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Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (12073)	5/1/2007 10:51:06 AM
From: Land Shark	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36917

Bull malarky

To: longnshort who wrote (12073)	5/1/2007 10:52:49 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36917

Pakistan: Drastic energy-saving measures on the cards The government is set to introduce this week drastic measures for energy conservation, including closure of commercial activities after sunset and possibly two weekly public holidays, to overcome the energy crisis in the country. ===== Power Rationing to Continue Today Costa Rica's energy crisis continued to be felt Friday and Saturday as residents in some parts of country dealt with power outages, and more rolling blackouts are planned for today, according to the Costa Rican Electricity Institute's (ICE) Web site. ===== Nigerians lose N128bn yearly as power crisis worsens Over $1-billion (N128-billion) is lost annually by Nigerians and businesses from the crippling power supply crisis, according to data from the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE). The loss stems from the extra costs incurred in providing alternative sources of power both by corporate organisations and small businesses as well as idle times during blackouts. ==== Someone at PeakOil.com dug up these clips of gas shortages in Africa: Ziguinchor - Gas Shortage Gas shortage in Ilorin Kwara Nigeria theoildrum.com

To: longnshort who wrote (12073)	5/1/2007 11:48:43 AM
From: Triffin	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 36917

Here's another misguided PO mitigation attempt .. Oil Shale .... almost a good idea .... The last paragraph says it all .... Interior Department Approves Reopening of Utah Oil-Shale Mine SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The federal government gave its approval Monday for the reopening of an oil-shale mine in Utah, one of the experimental works intended to boost domestic oil production on Western lands. A top-ranking Interior Department official signed off on the project, and officials said an Alabama-based partnership, Oil Shale Exploration Co., would be offered a lease to work the federal land within days. The approval from C. Stephen Allred, Interior's assistant secretary for lands and minerals, followed leases the government awarded in December for Colorado projects, where three oil companies plan to produce shale oil by heating layers of rock in the ground. Utah has the only mining project where oil shale will be brought to the surface, crushed into gravel and fed into a furnace-like retort. The White River mine near Vernal, 130 miles east of Salt Lake City, was abandoned by three major oil companies in 1985 when falling crude prices made shale oil -- long an elusive bonanza in the West -- uneconomical. Today's crude oil prices could make oil-shale development more practical. "We're ready to put the lease on the table," James F. Kohler, solid-minerals chief for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Utah, said Monday. Oil Shale Exploration Co., also known as OSEC, still needs to submit operational plans for its phased testing program. As part of the lease, Kohler said the government would require OSEC to keep piles of spent shale in lined pits until officials can figure out how to dispose of the waste. The alkaline tailings have some heavy metals and arsenic and could grow to enormous piles, but production will be limited for years before the company starts any large-scale mining. One possible solution would be to dump the spent shale back into the mine, he said. The White River mine reaches a relatively thin layer of oil shale 1,000 feet underground. The richest layer is only 58 feet, compared with zones 1,000 feet thick in Colorado that are closer to the surface, where heating the ground is thought to be more practical. The Interior Department had already determined that projects in Colorado by Shell Frontier Oil and Gas Inc., Chevron USA Inc. and Midland, Texas-based EGL Resources Inc. would have no significant environmental impact. The government made the same determination Monday for the reopening of the White River mine. The review took longer because officials had to assess the potential of more damaging environmental effects of mining. Officials got a late start on the review because at first, six companies competed for the right to reopen the White River mine. OSEC emerged as the winner. It plans to use a rotary kiln to bake shale oil out of a supply of 30,000 tons of rock left outside the White River mine. If the technology works, the company would use the mine to reach more oil shale deep underground. Dan Elcan, OSEC's managing partner and a Mobile., Ala., commercial real-estate developer, didn't return a message left on his cell phone late Monday by The Associated Press. His partnership is backed by Twin Pines Coal Co. of Alabama and would use Canadian technology. Environmental groups have shown little resistance to the demonstration projects, but that could change when oil companies seek to mine or heat up larger pieces of federal land, consuming vast amounts of water in an arid region. The oil shale reserves scattered in Colorado, Utah and southwest Wyoming are believed to contain a 100-year domestic supply of oil if it can be unlocked. Oil shale is said to be "rich" when it contains 30 gallons of petroleum for each ton of rock, but pound for pound that amounts to only 1/10th of the energy of liquid crude oil. Those tough economics have defied efforts at oil shale development for more than a century, most recently in 1982, when Exxon shut down its $5 billion Colony project in western Colorado and laid off 2,200 workers. "Oil shale has the energy density of a baked potato," said Randy Udall, a skeptic and director of the Aspen, Colo.-based nonprofit Community Office for Resource Efficiency. "If someone told you there were a trillion tons of tater tots buried 1,000 feet deep, would you rush to dig them up?" Triff ...

