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Latest Headlines

Something’s Fishy in Tripoli

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:46:18 +0000 - Way back in early 2011, members of the U.N. Security Council had no problem getting a resolution through that authorized military force in Libya ostensibly to protect civilians from attacks by forces loyal to strongman Moammar Gadhafi. The year before, lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic were bickering over who did what and why in terms of the cancer-stricken Lockerbie bomber. This Scottish decision to release him, depending on which U.S. lawmaker you spoke with, was tied to a BP deal to drill for oil in Libya. Despite fractures in the new interim government in Tripoli and reports of renewed protests, a decision by the Italian government to quietly discuss trade relations suggests something isn’t quite right in the way Western allies pick their fights. OPEC last year refused to budge when economic doomsayers were predicting the end of days because the war in Libya was pushing oil prices to highs that threatened some mythical economic recovery somewhere in the world. The International Energy Agency stepped in, but by January, oil majors in Libya were saying production levels had more or less returned to normal, all things considered. Italian energy company Eni, which had pretty nice contracts with Gadhafi’s [...]

Solar Yacht Sails Around the World Powered by Nothing More than the Sun

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:28:58 +0000 - The World Future Energy Summit has recently finished in Abu Dhabi and for me one of the highlights was the Turanor, an impressive solar powered yacht designed and built by Planet Solar. It is the largest boat of its kind to ever sail and the first to ever circumnavigate the globe powered entirely by the sun. It steadily cruises at an average speed of five knots, but is capable of reaching more than double that on clear, calm, sunny days. The project was conceived by Raphaël Domjan of Switzerland as a method of demonstrating the possibilities that current solar technology holds for clean transportation. The yacht carries a huge rack of Lithium-Ion batteries capable of storing up to three days’ worth of sailing power, easily enough to allow transit to continue throughout the night, or during overcast skies. Never once in thousands of miles has the boat had to turn on its diesel back up, in fact the diesel is only on board is to satisfy the insurance companies. Whilst the Turanor has sailed around the world it has generated lots of media attention and public interest which has helped to boost recognition of the solar industry and the potential there [...]

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion: Using Ocean Temperature Differences to Create Renewable Energy

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:27:11 +0000 - Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) is an idea for creating renewable energy by exploiting the difference in ocean temperatures between the surface and the seabed. The OTEC permit office first opened in 1981 as part of NOAA, America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the marine counterpart to NASA. It was created after the oil price spike of the 1970′s when interest in alternative power sources rose. Oil prices eventually settled and as a result interest in the alternative power sources dwindled, so in 1994, just 13 years later the OTEC office was closed without ever having issued a permit. Good old American bureaucracy. Now, again during times of high oil prices, alternative energy sources are back with vengeance. All options are being considered and one of them is OTEC. Luckily the concept is reasonably simple. A fluid with a low boiling point, such as ammonium, is vaporised in a heat exchanger using surface water from the sea with an average temperature of about 25°C. The resulting gas has a sufficient pressure to drive a turbine and create electricity. The gas is then cooled using seawater pumped up from a depth of about one kilometre and with an average temperature of [...]

China to Aid Saudi Arabia in Nuclear Power Development

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 19:06:22 +0000 - Ever since the end of World War Two, the U.S. has come to regard Saudi Arabia as almost its exclusive oil producing enclave. In February 1945, after the Yalta Conference with Soviet General Secretary Iosif Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, on his way home U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and King Ibn Saud met aboard the New Orleans-class heavy cruiser U.S.S. Quincy in the Suez Canal’s Great Bitter Lake. During the meeting, instigated by Roosevelt, he and Ibn Saud concluded a secret agreement in which the U.S. would provide Saudi Arabia military security, including military assistance, training and a military base at Dhahran in Saudi Arabia, in exchange for secure access to supplies of oil. Sixty-seven years later, my, how things have changed, as China is now muscling into the Kingdom of the Two Holy Places. On 15 January Visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Saudi Arabian King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz agreed to make concerted efforts to enhance bilateral relations. The spectacle of OPEC’s leading petro-state and East Asia’s superpower economy making common cause has surely caused the burning of the midnight oil inside the Beltway. While Wen said that China is willing to strengthen coordination with [...]

I Hereby Declare Myself Mulcted

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 06:55:25 +0000 - Vote? Why? What candidate in the quadrennial resurrection of the Mickey Mouse club wants to do anything that I want done? I want to roll back the onrushing police state and return to constitutional government. The plunge into totalitarianism is a far worse danger than World War Two, in which the US was never in danger of being invaded, and in which the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Who do I vote for? No candidate (except Ron Paul) is against Sovietization. I want to end our stupid wars, now. Yesterday. Who do I vote for? There is no anti-war candidate. Obama sends the troops anywhere he can think of, and all the Republicans want to attack Iran. I want to reduce the military by half and end the militarization of the country that is bankrupting us. Who do I vote for? I want to reduce the size of government, get rid of the departments of Education, Housing and Urban Development, and Commerce, toss the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and so on. What candidate wants to do these things? Republicans talk a good show, but which of them actually wants to cut? I want to end affirmative action, which means governmental [...]

