January 26, 2006
AUTHORIZING TRANSCANADA KEYSTONE PIPELINE, LP
(“KEYSTONE”) TO CONSTRUCT, CONNECT, OPERATE AND MAINTAIN
PIPELINE FACILITIES AT THE INTERNATIONAL BOUNDARY
BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA
By virtue of the authority vested in me as Under Secretary of State for Economic, Energy, and Agricultural Affairs under Executive Order 13337, 69 Fed . Reg. 25299 (2004), as amended, and Department of State Delegation of Authority No . 118-2 of January 26, 2006.….
As stated in permittee’s application of April 19, 2006, as amended, the United States facilities will consist of the following major components:
A 30 inch diameter pipeline extending south from the United States – Canada border in Cavalier County, North Dakota, up to and including the first mainline shut-off valve or pumping station in the United States…
http://www.cardnoentrix.com/keystone/project/KeystonePermit.pdf
October 2, 2006
Mr. Buffett goes to Washington
…Enter Omaha billionaire Warren Buffett. Buffett has pledged $50 million to start a global nuclear fuel bank. His offer is contingent on one or some of the 141 members of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog, adding $100 million within two years. The IAEA would provide the fuel to any country that wants to use it in nuclear power plants. Such a bank could discourage countries from enriching their own fuel, then going on to create nuclear weapons.
President Eisenhower proposed a nuclear fuel bank as long ago as 1953. That it has never been created typifies how the effort and cooperation needed to avert the spread of nuclear weapons — at no time more than today when rogue regimes and terrorists seek them — has dissipated.
With such cooperation and clear thinking, the five declared nuclear powers — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France — crafted the treaty. Under it, other countries agreed not to seek nuclear weapons. (Israel, Pakistan and India, which didn’t sign, have developed weapons. North Korea developed them and quit the treaty.) But the loophole Iran is exploiting remained. And the idea of a neutral nuclear fuel bank, though provided for in the IAEA charter, was never taken up. http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-10-02-edtwo_x.htm
In 2007, as a Senator, Obama introduced legislation that would create an international fuel bank and give the IAEA, an arm of the United Nations, $50 million taxpayer dollars to begin to fund it
September 20, 2007
NEB Approves Keystone Pipeline Project
CALGARY - The National Energy Board has approved the TransCanada Keystone Pipeline GP Ltd. application to construct and operate the Canadian portion of the Keystone pipeline project which would transport 435,000 barrels per day of crude oil. http://www.neb.gc.ca/clf-nsi/rthnb/nwsrls/2007/nwsrls31-eng.html
November 3, 2009
Buffett buying Burlington Northern railroad – Billionaire investor makes $34 billion bet on the U.S. economy’s future
Warren Buffett has made bets on railroads before, but now he’s all in. The billionaire investor’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. on Tuesday agreed to buy Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., making a $34 billion bet on the future of the U.S. economy.
Burlington Northern, the nation’s second-largest railroad, is the biggest hauler of food products like corn, and coal for electricity, making it an indicator of the country’s economic health. The railroad also ships a large amount of consumer goods — including items imported from Asia — from big Western ports like Los Angeles and Seattle.
Analysts say Buffett is planting both feet in an industry that is poised to grow as the economy gets back on solid ground. It would be the biggest acquisition ever for Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
Berkshire Hathaway already owns about 22 percent of Burlington Northern, and will pay $100 a share in cash and stock for the rest of the company. That was 31.5 percent premium on Burlington Northern’s Monday closing price. The stock shot up over 28 percent Tuesday, to $97.66 in afternoon trading.
Shareholders have the option to convert their stock for a cash payment of $100 per share or receive Berkshire Class A or Class B common stock. Up to 60 percent of the deal is cash and 40 percent is in stock.
“Berkshire’s $34 billion investment in BNSF is a huge bet on that company, CEO Matt Rose and his team, and the railroad industry,” Buffett said in a statement.
“Most important of all, however, it’s an all-in wager on the economic future of the United States. I love these bets,” he said.
Berkshire Hathaway already owns about 22 percent of Burlington Northern, and will pay $100 a share in cash and stock for the rest of the company. That was 31.5 percent premium on Burlington Northern’s Monday closing price. The stock shot up over 28 percent Tuesday, to $97.66 in afternoon trading.
Shareholders have the option to convert their stock for a cash payment of $100 per share or receive Berkshire Class A or Class B common stock. Up to 60 percent of the deal is cash and 40 percent is in stock.
“Berkshire’s $34 billion investment in BNSF is a huge bet on that company, CEO Matt Rose and his team, and the railroad industry,” Buffett said in a statement.
“Most important of all, however, it’s an all-in wager on the economic future of the United States. I love these bets,” he said.
Berkshire’s board also approved a 50-for-1 split of its Class B common stock for holders of smaller amounts of Burlington shares who opt for a share exchange instead of cash. The Class B shares rose $67.20, or 2.1 percent, to $3332.23 on Tuesday.
Berkshire owns stock in two other major railroads — about 1 percent of the outstanding shares of Union Pacific Corp. and less than 1 percent of Norfolk Southern Corp., as of June 30. Buffett started investing in railroads in 2007, but has said he realized a few years late that railroads had become an appealing investment.
He thinks railroads are a key economic indicator because of the amount of retail and manufactured goods they haul across the country. “They do it in a cost-effective way and extraordinarily environmentally friendly way,” he told CNBC. “I basically believe this country will prosper and you’ll have more people moving more goods 10 and 20 and 30 years from now, and the rails should benefit.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33599744/ns/business-us_business/t/buffett-buying-burlington-northern-railroad/
June 17, 2010
Independent Study Finds Keystone Gulf Coast Expansion to Stimulate More Than $20 Billion in New Spending For U.S. Economy
Calgary, Alberta: An independent economic study finds that construction of the Keystone Gulf Coast Expansion Pipeline project should provide significant, positive contributions to the U.S. economy valued at over $20 billion.
The Perryman Group study also states that the proposed pipeline project should improve U.S. energy security with the ongoing benefit to the U.S. economy of a more stable source of consistent energy supply over an extended period of time.
The study estimates that during construction, the $7 billion pipeline project is expected to stimulate:
• More than $20 billion in new spending for the U.S. economy
• More than 118,000 person-years of employment
• An increase of $6.5 billion in the personal income of Americans
• Increased gross output (product) of $9.6 billion
• More than $585 million in state and local taxes in the states along the pipeline route
The study further concluded that once the pipeline is operational, the states along the pipeline route are expected to receive an additional $5.2 billion in property taxes during the operating life of the pipeline.
The study also highlights the significant ongoing benefit to the U.S. economy of a more stable, consistent and reliable supply of oil. When completed, the Keystone Pipeline System is expected to provide five per cent of current U.S. petroleum-consumption needs and represent nine per cent of U.S. petroleum imports. Once permitted and completed, the Keystone Gulf Coast Expansion project will supply roughly half the amount of oil that the U.S. currently imports from the Middle East or Venezuela.
The Perryman study conservatively estimated the permanent increase in stable oil supplies the Keystone Gulf Coast Expansion pipeline creates will add more than 250,000 permanent jobs for U.S. workers and add more than $100 billion in annual total expenditures to the U.S. economy.
These figures assume that oil prices remain stable at the “2007 average price per barrel of $66.52.” On the other hand, “If high oil prices prevail, the effect of the increase in stable oil supplies” is even more pronounced, adding as many as 553,000 permanent jobs and an annual increase in total expenditures of $221 billion to the U.S. economy. (Note: for the high oil price scenario, The Perryman Group “used prices equal
http://www.transcanada.com/docs/Key_Projects/keystone_washington_DC_advisory.pdf
December 3, 2010
Buffett Helps Create Nuclear Fuel Bank
Spurred by a pledge of $50 million from Warren E. Buffett, the billionaire investor and philanthropist, the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency voted Friday to set up a global nuclear fuel bank that aspiring nations can turn to for reactor fuel instead of making it themselves.
