Archive for the 'Energy' Category
Lovelock: Authoritarian System Needed to Deal with Global Warming
March 31st, 2010Imagine my shock. Via: Guardian: We need a more authoritative world. We’ve become a sort of cheeky, egalitarian world where everyone can have their say. It’s all very well, but there are certain circumstances – a war is a typical example – where you can’t do that. You’ve got to have a few people with […]
Drill Baby, Drill: Obama to Open Offshore Areas to Oil Drilling for First Time
March 31st, 2010Via: New York Times: The Obama administration is proposing to open vast expanses of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling, much of it for the first time, officials said Tuesday. The proposal — a compromise that will please oil […]
Saudis Claim to Have Stopped Attacks on Energy Infrastructure
March 24th, 2010Via: Reuters: Saudi Arabia said it had arrested 113 al Qaeda militants including suicide bombers who had been planning attacks on energy facilities in the world’s top oil exporter.
Iron-Nitrogen Compound Forms Strongest Magnet Known
March 23rd, 2010Possible solution to peak neodymium doom? Via: PhysOrg: A group of scientists from the University of Minnesota say that Fe16N2 crystals are more magnetic than the most magnetic material previously known, and its magnetism exceeds the predicted limit of magnetism for a material. Magnetism arises with the spinning electrons in a material, and with every […]
Australia: Electricity Prices to Rise by Up to 64%
March 19th, 2010Via: 9MSN: A NSW government rebate will be expanded to more than one million electricity consumers, to allay fears some families will be left in the dark by the state’s largest-ever electricity price increases. Electricity bills in NSW will soar by up to a total of 64 per cent over the next three years, with […]
The Lithium Chase
March 10th, 2010Via: New York Times: For many years, few metals drew bigger yawns from mining executives than lithium, a lightweight element long associated mostly with mood-stabilizing drugs. Suddenly, the yawns are being replaced by eurekas. As awareness spreads that lithium is a crucial ingredient for hybrid and electric cars, a global hunt is under way for […]
Company Claims New Fuel-Injection System Can Increase Efficiency of Gasoline Engines by More than 50 Percent
March 8th, 2010Your mileage may vary. Via: MIT Technology Review: Transonic Combustion, a startup based in Camarillo, CA, has developed a fuel-injection system it says can improve the efficiency of gasoline engines by more than 50 percent. A test vehicle equipped with the technology gets 64 miles per gallon in highway driving, which is far better than […]
How Food and Water Are Driving a 21st-Century African Land Grab
March 7th, 2010Via: Guardian: We turned off the main road to Awassa, talked our way past security guards and drove a mile across empty land before we found what will soon be Ethiopia’s largest greenhouse. Nestling below an escarpment of the Rift Valley, the development is far from finished, but the plastic and steel structure already stretches […]
Greenhouse Gas Taxes to Push Gasoline to $7 a Gallon?
March 3rd, 2010Via: New York Times: To meet the Obama administration’s targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, some researchers say, Americans may have to experience a sobering reality: gas at $7 a gallon. To reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the transportation sector 14 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, the cost of driving must simply increase, according […]
Oil Spill Reaches Italy’s River Po After ‘Sabotage’
February 24th, 2010Via: BBC: An oil spill has reached Italy’s River Po after the suspected sabotage of a former refinery led to large amounts of oil pouring into a tributary. The spill began early on Tuesday when someone broke into the plant near Monza, now an oil depot, and opened the taps, Italian news reports said. They […]
