Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: austerity, economy, Ireland, Irish GDP, Krugman, oil consumption, Paul Krugman, the austerity fairy
In a graph, via Paul Krugman:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/30/austerity-fantasies/?smid=tw-NytimesKrugman&seid=auto
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Brent, energy demand, North Sea, oil consumption, oil demand, oil price predictions, peak oil, the breaking point, US oil demand
Via Stuart Staniford’s Early Warning:
http://earlywarn.blogspot.com/2012/04/us-oil-consumption-and-oil-prices.html
However, it’s also worth noting that the price required to make consumption decline has increased over time. In 2006-2007, prices of around $70 were enough to make oil consumption flatten and then decline. However, in late 2009 and 2010, similar prices obtained while consumption continued to rise. It took the rise to over $100 in spring 2011 to get consumption to start to decline again.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: architecture, arts, cars, counterfeiting, DHS, financial terrorism, forgery, fraud, fully clothed fascism, Naked Capitalism, politics, quotes, rule of law, see something say something, travel, TSA, WTF
Via Naked Capitalism, sign maker and photographer are unknown (to me).
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bike racing track, Boulder, Boulder velodrome, pista, track racing, velodrome
Employees given notice. Today (Sunday) is the last day. But there is a decent chance that the ‘drome will persist under some new ownership situation.
R.I.P. Boulder Velodrome? | 303Cycling News.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: China, Hugo Chavez, PDVSA, Rafael Ramirez, Venezuela
Venezuela will construct three oil refineries in China, the state-run Venezuelan oil company PDVSA said, quoting Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez.
“Our goal is to give an impetus to Venezuela’s energy cooperation with Asian countries, which is in line with President Hugo Chavez’s policies aimed at building a multipolar world and diversifying the oil market,” Ramirez was quoted as saying.
via Venezuela to Construct 3 Oil Refineries in China | Business | RIA Novosti.
Couldn’t resist this one. Sorry about the poor quality of these Bike of the Day photos — Ipod photos. Not good.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: AT & T, Constitution of the United States, E911, illegal search and seizure, L-S, L-Site, mockery, privacy, private telephone conversations, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, WTF
This is old news, but I thought I’d post it just for giggles.
Speaking of old news. If the United States Constitution is no longer valid, maybe we should get a new one together.
Wiretaps cost hundreds of dollars per target every month, generally paid at daily or monthly rates. To wiretap a customer’s phone, T-Mobile charges law enforcement a flat fee of $500 per target. Sprint’s wireless carrier Sprint Nextel requires police pay $400 per “market area” and per “technology” as well as a $10 per day fee, capped at $2,000. AT&T charges a $325 activation fee, plus $5 per day for data and $10 for audio. Verizon charges a $50 administrative fee plus $700 per month, per target.
Data requests for voicemail or text messages cost extra. AT&T demands $150 for access to a target’s voicemail, while Verizon charges $50 for access to text messages. Sprint offers the most detailed breakdown of fees for various kinds of data on a phone, asking $120 for pictures or video, $60 for email, $60 for voice mail and $30 for text messages.
All four telecom firms also offer so-called “tower dumps” that allow police to see the numbers of every user accessing a certain cell tower over a certain time at an hourly rate. AT&T charges $75 per tower per hour, with a minimum of two hours. Verizon charges between $30 and $60 per hour for each cell tower. T-Mobile demands $150 per cell tower per hour, and Sprint charges $50 per tower, seemingly without an hourly rate.
For location data, the carrier firms offer automated tools that let police track suspects in real time. Sprint charges $30 per month per target to use its L-Site program for location tracking. AT&T’s E911 tool costs $100 to activate and then $25 a day. T-Mobile charges a much pricier $100 per day.
