Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Gold/Mining/Energy : Strictly: Drilling and oil-field services -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Think4Yourself who wrote (43946)	5/5/1999 7:13:00 AM
From: Think4Yourself	Respond to of 95453

Slightly OT - A fascinating article! 'soft Bomb' Kills Power In Serbia The Arizona Republic The top-secret weapon that zapped a large part of Yugoslavia's electrical power supply was a "soft bomb" first used in the Gulf War. The high-tech weapon was developed by the Navy after a training mission accidentally blacked out a portion of Southern California, defense analysts say. NATO officials refused to comment Monday on the bomb that sprayed graphite over the power station and shorted its circuits, though they were clearly pleased at its apparent ability to turn out the lights in Belgrade virtually at will. The weapon was targeted at the large, open-air switching yards that connect electrical power plants to the grid of power distribution lines that serve large areas through substations and individual electric lines, said John Pike, an analyst for the Federation of American Scientists. The bomb can be delivered either by cruise missiles or aircraft, but NATO wouldn't even say how the devices got to their targets Monday. When the bomb is detonated in the air over the electrical facility, the explosion hurls a number of smaller "bomblets" that in turn spew many spools of graphite thread into the air. Graphite is a good conductor of electricity, and when the threads fall onto the electrical wires of the switching stations, they short-circuit the power lines and send huge surges of electricity through the entire power grid, said Pike. Pike compared the effect to that of sticking a fork into a toaster. "It not only blows out the toaster, but trips the circuit breaker in the house," he said. The bomb "is going to damage or destroy some of the hardware in the switchyard itself, and put a surge through the grid and trip out a lot of the substations," he said in an interview. Officials said the strikes knocked out power to about 70 percent of Serbia for about seven hours overnight. Department of Defense spokesman Kenneth Bacon refused to speak about the bomb but mentioned that one goal of using it was that it "disorients and confuses their computers by shutting them off quickly." (Copyright 1999 Phoenix Newspapers, Inc.) _____via IntellX_____

To: Think4Yourself who wrote (43946)	5/5/1999 7:27:00 AM
From: Think4Yourself	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 95453

According to Bloomberg Qatar is cheating (again). Meanwhile, Qatar, a frequent quota-buster, made only one- fifth of its promised cutback in April. Output had jumped to some 700,000 barrels daily in March in an apparent pre-cutback binge, then fell off only by 20,000 barrels daily in April. Qatar's oil ministry dismissed the claim that the Gulf state had violated OPEC's agreement. ''Qatar has adhered very strictly to previous cuts, and there is no reason why we would change now,'' said Ramsey Salman, an adviser to Qatar's oil minister Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah. ''People should look at adherence to cuts over a period of time, let's say three months, not over a few weeks,'' he said.