Ahmedinejad Visits Latin America, Washington Implores and Seethes

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 01:32:09 +0000 - At the best of times, the U.S. government is regarded as somewhat out of touch with what’s happening in the American “heartland,” much less the world at large, so much so that the phrase “inside the Beltway” was coined to define the syndrome. But every now and again, an incident occurs that so perfectly encapsulates Washington’s self-absorbed navel gazing that little further comment is needed. On 9 January U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland provided such a “Kodak moment” to the Washington press corps. The object of her concern? Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s visit to Latin America, where he is touring Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador and Nicaragua. Nuland said that, because of its civilian nuclear energy program, which both Washington and Tel Aviv believe masks a covert nuclear program despite persistent denials by Tehran, Iran should have no friends and that “We are making absolutely clear to countries around the world that now is not the time to be deepening ties, not security ties, not economic ties, with Iran.” During a regularly scheduled State Department press briefing Nuland gravely observed that Iran had “obviously carefully” chosen the four countries but “We are, meanwhile, calling on all of these countries to do [...]

Breakout in the Bitcoin Race

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:51:02 +0000 - After a rally from 0.003 $ at the start of Bitcoin trading to 31.89 $ in June 2011, Bitcoin prices declined for 4.5 months to just under 2 $ in November 2011. Many people in the  media called bitcoin death at that moment. But… since the November bottom, the Bitcoin exchange rate has advanced versus the US dollar by more than 300%, from 2 $ to 6-7 $ per Bitcoin. The big news now is that the new Bitcoin rally will likely be even stronger than the first rally from April 2010 to June 2011. This first rally led to a 10,630-fold increase from 0.003 $ to 31.89 $. In the hottest phase from March to June 2011, investors and traders entered a race to put funds into exchanges and buy Bitcoins. There are three main reasons why the second Bitcoin race will likely be faster than the first: Fundamentals are stronger than before. There are many more Bitcoin businesses than in spring 2011. BitcoinDeals.com, for example, is a shopping portal offering more than 370,000 products from Armani and Gucci fragrances to electronics from HP and Cisco . All can be purchased with Bitcoins, physical Bitcoins from Casascius.com, and many more. There [...]

Fred Advises Rick Santorum on How to Save the Republic

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:08:44 +0000 - Last night on the lobotomy box I encountered yet another candidate for the presidency, a Mr. Sanctorum, threatening to make war on Iran. I can’t decide whether the idea is more frightening than fascinating, or fascinating than frightening. I do suggest that the combined candidates do not have the military competence of a stuffed bear. Given that the principal business of the United States is war and preparation for it, do we want a martial analphabetic in charge? One does not let children play with chain saws. (From all of this I exempt Ron Paul, who appears to be sane.) To save the republic, if any, from another routine military disaster, I offer the following thoughts. To begin, I will ask the following questions of the candidates, and for that matter of Mr. Obama, and of the Secretary of Defense, a generic bureaucrat. Can you explain: Convergence zones, base bleed, Kursk, range-gate pull-off, artillery at Dien Bien Phu, IR cross-over, Tet and queen sacrifice, Brahmos 2, CIWIS, supercruise, side-lobe penetration, seven-eighty-twice gear, super-cavitating torpedoes, phased arrays, pulse Doppler, the width of Hormuz versus the range of Iranian cruise missiles, DU, discarding sabot, frequency agility, Chobham armor, and pseudo-random PRF? These, [...]

The Ultimate Consumer Protection

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:03:03 +0000 - This week, partisan games in Washington reached a fevered pitch as Congress acted to prevent recess appointments, yet the administration made them anyway. Congress has been gaveling into session for less than a minute every three days for the express purpose of technically staying in session. The 40 second “pro forma” sessions may strike supporters of the President as obstructionist, but Congress was using its clear constitutional authority and playing by the rules. Frustrated, the President simply disregarded the Constitution, and appointed Richard Cordray as head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Board, and Sharon Block, Richard Griffin, and Terence Flynn to the National Labor Relations Board anyway. Playing fast and loose with the Constitution only gets worse with every administration. Because of the dangerous precedents being set, both parties would be wise to defend constitutional bounds, no matter who crosses the line. Defending a constitutional overstep always comes back to haunt them once power changes hands. The Obama administration expressed extreme frustration with the Senate’s refusal to confirm its nominees. The truth is, for better or worse, these are the cards the voters have dealt Washington. The Constitution, with its system of checks and balances, not only allows for [...]

Slovakia’s Nuclear Schizophrenia – Shut Down, Continue As Usual, or Boldly Go – Where?

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 18:42:05 +0000 - The implosion of the USSR in December 1991 produced massive economic “collateral damage” in its East European allies, as they simultaneously sought both to assert their new-found independence and draw closer to their potential European allies on the western side of 1946′s “Iron Curtain.” Following the euphoria amity quickly devolved down to practical issues, one of which was that the European Union was leery of welcoming new members after the collapse of Communism that relied on power from Soviet-era nuclear power facilities, especially in the wake of the April 1986 nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in Ukraine. Accordingly, the last two decades have devolved into a series of unseemly squabbles between Brussels and new Eastern European members, with the EU demanding the prompt shutdown of Soviet-era nuclear power plants, while governments east of Berlin plead understanding and extended timelines to shut down the facilities that provide major electrical input as they search for alternatives. The latest post Cold War post-Soviet space energy front line is Slovakia. What to do in Bratislava on the way to becoming good, clean, green members of the European Union? Shut down all the country’s nuclear power plants and win plaudits in Brussels while inflicting brownouts or [...]