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March 2004
Jan & Feb 2004
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A year after
October 2003
September 2003
August 2003
July 2003
June 2003
May 2003
April 2003
March 2003
the Prestige debacle (March 2003)
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shell
experiments on oil shale
“On one small test plot about 20 feet by 35 feet, on land Shell
owns, they started heating the rock in early 2004. "Product" -
about one-third natural gas, two-thirds light crude - began to appear in
September 2004. They turned the heaters off about a month ago, after harvesting
about 1,500 barrels of oil.
“While we were trying to do the math, O'Connor told us the answers.
Upwards of a million barrels an acre, a billion barrels a square mile. And
the oil shale formation in the Green River Basin, most of which is in Colorado,
covers more than a thousand square miles - the largest fossil fuel deposits
in the world.”
Claimed EROEI 3.5 :
1.
the web address for the article above is
http://www.abelard.org/news/oil040629.php#shell_shale_070905 |
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the
great oil wall of china
“Decades behind developed nations when it comes to supporting a car
culture, China may actually benefit from its very backwardness. All those
bicycles mean there isn't a cumbersome - and entrenched - gasoline infrastructure
to stand in the way of the next big thing. That's why China hopes to eventually
bypass the oil-based auto culture and go right to a hydrogen economy. "Some
theorists believe China has an advantage with fuel cells because it has
no resistance," says General Motors vice president David Chen as he
attends to a Shanghai dignitary at Bibendum. "It's been cut off from
the world for 30 years. It may be in a unique situation to leapfrog."
”
—
“ His concern is ideological, but the problem is practical. After
food, oil is the most important issue for Chinese economic planners. Without
an increasing supply of oil, high GDP growth will be impossible, creating
unemployment and social unrest, potentially threatening the government's
hold on power. That's not all. Dependency on foreign oil, in Yang's opinion,
inevitably leads to war [...]”
the web address for the article above is
http://www.abelard.org/news/oil040629.php#chinese_oil_020405
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| comments
by cheney on oil
“KUDLOW: All right. Let's look at oil for a moment, if I may. Oil
is once more marching up towards $60 a barrel. A lot of private-sector and
Wall Street economists are marking down their economic growth and raising
their inflation estimates. My question to you, sir, is, are White House
economists doing the same thing? Does it now look like slower growth ahead
as a result of this oil spike?
Vice Pres. CHENEY: I haven't seen that yet, Larry. We watch the same forecasts
I think everybody else does, the blue chips and so forth, and obviously
$60 oil begins to bite, have some impact on the economy. On the other hand,
oil is much less important as a total part of our economy than it was 15
or 20 years ago. And we're still well below the all-time high in terms of
the real ceiling when you allow for inflation. We have not gotten yet to
the highs we were at back in the early '80s. So we think we'll be able to
weather this, but there's no question energy is a problem, oil in particular.
We did get through the Senate this week, I think, a major success story,
approval to go forward on development of ANWR. We've been fighting for that
for years. This is the first time we had the votes in the House and Senate
to get that done.”
—
“ KUDLOW: Are you interested that some state legislators, most notably
Virginia, are now making noises to start drilling their own oil off the
outer continental shelf, the OCS? I mean, that's kind of taking matters
into their own hands, but it could produce more power.
“Vice Pres. CHENEY: Yeah. Well, you've got to recognize that as a
nation, we don't drill off the East Coast, we don't drill off the West Coast
or the big areas of the country that are off limits. A lot of areas should
be off limits for environmental reasons and so forth. But the fact of the
matter is, there are significant resources out there we've never developed.
We've made other decisions. When we get to $60 oil and gasoline prices well
above $2 a gallon, I think people may take a more realistic look at what
our priorities are.”
the web address for the article above is
http://www.abelard.org/news/oil040629.php#cheney_220305
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at
last,
spanish political prisoner captain scapegoat temporarily released
After 1 year, ten months and 17 days of imprisonment in Spain,
“ [the] Greek captain of the sunken Prestige tanker, who was banned
in late 2002 from leaving Spain pending trial, has been allowed to return
to Greece, Justice Minister Anastassis Papaligouras said yesterday. Spanish
authorities have said Apostolos Mangouras can go home on the condition that
he returns to Spain to stand trial, Papaligouras said.”
Captain Scapegoat Mangouras spent the first ten months in a Spanish jail.
This was commuted to house-arrest in Barcelona, reporting every day to a police
station (later slightly moderated to once a week).
Now of course, the Spanish torture of a man nearing seventy years old continues
because,
“ It is unclear when the trial is due to start.”
related material
Captain Scapegoat Mangouras
summary report on one of the worst coastal
oil disasters ever
the web address for the article above is
http://www.abelard.org/news/oil040629.php#scapegoat_freed
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| the
Prestige oil disaster: more cleaning up [1]
summary report on one of the worst coastal oil
disasters ever
In November 2002, on the orders of
Spanish authorities, an oil tanker in difficulties was dragged through a raging
sea-storm away from the Spanish Galician coast, despite the advice
and warnings of the soon-to-be arrested captain [2],
and others. For six days, a damaged tanker was hauled through 30-, 40-metre
waves and almost hurricane-force winds. Little surprise that the poor lady
collapsed.
The Prestige broke in two and sank, spilling tens of thousands of
tonnes of residual heavy crude
oil. She sank, but not in shallow waters, easy to access
to salvage the remainder of the oil, quickly before further ecological damage
was done. The bow sank down to 3,500 metres – three and a half kilometres,
or two and a quarter miles – and the smaller stern
section to 4,000 metres deep, there to gush oil.
The Spanish patched up the majority of leaks using a submarine,
they wiped up oil where it could be seen
on beaches, and started a big publicity drive to lure tourists back to their
now oil-blackened northern coast. Would the Spanish have bothered to initiate
research on extraction from such depths without external pressures?
Well, they did, eventually. By April 2003, the Spanish authorities were consulting
foreign experts. Having eventually decided what
to do, tests began in August 2003. By the time tests were regarded as
successful, the approaching stormy winter prevented any oil-emptying and the
wreck continued leaking.
Thus, is only now in mid-2004, over nineteen months after instigating one
of the worst-ever oil spills, that
the wreck of the Prestige starts to be emptied.
It is an engineering feat. Drilling holes in a wreck beneath 3500 metres
of water, fixing valves so that the oil can be controlled as it is let rise
out of the wreck, channelling the oil into one of five special aluminium containers
(the Spanish call the shuttles) which are taken up to about 40 metres where
the oil is pumped into a waiting tanker, the Odin, for shipping back
to land. The emptied shuttle returns down to be filled again. The intention
is to fill two shuttles simultaneously from the five holds in the bow section.
How much oil? The Spanish estimate that,
of the 70,000 tonnes cargo, 14,000 tonnes remains in the ship, most in the
bow section, about 1,000 tonnes in the stern. They have so far removed 1,000
tonnes. Their estimate is that by October, they will have removed all but
10% of the oil (11,700 tonnes). They then intend to use bacteria
to speed the ‘natural’ breakdown of the remainder, and the oil
that is in the stern section. How rapid and efficient this will be remains
to be seen.
end notes
- News item in Spanish from El Mundo.
- abelard.org has made many reports on the plight of
Captain Scapegoat Mangouras (like at this
link), who has now been under house-arrest in Barcelona for 18 months.
the web address for the article above is
http://www.abelard.org/news/oil040629.php#summary |
