[MarioPro]

Energy-shortage winter
ahead in Southern Cone
Chilean National Energy Commission reported
that the natural gas supply shortage during March
2005 was equivalent to May 2004, the worst month
of last year with an average drop of 30,4% equivalent
to 7,2 million cubic metres less of gas per day.

The report indicates that the worst cut in natural gas supply from
Argentina was last March 20 with a contraction of 9 million cubic
metres that is 39% of total supply. In 2004 the largest volume fall
occurred May 31 when Argentina failed to pump 10 million cubic
metres of natural gas, equivalent to 45% of total supply.
On average that month’s supply shortage was 30,7%, just three
tenths above the March 2004 figure.
The Chilean government and private sector are nervous about
supply prospects and its impact for residents and industry since
cuts are expected to increase in the coming months of May and
June.
Currently shortages are affecting 85% of industries in Santiago’s
metropolitan region.
Last week Metrogas the only natural gas distributor in Santiago
said it ceased receiving 68% of the normal contracted gas supply
from Argentina.
Argentina supplies almost 90% of Chile’s natural gas demand but
last winter President Kirchner’s administration decided to favour
domestic demand, forcing Chile to face a serious shortage which
also strained relations between neighbouring countries.
This year the situation could be even worse since the overall
Southern Cone is suffering from insufficient rainfall, and the south
of Brazil, Uruguay plus certain areas of Argentina which depend on
hydroelectricity are having significant production shortages and have
announced programs to save energy.
Original source: Mercosur, April 3, 2005
MarioPro

[Sebastian]

That is very worrying indeed. I hope I can send some suggestions to help my family over in Chile. Thanks for the heads up.

[Graeme]

Chile's Bachelet says greens back her energy plan

Leading presidential contender Michelle Bachelet said on Saturday she has the endorsement of Chile's biggest environmental groups for her energy and mining policies including creating a minister of the environment.

Bachelet, seen as a fiscal conservative with liberal social policies, pledged to make 15 percent of the country's energy come from renewable resources by 2010.

"During my government I'm not going to develop nuclear energy," she said. President Ricardo Lagos, Bachelet's socialist party mate, has proposed exploring nuclear alternatives.

Bachelet said that by 2009 Chile would have a regasification plant to import liquid natural gas and that she would push for a natural gas ring that would connect Chile, Argentina and other countries to the rich natural gas fields in Peru and Bolivia.

Alertnet

[Niagara]

Breaking news - Chilean miners about to be hoisted out

http://www.cnn.com/

I'd be stuffing my pockets with gold nuggets

[Tanada]

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/rescuer ... e-workers/

SAN JOSE MINE, Chile (AP) — A rescuer in a missile-like escape capsule was lowered down a nearly half-mile tunnel in the Chilean desert Tuesday night to bring 33 miners to fresh air and freedom after 69 days — the longest anyone has ever been trapped underground and survived.

Mine rescue expert Manuel Gonzalez grinned and made the sign of the cross as he was lowered into the shaft. Chilean President Sebastian Pinera wished him good luck and urged him to bring the miners up in good shape.

Gonzalez made it to the bottom of the shaft apparently without incident and entered the chamber where the miners waited for their first human contact in more than two months.

A rescue expert with the state copper company Codelco, Gonzalez will be followed by Roberto Ros, a paramedic with the Chilean navy’s special forces. Together they will prepare the miners for their rescue — expected to take as many as 36 hours for all to surface.

Rescue workers, the president and his ministers then sang the national anthem and chanted “Chi, Chi, Chi, Le, Le, Le” — the country’s name — while horns honked and people cheered in the tent camp below.

More at link. This is wonderful news.

[EnergyUnlimited]

My wife and me have watched few last taken out on BBC live.
Lucky baggers. Wish them all the best.

However these are Chilean politicians, including president, who made a real killing.
I must admit that Chilean government done a very good job, though.
They handled it well and various state resources were deployed in successful, coherent fashion.
So bravo Chileans!

[Keith_McClary]

Top Ten Questions about Chile Mine Collapse
Juan Cole

The corporate mass media (especially television) did not treat the Chilean mine collapse as a labor story but rather as a feel-good human interest story. It not only avoided asking hard questions about why the near-disaster occurred and why the mine workers could be treated like guinea pigs by their employers, it actively obscured these questions. I saw a psychobabbling guest of Tony Harris on CNN actually talking about how the Chilean government is the father figure for the miners and their supporters and people are turning to it for succor and inspiration. I threw up a little in my mouth.

So here are the questions that a social historian would ask about the sorry episode, and which I never heard anyone on television news ask during all the wall to wall coverage:

[EnergyUnlimited]

Top Ten Questions about Chile Mine Collapse

Whatever questions can be asked I still consider this rescue operation to be a great success of Chilean authorities, their engineering efforts and command chain there.

We are living in receding horizons world, so yes, there will be more and more risk taken to get this coal, gold or copper.
Industrial society will not voluntarily surrender.
It will end up defeated by Nature, but there will be no surrender until it is gone by natural course of events.
You have seen nothing yet.

[Pretorian]

who gives a damn anyway.

[dolanbaker]

who gives a damn anyway.

Friends & family of the miners for a start!

[Pretorian]

who gives a damn anyway.

Friends & family of the miners for a start!

I am not their friend or family yet i had a lot of this rubbish on my computer and tv screen. WTF? There is nothing else to write about? Paris Hilton goes to jail times 2? And how all these hipocrats , starting with Apple, PR themselves on this, its just plain revolting.