Mr. Buffett made his $50 million offer in late 2006. His pledge was contingent on the atomic agency’s establishing the fuel bank and one or more countries’ contributing $100 million — or the equivalent in reactor fuel.
The financial goal was met in March 2009 when Kuwait donated $10 million. The other backers are the United States, the European Union, Norway and the United Arab Emirates. The contributions now total $157 million….
January 20, 2011
In 2007, as a Senator, Obama introduced legislation that would create an international fuel bank and give the IAEA, an arm of the United Nations, $50 million taxpayer dollars to begin to fund it. …then Senator Obama co-sponsored a bill entitled: Nuclear Weapons Threat Reduction Act of 2007, S.1977
In Sec. 4, of S.1977 under: Establishment of an international Nuclear Fuel bank: Obama’s bill read, “The President is authorized to make voluntary contributions to support the creation of a low enriched uranium reserve administered by the IAEA that would help guarantee the availability of fuel for commercial nuclear reactors and dissuade countries from building their own uranium enrichment capability.” The bill authorizes the President to appropriate “$50,000,000 for voluntary contributions to support the establishment of an international nuclear fuel bank.”
December 15, 2011
Berkshire Hathaway talks about lobbyist activity
Warren Buffett prefers to keep Berkshire Hathaway’s corporate headquarters tiny. The Omaha company doesn’t lobby the federal government. But that doesn’t keep several of Berkshire’s subsidiaries from hiring their own lobbyists.
Berkshire’s railroad, utility and corporate jet units spent 1.76 million dollars lobbying the federal government during the third quarter.
That’s down from the $2.15 million those Berkshire companies spent in last year’s third quarter and less than the $2.14 million they spent in the second quarter of 2011.
Reports filed October 20th describe the lobbying activities of Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad, MidAmerican Energy and NetJets.
Most of Berkshire’s roughly 80 subsidiaries, including insurance, clothing, furniture and jewelry firms, did not file any report, and the 21-person corporate office Buffett leads also didn’t report any lobbying. http://www.khastv.com/news/local/Berkshire-Hathaway–135671463.html
January 18, 2012
Obama says GOP “rushed and arbitrary deadline” stops full Keystone review
From the President: “Earlier today, I received the Secretary of State’s recommendation on the pending application for the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline. As the State Department made clear last month, the rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by Congressional Republicans prevented a full assessment of the pipeline’s impact, especially the health and safety of the American people, as well as our environment. As a result, the Secretary of State has recommended that the application be denied. And after reviewing the State Department’s report, I agree…. http://blogs.mcclatchydc.com/washington/2012/01/obama-says-he-agrees-with-state-departments-decision-to-defer-on-keystone.html
How could this have been rushed! They knew about the pipeline since 2006!
January 18, 2012
TransCanada Will Re-Apply for a Keystone XL Permit
Calgary, Alberta – TransCanada Corporation (TSX, NYSE: TRP) (TransCanada) announced today it has received the U.S. Department of State’s decision that the Presidential Permit for Keystone XL has been denied.
“This outcome is one of the scenarios we anticipated. While we are disappointed, TransCanada remains fully committed to the construction of Keystone XL. Plans are already underway on a number of fronts to largely maintain the construction schedule of the project,” said Russ Girling, TransCanada’s president and chief executive officer. “We will re-apply for a Presidential Permit and expect a new application would be processed in an expedited manner to allow for an in-service date of late 2014.”
TransCanada expects that consideration of a renewed application will make use of the exhaustive record compiled over the past three plus years.
“Until this pipeline is constructed, the U.S. will continue to import millions of barrels of conflict oil from the Middle East and Venezuela and other foreign countries who do not share democratic values Canadians and Americans are privileged to have,” added Girling. “Thousands of jobs continue to hang in the balance if this project does not go forward. This project is too important to the U.S. economy, the Canadian economy and the national interest of the United States for it not to proceed.”
TransCanada will continue to work collaboratively with Nebraska’s Department of Environmental Quality on determining the safest route for Keystone XL that avoids the Sandhills. This process is expected to be complete in September or October of this year.
TransCanada has committed to a project labour agreement with the Laborers International Union of North America, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry of the United States and Canada, AFL-CIO, the International Union of Operating Engineers and the Pipeline Contractors Association. Any delay in approval of construction prevents this work from going to thousands of hard-working trades people.
TransCanada’s investment of billions of private dollars would create thousands more jobs in the U.S. manufacturing sector. The company has contracts with over 50 suppliers across the U.S.. Manufacturing locations for Keystone XL equipment include: Texas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Indiana, Georgia, Maryland, New York, Louisiana, Minnesota, Ohio, Arkansas, Kansas, California and Pennsylvania. The benefits these companies and the people of their states continue to be delayed and the negative impacts will be felt……. http://www.transcanada.com/5928.html
January 24, 2012
Buffett’s MidAmerican Starts Renewable-Energy Business
The MidAmerican Energy unit of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRKA, BRKB) said Tuesday it has started a new company to oversee a growing stable of solar, wind and other renewable-energy projects.
MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., of Des Moines, said it has placed solar and wind farms, geothermal power plants and its interest in a small hydroelectric project into a new company called MidAmerican Renewables LLC.
MidAmerican’s president and chief executive, Greg Abel, said the company expects U.S. demand for renewable energy to continue growing and that the company wants “to be a leader in this area.”
On Monday, MidAmerican said it plans to buy an 81-megawatt wind farm in Illinois from Invenergy Wind LLC as part of the company’s growing wholesale renewable-energy business. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
The wind farm has a contract to sell the electricity it generates to Ameren Corp.’s (AEE) Illinois utility.
In December, MidAmerican said it would buy a $2 billion California solar farm from First Solar Inc. (FSLR) and that it would acquire a 49% share of a $1.8 billion solar-power plant owned by NRG Energy Inc. (NRG) that First Solar is building in the Arizona desert. Both solar facilities have long-term power purchase agreements with PG&E Corp.’s (PCG) California utility.
MidAmerican already owns and operates geothermal power facilities in California, which use underground heat and steam to generate electricity, and it owns half of a 10-megawatt hydroelectric project in Hawaii that generates electricity without dams.
MidAmerican Renewables said it is considering acquiring more renewable-energy projects that would generate electricity for the wholesale power market to meet growing demand for clean energy.
“We’ll be looking for opportunities to grow this business,” said Tina Potthoff, a spokeswoman for MidAmerican. “We think there’s a growing desire by utilities and other companies to green up their business.” http://www.foxbusiness.com/news/2012/01/24/buffetts-midamerican-starts-renewable-energy-business/#ixzz1kS1Vgcvv
ALL ROADS LEAD TO WASHINGTON! ALL ROADS LEAD TO THE GREEN AGENDA!
January 24, 2012
President Obama’s third state of the union address to Congress…
“..We can also spur energy innovation with new incentives. The
differences in this chamber may be too deep right now to pass a
comprehensive plan to fight climate change. But there’s no reason why
Congress shouldn’t at least set a clean energy standard that creates a
market for innovation. So far, you haven’t acted. Well tonight, I
will. I’m directing my Administration to allow the development of
clean energy on enough public land to power three million homes. And
I’m proud to announce that the Department of Defense, the world’s
largest consumer of energy, will make one of the largest commitments
to clean energy in history – with the Navy purchasing enough capacity
to power a quarter of a million homes a year.
Of course, the easiest way to save money is to waste less energy. So
here’s another proposal: Help manufacturers eliminate energy waste in
their factories and give businesses incentives to upgrade their
buildings. Their energy bills will be $100 billion lower over the
next decade, and America will have less pollution, more manufacturing,
and more jobs for construction workers who need them. Send me a bill
that creates these jobs.
Building this new energy future should be just one part of a broader
agenda to repair America’s infrastructure. So much of America needs
to be rebuilt. We’ve got crumbling roads and bridges. A power grid
that wastes too much energy. An incomplete high-speed broadband
network that prevents a small business owner in rural America from
selling her products all over the world…”
Gulf oil update…July 20, 2011
Oil Rigs Have Exited Gulf Since Obama Moratorium Went Into Effect
“Political uncertainty” bedevils Gulf region and discourages business investment.
