Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Athabasca, carbon emissions, metric tons of carbon, oil sands, peatlands, tar sands
…
They also say that the peatlands under consideration are currently holding on to 11-47 million metric tons of carbon that will be released into the atmosphere as part of the mining process. And then, because the mining companies plan to return the land to dry forest instead of the original peatlands, the area will lose the ability to sequester carbon in the future; this they say will add up to about 5,700-7,200 mt of carbon each year, which they say should be looked at as a net gain of carbon emissions each year.
via http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-03-university-team-canadian-oil-sands.html
Abstract:
Oil sands mining and reclamation cause massive loss of peatland and stored carbon.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Iraq, Iraqi civil war, Iraqi oil production, Lukoil, Norway, oil production, Russia, Statoil, West Qurna, West Qurna-2
As Norwegian Statoil bugs out.
Lukoil aims to invest around $2 billion in the West Qurna-2 oil field in Iraq this year, Bloomberg News reports. A company spokesman told Bloomberg that $200 million was invested there in 2011.
The oil company, the largest private energy company in Russia, also announced plans to start construction on a new oil pipeline and spell out details for its drilling program.
via Lukoil unveils investment plans for Iraq – UPI.com.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: B-Cycle, bicycle sharing, bike share programs, denver, Kaiser Permanente
Denver’s public-private bike share program, B-Cycle, is back for the season, with expanded hours and (so it’s been said) a few new locations. Maybe one around here.
http://denver.bcycle.com/WhatisDenverBcycle.aspx
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Chevron, Chevron Nigeria Limited, Funiwa 1A, gas leak, Koluma, Nigeria, Nigerian natural gas production, Nigerian oil production, off-shore, oil production, relief well, rig fire
In familiar fashion, there is some difference of opinion about whether the well is still leaking. A relief well was drilled but didn’t do the trick.
Chevron Corp released a statement declaring that the raging fire had gone out by itself. “The site of the Funiwa 1A natural gas well offshore Nigeria ceased burning on Friday, March 2. The well stopped flowing on its own,” the statement said. “CNL (Chevron Nigeria Limited) has detected no natural gas flowing from the well since the fire ceased burning and is monitoring the area continuously.”
Nigerian communities local to the area have confirmed that the fire has indeed gone out, but claim that the gas is still leaking at a steady rate, and has killed many fish and polluted the area.
Matthew Sele, from the town of Koluma just near to the offshore rig, said that, “The fire has been put off since Friday, but the gas emission is worse. Raw gas is continuing to bubble in the air and is making it hard for people to breathe.”
via Chevron's Nigerian Rig Fire Finally Goes Out on its Own.
(This is about five days old.)
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bitumen, Canada, crude oil, economic threshold, energy, marginal price, oil, oil sands, Suncor, syncrude, tar sands, unconventional oil
More commonly, less accurately known as oil sands.
From Canada’s Energy Future (pdf), a 2011 report from the National Energy Board.
The threshold will be highly dependent on the price of natural gas.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: energy, net available exports, oil consumption, oil exports, oil production, peak oil, Yemen
Via the EIA’s Yemen page, which seems to rely heavily on Oil & Gas Journal.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: brine, earthquakes, fracking, fracking waste, hydraulic fracturing, ODNR, Ohio, seismic events, waste-water injection, Youngstown
Linked by too-strong circumstantial evidence.
The 12 Youngstown quakes, ranging in magnitude from 2.1 to 4.0, all occurred in a cluster less than a mile from the well and about 2,500 feet below the well itself, according to the Ohio Seismic Network, a division of the ODNR.
The quakes began in March 2011, just three months after the well went into operation. The last quake occurred on Dec. 31, a day after the ODNR has ordered – and then watched – the shutdown of the well. State geologists and regulators had inspected the well 35 times from April 26 to Dec. 15, trying to connect the quakes with the injections.
“Geologists believe it is very difficult for all conditions to be met to induce seismic events,” the report noted. But “a number of coincidental circumstances appear to make a compelling argument for the recent Youngstown-area seismic events to have been induced.”
via Waste-water injection well caused 12 earthquakes in Ohio, investigation shows | cleveland.com.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Anantnag, army vehicle hits cycist, India, Srinagar
An Indian army vehicle burns after being set alight by protesters as the body of a 19-year old youth lies covered with a sheet on a road in Anantnag town, some 55 kilometers (35 miles) southeast of Srinagar, India, Saturday, March 10, 2012. Police say thousands of angry people have burned an Indian army vehicle after it hit and killed a bicyclist in the Indian-administered portion of Kashmir.
See: Photo from AP Photo.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Exxonmobil, Iraq, Iraqi oil production, KRG, Kurdish oil, kurdistan
Kind of like the proverbial jilted lover.
“The government is waiting for Exxon’s answers to decide its final position towards the company and its deals with Kurdistan. The deadline expires in the coming few days,” Abdullah said.
Exxon Mobil late last month disclosed its plans to explore for oil in Iraq’s Kurdistan in the company’s annual report, breaking months of silence over the investment that has outraged Baghdad.
via Iraq Sets Deadline for ExxonMobil – Exploration.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: mountain biking, MTB, off-road bicycling, singletrack, The Art of Mountain Biking
If you dare, over here.
The book is called The Art of Mountain Biking: Singletrack Skills for All Riders.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Big Gas, Big Oil, Boone Pickens, Club for Growth, energy, frack, fracking, Koch Brother, Natural gas, peak oil, Peak Oil is dead, s
Kochs don’t like govt. picking winners and losers — especially if the losers are them.
