of-week decline showed how feeble the rally was and how sensitive oil prices remain to economic news. Oil prices were still ahead for the week, with the benchmark West Texas Intermediate settling Friday at $73.78 a barrel, after dropping 4.. » read more
Great Divide Developing in U.S. Natural Gas
Bentek Energy managing director Rusty Braziel sees a great divide developing in U.S. natural gas. Bentek are one of the leaders in tracking and analyzing American gas pipeline flows. Where gas is flowing, who's using it, and at what price.. » read more
Lake Erie Wind Farm to be First Freshwater Offshore Project in U.S
The first step in an ambitious project to generate 1,000 megawatts of electricity from offshore wind turbines in Lake Erie was taken this week with an order to General Electric for five massive turbines. The Lake Erie Energy Development Corp., a Cleveland-based nonprofit, said the direct-drive turbines will provide 4 MW each of electricity and would be operational by the end of 2012, generating enough electricity to power 6,000 homes. “Ohio's greatest potential for creating wind energy is offshore in Lake Erie, and this partnership marks a significant step forward,” said state governor Ted Strickland. The Lake Erie project, the first freshwater offshore wind farm in the U.. » read more
Gulf Spill Puts US Energy Bill on Slippery Slope
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Growing Revolutionary Guard Spells Uncertainty For Oil Investors In Iran
As the United States edges closer to issuing a fresh round of sanctions against Iran, foreign investors so far unmoved by international pressure will end up doing business with a Revolutionary Guard that makes even local firms nervous, an analyst warns. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, known as the IRGC or Revolutionary Guard, is a military branch set up after the 1979 revolution to protect the regime and has become more ingrained in the Iranian economy particularly under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s administration. In recent weeks, the Revolutionary Guard has declared that it can assume control of the energy industry if Westerners flee under the crush of coming U.S. sanctions.. » read more
Psychological Plunge in Oil Prices Makes OPEC Nervous, Official Says
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Vison for the Future: The Age of Space-Solar Energy
The industrial revolution has been driven for the past two centuries by the burning of hydrocarbons, first by coal in the Age of Steam, and then by oil and natural gas in the Age of Petroleum; however, as the flow of these fossil fuels slows down as demand goes up, ever-more-intrusive and massive extraction efforts increasingly threaten the progress of industrialization and the civilization it has produced. The catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is the latest and largest of hundreds of such ocean spills, and the recent methane gas explosion in Massey’s Montcoal mine was just another of the many disasters, worldwide, which have snuffed out the lives of workers who labor in dangerous conditions to feed our fossil-fuel addiction. All around the planet we live upon, the quest for hydrocarbons is threatening the ability of humans to survive in the degrading environment and to govern their own corporate-dominated societies. It is not just the environmental destruction caused by the extraction of coal-bed methane in Wyoming and Montana, the “fracking” of deep shale-gas formations and the consequential contamination of fresh water aquifers and rivers in the northeastern United States, or the blasting away of mountain tops in Appalachia; it is the fact that these extreme efforts are facilitated by a concert of corporate and governmental corruption that erodes freedom and democracy in the United States and threatens human civilization around the world. There is no hope for the recovery of earth’s environment and the survival of human civilization as long as extraction decisions are governed by corporate greed.. » read more
IMPORTANT UPDATE - THE ORION PROJECT May 13, 2010
For the past two years, The Orion Project has worked to raise funds to build a facility where we can bring scientists and inventors together in a peaceful type of Manhattan Project for energy - to develop new sources of energy that will get us off the fossil fuel economy. We have also worked to identify scientists and inventors capable of this work. For the past hundred years, scientists such as Nikola Tesla have worked on such devices. The fact that many have tried, and we are still using predominantly fossil fuels - the same fuels used in the 1800s - can be illustrated by our recent experience. We reported last December that we had under contract a very talented scientist who wanted to work with us.. » read more
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