Ten oil rigs have left the Gulf of Mexico since the Obama Administration imposed a moratorium on deepwater oil and gas drilling in May 2010, according to documentation obtained from Sen. David Vitter’s (R-La.) office.
The ten rigs named in the document are: Marinas, Discover Americas, Ocean Endeavor, Ocean Confidence, Stena Forth, Clyde Bourdeaux, Ensco 8503, Deep Ocean Clarion, Discover Spirit, and Amirante. The rigs have left the Gulf for locations in Egypt, Congo, French Guiana, Liberia, Nigeria and Brazil. “This highlights the problem we have with losing domestic energy production as a result of the drilling moratorium and the slow permitting,” David Kreutzer, a research fellow in Energy Economics and Climate Change at the Heritage Foundation, said. “We must also keep in mind that the impacts are not instantaneous, the rigs may be idle for a while, but once they move it’s going to be difficult to move them back once they are drilling in say Nigeria or Brazil. The oil companies must have confidence they can move forward with their drilling plans and to know these plans won’t be revoked. Only certainty will bring them back.”
Although federal officials announced they were lifting the restrictions last October, a “de-facto moratorium” remains in effect that stifles energy production and undermines large and small businesses in the Gulf region, industry officials have argued…
“The Obama Administration has systematically blocked domestic energy production in the Gulf of Mexico,and today’s report puts that action in stark terms. It documents a 250 percent increase in the deepwater exploration permit backlog with a decrease of nearly 80 percent for plan approvals and deepwater drilling. That means a loss of $9 billion dollars in capital investment in 2011, along with a projected loss to the government of $25 billion in royalties and tax payments over the next 3 years,to say nothing of the tens of thousands of jobs lost…House Oversight Committee
April 2011…Shell gets forced out in Alaska…..
Energy in America: EPA Rules Force Shell to Abandon Oil Drilling Plans
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/04/25/energy-america-oil-drilling-denial/
Shell Oil Company has announced it must scrap efforts to drill for oil this summer in the Arctic Ocean off the northern coast of Alaska. The decision comes following a ruling by the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board to withhold critical air permits. The move has angered some in Congress and triggered a flurry of legislation aimed at stripping the EPA of its oil drilling oversight.
Shell has spent five years and nearly $4 billion dollars on plans to explore for oil in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. The leases alone cost $2.2 billion. Shell Vice President Pete Slaiby says obtaining similar air permits for a drilling operation in the Gulf of Mexico would take about 45 days. He’s especially frustrated over the appeal board’s suggestion that the Arctic drill would somehow be hazardous for the people who live in the area. “We think the issues were really not major,” Slaiby said, “and clearly not impactful for the communities we work in.”
The closest village to where Shell proposed to drill is Kaktovik, Alaska. It is one of the most remote places in the United States. According to the latest census, the population is 245 and nearly all of the residents are Alaska natives. The village, which is 1 square mile, sits right along the shores of the Beaufort Sea, 70 miles away from the proposed off-shore drill site.
The EPA’s appeals board ruled that Shell had not taken into consideration emissions from an ice-breaking vessel when calculating overall greenhouse gas emissions from the project. Environmental groups were thrilled by the ruling.
“What the modeling showed was in communities like Kaktovik, Shell’s drilling would increase air pollution levels close to air quality standards,” said Eric Grafe, Earthjustice’s lead attorney on the case. Earthjustice was joined by Center for Biological Diversity and the Alaska Wilderness League in challenging the air permits.
At stake is an estimated 27 billion barrels of oil. That’s how much the U. S. Geological Survey believes is in the U.S. portion of the Arctic Ocean. For perspective, that represents two and a half times more oil than has flowed down the Trans Alaska pipeline throughout its 30-year history. That pipeline is getting dangerously low on oil. At 660,000 barrels a day, it’s carrying only one-third its capacity.
Production on the North Slope of Alaska is declining at a rate of about 7 percent a year. If the volume gets much lower, pipeline officials say they will have to shut it down. Alaska officials are blasting the Environmental Protection Agency.
“It’s driving investment and production overseas,” said Alaska’s DNR Commissioner Dan Sullivan. “That doesn’t help the United States in any way, shape or form.”
The EPA did not return repeated calls and e-mails. The Environmental Appeals Board has four members: Edward Reich, Charles Sheehan, Kathie Stein and Anna Wolgast. All are registered Democrats and Kathie Stein was an activist attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund. Members are appointed by the EPA administrator. Alaska’s Republican senator thinks it’s time to make some changes.
“EPA has demonstrated that they’re not competent to handle the process,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski. “So if they’re not competent to handle it, they need to get out of the way.”
Murkowski supported budget amendments that would have stripped the EPA of its oversight role in Arctic offshore drilling. The Interior Department issues air permits to oil companies working in the Gulf of Mexico.
Yet Italy, who has permits in Alaska can spill oil, nothing mentioned in the media…….
http://www.adn.com/2011/02/14/1702799/eni-has-an-oil-spill-10-days-after.html
Oil spilled at an Italian oil company’s new Alaska oil field on the northern coast last Wednesday, 10 days after the field started production, the state Department of Environmental Conservation said today.
About 61 gallons of crude oil sprayed out of a flare vent, which is used to relieve pressure. Programmable circuits failed and crude oil was pushed through the flare and outside onto snow and gravel, the DEC said.
The DEC estimated the oil affected 60 cubic yards of snow and one cubic yard of gravel, all of which will have to be removed. Eni personnel had the area about 80 percent cleaned when DEC responders arrived.
The spill occurred at Eni’s production facility for its new Nikaitchuq field, which started production Jan. 30, the DEC said. Although Nikaitchuq is an offshore field in the Beaufort Sea, this spill occurred onshore at Oliktok Point, where some production occurs.
Work at Eni’s production wells continued throughout the incident.
Eni has drilled 12 wells and plans to drill a total of 52 by 2014. The Oliktok Point pad will tap oil from 22 wells; an offshore pad near Spy Island will tap the remaining 30.
The company expects the facility to produce for more than 30 years, with a peak of 28,000 barrels per day.
http://www.petroleumnews.com/keywords/Nikaitchuq.html
Eni plans to bring the neighboring offshore Nikaitchuq unit online by early 2011. Those near-shore prospects are Eni’s focus in Alaska for the foreseeable future. The company farmed out one central North Slope prospect, North Tarn, to a group of independents in January, and rather than fulfill drilling commitments at two other central North Slope prospects, Rock Flour and Maggiore, Eni relinquished the acreage this summer, comprising almost 40 percent of its Alaska landholdings. Eni currently holds nearly 143,500 acres of state onshore and offshore leases.
http://www.eni.com/en_IT/media/press-releases/2011/02/2011-02-09-nikaitchuq.shtml
Eni starts production from the Nikaitchuq field in Alaska
The field, which is Eni’s first operated Arctic project, is 100% owned and operated by Eni with recoverable reserves estimated at 220 million barrels of oil. Nikaitchuq is expected to produce for over 30 years with peak production of 28,000 barrels of oil per day. San Donato Milanese (Milan), 09 February 2011 - Eni began oil production at the Nikaitchuq field, located offshore the North Slope of Alaska at an average water depth of 3 meters.
The field, which is Eni’s first operated Arctic project, is 100% owned and operated by Eni with recoverable reserves estimated at 220 million barrels of oil. Nikaitchuq is expected to produce for over 30 years with peak production of 28,000 barrels of oil per day.
Nikaitchuq’s full development will be through 52 wells (26 oil producers, 21 water injectors, 5 water source/disposal wells) of which 22 onshore and 30 offshore, with the latter drilled from an artificial island. The processing facility has been completed and 12 onshore wells have already been drilled with the remaining wells to be drilled by 2014.
The Nikaitchuq wells, which benefit from the application of several of Eni’s proprietary technologies, are leading-edge since they combine a vertical depth of 4,000 ft with a horizontal reach of up to 20,000 ft.
