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Peak Oil News
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Ahmadinejad teases’big’ new nuclear announcerment
The Associated Press
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran will soon unveil “big new” nuclear achievements, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday while reiterating Tehran’s readiness to revive talks with the West over the country’s controversial nuclear program.
Ahmadinejad spoke at a rally in Tehran as tens of thousands of Iranians marked the 33rd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution that toppled the pro-Western monarchy and brought Islamic clerics to power.
Ahmadinejad did not elaborate on the upcoming announcement but insisted Iran would never give up its uranium enrichment, a process that makes material for reactors as well as weapons.
The West suspects Iran’s nuclear program is aimed at producing atomic weapons, a charge Tehran denies, insisting it’s geared for peaceful purposes only, such as energy production.
Four rounds of UN sanctions and recent tough financial penalties by the U.S. and the European Union have failed to get Iran to halt aspects of its atomic work that could provide a possible pathway to weapons production.
“Within the next few days the world will witness the inauguration of several big new achievements in the nuclear field,” Ahmadinejad told the crowd in Tehran’s famous Azadi, or Freedom, square.
Iran has said it is forced to manufacture nuclear fuel rods, which provide fuel for reactors, on its own since international sanctions ban it from buying them on foreign markets. In January, Iran said it had produced its first such fuel rod.
Apart from progress on the rods, the upcoming announcement could pertain to Iran’s underground enrichment facility at Fordo or upgraded centrifuges, which are expected to be installed at the facility in the central town of Natanz. Iran has also said it would inaugurate the Russian-built nuclear power plant in the southern port of Bushehr in 2012.
Iran’s unchecked pursuit of the nuclear program scuttled negotiations a year ago but Iranian officials last month proposed a return to the talks with the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany.
“Iran is ready for talks within the framework of equality and justice,” Ahmadinejad repeated on said Saturday but warned that Tehran “will never enter talks if enemies behave arrogantly.”
In the past, Iran has angered Western officials by appearing to buy time through opening talks and weighing proposals even while pressing ahead with the nuclear program.
Washington recently levied new penalties aimed at limiting Iran’s ability to sell oil, which accounts for 80 per cent of its foreign revenue, while the European Union adopted its own toughest measures yet on Iran, including an oil embargo and freeze of the country’s central bank assets.
Israel is worried Iran could be on the brink of an atomic bomb and many Israeli officials believe sanctions only give Tehran time to move its nuclear program underground, out of reach of Israeli military strikes. The U.S. and its allies argue that Israel should hold off on any military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities to allow more time for sanctions to work.
Before Ahmadinejad spoke Saturday, visiting Hamas prime minister from Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, also addressed the crowd, congratulating Iranians on the 1979 anniversary and vowing that his militant Palestinian group would never recognize Iran’s and Hamas’ archenemy, Israel.
Also at the Tehran rally, Iran displayed a real-size model of the U.S. drone RQ-170 Sentinel, captured by Iran in December near the border with Afghanistan. Iran has touted the drone’s capture as one of its successes against the West.
The state TV called the drone is a “symbol of power” of the Iranian armed forces “against the global arrogance” of the U.S.
The report broadcast footage of other rallies around Iran, saying millions participated in the anniversary celebrations, many under heavy snowfall.
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Ahmadinejad teases’big’ new nuclear announcerment
Ahmadinejad teases ‘big’ new nuclear announcement
.topPhoto, .photo { width: 440px; }
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gestures as he deliver his speech at a rally to mark the 33rd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution that toppled the country’s pro-Western monarchy and brought Islamic clerics to power, Tehran, Saturday, Feb. 11, 2012. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Updated: Sat Feb. 11 2012 06:37:37
The Associated Press
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran will soon unveil “big new” nuclear achievements, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday while reiterating Tehran’s readiness to revive talks with the West over the country’s controversial nuclear program.
Ahmadinejad spoke at a rally in Tehran as tens of thousands of Iranians marked the 33rd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution that toppled the pro-Western monarchy and brought Islamic clerics to power.
Ahmadinejad did not elaborate on the upcoming announcement but insisted Iran would never give up its uranium enrichment, a process that makes material for reactors as well as weapons.
The West suspects Iran’s nuclear program is aimed at producing atomic weapons, a charge Tehran denies, insisting it’s geared for peaceful purposes only, such as energy production.
Four rounds of UN sanctions and recent tough financial penalties by the U.S. and the European Union have failed to get Iran to halt aspects of its atomic work that could provide a possible pathway to weapons production.
“Within the next few days the world will witness the inauguration of several big new achievements in the nuclear field,” Ahmadinejad told the crowd in Tehran’s famous Azadi, or Freedom, square.
Iran has said it is forced to manufacture nuclear fuel rods, which provide fuel for reactors, on its own since international sanctions ban it from buying them on foreign markets. In January, Iran said it had produced its first such fuel rod.
Apart from progress on the rods, the upcoming announcement could pertain to Iran’s underground enrichment facility at Fordo or upgraded centrifuges, which are expected to be installed at the facility in the central town of Natanz. Iran has also said it would inaugurate the Russian-built nuclear power plant in the southern port of Bushehr in 2012.
