News from January 2010

Incremental Steps in Iraq To Let Kurdistan Oil Flow

ERBIL, Iraq They may have a stake in what is shaping up to be one of the greatest oil bonanzas of modern times, but the prospect of earning a profit, let alone recovering their costs, remains highly uncertain. More potential headaches loom as public demands for scrutiny of local oil contracts for suspected improprieties have [...]

Four shot dead at PNG LNG site

ExxonMobil has suspended work near a liquefied natural gas (LNG) site in Papua New Guinea after four local villagers were killed in a tribal dispute. The clash between two rival coastal villages near the capital Port Moresby occurred in an area where ExxonMobil is to build a plant to liquefy, store and load gas for [...]

Nigeria pipeline attack forces Shell to cut output

ABUJA (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell said on Sunday it had shut down three pumping stations in Nigeria’s Niger Delta after a key crude oil pipeline was sabotaged. Although there has been no claim of responsibility, the attack occurred a day after Nigeria’s main militant group MEND called off a three-month-old ceasefire and threatened to [...]

States renew vows to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Governments around the world have reaffirmed their plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions in support of last month’s Copenhagen climate summit. Nations signing up to the summit accord were urged to outline pledges by Sunday. States producing at least two-thirds of emissions have done so. Correspondents say the accord is widely seen as a disappointment. [...]

In Portland, Going Green and Growing Vertical in a Bid for Energy Savings

PORTLAND, Ore.

Suzlon Energy Expects More Orders on Alternative Energy Demand

(Bloomberg) — Suzlon Energy Ltd., India

IMF plans 100 billion fund to help poor mitigate climate impact

The International Monetary Fund is planning a 100 billion dollar fund to help countries mitigate the effects of climate change, the agency’s head said. “The new growth model will be low carbon,” Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the IMF, told political and business leaders meeting at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort [...]

Poisoned Shipments: Are Strange, Illicit Sinkings Making the Mediterranean Toxic

In October 2009 the government of Italy announced that a wreck discovered off the southwestern tip of the country is the Catania, a passenger vessel sunk during World War I Processing and safely storing waste from the chemical, pharmaceutical and other industries can cost hundreds, even thousands, of dollars per ton

Emissions of Potent Greenhouse Gas Increase Despite Reduction Efforts

Despite a decade of efforts worldwide to curb its release into the atmosphere, NOAA and university scientists have measured increased emissions of a greenhouse gas that is thousands of times more efficient at trapping heat than carbon dioxide and persists in the atmosphere for nearly 300 years. The substance HFC-23, or trifluoromethane, is a byproduct [...]

Ecologists Outline Necessary Actions for Mitigating to a Changing Climate

Global warming may impair the ability of ecosystems to perform vital services — such as providing food, clean water and carbon sequestration — says the nation’s largest organization of ecological scientists. In a statement released Jan. 26, the Ecological Society of America (ESA) outlines strategies that focus on restoring and maintaining natural ecosystem functions to [...]