The concrete isle
Ireland has become rich. It has also surrendered itself to motorways, shopping malls, and urban sprawl, stripping peat bogs, demolishing monuments along the way. Mark Lynas reports on one of the world’s worst polluters
Mark Lynas
The Sunshine Farm Research Program
The Sunshine Farm’s goal is to calculate the amount of productive capacity a sustainable farm must devote to its own fuel and fertility. Several reports are available.
Ukraine: It’s now or never for Washington
America’s real aim in Ukraine and other former Soviet republics is to seize control of vital resources before China and India can challenge US dominance.
Transforming the Electric Infrastructure
The grid and the problems it faces. “If the electric power grid is to meet 21st−century demands, society will need to invest in extensive modernization,” say the authors.
The Hydrogen Economy
The gap between the present state of the art in hydrogen production, storage, and use and that needed for a competitive hydrogen economy is too wide to bridge in incremental advances. It will take fundamental breakthroughs of the kind that come only from basic research.
Iran’s nuclear politics
Tehran’s sense of strategic encirclement, allied to Washington’s hostile rhetoric, could make Iran the epicentre of the next regional crisis….Once more, the politics of energy, especially oil, emerges as the most potent hidden factor in regional political insecurity.
Tenet calls for Internet security
According to George Tenet, the former director of the CIA, “access to networks like the World Wide Web might need to be limited to those who can show they take security seriously.”
Cold War crisis in Ukraine: Control of oil, key Grand Chessboard ‘pivot’ at stake
The bitterly disputed Ukrainian presidential election, and the crisis that is exploding in the wake of the contested outcome, has reignited the Cold War and a new round of East-West conflict over control of Eurasian/Caspian/Black Sea energy.
Energy still challenge for Bush
Among the challenges facing President Bush in his second term is a big one left over from his first: energy. Oil is causing the most anxiety. Some say world oil production has peaked.
OPEC signals crude to be kept pumping at current levels
The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries signalled that the cartel would keep pumping crude at currently high levels even though crude prices have cooled recently.
Exxon Mobil, Saudi Aramco start work on Chinese refinery
Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s biggest publicly traded oil company, and Saudi Aramco started engineering work on a US$3.5 billion refinery in China’s southern Fujian Province, a Saudi official said.
Emerging source of oil, not from wells, but sand
An Ohio refinery is widening its use of synthetic crude oil – made from tar stripped from Canadian sand. The problem is, according to Jim Meyer, tar cannot be extracted and turned into oil fast enough to make up for the expected fall in conventional oil production.
