Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Colorado bike paths, Glenwood Canyon, Glenwood Canyon bike path, Glenwood Springs, Glenwood Springs bike path, Glenwood Springs-Vail bike path, MUPs, Vail
The planned regional trail system will be 63 miles long and will travel from Glenwood Canyon to Vail Pass with a connection to Red Cliff. Thirty-three miles are complete; 30 miles remain to be built. Four miles are to be constructed this year. The cost to complete the remaining sections is $20 million, and $500,000 is collected annually for the trails fund.
via Answerland: When will there be a bike lane between Edwards and Eagle? | VailDaily.com.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: albatross, Brent, crude oil, fuel costs, gas prices, gasoline, Jevon's Paradox, Peak Demand, Peak Everything, peak oil, vehicle miles traveled, Vmt, WTI
VMT (Vehicle Miles Traveled) up slightly in December relative to last December, but down overall for the year, and below its previous peak now for 49 months. With fuel prices on the rise it doesn’t look like it will break above that for quite some time — if ever.
But what do I know.. People are buying cars again. It’s Halftime in America and “the SUV is back.”
From the DOT:
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: fraud, free pass, get out of jail free card, Glitnir Bank, Iceland, Landsbanki Islands, Larus Welding, mortgage meltdown, Sigurjon Arnason, subprime
Iceland’s special prosecutor has said it may indict as many as 90 people, while more than 200, including the former chief executives at the three biggest banks, face criminal charges.
Larus Welding, the former CEO of Glitnir Bank hf, once Iceland’s second biggest, was indicted in December for granting illegal loans and is now waiting to stand trial. The former CEO of Landsbanki Islands hf, Sigurjon Arnason, has endured stints of solitary confinement as his criminal investigation continues.
That compares with the U.S., where no top bank executives have faced criminal prosecution for their roles in the subprime mortgage meltdown.
via Icelandic Anger Brings Debt Forgiveness in Best Recovery Story – Bloomberg.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Forbes, fractured carbonate structures, Joan Lappin, McMoRan, millennia
millennia
It turns out that a huge percentage of the world’s most prolific oil and gas deposits has been found in fractured carbonate structures. Think Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Oman; the North and Barents Seas; India, Sichuan, China, and much of the Gulf of Mexico production in this context. Often these are structures that were deposited in bays or seas without big tidal action, millennia ago.
via Important McMoRan News Greeted With A Big Yawn – Forbes.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: China, Iran, National Iranian Oil Company, NIOC, oil exports, oil imports, Sinopec, Unipec, who buys Iran's oil, who buys Iranian oil, Zhuhai Zhenrong
Who to believe… Who to believe.
Iran’s oil ministry, National Iranian Oil Co (NIOC) will sell 240,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil to China’s state oil trader Zhuhai Zhenrong in 2012, the same volume as last year, but volumes sold to Unipec, the trading arm of China’s top refiner Sinopec Corp, will be reduced.
Under the 2011 contract, Unipec lifted 260,000 bpd day of crude from Iran.
via UPDATE 2-China's Unipec to take less Iran oil in 2012 | Reuters.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: foreclosure, foreclosure fraud, foreclosures, Phil Tink, robosigning, tink
SF assessor Phil Tink says the foreclosure process is “utterly broken,” because the title system is utterly broken. Tink’s group looked at 16% of foreclosed loans in the past few years.
http://lansner.ocregister.com/2012/02/19/foreclosure-process-is-utterly-broken/158790/#more-158790
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: autonomous technology, Google, Nevada, robot cars, self-driving cars, traffic, transportation
Uh oh, lookie here. Partner as a verb.
In creating the regulations, the department partnered with Google, automobile manufacturers, testing professionals, insurance companies, universities and law enforcement all with a common vision of saving lives. Several other states currently have bills in front of their legislators that will follow Nevada into the future.
via Regulations Clear the Road for Self-driving Cars.
But, what exactly are these regulations? No word on that.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: China, Malaysia, Petrodar, South Sudan, Sudan
The government of South Sudan announced Feb. 16 that Sudanese forces had three days earlier seized control over two oil blocks in South Sudan’s northeastern state of Upper Nile. Pagan Ammum, South Sudan’s lead negotiator in ongoing talks between the two countries, said he received a notice from the Petrodar consortium, a majority Malaysian-Chinese owned oil company, that Sudan had ordered the company, “unilaterally and by force,” to keep exporting oil to Sudan despite the South Sudanese government’s Jan. 22 order to shut down all oil production in the country.
via Sudan Reportedly Seizes South Sudanese Oil Wells | STRATFOR.
Here’s a map of the Sudan/South Sudan oil works.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: China, condensate, Iran, Iran oil exports, oil exports, petrochemicals, who buys Iran's oil, who buys Iranian oil
China is the main beneficiary of US sanctions against Iran, securing more supply at lower prices.
Iran’s deputy oil minister headed a delegation to China this week to negotiate a new crude supply contract and other joint projects in oil, gas and petrochemicals with Beijing.
The new agreement comes following those negotiations and is expected to increase Iran’s oil shipments to China to above 500,000 barrels a day in 2012.
via Iran to increase oil export to China to 500K bpd in 2012 – China Forum – Powered by Discuz!.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Afghanistan, Iran, Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline, Karzai, Natural gas, natural gas exports, natural gas pipelines, Pakistan
The U.S. opposes the pipeline.