The offshore facilities are connected to the onshore facilities by a under sea bed pipeline bundle, which is the heaviest bundle ever installed in the Arctic.
The two process and utilities modules of 4,000 tons each built in Louisiana. The remaining facilities comprise 22 modules all built in Alaska.
The facilities have been designed and built using technology aimed at minimizing the impact on the environment: zero flaring, pipe-in-pipe technology for hydrocarbon transportation, spill containment devices in all modules and low emission turbine generators.
The processing plant is capable of treating 40,000 barrels per day of heavy crude with sand and up to 120,000 barrel per day of water. These facilities will allow Eni to ship sales-quality crude oil through the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline, with no need for further processing.
In the USA, Eni owns lease interests in 376 blocks in the Gulf of Mexico and in 450 leases (15,000 acres) in the Barnett gas shales onshore Texas. In addition, Eni owns interests in 151 leases in Alaska in the North Slope, which include 30% of the Oooguruk oil field, in production since 2008. The total daily net production is in excess of 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent (60% operated).
More about Eni
Solar power goes viral - MIT researchers use genetically modified virus to produce structures that improve solar-cell efficiency by nearly one-third.
Researchers at MIT have found a way to make significant improvements to the power-conversion efficiency of solar cells by enlisting the services of tiny viruses to perform detailed assembly work at the microscopic level.
In a solar cell, sunlight hits a light-harvesting material, causing it to release electrons that can be harnessed to produce an electric current. The new MIT research, published online this week in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, is based on findings that carbon nanotubes — microscopic, hollow cylinders of pure carbon — can enhance the efficiency of electron collection from a solar cell’s surface. …The viruses actually perform two different functions in this process. First, they possess short proteins called peptides that can bind tightly to the carbon nanotubes, holding them in place and keeping them separated from each other. Each virus can hold five to 10 nanotubes, each of which is held firmly in place by about 300 of the virus’s peptide molecules. In addition, the virus was engineered to produce a coating of titanium dioxide (TiO2), a key ingredient for dye-sensitized solar cells, over each of the nanotubes, putting the titanium dioxide in close proximity to the wire-like nanotubes that carry the electrons….The work was funded by the Italian company Eni, through the MIT Energy Initiative’s Solar Futures Program.
MIT and Eni’s alliance has a duration of five years and involves a financial commitment of US$50 million from Eni, equally distributed between the Solar Frontiers program and other projects of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI).
Secretary Chu Announces $130 Million for Advanced Research..MIT’s president, and Paolo Scaroni, CEO of Italian oil company Eni, formally dedicated the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Research Center. Eni financed the research project by investing $5 million into the center. This project is also financed by National Science Foundation. They are granting a fund of $2 million.
So is this why EPA rules Shell to abandon oil drilling plans?
Petrobras taps Subsea 7 for $1 billion of work in deepwater Santos basin… http://www.offshore-mag.com/index/article-display/6065886332/articles/offshore/subsea/latin-america/2011/April/petrobras-taps_subsea.html
Petrobras: Must Investigate Gulf Incident Before Production Starts… http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2011/04/04/petrobrasmust-investigate-gulf-incident-production-starts/
Gulf oil update..March 2011
Shutting down the Gulf after the BP rig explosion, with extended moratoriums, sent rigs to Brazil to be used by Petrobras, benefiting private investors like George Soros. Obama met with Petrobras CEO Jose Sergio Gabrielli on his tour Saturday in Brazil while U.S. Bureau, Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, Enforcement approved production license to Petrobras to start Cascade-Chinook project located in the Walker Ridge area, Gulf of Mexico approximately 165 miles offshore Louisiana in 8,200 feet of water. American money being used to invest in Brazilian oil…this smells like dirty oil!
U.S. Government to Loan Brazil’s Petrobras $10 Billion March 20, 2011
The U.S. government is preparing to provide up to $10 billion in loans to finance the development of massive hydrocarbon reserves off Brazil’s coast thought to contain 80 billion barrels of high-quality crude, an amount that could lead to a six-fold increase in Brazil’s current proven reserves and transform that nation into one of the world’s 10 largest oil producers. RIO DE JANEIRO – The U.S. government is prepared to provide up to $10 billion in loans to finance the development of massive hydrocarbon reserves off Brazil’s coast, a Brazilian official said Wednesday. President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, Gen. James Jones, discussed the matter with officials this week during a visit to the South American country, Brazilian Planning Minister Paulo Bernardo da Silva told reporters. He said the U.S. Export-Import Bank already has signed a letter of intent in that regard with Brazilian state oil company Petrobras. The loan is equal in value to a similar credit line agreed to with the China Development Bank, also for exploiting Brazil’s “pre-salt” area, so-named because the estimated 80 billion barrels of high-quality crude in that new oil frontier lie far beneath the ocean floor under layers of rock and an unstable salt formation. Under the agreement with the Chinese state bank, finalized during Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s visit to Beijing in May, Brazil can repay the loan facility with oil as opposed to cash. According to the government’s projections, the pre-salt reserves – located at a depth of up to seven kilometers (4.3 miles) below the ocean surface in an 800-kilometer by 200-kilometer area – could eventually lead to a nearly six-fold increase in Brazil’s current proven reserves of 14 billion barrels and transform that nation into one of the world’s 10 largest oil producers and a major crude exporter. Petrobras plans to invest close to $29 billion through 2013 to develop the pre-salt deposits in which the company already holds concession rights. Petrobras is projecting that some 1.3 million barrels per day can be extracted by 2013 from the pre-salt fields and 1.8 million bpd by 2020. The Tupi field, which is believed to contain between 5 billion and 8 billion barrels of oil and was the first to be exploited in the pre-salt region, is considered to be the largest hydrocarbon discovery in the Americas in the past 30 years. Other large oil and natural gas fields were later found nearby, also under a thick bed of salt. But Brazil has been forced to seek external financing because the fields pose an enormous technical and financial challenge due to the depth and thickness of the salt and the drastic changes in temperature as the oil is brought to the surface. Acknowledging that Petrobras alone is not capable of developing the massive pre-salt reserves, Brazil announced in May that it will invite international oil companies to bid for concessions in that region beginning next year. The country had previously halted the sale of concessions after the massive finds were made. Petrobras, an integrated energy company and the global leader in deepwater oil exploration and production, operates in 27 countries in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe. Shares of Petrobras, Brazil’s largest corporation, trade on the Sao Paulo, New York, Madrid and Buenos Aires stock exchanges, but the Brazilian government retains control through a golden share. http://www.laht.com/article.asp?CategoryId=14090&ArticleId=340852
President Obama to assist Petrobras with oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. New floating oil storage facility to be permitted (look at April 29, 2009, Petrobras said on Wednesday it obtained a $2 billion credit line from the U.S.)