To: longnshort who wrote (12073)	5/1/2007 12:27:50 PM
From: maceng2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36917

Affordable solar power brings light to India 17:00 29 April 2007 environment.newscientist.com. NewScientist.com news service Catherine Brahic PrintSendFeeds A small, road-side shop in Karnataka uses a household solar power system (Image: UNEP / Riso) EnlargeTools Advertisement Over the past four years, a thriving market for household solar panels has sprung up in India, with the help of a United Nations programme which assists local banks in offering cheaper loans for the panels. Since 2003, the $1.5 million programme has helped 16,600 Indians living in the southern state of Karnataka buy solar power systems for their homes and small businesses. Jyoti Painuly, senior energy planner for the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), lists examples of people who have profited from the scheme: "There is the food vendor who told us 'Now my food doesn't smell of kerosene, so I sell more of it,' and the tailor who said that he can work a few extra hours during the day, bringing in more money." The project began by selecting five vendors of household solar panel systems in Karnataka. With funding from the UN Foundation and the Shell Foundation, UNEP helped train the vendors, who were having limited success selling their wares in India â€“ despite some of them having businesses exporting to Germany. Power cuts In parallel, UNEP went to two local banks and discussed ways to make it easier for rural people to afford solar systems. They then matched up the banks and the vendors so that people seeking to buy solar systems at any of the five vendors would be directed to the two banks which could help them make the purchase affordable. "In 2003, close to 70% of people in India did not have access to electricity," says Painuly. "Even being connected to the national grid did not ensure power because of frequent power cuts. There might be electricity when you don't need it and then the power is not there when you do need it." Household solar systems work by storing up energy in a battery which is then connected, for example, to a few light bulbs, a small radio or a small black-and-white television. But the system costs between $300 and $500, making them prohibitive for many of India's rural poor. "The banks decided that we should subsidise lower interest rates for loans to buy solar systems," says Painuly. Demand created Before the UNEP project, banks loaned money for people to buy these systems at an interest rate of 12%. Through the project, the two participating banks dropped that rate down to 5% and UNEP paid the difference. UNEP also convinced the banks to extend the loans from three to five years and accept lower down-payments. The result was that buying household solar systems became more affordable. And within a couple years other banks realised that UNEP's village talks about the usefulness of solar systems had created a demand for them and began to offer similar low-interest rate loans. "The potential for using innovative financial mechanisms to accelerate the uptake of these technologies in markets is absolutely enormous," Friends of the Earth executive director Tony Juniper told New Scientist. "But in the end it won't go far enough or fast enough without the active involvement of governments." Painuly notes that the government of India has supported similar schemes to subsidise loans for solar water heaters. He says the government scheme has been successful, but worries that it does not have an "exit strategy". Because the scheme is revived every couple years, people simply wait for the next round of subsidies to buy their water heater, meaning the scheme is ultimately not self-sustaining, Painuly says. UNEP's involvement ends in May 2007, but Painuly is convinced that a market has now been created that will not disappear with the project's end. "Two vendors have told us that they are now selling 70% of their solar systems in cooperation with banks outside the programme," he told New Scientist. Similar projects are now being initiated by UNEP in Tunisia, China, Indonesia, Egypt, Mexico, Ghana, Morocco and Algeria.