[Lightning Rod]

Full Formatted Version
Mine Rescue and BP Spill -- Bookends

The de-tombing of the Chilean miners is a welcome change from the usual story that commands the attention of the worldwide press. It usually takes large body count or widespread environmental catastrophe to glean such coverage but this is a happy story where the body-count concerns live bodies. The story has everything, disaster and peril, hope and miracles, endurance and heroism and a good ending. Plus, the event is the perfect bookend to go with the other Journey to the Center of the Earth blockbuster that started the season, the BP spill.

The miners hadn't been passed their first cigarettes before reality show pitches and TV movie scripts started landing on the desks of agents in Hollywood. At least we haven't been treated to tweats about the toilet habits of the internees, but we already know all 33 biographies and family histories complete with hobbies, habits and number of mistresses. All that's missing is phone and text voting to see which miner will leave the show next. Nevertheless they emerged like heros looking more like they were returning from an afternoon at the day-spa than a seventy day tour in hell.

We might ask ourselves, What makes the saving of these particular 33 lives so important and noteworthy when 20,000 people could be saved every day in this world by simple application of food and clean water? Why do we care more about the miners than all the others whose lives hang by a thread? There is something murky and sub-conscious about burial and entombment dramas. We are drawn to them because at least in our nightmares or imaginations or in the hum-drum of our everyday lives we know what it feels like to be buried alive. It's a primal fear, universal and poetic.

You know it's a big story when North Korea sends a TV crew. A couple of thousand members of the world press have gathered on the remote and arid mountain to document the saga. It was made for TV, a serial drama lasting long enough to build a brand but not too long so as to become tedious. And it's a chance for redemption for big industry whose embarrassment and helplessness at the two-month long picture of the nasty mud-colored oil bubbling into the Gulf still stings. This is a story of hope rather than futility and desperation. It shows how man's engineering skill and technology can be used to get us out of trouble as well as getting us into it.

It seems to be the perennial enterprise of Man to pillage this planet and we continually devise new ways to do it. The sophistication of our mineral extraction techniques has become nothing short of astounding. We drill miles into the crust and suck the juices from our globe, we scoop out whole mountains for coal to charge our iPods, and send men into its steamy bowels to pluck diamonds for our ladies' fingers. We will continue to rape rain-forest and create desert and fill the air with carbon dioxide. It's inevitable if we are going to keep adding new people and better lifestyles. The question remains whether or not we can use the same technology and ingenuity to devise ways to sustain and maintain an environment suitable for life on this planet. This is why the story of the emergence from the tomb of the Chilean miners is such a symbol of hope. It is a happy tale of Man using his ingenuity to extract himself from a bad situation created by his ingenuity.

The Poet's Eye has a teary gleam for the miners and their families. I'm glad for them and I'm glad that the world has a good story for a change, one that give us hope for the human spirit and the possibility of our survival, hope that our cleverness can save us from our cleverness.

[center]Five o'clock in the mornin'
I'm all ready up and gone
Lord I am so tired
How long can this go on?

I'm workin' in a coal mine
Goin' down down down
Workin' in a coal mine
Whop! about to slip down
Workin' in a coal mine
Goin' down down down
Workin' in a coal mine
Whop! about to slip down
-----Allen Toussaint[/center]

[Subjectivist]

Chile was struck earlier today by an 8.2 magnitude Earthquake according to the BBC online.

A quake of 8.2 magnitude has struck off northern Chile, triggering a tsunami alert and killing at least five people.

The US Geological Survey said the quake struck at 20:46 local time (23:46 GMT) about 86km (52 miles) north-west of the mining area of Iquique.

Waves of up to 2.1m (6ft) have hit some areas in Chile, and there have been power cuts, fires and landslides.

Tens of thousands of people were evacuated in affected areas, where a state of emergency has been declared.

Chilean TV broadcast pictures of traffic jams as people tried to leave.

Officials said the dead included people who were crushed by collapsing walls or died of heart attacks.

Iquique Governor Gonzalo Prieto told local media that in addition to those killed, several people had been seriously injured.

While the government said it had no reports of significant damage to coastal areas, a number of adobe homes were reported destroyed in Arica.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-26846984

[Timo]

When i lived in Chile back in the 80s, i was a newbie to the entire concept of earthquakes. Growing up in the heartland of the US, i'd never felt one at all. That all changed PDQ when i first got there. Most were about the intensity you'd feel when walking across a bridge at the same time as a large truck. It rumbles a bit, but nothing scary at all. I do remember, however, two quakes that were in the upper 6 range, each one lasting for about 15 seconds. That doesn't sound like a long time, but when it starts, the first things you think of are how bad this will get, and how long it will last. 15 seconds can be an eternity. The second quake was actually during mass. Padre Leo was giving a very animated sermon, raising his voice and his arms up high, and BOOM! God spoke to all of us in a not-so-subtle response. The earth shook! There was no damage from that quake, that i recall, but that was a moment i'll never forget. The only possible less downside to to yesterday's quake up toward the Atacama is that the whole area is not too densly or heavily populated, at least not like Santiago. Small consulation to those who do live there, though. Holy cow! A tsunami anywhere along any part of Chile's coast would be completely devastating. Given how prone to earthquakes Chile has always been, i'm surprised anything is left along the coast, at all. If only we could harvest all the energy released by earthquakes! That'd be enough to power mankind for the rest of eternity.

[ralfy]

"The first 9/11: How the CIA overthrew Chile's democracy (and pillaged its copper)"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkB08AKNjQ0

Not just the U.S. but the UK, Australia, and others. They claim to support democracy but have backed coups, right-wing capitalist regimes, and dictatorships over military and economic advantages, including access to natural resources. Even organizations like NATO were cofounded by dictatorships like those in Portugal. (From the first seven minutes of the video; references to documents come after.)

From the BBC, 2003, "The Other 911":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v1yJuJKUi8

[theluckycountry]

Vietnam was all about Aluminum. The US needed a cheap supply.