BREAKING NEWS: This just in… President Obama gives green light to support oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico! The Obama administration has given it’s approval for the first floating oil storage facility ever to be used in the Gulf. This impressive oil storage facility will be able to hold 80,000 barrels of oil and 16 million cubic feet of gas and will be capable of being moved in the event of a hurricane or severe weather. The U.S. company that has been awarded the permission to use such a facility is none other than… Wait! That can’t be so! …it’s not a U.S. company? No, of course not! The approval for this facility has been given to Petrobras, the nationally owned oil company from Brazil! Say it aint so, Barry, say it aint so!Back in December, I wrote a piece about how the President played political games with oil drilling moratoriums heading into the elections and that during this period of time it was announced that Cuba would be starting on their drilling program in the Gulf. In that article, it was pointed out that Cuba would be drilling closer to U.S. shores than the Deepwater Horizon was at the time of it’s disaster. 11 months after the Deepwater accident, it is still almost impossible to get an accurate tally on the number of permits that have been requested or what their status is, regardless of whether they are for deepwater drilling or at more traditional depths. The conflicting numbers have come via Ken Salazar’s recent testimony before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and conversations that have taken place between Senator David Vitter and Michael Bromwich, who is the director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement. http://questioningwithboldness.wordpress.com/2011/03/19/president-obama-to-assist-petrobras-with-oil-drilling-in-the-gulf-of-mexico-new-floating-oil-storage-facility-to-be-permitted/
Within 48 hours after President Obama issued the six-month moratorium on deep-water drilling, the George Soros-backed Brazilian oil company, Petrobras,contacted a large New Orleans company, Laborde Marine, which services the deep-water drilling market. The company was seeking to lease all its vessels. “If the moratorium on deep-water drilling is not lifted, 33 semi-submersible rigs and/or drill ships affected will simply go to other countries where they will be well received, such as Brazil,” Cliffe F. Laborde and J. Peter Laborde, Jr. wrote in a June 4 letter to their Louisiana Senators… http://frontpagemag.com/2010/06/22/soros-oil-spill-payoff/
Profits increased a month before Obama visits……
RIO DE JANEIRO—Brazilian state-run energy giant Petroleo Brasileiro SA said Friday its fourth-quarter profit rose 38% from a year earlier as higher international oil prices and climbing crude-oil production offset flat domestic fuel prices. Petrobras, as the company is commonly known, posted a profit of 10.6 billion Brazilian reals ($6.39 billion), based on International Financial Reporting Standards. Revenue rose 14% of 54.5 billion reals. In a statement to stock regulators, Petrobras said higher crude-oil production also helped to reduce costs during the quarter. In addition, domestic fuel sales volumes climbed amid heated demand from Brazilian consumers. Despite the solid year-on-year profit growth in the fourth quarter, Petrobras failed to match the hefty gains posted by global rivals such as Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC. Global oil majors have shown the industry’s quick ability to recover from the global economic slowdown by passing along higher oil prices to consumers at the pump, where Petrobras has less room to maneuver. The company said earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization were 14.58 billion reals, up from BRL14.32 billion in the year-ago quarter. For the full year, Petrobras recorded a profit of 35.2 billion reals, compared with 30.1 billion reals in 2009. Net revenue rose to 213.3 billion reals from 182.8 billion in 2009. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100 … WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection
April 2010 BP rig explosion
May 15, 2008 Petrobras Hires 80% Of Deepwater Rigs “Petrobras is in talks with Transocean Inc., the world’s biggest offshore driller, to extend leases as much as three years ahead of expiration, Robert Long, chief executive officer for the Houston-based contractor, said last week.” “Petrobras is very committed to this… it is just a case of letting the bidders make some final adjustments,” said a commercial manager with a Brazilian drilling company. http://oilismastery.blogspot.com/2008/05/petrobras-hires-80-of-deepwater-rigs.html The largest offshore sedimentary basin in Brazil, covering an area of 352,000 square kilometers. It starts in Cabo Frio (state of Rio de Janeiro) and extends to Florianópolis (state of Santa Catarina). Slightly more than half the area that has been explored in the basin is in deep (up to 300 meters) and ultra-deep waters (more than 1,500 meters). And it is in the Santos Basin that we ran on to and overcame the great challenge of surpassing a total depth of 7,500 meters in the exploratory drilling of the pre-salt fields…
April 29, 2009 (Reuters) Brazilian energy giant Petrobras said on Wednesday it obtained a $2 billion credit line from the U.S. Export-Import Bank, the U.S. government’s trade financing arm. Petrobras said in a statement to investors that the loan would be used to source equipment from the United States required for its expansion plans. The company plans to invest $174 billion from 2009-13 to expand oil output. Petrobras may tap the credit line for a period of up to two years and has a maximum repayment term of 10 years.
2009 Wall Street Journal …The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil’s state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil’s Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil’s planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan. Now, with oil companies reacting to what is happening they are moving their oil rigs to Brazil:
Oil companies are planning on moving their rigs from the Gulf of Mexico to South America off the coast of Brazil where the government is more friendly to energy corporations. George Soros’ principal investments are in oil; one in particular is Petrobras, the Brazilian-owned company. This happens to be the largest investment in the Soros portfolio at the present time. Now that word is out that the facilities of the U.S. Export-Import Bank SA is offering guarantees for loans to Brazil’s state-owned oil company Petrobras, U.S. citizens are beginning to complain. According to CampaignMoney, George Soros has given $3,455,776 to candidates since 1999 and 99.83% were to Democrats…..
August 18, 2009 Obama backs off-shore drilling! Update: A Soros connection? This should be good news for the Drill Here, Drill Now contingent, right? The Obama administration has committed $2 billion in loans to exploit offshore oil resources in hopes of extracting a major new source of petroleum. Despite the White House pursuit of a cap-and-trade scheme to limit the use of fossil fuels, the new field could help bring lower energy prices, and their support of this exploration of American resources shows their flexibility on energy policy…
The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil’s state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil’s Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil’s planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan. The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a “preliminary commitment” letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount. Ex-Im Bank says it has not decided whether the money will come in the form of a direct loan or loan guarantees. Either way, this corporate foreign aid may strike some readers as odd, given that the U.S. Treasury seems desperate for cash and Petrobras is one of the largest corporations in the Americas. …But it still doesn’t allow the U.S. to explore in Alaska or along the East and West Coasts, which could be our equivalent of the Tupi oil fields, which are set to make Brazil a leading oil exporter. Americans are right to wonder why Mr. Obama is underwriting in Brazil what he won’t allow at home. First, why does Petrobas need loan guarantees to pursue its exploration? As the WSJ notes, it is a very large corporation, which should have the resources to get to the oil on its own. Obama, who has ripped American corporations for their supposed subsidies in American tax policy, now wants to use an empty Treasury to give cash to a Brazilian oil company. Next, Obama keeps insisting that we cut back on our use of fossil fuels. He and his allies in Congress have blocked exploration of American oil fields off both shores for decades, and Obama insists that we would only keep enabling our oil addiction if we started drilling off of our own coasts. Yet he has no trouble committing $2,000,000,000 of our money for Brazil to drill off its own coast. Let American companies do what Obama is payingWho else besides Obama has taken an interest in Petrobras? Brazilian companies to do — drill offshore. We won’t have to pay them money or float them any loans to do it, either. In fact, we will make money off of the leases, while the effort creates hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs in the US, creating more tax revenue rather than emptying out the Treasury. His New York-based hedge-fund firm, Soros Fund Management LLC, sold 22 million U.S.-listed common shares of Petrobras, as the Brazilian oil company is known, according to a filing today with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Soros bought 5.8 million of the company’s U.S.-traded preferred shares. Soros is taking advantage of the spread between the two types of U.S.-listed Petrobras shares, said Luis Maizel, president of LM Capital Group LLC, which manages about $4 billion. The common shares were 21 percent more expensive than preferred today, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. …Petrobras preferred shares have also a 10 percent additional dividend, said William Landers, a senior portfolio manager for Latin America at Blackrock Inc. “Given that there will most likely never be a change in control in the company, I see no reason to pay a higher price for the common shares.” Brazil’s government controls Petrobras and has a majority stake of voting shares. http://hotair.com/archives/2009/08/18/good-news-obama-backs-off-shore-drilling/
August 20, 2009 Ex-Im Bank Loans for Petrobras’ Brazilian Offshore Oil Exploration and Development…Ex-Im Bank defends itself… http://www.exim.gov/brazil/pressrelease_082009.cfm
In April, Ex-Im Bank approved a $2 billion preliminary commitment to encourage purchases of U.S. goods and services by Petroleo Brasileiro S.A. (Petrobras), Brazil’s national oil company. The amount of a final commitment may be increased above the $2 billion preliminary amount. Petrobras anticipates that it will invest $174 billion in development over the next five years. http://www.exim.gov/pressrelease.cfm/C862E339-D537-79E7-A58FCF6AAEFF8902/
October 20, 2009 Transocean, who built the Deepwater Horizon rig, begin a 10 year ultra-deepwater drilling contract with a company that is a subsidiary of Petrobras.
November 8, 2009 The U.S. government is prepared to provide up to $10 billion in loans to finance the development of massive hydrocarbon reserves off Brazil’s coast, a Brazilian official said Wednesday.
