Category: Archive

Iraqi officials create black oil bogs in Tigris river

admin /22 June, 2006

In a desperate move to dispose of millions of barrels of an oil refinery byproduct called "black oil", Iraqi officials pumped it into mountain valleys and leaky reservoirs near to the Tigris River and set it on fire, reported The Sydney Morning Herald (21/6/2006, p.11).

Now huge black bogs – in the heartland of Iraq’s northern Sunni-led insurgency – are threatening the river and groundwater in the region, which has about 30 villages and is criss-crossed by itinerant sheep herders.

The region also contains Iraq’s great northern refinery complex at Baiji. The plumes of smoke were carried as far as 70 kilometres downwind to Tikrit. Exactly how far the pollutant will travel is unknown, but the Tigris passes through dozens of population centres from Baghdad to Basra in southern Iraq.

Oil slicks created when in surgents have struck oil pipelines in the Baiji area travelled the entire length of the river.

The provincial governor, Hamad Hmoud al-Qaisi, said that he was outraged by the scale of the pollution. "I call on the United Nations and the US Administration to make haste in saving the people of Baiji and Tikrit from an environmental catastrophe," he said.

A US official in Baghdad said this month Baiji was producing about 90,000 barrels a day of re-fined products, yielding about 36,000 barrels a day of black oil. "Unless we find a way of dealing with the fuel oil, our factories will not work" said Shamkhi Faraj, of Iraq’s Oil Ministry.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 21/6/2006, p. 11

Source: Erisk Net  

Spare global crude oil production capacity falls

admin /20 June, 2006

The value of the OPEC basket rose to a record high of $US63.84 a barrel just before Easter, reported The Australian Financial Review (18/4/2006, p.20). Crude prices break records everywhere: North Sea Brent crude oil broke up through $US70 a barrel for the first time, the value of the Mexican crude oil basket hit a Continue Reading →

Aboriginal activist attacks Qld Govt over wild rivers

admin /20 June, 2006

Aboriginal activist Murrandoo Yanner has attacked the State Government for backing down on a promise to protect wild rivers, reported The Courier-Mail (17 June 2006 p41). Mr Yanner yesterday labelled Gulf of Carpentaria development as rapacious and short-sighted, saying agricultural groups had mounted a successful fear campaign. Acting Premier Anna Bligh said on Thursday that Continue Reading →

Pick the best packaging

admin /20 June, 2006

By Joel Makower

You’ve created the World’s Greenest Product, and you’re shipping it off to your first big customer. You’ve made it from the most environmentally sensitive materials, using only renewable energy. It’s the pinnacle of eco-friendly everything.

So what are you going to pack it in, cardboard or plastic? And how are you going to keep it safe: Styrofoam, newspaper, popcorn, peanuts, Crackerjacks?

Wind power the hot investment for India’s growth industries

admin /20 June, 2006

Tulsi Tanti enjoyed what can only be described as a windfall in September last year when he sold a minority of shares in his company, Suzlon Energy, which makes wind turbines, on the Indian stockmarket, reported The Economist (20 June 2006, p.74). Electricity India’s biggest bottleneck: He was in the right business – alternative energy Continue Reading →

New prototype “saser” cheap but powerful

admin /19 June, 2006

A new prototype “saser” has just been described in Physical Review Letters by Borys Glavin, of the Lashkarev Institute of Semiconductor Physics in Ukraine, and Anthony Kent, of Nottingham University in England, reports The Economist (10 June 2006 p79).

Sound, rather than light: The coherent beams that sasers produce consist of sound, rather than light, and are composed of packets of sonic vibration called phonons, rather than packets of electromagnetic vibration called photons. In a laser, the photons are produced by excited electrons releasing their energy after colliding with other photons.

All done with a superlattice: The result is a beam in which the photons all have the same frequency and also oscillate in step. And as long as an external power source keeps pumping the electrons into an excited state, the laser will continue to shine. The saser devised and built by Dr Glavin, Dr Kent and their colleagues works similarly. It is constructed from thin layers of semiconductors, an arrangement called a superlattice. This lattice consists of sheets a few atoms thick which serve to trap electrons. The electrons are pumped into an excited state by running an electric current through the lattice.

Kill with a phonon beam: The difference is that instead of using photons to stimulate the release of this energy, the researchers use phonons (in other words they give the lattice a good, though very precise, shaking). Phonons then beget phonons, bouncing back and forth between the layers of the lattice, until eventually they overflow the structure and start to escape in the form of a phonon beam.

Simple, cheap and powerful: The researchers are particularly excited because their saser is the first to combine a simple electrical input with a high-frequency output, so it is cheap to run yet powerful. In addition, superlattices can be made using routine industrial techniques, so the device should be easy to mass-produce. And, unlike Sir Robert, they can even think of applications.

The Economist, 10/6/2006, p. 79

Source: Erisk Net