The idea of using the tax code to spur conversion of trucking fleets has support from many Democrats and Republicans, and enjoys some powerful backers.
They include billionaire energy magnate T. Boone Pickens, Reid and President Obama, who touted his own natural-gas vehicles plan in a Wednesday speech. (A White House spokesman couldn’t be reached for comment on the Senate proposal specifically.)
But groups influential in GOP circles including Heritage Action (an arm of the Heritage Foundation), the Club for Growth, Americans for Tax Reform and Americans for Prosperity have long been battling the natural-gas plan.
via Natural-gas tax fight between Koch, Pickens reaches Senate floor – The Hill's E2-Wire.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: aviation, fuel costs, jet fuel, Patti Smith, Patty Smith, peak oil, transportation
Via LA Times:
Patty Smith, who flew to Los Angeles from Portland, Ore., for a recent vacation, said she saw no empty seats on her Southwest Airlines flight and can’t remember the last time she has had an empty seat next to her on a flight.
“As small as I am, I felt cramped,” said the petite woman as she waited for a taxi from Los Angeles International Airport.
She went home and wrote an angry song about it.
via Airfares climb, routes disappear as fuel prices rise – latimes.com.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bicycle, bicycling, bike, India, samajwadi, urban cycling
Here’s something you don’t see every day.
SAMAJWADI PARTY :: OFFICIAL WEBSITE.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: active commuting to school, autism, Boulder, Heatherwood Elementary, Omro Middle School, Safe Routes to School, SRTS, transportation
This school in Boulder apparently has some very cool teachers and parents.
…In just three years, Heatherwood Elementary’s walkers and bicyclists jumped from 12 percent to more than 43 percent of the school.
And, to recognize the importance of including all students in their program, Heatherwood’s SRTS coordinators made a special effort to the school’s autistic children in the district-wide Bike to School Day.
via US DOT official propaganda arm: Colorado’s Heatherwood Elementary and Wisconsin’s Omro Middle School earn 2011 Safe Routes to School Award – Welcome to the FastLane: The Official Blog of the U.S. Secretary of Transportation.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cabotage, east coast refineries, EIA, impact of refinery closures, Jones Act, refineries, refinery closures, tankers
The little-known Jones Act. Via the EIA’s report on potential refinery closure impacts: http://www.eia.gov/analysis/petroleum/nerefining/update/pdf/neprodmkts.pdf
(The impact of refinery closures, by the way: Potential short-term supply disruptions and price spikes, due to transportation and other logistical issues. It’s not that there won’t be enough gasoline, there just might not be enough for a while in those places that used to be supplied by the shut refineries. Then, those supply networks are developed and those problems ease, although longer supply lines may add some to the final retail price.)
Filed under: Uncategorized
Americans will find so many ways to hate this idea. Bicycle bus only acceptable for bar-hopping around here.
Each bike bus is designed to hold eleven kids up to the age of 12, who along with an adult driver, provide the pedal-power to carry them to school and back. For times when the team of youngsters isn’t enough, like on steep inclines or when just a handful of passengers are left to be dropped off, a built in electric motor is there to provide an extra boost.
via Bicycle Buses Let Dutch Kids Pedal Together to School : TreeHugger.
Go to Treehugger to check out the pictures.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cng, compressed natural gas, energy, FT-Bh, LNG, Natural gas, Toyota, transportation
The FT-Bh
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Benzene, commerce city, human remains, leaking pipe, leaking tank, oil leak, pipeline, pipeline rupture, ruptured pipeline, ruptured storage tank, Suncor
The discovery happened Friday on the west side of Suncor Energy property, according to Mike Saunders, a Commerce City Police Department spokesman.
Workers at the property were doing “hydro-excavation” work, moving earth with high-pressure hoses, when they uncovered human bones, said Suncor spokeswoman Brandy Radey.
via Skeletal remains unearthed in Commerce City near Suncor refinery – The Denver Post.
Company spokesman was tight lipped about what work was being done when the corpse was found. Reporters apparently didn’t ask. The skeleton was unearthed in the same general location as the leak into Sand Creek.
See Suncor Refinery Benzene Still in Platte River and Denver: Taste the Benzene
Filed under: maps, Uncategorized | Tags: Alaska, Arctic, Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, drilling rig, Kulluk, oil drilling, oil produciton, Royal Dutch Sea, Shell
via Shell: http://www-static.shell.com/static/usa/downloads/alaska/alaska_vessels_brochure_2012.pdf
click to enlarge
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: BP, civil war, Exxon, Exxon Mobil, Iraq oil exports, Iraqi civil war, Kirkuk, Kurdish region, oil exports, Schlumberger
As Iraqi production reportedly tops 3 mbd.
Exploration in northern Iraq has been held back in part by disputes between the central government and the autonomous Kurdish region over control of fields in Kurdish provinces.
The central government says it alone has the right to export Iraqi oil, and adds that deals signed by foreign firms with the Kurdish regional authorities, such as one announced by ExxonMobil, are illegal.
Luaibi repeated earlier remarks by Iraqi officials that an announcement on the Exxon deal would be made soon.
Luaibi said Iraq’s central authorities had received only 65,000 bpd of oil – less than half the 175,000 bpd they had expected – from the Kurdish region since the start of the year.
The central authorities say they suspect that missing Kurdish oil is being illegally exported abroad
via UPDATE 1-Iraq oil output over 3 mln bpd; first time in decades | Reuters.
Industrialized Cyclist Notepad 