President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, Gen. James Jones, discussed the matter with officials this week during a visit to the South American country, Brazilian Planning Minister Paulo Bernardo da Silva told reporters. He said the U.S. Export-Import Bank already has signed a letter of intent in that regard with Brazilian state oil company Petrobras…
Why didn’t the American people know about the billions of dollars promised to Petrobras Oil in 2009?
April 12, 2010 Petrobras Expected to Drill 15 Tupi Wells in 2010
Petrobras is working with the expectation that the Bills sent to the National Congress will be approved, and that the capitalization with the Transfer of Rights will take place no later than at the end of July of this year and that the Company is not considering the possibility of a capitalization though the issue of preferred stock (PN) only or other structures of equity issue.
In accordance with the clarification released on March 24, 2010, the Company is considering the execution of the Capitalization to finance part of the investments of the Business Plan foreseen for the 2010 – 2014 period of US $200 billion to US $220 billion, without jeopardizing the maximum net leverage level of 35% and the Net Debt….It is already expected the drilling of an additional well in Iara and 7 exploratory wells and one production well in Tupi, totaling 16 wells http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=91027 Petrobras: Bacia de Santos – Tupi / Franco deepwater oil rig – 3.7 miles below the sea floor in waters 2,189 meters = 7,181 feet deep. The largest offshore sedimentary basin in Brazil, covering an area of 352,000 square kilometers. It starts in Cabo Frio (state of Rio de Janeiro) and extends to Florianópolis (state of Santa Catarina). Slightly more than half the area that has been explored in the basin is in deep (up to 300 meters) and ultra-deep waters (more than 1,500 meters). And it is in the Santos Basin that we ran on to and overcame the great challenge of surpassing a total depth of 7,500 meters in the exploratory drilling of the pre-salt fields. http://www.petrobras.com.br/en/about-us/main-operations/?category=0#anc-9 The 2009-2013 business plan foresees investments in the order of $174.4 billion.
March 18, 2010 The Obama administration is poised to ban offshore oil drilling on the outer continental shelf until 2012 or beyond. Meanwhile, Russia is making a bold strategic leap to begin drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. While the United States attempts to shift gears to alternative fuels to battle the purported evils of carbon emissions, Russia will erect oil derricks off the Cuban coast… Now Russia is using oil exploration to establish a new presence in the Western Hemisphere. It recently concluded four contracts securing oil-exploration rights in Cuba’s economic zone in the Gulf of Mexico. A Russian-Cuban joint partnership will exploit oil found in the deep waters of the Gulf. Cuba has rights to the area in which drilling will be conducted under an agreement the Carter administration recognized. From Russia’s perspective, this is another way to gain leverage inside what traditionally has been America’s sphere of influence….
April 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon deepwater oil rig – 5000 feet deep. Transocean Ltd. (NYSE: RIG) announced that its ultra-deepwater semisubmersible rig Deepwater Horizon recently drilled the deepest oil and gas well ever while working for BP and its co-owners on the Tiber well in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico….Goldman Sachs dumped 44% of its shares in BP Oil during the first quarter – shares that subsequently lost 36 percent of their value, equating to $96 million.Other asset management firms also sold huge blocks of BP stock in the first quarter. Though the amounts pale in comparison to Goldman’s holdings, Wachovia, owned by Wells Fargo, sold 98% of its shares in BP and Swiss bank UBS sold 97% of its BP shares. In the days before the Deepwater explosion, Obama had announced a new effort to explore for and lease new drilling locations in the deep Gulf and in Alaska.
April 20, 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.

May 26, 2010 U.S. steps up Cuba cooperation after Gulf oil spill
(Reuters) – The U.S. government has licensed a Houston-based oil drilling group to travel to Cuba to start cooperation on safety and environmental practices following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The International Association of Drilling Contractors (IADC) said on Wednesday the Obama administration denied it permission to travel to Cuba in December, but reversed the decision apparently due to the attention the BP Plc well blowout brought to the potential for an environmental catastrophe.”The license was granted, curiously, just after the spill in the United States,” said IADC Executive Vice President Brian Petty. “We are pleased the government has relented.”
CUBAN EXPLORATION…
Although the oil that could threaten Cuba is gushing from a well in U.S. waters, experts say there is the same risk of an accident in Cuba’s plans to move forward with deepwater exploration drilling in its Gulf of Mexico waters.”It is highly likely that we will see drilling in Cuban waters later this year,” oil expert Jorge Pinon said at a discussion of U.S.-Cuba engagement in the Gulf of Mexico at the New America Foundation, a Washington think tank. Spanish oil giant Repsol YPF, which found light oil in Cuban deepwaters in 2004, has contracted an Italian-owned, Chinese-built rig that is expected to drill a second exploratory well by year’s end. Several international oil companies have signed risk contracts to explore for oil in Cuba’s Gulf waters, including companies from Brazil, Malaysia, Vietnam and Venezuela. Norway’s Statoil and a unit of India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corp have joined Repsol’s venture. At a conservative estimate, there could be 4.6 billion barrels of undiscovered oil in the Cuban waters of the Gulf, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The general assumption in the oil industry is that the restriction of the use of U.S. deepwater technology under Washington’s trade embargo has delayed exploration of Cuba’s oil and gas potential in the Gulf… http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64P5WN20100526
May 27, 2010 Obama enacts six month drilling moratorium. Transocean Ltd., which leased the Deepwater Horizon to BP stock jumped as much as 3.5 percent in New York trading after the decision was announced.
June 11, 2010 (Reuters) Brazil could benefit from the BP Gulf of Mexico spill as a U.S. moratorium on offshore drilling boosts available rigs for the country’s deep water oil exploration program. Even as an ecological catastrophe makes the future of U.S. offshore drilling less certain, Brazil is plowing ahead with a $220 billion five-year plan to tap oil fields even deeper than BP’s (BP.L) ill-fated Gulf well, which is still leaking crude. With an estimated 35 rigs idled in the Gulf of Mexico, Brazil is already receiving inquiries from companies looking to move their rigs there, where vast discoveries in recent years may soon turn the country into a major crude exporter. “What is bad for some may be good for others,” said Fernando Martins, Latin America Vice President for GE Oil and Gas, which provides services to drillers in Brazil. “Since operators are shutting down at least temporarily in the U.S. Gulf, some companies are planning to move their rigs to Brazil now,” he said, without offering details. The spill has temporarily halted new drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska, and has spurred Norway, which 40 years ago pioneered offshore drilling, to halt new licensing for now. Brazil’s state oil company Petrobras, which already produces around a quarter of the world’s deep water oil, could be an obvious candidate to take newly available rigs. Petrobras declined to comment on the issue. But Mauricio Tolmasquim, a top Brazilian government energy advisor, said this week that he expected the Gulf spill to benefit Petrobras by making more deep water rigs available…adding that cost savings could be offset by higher insurance premiums for drilling operations. Brazilian officials, including government leaders and Petrobras executives, have said Brazil has no intention of slowing its offshore development as a result of the spill…http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1115006620100611 Petrobras’ shareholders approve results and elect Board of Directors: Petrobras Executive: Gulf Drilling On Schedule Despite Spill… DOW JONES NEWSWIRES HOUSTON – Petroleo Brasileiro is on schedule to produce the first oil from its Cascade and Chinook projects in the Gulf of Mexico deepwaters during the second half of this year despite the temporary ban in drilling on the wake of the oil spill disaster in the Gulf, a company executive said Tuesday. Production “will start next semester as scheduled,” Gustavo Tardin Barbosa, Petrobras America’s chief financial officer, told Dow Jones Newswires on the sidelines of an energy conference in Houston. Cascade and Chinook have “so far” not been affected by the temporary drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico, he added. The Obama administration suspended drilling in the Gulf after Transocean Ltd.’s (RIG) Deepwater Horizon rig, which was leased by BP PLC (BP, BP.LN), exploded and sank in late April. The well has been spewing oil since the accident, which killed 11 workers and led to an oil slick that is threatening the U.S. Gulf Coast. Barbosa said the U.S government has not notified the Brazilian state-run energy giant about a possible extension of the moratorium that is set to expire this week. Barbosa also said the oil spill will likely change the regulatory framework for the oil industry around the world and not just the U.S. Once the cause is investigated, “countries will change their regulations,” Barbosa said. “For 2010 – said the president – EWTs are scheduled for Guará and for Northeast Tupi, and production is scheduled to begin in the Tupi Pilot System. These tests are extremely important because they provide the information that is necessary to define the strategy to develop these areas. We reiterate that Brazil’s reserves might double, if the estimated volumes of recoverable oil and gas only in the accumulations that have been tested in the pre-salt are confirmed.” Petrobras’ president and CEO said that “the company overcame the unstable year of 2009 with solid operating and financial results. The consolidation of the oil and gas discoveries in the pre-salt layer off the Brazilian coast, combined with the successful fundraising, have enabled the continuation of the ambitious production targets. Despite the global economic slowdown, we banked on oil price recovery, a fact that was confirmed during the year. We intensified both the investments and the pace of our activities. The bet proved to be right, and allowed us to maintain, uninterrupted, the corporate strategy aimed to expand business in an integrated manner, with profitability, and pursuant to the standards of social and environmental responsibility. “ “This bold action, concluded Gabrielli, led Petrobras to be ranked fourth in market value among global energy companies listed on the market, at $199.2 billion, double the previous year’s. Petrobras also maintained its investment grade rating and secured, for the fourth year in a row, its listing on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. Because of this, Petrobras is rewriting the history of the Brazilian presence on the world oil and energy stage, ensuring considerable reserves for the country and returning to society part of the outcome of its activities.”
