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Hell in Tajikistan: Oil Discoveries a Potential Curse Posted: 10 Aug 2012 03:57 PM PDT A major oil find by Canada’s Tethys Petroleum in Tajikistan comes at a bad time for the Central Asian country, as the security situation is about to skyrocket out of control in a restive province on the border with Afghanistan. Last month, Tethys upgraded its oil and gas reserves in Bokhtar to an estimated 8.5 billion barrels of oil and condensate and 114 trillion cubic feet of gas. Indeed, Tethys believes that discovery trumps those in the British North Sea. The company is now obtaining seismic data to pinpoint where they will…
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UAE, Australia Sign Nuclear Fuel Agreement – Still a Few Bumps in the Road Posted: 10 Aug 2012 03:55 PM PDT First, the good news. On 31 July the United Arab Emirates Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Abdullah signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr to supply the UAE with nuclear fuel for its first nuclear power plant al Baraka, currently under construction. Carr told the media, “The UAE meets all the tests, and the tests are rigorous and extensive and we’re happy to make a big commitment to providing them with energy security. We’re underpinning jobs and investment in Australian uranium mines, and helping…
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Research Shows that Injection Wells may Cause Earthquakes Posted: 10 Aug 2012 03:48 PM PDT Most earthquakes in the Barnett Shale region of North Texas occur within a few miles of one or more injection wells used to dispose of waste such as hydrofracking fluids, according to new research.“You can’t prove that any one earthquake was caused by an injection well,” says Cliff Frohlich, senior research scientist at the Institute for Geophysics at the University of Texas at Austin. “But it’s obvious that wells are enhancing the probability that earthquakes will occur.”For a study published in Proceedings…
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Government Incentives Lead to a Wind Energy Boom in Turkey Posted: 10 Aug 2012 03:44 PM PDT Turkish Boom in Wind Power InvestmentsWind power boasts the second highest share of renewable energy production in Turkey, and its prospects look brighter each day. According to 2010 data from the Turkish power-generation corporation, electricity generated from renewable resources had a 19.7% share of total power: 18.5% hydroelectric energy, 0.8% wind power and 0.4% for other renewables such as landfill gases, biogas, and biomass. By comparison, 48.6% of total energy was supplied by natural gas and 31.7% by petroleum and coal. Yet by end of 2011…
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Hydroelectric Dams Produce 20 Times more Methane Gas when Water Level is Low Posted: 10 Aug 2012 03:42 PM PDT Typically, at moderate sizes, power generated by dams and reservoirs is considered “green.” However, a new study from Washington State University has found that during times of drawdown — a period in which the water level behind a dam is rapidly lowered — temperate reservoirs can produce up 20 times more methane than normal.Methane is a greenhouse gas 25 times more effective than CO2 at trapping heat in the atmosphere over 100-year period, and is a hundred times more potent over 20 years. It is produced naturally in reservoirs…
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