… an AT&T spokesperson referred me to the company’s privacy policy, pointing out a specific line that reads, “We do not sell your personal information to anyone for any purpose. Period.”
via These Are The Prices AT&T, Verizon and Sprint Charge For Cellphone Wiretaps – Forbes.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bicycle, bicycling, bike helmets, bike safety, cycling, deceleration, g-forces, Hovding, invisible bike helmet, invisible helmet, safe cycling
… Designed to inflate like an airbag in the event of a collision.
By Hovding.
Here’s how it works: Sensors in the collar detect unusual movements by the wearer. Upon impact, the sensors trigger a gas inflator that pumps air into an airbag that’s folded into the collar, which fully inflates around the head it in 0.1 seconds. Hövding, which is available in Europe for SEK3,998 (about $595), weighs about 1 1/2 lbs. and uses a rechargeable battery. It must be turned on. About one hour before the battery runs out, it makes a “battery low” sound.
Via http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-04-26/an-invisible-bike-helmet-from-sweden
I see a little problem with this. “Unusual head movements…” There is a fair bit of head movement in normal non-crashy cycling, so the Device would have to be calibrated to ignore all that. In the event of a solo wreck during which the front wheel is suddenly removed from beneath the rider (a relatively common path to head injury for bicyclists), for example, when a rider totally wipes out on black ice or a wet streetcar rail, the first sign of “unusual head movement” that would be detected by the Device could very well be that of the head impacting the pavement structure. In other words, too late. And so the rider is injured twice, first by slapping the skull onto the pavement structure, and second by paying six-hundred bucks for an invisible helmet that inflates only after the collision has occurred, thus launching the injured rider’s head off the ground rudely with further negative consequences to his or her neck and overall temperment. However, it may do quite well at detecting sudden accelerations involved with collision with a motor vehicle or fixed object.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Douglas, energy, fracking, Natural gas, natural gas drilling, Niobrara, Niobrara shale, shale gas, shale plays, tight gas, Wyoming
Niobrara fights back.
An oil well blowout in Wyoming prompted 50 residents to evacuate their homes amid concern that a spewing cloud of natural gas could explode.
Gas continued to erupt from the ground Wednesday after the blowout Tuesday afternoon five miles northeast of Douglas in east-central Wyoming. Witnesses told television station KCWY-TV they could hear the roaring gas from six miles away.
Residents evacuate after gas leaks from Wyo. well.
Filed under: maps | Tags: cold shutdown, debris, environment, Fukushima, meltdown, nuclear accident, reactor 4, science, spent fuel pool
Dug out of a report and translated by EX-SKF:
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2012/04/debris-map-inside-reactor-4-spent-fuel.html
click to enlarge
Sand-like sediments?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Africa, America, bicycle portraits, bicycles, bicyclists, bikes, cycling, people, South Africa
Okay.
http://www.dayonepublications.com/Bicycle_Portraits/Index.html
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cars, DOT, dot gov, energy, FHWA, oil consumption, oil demand, Peak Demand, transportation, United States, vehicle miles traveled, Vmt
+ 1.8% Over Feb. 2011…
Moving 12-month total.
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/travel_monitoring/12febtvt/12febtvt.pdf
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: crude oil, EIA, energy, Iran oil production, Iraq, middle-east, oil production, oil supply, peak oil, Peak Oil is dead, pipeline problems, Turkey
A new fire in the North Sea; blowout in Russia; hacking in Iran; pipeline problems in Turkey; accelerated violence in South Sudan… What I miss?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Christchurch, Hi Graham and Lani -- you guys out there?, Kiwis, maybe it was Graeme, mountain bike, mountain biking, MTB, New Zealand, The Art of Mountain Biking, track!, trail etiquette
(Had an interesting passing incident today, as a matter of fact, on some singletrack south of town. I was about to pass a runner. He heard me coming and kindly stepped off the trail — almost directly onto a huge rattlesnake. Very large snake, as thick as a mason jar. Awesome. It waved its huge head around at us like a cartoon cobra for a few seconds, then we all went on with our business.)
New Zealand has some nice trails, so I’ve been told.