June 22, 2010 US Judge overrules Obama deepwater drilling ban “The blanket moratorium, with no parameters, seems to assume that because one rig failed and although no one yet fully knows why, all companies and rigs drilling new wells over 500 feet also universally present an imminent danger,” Feldman wrote in a 22-page opinion. “An invalid agency decision to suspend drilling of wells in depths of over 500 feet simply cannot justify the immeasurable effect on the plaintiffs, the local economy, the Gulf region, and the critical present-day aspect of the availability of domestic energy in this country.” U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman
June 23, 2010 Interior Secretary Salazar seeks to reimpose drilling moratorium…
June 23, 2010 BP Is Pursuing Alaska Drilling Some Call Risky. But about three miles off the coast of Alaska, BP is moving ahead with a controversial and potentially record-setting project to drill two miles under the sea and then six to eight miles horizontally to reach what is believed to be a 100-million-barrel reservoir of oil under federal waters. All other new projects in the Arctic have been halted by the Obama
administration’s moratorium on offshore drilling, including more traditional projects like Shell Oil’s plans to drill three wells in the Chukchi Sea and two in the Beaufort. But BP’s project, called Liberty, has been exempted as regulators have granted it status as an “onshore” project even though it is about three miles off the coast in the Beaufort Sea. The reason: it sits on an artificial island — a 31-acre pile of gravel in about 22 feet of water — built by BP. The project has already received its state and federal environmental permits, but BP has yet to file its final application to federal regulators to begin drilling, which it expects to start in the fall. Some scientists and environmentalists say that other factors have helped keep the project moving forward. Rather than conducting their own independent analysis, federal regulators, in a break from usual practice, allowed BP in 2007 to write its own environmental review for the project as well as its own consultation documents relating to the Endangered Species Act, according to two scientists from the Alaska office of the federal Mineral Management Service that oversees drilling. The environmental assessment was taken away from the agency’s unit that typically handles such reviews, and put in the hands of a different division that was more pro-drilling, said the scientists, who discussed the process because they remained opposed to how it was handled. “The whole process for approving Liberty was bizarre,” one of the federal scientists said. “It makes no sense,” said Rebecca Noblin, the Alaska director for the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental watchdog group. “BP pushes the envelope in the gulf and ends up causing the moratorium. And now in the Arctic they are forging ahead again with untested technology, and as a result they’re the only ones left being allowed to drill there.” …For example, the federal scientists say that BP should never have been allowed to do environmental reviews that are the responsibility of the regulators. And yet, the language of the “environmental consequences” sections of the final 2007 federal assessment and BP’s own assessment submitted earlier the same year are virtually identical.
June 24, 2010 Venezuela to nationalize U.S. firm’s oil rigs
(Reuters) – Venezuela will nationalize a fleet of oil rigs belonging to U.S. company Helmerich and Payne, the latest takeover in a push to socialism as President Hugo Chavez struggles with lower oil output and a recession. A former soldier inspired by Cuba’s Fidel Castro, Chavez has made energy nationalization the linchpin in his ‘revolution’. He has also taken over assets in telecommunications, power, steel and banking. The 11 drilling rigs have been idled for months following a dispute over pending payments by the OPEC member’s state oil company PDVSA. Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said on Wednesday the rigs, the Oklahoma-based company’s entire Venezuelan fleet, were being nationalized to bring them back into production. Ramirez said companies that refused to put their rigs into production were part of a plan to weaken Chavez’s government, “There is a group of drill owners that has refused to discuss tariffs and services with PDVSA and have preferred to keep this equipment stored for a year,” Ramirez told reporters in the oil producing state of Zulia. “That is the specific case with U.S. multinational Helmerich and Payne.” The company was not immediately available for comment.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65N0UM20100624
June 24, 2010Judge Denies U.S.’s Motion To Keep Drilling Ban During Appeal
The U.S. federal judge who earlier this week overturned a six-month ban on deepwater drilling activity denied on Thursday a motion filed by the Obama administration to allow the ban to stay in place during the appeal process. U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman in New Orleans had issued an injunction Tuesday that bars the government from enforcing a drilling ban put in place in late May in response to the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar filed a motion Wednesday to stay that injunction while the government pursued an appeal with the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In an order Thursday, Judge Feldman denied this motion “for the same reasons given” in the Tuesday ruling. In his original ruling, Feldman said the administration hadn’t provided enough facts and that the administration’s decision “simply cannot justify the immeasurable effect” on the plaintiffs, local economy, Gulf region and domestic energy needs that rely on oil. The judge gave Salazar 30 days rather than 21 days “to report compliance” with Tuesday’s order. Officials from Interior Department referred questions to the Department of Justice, whose officials weren’t immediately available for comment. Feldman on Thursday also denied a motion by plaintiffs, including Hornbeck Offshore Services LLC, to enforce his own injunction. This means the government can file an emergency motion with the appeals court asking them to keep in place the drilling moratorium until the legal fight over Feldman’s injunction is resolved. The government is expected to file an emergency motion with the 5th Circuit asking them to keep the moratorium in place until the legal fight over Feldman’s injunction is resolved. An official in the 5th Circuit clerk’s office has said that the court has emergency three-judge panels on standby to handle emergency motions. The judge’s rulings on the drilling ban have been a blow to the Obama administration’s efforts to respond to the ongoing oil spill and counter growing concerns about the impact it is having on the environment. The administration has found itself battling the competing interests of those who are concerned about the environmental toll even as they fret about the economic impact that the moratorium could have on the Gulf Coast. Amid the legal wrangling over the six-month drilling ban, the executive branch is already considering issuing a new, scaled-back drilling moratorium, Salazar told lawmakers Wednesday. Offshore drilling companies and oilfield services companies with extensive operations in the Gulf of Mexico have been hit particularly hard by the uncertainty surrounding the future of deepwater drilling. Shares of companies such as Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. and Noble Corp. briefly jumped on the judge’s latest ruling before quickly giving back those gains. http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/commodities/judge-denies-uss-motion-drilling-ban-appeal/
July 4, 2010 Coast Guard bans reporters from oil cleanup sites
Journalists who come too close to oil spill clean-up efforts without permission could find themselves facing a $40,000 fine and even one to five years in prison under a new rule i
nstituted by the Coast Guard late last week. It’s a move that outraged observers have decried as an attack on First Amendment rights. And CNN’s Anderson Cooper describes the new rules as making it “very easy to hide incompetence or failure.”The Coast Guard order states that “vessels must not come within 20 meters [65 feet] of booming operations, boom, or oil spill response operations under penalty of law.” But since “oil spill response operations” apparently covers much of the clean-up effort on the beaches, CNN’s Anderson Cooper describes the rule as banning reporters from “anywhere we need to be.” http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0704/coast-guard-bans-reporters-oil-cleanup-sites/
Why would the Coast Guard impose fines and jail time to anyone coming close to the oil spill clean-up, especially journalists?
