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a community peak oil portal
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| Iraqi Oil Minister Talks About ''Oil Police'', Oil Law, Oilfields |
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 "We are trying to produce about 3 million barrels of oil daily by next year," says the minister in conversation with Die Welt. In some Western media there has already been talk about 4 million barrels (159 litres each) of daily production. "That is exaggerated, we can't manage that," replies Shahristani clearly and distinctly. Currently, there are only two regions in which there is production: Basra in the south and Kirkuk in the north. Together about 2.5 million barrels a day would be pumped, 2 million of them exported.
"This is the largest production quantity since the overthrow of the previous regime." Everything is then supposed to get better in 2013. The minister expects a production of 4.5 million barrels - with the help of international companies, which for the first time in 40 years are to produce in the country again.
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| U.S. Freeze on Solar Energy Projects Lifted |
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 Just as things were really heating up in the solar energy sector, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) pulled the plug on new solar power plants. Last week the New York Times reported that “the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two years.” Headlines like world’s largest solar array in California or world’s largest solar power plant in the Mojave desert promised to be few and far between as the BLM decided to take its time to assess the more than 130 proposals filed by solar companies in the past three years. Just days later, after an uproar of voiced concern, the moratorium was reversed. Not fast enough to avoid drops in stocks, but quick enough to avoid fatally derailing the renewable energy sector off the tracks.
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| European utilities building up uranium inventories |
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| In its newly released annual report, the ESA notes that over the year, 21,932 tonnes of natural uranium (tU) delivered to the EU was well above the 19,774 tU loaded into reactors, meaning that inventories are being rebuilt. ESA says that the rebuilding of inventory is in response to security of supply concerns and rising prices, and is being done almost entirely under long-term contracts at an average price of €41/kgU ($21.60/lb U3O8) in 2007. Supplying 25% of the EU's uranium, Russia total overtook Canada to become the largest supplier to the region, although the ESA notes that some of the Russian supply of fabricated fuel may have come from Kazakhstan or elsewhere. Canada's share was 18%; Niger's, 17%; and Australia's, 15%.
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| Australia: No credit as oceans turn sour |
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 A recent report from the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-operative Research Centre claimed that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is at its highest level in 650,000 years, and possibly 23 million years, and half has been dissolved in the oceans, making them more acidic.
Australia has a direct stake in the ocean acidification problem: it will affect every part of our marine environment. And our offshore estate has just become a lot bigger. Three months ago the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, while not accepting all bids, recognised Australia's claim to the continental shelf where it extends beyond our exclusive 200 nautical mile economic zone. This is a vast oceanic area: 2.5 million square kilometres, or 10 times the size of New Zealand and 20 times the size of Britain.
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| DEALING WITH DISASTER / 'Climate refugees' on the increase |
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| The number of migrants is rising so quickly that it might destabilize the world.
The IOM's general meeting in November defined "climate refugees" in a broader sense to include people who have resettled within a country. The organization called for building a new international framework designed to support climate refugees separately from refugees who have been forced to leave their homes or countries because of war or to escape political persecution.
Massive funds are needed to save human lives and restore infrastructure.
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| Big Oil's 'secret' out of Iraq's closet |
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| It is not about the "war on terror". It is not about weapons of mass destruction. It is not about "freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people", or to the "Afghan people". It is not about "Islamofascism". It is not about a Pentagon-coined "arc of instability" from the Middle East to Central Asia. New evidence shows once again both George W Bush administration wars - in Afghanistan and Iraq - above all are about oil and gas.
Those were the days - up to a few days ago, actually - when the fateful words "war" and "oil" would never have been aligned in the same sentence anywhere in US corporate media; the days when former defense secretary and Pentagon supremo Donald
Rumsfeld insisted Iraq had "literally nothing to do with oil".
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| UN's climate change guru sees record oil price as a positive |
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MADRID (AFP) — The UN's top climate change official said Thursday that record oil prices, which have surged to 146 dollars a barrel, were positive for the environment.
"I think they are a net positive. First of all you see that through decreasing demand in Europe and North America where people are becoming much more conscious of petrol prices," Yvo de Boer told AFP.
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| The year everything changed |
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 [Sydney - ]The stormclouds are gathering. Our market has plunged below 5000 for the first time in two years, oil prices are soaring, America is in (unofficial) recession and the Reserve Bank is clearly worried about the home front.
After years of partying, many believe it's time for the inevitable hangover when gloom and doom replace the exuberant optimism that just a few months ago seemed as though it would never end.
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The fundamental lessons for a country suddenly facing an energy crisis and an uncertain economy ought to be clear enough. Drive slower -- when you have to drive at all, that is. Seek alternative forms of transportation. Turn off the lights you don't need, and don't be wasteful.
Oh, and by all means, don't go lunging for the panic button.
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| Key EU lawmaker proposes new 2015 biofuel target |
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PARIS, July 4 (Reuters) - A key European Union lawmaker said on Friday he had broad parliamentary backing to propose changing the EU's target for biofuels so that 4 percent of road transport fuels come from renewable sources by 2015.
Claude Turmes told Reuters one-fifth of those renewable fuels would have to be either second generation biofuels or electric vehicles. There would be a major review in 2015 to decide whether to move towards an 8-10 percent target in 2020.
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| Only seven years left for global warming target: UN panel chief |
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PARIS (AFP) — The head of the UN's Nobel-winning panel of climate scientists on Friday said only seven years remained for stabilising emissions of global-warming gases at a level widely considered safe.
Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), delivered the bleak warning at a gathering of European Union ministers where he pleaded with the EU to take the lead in global talks on tackling climate change.
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| Food and climate crises 'linked' |
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Climate change will worsen the world's food crisis, the UN has forecast.
Food and global warming are interconnected, said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
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| EU shrugs off biofuels complaints, sticks to 2020 target |
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BRUSSELS, Belgium: The European Union will ignore critics who accuse it of helping to boost food prices by embracing an ambitious and binding target for the use of biofuels, officials said Friday.
The European Commission is sticking to its proposal that biofuels account for at least 10 percent of energy used by the EU's huge transportation sector by 2020, because voluntary targets have failed miserably so far, EU spokesman Michael Mann said.
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| Companies begin quest for oil, gas off Florida |
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 PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) — Oil companies once viewed drilling in the deep waters off Florida as cost prohibitive. Politicians feared even the slightest sign of support would be career suicide.
No more. Record crude oil prices are fueling support for oil and natural gas exploration off the nation's shores. In Florida, movement was underway even before President Bush called on Congress last month to lift a federal moratorium that's barred new offshore drilling since 1981.
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| Talking Points For An Energy Crisis |
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The Nation: In The Face Of The Oil-Price Crisis, America Had Better Come Up With A Plan
Airlines are cutting back on water for plane toilets to save weight and fuel. They had better come up with a better business plan than that. And in the face of the burgeoning oil-price crisis, America had better come up with a plan as well.
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