News from November 2011

China Will Not Hesitate To Protect Iran Even With A Third World War

Fast forward to 2:08: “It is puzzling to some that Major General Zhang Zhaozhong, a professor from the Chinese National Defense University, said China will not hesitate to protect Iran even with a third World War… Professor Xia Ming: “Zhang Zhaozhong said that not hesitating to fight a third world war would be entirely for [...]

How to Make Cold Fusion Work: Use Unobtainium

In my last post I said I’d steer clear of the whole cold fusion thing until something interesting happens. Well, in the last week something interesting has happened … Once again, let me do a quick recap: An Italian inventor, Andrea Rossi, claims to have created a Low Energy Nuclear Reaction, or LENR, device (otherwise [...]

Nigeria sets ambitious oil targets, sceptics abound

Nigeria plans to produce 3 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil by 2015 and build three new refineries adding 445,000 bpd of capacity, the oil minister said on Wednesday, ambitious plans which have been promised before. Analysts and oil executives doubt the plans are achievable. Africa’s largest energy industry is struggling because a [...]

Renewable Energy Sector Presents Rising Risks, Demand for Insurance

The renewable energy sector needs to improve risk management and access alternative sources of capital as operational risks rise and governments cut funding due to the uncertain economic environment. Based on a survey of 284 senior-level renewable energy executives, a new report by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and sponsored by Swiss Re canvasses the [...]

Saudi Arabia Finally Gives Up

Saudi Arabia has long said that it has loads of untapped reserves and would, within a few years, be on track to increase oil production from 10 million barrels per day to as much as 15 million barrels of oil per day. But Saudi production has stayed stubbornly at 10 million barrels. Last week, the [...]

The era of decadence: it’s all downhill from here

LET’S not exaggerate. This is not the end of days. It is merely the end of civilisation as we know it. That is the sobering argument made in Decadence: Decline of the Western World. Five years in the making, the Australian documentary proposes that the West peaked in 1969 and is now dying. ”The West [...]

25% Of World’s Land Highly Degraded

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has issued a report about the state of the world’s agricultural land. In the report – the State of the World’s Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture (SOLAW) – they reported that in order to keep up with the world’s growing population, food production systems, [...]

US FAO: Food Production Must Cut Fossil-Fuel Dependence

The global food system needs to cut its dependence on fossil fuels to feed a growing world population, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization said. Reliance on fossil fuels to grow, process and store food could limit the ability to meet increasing demand as the world population expands, the Rome-based UN agency said in [...]

Canadian firm bids to commercialize fusion reactor

In the race against world governments and the wealthiest companies to commercialize a nuclear fusion reactor, a small, innovative Canadian firm is hoping to bottle and sell the sun’s energy. In a laboratory in this Pacific Coast city, General Fusion physicists and engineers in bright red smocks are busy assembling an experimental reactor. They hope [...]

MPG of a human

On Do the Math, three previous posts have focused on transportation efficiency of gasoline cars, electric cars, and on the practicalities of solar-powered cars. What about personal-powered transport—namely, walking and biking? After stuffing myself over Thanksgiving, I am curious to know how potent human fuel can be. How many miles per gallon do we get [...]