Iran’s unchecked pursuit of the nuclear program scuttled negotiations a year ago but Iranian officials last month proposed a return to the talks with the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany.
“Iran is ready for talks within the framework of equality and justice,” Ahmadinejad repeated on said Saturday but warned that Tehran “will never enter talks if enemies behave arrogantly.”
In the past, Iran has angered Western officials by appearing to buy time through opening talks and weighing proposals even while pressing ahead with the nuclear program.
Washington recently levied new penalties aimed at limiting Iran’s ability to sell oil, which accounts for 80 per cent of its foreign revenue, while the European Union adopted its own toughest measures yet on Iran, including an oil embargo and freeze of the country’s central bank assets.
Israel is worried Iran could be on the brink of an atomic bomb and many Israeli officials believe sanctions only give Tehran time to move its nuclear program underground, out of reach of Israeli military strikes. The U.S. and its allies argue that Israel should hold off on any military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities to allow more time for sanctions to work.
Before Ahmadinejad spoke Saturday, visiting Hamas prime minister from Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, also addressed the crowd, congratulating Iranians on the 1979 anniversary and vowing that his militant Palestinian group would never recognize Iran’s and Hamas’ archenemy, Israel.
Also at the Tehran rally, Iran displayed a real-size model of the U.S. drone RQ-170 Sentinel, captured by Iran in December near the border with Afghanistan. Iran has touted the drone’s capture as one of its successes against the West.
The state TV called the drone is a “symbol of power” of the Iranian armed forces “against the global arrogance” of the U.S.
The report broadcast footage of other rallies around Iran, saying millions participated in the anniversary celebrations, many under heavy snowfall.
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Can miners love the future?
The facts are that the economic fairytale of enfettered and infinite growth promoted by Wall Street is directly responsible for the unfolding of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). In addition, the cavalier approach to resource management that was the hallmark of the oil-fuelled Bush administration’s approach to foreign policy in the middle-east was one of the GFC’s root causes.
The Greens, on the other hand, promote the simple old fashioned values of nurturing the available resources, fixing things rather than throwing them away, and limiting greed with a good rap on the knuckles. This, quite sensibly, involves putting governments back in charge of corporations rather than the other way around.
The Greens are the natural mainstream progressive party of this century, just as the labour/social democrats were the mainstream progressive party of the twentieth. Protesting against this inevitable fact of political evolution is the response of a petulant teenager refusing to acknowledge parental authority.
We can work together to create a sustainable future that ensures our grandchildren have some hope of enjoying a degree of affluence similar to our own, or we can squabble amongst ourselves as we consume the dwindling resources that should be their heritage.
It is not reasonable to expect the denizens of Canberra, Washington and Beijing to cool their rhetoric, that should be the role of journals such as Project Notes.
I call on the editors of all such journals to show some real leadership and work with the emerging political forces to solve the very real problems that we face, rather than throwing rocks at the only political party that has a long-term plan for the future.
Giovanni Ebono is the general manager of environmental consultancy Simmonds & Bristow and a good friend of many miners. He stood as the Greens candidate for Richmond in the 2007 and 2010 federal elections.
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The Geology of Climate Change
Many opinions expressed by one camp or the other clearly identify the seminal differences in their world view. “If the globe is an organism and global warming is a fever induced by human activity then humanity is an illness. Those misanthropes in climate change industry who hold this view start from a point of view that the planet is sacred and humans are somehow harming it.”
Among these identifiers of the great divide, someone put forward the notion that geologists are common in the ranks of climate change deniers and rare in the scientists supporting it. The assumption of most commentators analysing this phenomena is that geologists see the occurrence of many global warming events in the past and therefore see nothing uncommon about the current cycle.
That seems to me to be a point of view exploring a little more thoroughly.
One of the characteristics of life on earth is that it is fuelled by sunlight. Plants capture the energy of the sun to build complex carbo-hydrates from carbon dioxide CO2 and water H2O.
The oxygen O2 that is a by-product of this process is the active component that allows animals to break down those carbohydrates and release the energy stored in them so they can live. The presence of oxygen and the absence of carbon dioxide is the most remarkable difference about the earth pre and post the carboniferous age.
Even without Lovelock’s observation that the dynamic nature of earth’s atmosphere is a clear indicator of life, there is no doubt that the evolution of chlorophyll in plants began changing the atmosphere of the earth by sequestering the carbon dioxide into plant material which was locked up in forests and buried under ground.
So, over hundreds of millions of years, life altered the perceivable chemistry of the earth, radically changing the climate and with it, the water and carbon cycle.
It is hardly surprising then, that by digging up those carbon deposits and releasing them back into the atmosphere that we have had an impact on that same atmosphere and climate. All that remains is some back of the envelope calculation to indicate what kind of impact two hundred years of industrial development have had on hundreds of millions of years of gentle sequestration.
Given that, there is absolutely no reason for geologists not to join the rest of their scientific colleagues in calling for an end to the false debate that there is “another side” to the story and that we have not exhausted all the arguments as to why the world is really flat.
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