First time I’ve ever heard of something like this between trail riders. Didn’t watch the video:
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/cyclist-attacked-christchurch-trail-video-4823488
Brizzell said the incident happened after he asked Dalton to let him past, in line with trail etiquette to let faster riders through.
However, Dalton did not give Brizzell space and eventually their argument boiled over into a physical confrontation.
Brizzell said he was strangled by his helmet strap and eventually bit the man’s finger.
via Mountain bike attacker pleads guilty | NATIONAL News.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Americium-241, Arvada, Broomfield, denver, DOE, DOJ, E G & G, FBI, Plutonium-239, Rockwell, Rocky Flats, Standley Lake, Wes McKinley
Now with Cesium sprinkles!
A 1972 article notes a ‘thin layer’ of Pu-239 contamination. I suppose that’s good news of a sort. The operators of Rocky Flats, however, went on to illegally incinerate and dump waste at least through 1989, when the plant was raided by the FBI.
Measurements of 239Pu and 90Sr in the top 1 cm surface layer of soils show that in this layer the 239Pu contamination in offsite areas just east of the Rocky Flats plant ranges up to hundreds of times that from nuclear tests. In the more densely populated areas of Denver the Pu contamination level in surface soils is several times fallout.
Plutonium-239 and Americium-241 Contamination in the Denver… : Health Physics.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Mitsubishi, NRC, nuclear accident, reactor, San Onofre, Sempra, SRE, super fireman, Time Fire
…Was extinguished before it started. That’s how good these guys are:
The fire ignited in an electrical panel in the “non-radiological side” of one of the plant’s two units, said Edison, which operates the plant and co-owns it with Sempra Energy’s (SRE) San Diego utility. The plant’s fire department put out the blaze a few minutes before 1 p.m. local time, less than an hour before it started, the company said.
via Fire at California's San Onofre Nuke Plant Extinguished | EXSKF.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Antarctica, carbon, carbon dioxide, CH4, greenhouse gases, Greenland, ice cores, methane
click to sharpen
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Clean Air Act, directional drilling, EPA, fracking, green completions, horizontal drilling, hydraulic fracturing, methane, Natural gas, shale gas, shale plays, tight gas, tight oil, VOCs
From an EPA press release:
During the first phase, until January 2015, owners and operators must either flare their emissions or use emissions reduction technology called “green completions,” technologies that are already widely deployed at wells. In 2015, all new fractured wells will be required to use green completions. …
An estimated 13,000 new and existing natural gas wells are fractured or re-fractured each year. As those wells are being prepared for production, they emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which contribute to smog formation, and air toxics, including benzene and hexane, which can cause cancer and other serious health effects. In addition, the rule is expected to yield a significant environmental co-benefit by reducing methane, the primary constituent of natural gas. Methane, when released directly to the atmosphere, is a potent greenhouse gas—more than 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
I’ll keep the line above as it was typed into the page’s description by some agency PR person, because that alone tells you all you need to know about the EPA.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Bridgestone, China, cobalt-60, Japan, MEXT, radiation, Saitama
Uh huh. Cobalt-60 radiation detected from Bridgestone bike’s basket by the bike’s owner in Japan. Leads to wider discovery. The baskets were made in China.
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2012/04/bicycle-baskets-imported-from-china.html
It was first reported to Bridgestone by a buyer of the bicycle, alerting the company that the basket attached to the bicycle was emitting radiation. Bridgestone had the baskets tested, and found the source of radiation to be cobalt-60. The baskets were imported from China, according to Bridgestone.
From the press release by the Ministry of Education and Science (MEXT) on April 18, 2012:
Report from Bridgestone Cycle Company to MEXT at about 4:10PM on April 17 that radiation was detected from the baskets installed on the bicycles that the company sells.
The bicycles were assembled at the Ageo Factory [in Saitama Prefecture].
7.5 to 10.6 microsieverts/hour radiation was detected on the surface of the baskets at 1 centimeter.
…
Industrialized Cyclist Notepad 