Ahmedinejad left Pakistan Friday after meeting with Pakistan’s president Asif Ali Zardari and Afghan president Hamid Karzai, a trilateral summit seeking a formula to stabilize conditions in Afghanistan.
Karzai represents the part of Afghanistan that the U.S. supposedly had under control.
A joint statement issued by Pakistan’s foreign ministry after the meeting said the three countries agreed to “develop mutually beneficial cooperation in the energy, mining and minerals, agriculture and other sectors” without providing further details.
But an Iranian official in Islamabad who spoke to CBS News on condition of anonymity said, “The IP [Iran-Pakistan] gas pipeline is very close to our heart. President Ahmedinejad indicated Iran’s intent to finance the project on the Pakistani side if Pakistan has difficulty with finding the money”.
via Fostering ties, Iran offers to fund pipeline in Pakistan – World Watch – CBS News.
Filed under: maps | Tags: bicycle, bicycle accidents, bicycling, bike, car-bike collisions, Cascade Bicycle Club, King County, reported accidents, Seattle
From the Seattle Times: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2017544092_bikemap19m.html
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bicycle commuting, bicycle mode share, bicycle ridership, bicycling, bike commuting, cycling, Oregon, patterns of use, Portland, urban cycling
A measure of commuter cycling, from the new City of Portland bike count report:
click to enlarge
See The Industrialized Cyclist Bicycling Research Page to download the report, and just about any other report you may want.
Filed under: maps | Tags: Alaska, BOP, Chukchi Sea, corexit, Deepwater Horizon, energy, North Slope, oil drilling, peak oil, Shell
Via North Alaska Environmental Center.
click to enlarge
Filed under: maps, Uncategorized | Tags: Alaska, Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, crude oil, energy, North Slope, oil, oil drilling, oil production, peak oil, Prudhoe Bay, Siberia, Trans-Alaskan Pipeline
click to enlarge
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: blowout, blowout preventer, BOP, Chukchi Sea, corexit, Deepwater Horizon, dispersant, OSRP, Shell
So there are some spaces in the URL as provided by the US govt. for Shell’s OSRP for the Chukchi Sea:
http://www.bsee.gov/OSRP/Shell- Chukchi-OSRP .aspx
Take the spaces out and you can find the 450-page pdf of the OSRP:
http://www.bsee.gov/OSRP/Shell-Chukchi-OSRP.aspx
The OSRP sounds very familiar.
The plan, in the event of a blowout, involves trying to trigger a non-responsive blowout preventer with a remote sub. And it involves the infamous “booms” deployed by contractors. And response to any spill will involve spraying a whole lot of Corexit:
Another oil spill response option includes the use of dispersants. When these chemicals are applied, oil begins to separate in to microscopic particulates. After that, the oil is either diluted to the point that it no longer impacts the environment or digested by organisms that consume oil.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: arctic oil spill, blowout, Chukchi, Chukchi Sea, corexit, Deepwater Horizon, Department of Interior, oil spill, Royal Dutch Shell, Salazar, Shell
Department of Interior press release provides this link to Shell’s spill response plan which was approved on Feb. 17:
A copy of Shell’s OSRP for the Chukchi Sea is available at: http://www.bsee.gov/OSRP/Shell- Chukchi-OSRP .aspx.
But clicking on the DOI’s link to the OSRP (Oil Spill Response Plan) for the Chukchi Sea leads to this NO PAGE FOUND business:
http://www.bsee.gov/error-page.aspx?aspxerrorpath=/osrp/shell-/
I guess we’ll just have to trust the department’s “fact sheet.” The “fact sheet” says everything is just great.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: AAA, energy, fuel gauge report, fuel prices, gas prices, gasoline, Hubbert's Peak, peak oil
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Brent, Brent crude, energy, Greece, Iran, North Sea, oil price, oil production, peak oil, price of oil, Reuters, WTI
Crude oil output from the North Sea, home of the global Brent benchmark, is set to fall in March for a third month due to maintenance work and natural aging of oilfields there.
Supply will average 2.18 million barrels per day in March, down 1.4 percent from 2.12 million bpd the previous month, data compiled by Reuters showed on Tuesday.
via Brent tops $120 on Iran, North Sea, Greece | Reuters.
This report was the product of at least four reporters and two editors.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bank bailouts, banksters, Fitch upgrades Iceland, Golden Slacks, Golden Staxxx, Goldman Sachs, Goldmine Sacks, Iceland
While Greece and Europe continue sinking ever deeper into the colonial quicksand of Pax Goldmania, Iceland, which blew up, pushed its banks into bankruptcy, and arrested its corrupt bankers, is well on its way to being the world’s only normal country.
via In The Meantime Iceland Is #Winning | ZeroHedge.
Filed under: maps | Tags: Ballard, Burke Gilman, Burke-Gilman Trail, Cascade Bicycle Club, PCC, Portland Cement Concrete, Seattle
This ruling makes the planned and funded 2012 construction unlikely but the proponents of the trail are convinced that the City will again be able to show that the trail extension will not have a probable significant adverse impact on the environment, as was determined in last year’s SDOT review.
via Completion of the Burke Gilman Missing Link delayed once again | Ballard News-Tribune.
Do it right with Portland Cement Concrete, not that Seattle asphalt cement concrete.
Industrialized Cyclist Notepad 