July 12, 2010The economic damage from the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico will be dwarfed by the Obama administration’s moratorium on deep-water drilling, the chief executive officer of a New Orleans business group said. The six-month drilling ban, which the U.S. Interior Department revised today following lawsuits from local businesses, may affect as many as 24,000 jobs in Louisiana, Michael Hecht, president and CEO of economic-development group Greater New Orleans Inc., told a presidential commission today. “Rigs were starting to leave” to drill in other nations, Hecht told reporters after testifying to the commission created by President Barack Obama last month. “The economic impact from the oil spill itself, however broad and long-lasting, will likely be dwarfed by the impact from the moratorium.” The moratorium may reduce local payrolls by almost $2 billion and cause “almost unfathomable” damage to state and local government finances, Landrieu said in a friend-of-the- court brief to the lawsuits on July 2. In Louisiana 320,000 direct and indirect jobs depend on drilling, as do engineers in Houston, according to the filing.
July 15, 2010 BP admits ‘lobbying UK over Libya prisoner transfer scheme but not Lockerbie bomber…BP is facing fresh scrutiny into whether it was involved in the release of the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi, after the oil giant admitted lobbying the British government over a prisoner agreement with Libya. BP said it pressed for a deal
over the controversial prisoner transfer agreement (PTA) amid fears any delays to negotiations would damage its “commercial interests” and disrupt its £900 million offshore drilling operations in the region. But it denied claims that it had been involved in negotiations concerning the release of Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber freed by Scottish authorities last year. The admission came just hours after Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, pledged to investigate allegations of BP’s involvement in his release ahead of its planned new drilling in Libya.July 20th, 2010 Small leaks spring at BP oil well; cap to stay in place for now…
New problems arose in the struggle to contain the Gulf of Mexico oil spill as bubbles and seepage appeared in four areas around the damaged BP well, but Obama administration and company officials agreed to keep the new well cap closed for at least 24 more hours as they weigh the gravity of the developments…. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/19/AR2010071902220.html
July 25, 2010 Bob Dudley is set to be named as the new chief executive of BP within 24 hours as the company launches the fight to repair its reputation and finances. BP said on Monday that its board will meet this evening in London. It’s expected to ratify the resignation of existing chief executive Tony Hayward. Mr Hayward is believed to have been in negotiations over the weekend about his compensation package. Under his contract he is entitled to at least £1.045m – his basic salary – although BP is thought to be keen to avoid any row with the US Government over the scale of the payout. BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg and the rest of the board now accept that, despite many shareholders supporting Mr Hayward, his departure is vital to the company drawing a line under the Gulf of Mexico disaster and planning for the future. This is particularly true in America where Mr Hayward has gained pariah status after a series of gaffes. An unnamed senior US official told American media last night that he was briefed on Mr Hayward’s looming departure last week. Mr Svanberg is expected to stay on for the time being – despite criticism of his role in the crisis. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/7909633/Dudley-poised-to-replace-Tony-Hayward-as-BP-chief.html
July 25, 2010 BOMBSHELL: Obama Administration Backed Release of Lockerbie Bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi…. The Obama administration secretly advised Scottish justice ministers it would be “far preferable” to free the Pan Am 103 Lockerbie bomber than jail him in Libya. Correspondence obtained by The Sunday Times reveals the Obama administration considered compassionate release more “palatable” than locking up Abdel Baset al-Megrahi in a Libyan prison on grounds that he had terminal cancer. The document, acquired by a well-placed U.S. source, threatens to undermine President Obama’s apparently duplicitous claim last week that all Americans were “surprised, disappointed and angry” to learn of Megrahi’s release. Scottish ministers viewed the level of U.S. resistance to compassionate release as “half-hearted” and a sign it would be accepted. U.S. officials have
tried to keep the letter secret, refusing to give permission to the Scottish authorities to publish it on the grounds it would prevent future “frank and open communications” with other governments. In the letter, sent on August 12 last year to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond and justice officials, Mr LeBaron wrote that the U.S. wanted Megrahi to remain jailed in view of the nature of the horrific crime. Despite the controversy over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and Megrahi’s release, it emerged over the weekend that BP is planning deep-water drilling off Libya within weeks. It is perfectly clear that the Obama administration is speaking out of both sides of its mouth on regarding the early release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi. The administration can’t pretend to stand with the family members of the victims of Pan Am flight 103, while it stands with UK, Libya, and BP…http://fromtheleft.wordpress.com/2010/07/25/bombshell-obama-administration-backed-release-of-lockerbie-bomber-abdel-baset-al-megrahi/
US politicians are demanding to know if BP lobbied for the release of the Lockerbie bomber yet they have been accused of taking a fortune in donations from the oil giant….
President Barack Obama is said to have received $71,051- around £46,000 – and his secretary of state Hillary Clinton $6700 from the firm that both have criticized since the Gulf of Mexico oil spill….
July 26, 2010 BP Oil Spill: Clean-Up Crews Can’t Find Crude in the Gulf
For 86 days, oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico from BP’s damaged well, dumping some 200 million gallons of crude into sensitive ecosystems. BP and the federal government have slick was the size of Kansas, but it has been rapidly shrinking,http://abcnews.go.com/WN/bp-oil-spill-crude-mother-nature-breaks-slick/story?id=11254252 amassed an army to clean the oil up, but there’s one problem — they’re having trouble finding it. At its peak last month, the oil now down to the size of New Hampshire. Today, ABC News surveyed a marsh area and found none, and even on a flight out to the rig site Sunday with the Coast Guard, there was no oil to be seen….
July 27, 2010 BP’s Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward, the man who headed oil company throughout the three-month-long Gulf oil disaster, will step down on October 1, the company said Tuesday. He will be replaced by Bob Dudley, who got his start in the oil business working for Amoco, where he spent nearly two decades before the company merged with BP in 1998.
Since then, Dudley has worked with various BP divisions, including a brief stint helping to oversee the company’s solar, wind and hydrogen businesses. The company made the announcement before releasing its quarterly earnings: a $17.15 billion loss. http://www.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/07/27/bp.hayward/?hpt=T1
July 28, 2010 BP’s Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward will head up BP’s Siberian branch.
Obama administration lifts deep-water drilling moratorium
October 12, 2010
The Obama administration is lifting the moratorium on deep-water oil drilling — put in place after the Gulf oil spill disaster — for operators who comply with tough new rules and regulations, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Tuesday.
“There will always be risks associated with deep-water drilling,” Salazar said. “We have reached a point where we have significantly reduced those risks.”
The six-month moratorium was first issued by Salazar in May after the April 20 explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 people and triggered one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history. An estimated 4.9 million barrels (206 million gallons) of oil gushed into the Gulf before the broken well, 5,000 feet below the surface, was capped.
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-10-12/us/drilling.moratorium_1_deep-water-drilling-drilling-rig-oil-drilling?_s=PM:US
October 28, 2010
WASHINGTON — Halliburton knew weeks before the fatal explosion of the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico that the cement mixture they planned to use to seal the bottom of the well was unstable but still went ahead with the job, the presidential commission investigating the accident said on Thursday.
In the first official finding of responsibility for the blowout, which killed 11 workers and led to the largest offshore oil spill in American history, the commission staff determined that Halliburton had conducted three laboratory tests that indicated that the cement mixture did not meet industry standards.
The result of at least one of those tests was given on March 8 to BP, which failed to act upon it, the panel’s lead investigator, Fred H. Bartlit Jr., said in a letter delivered to the commissioners on Thursday…
WHO BOUGHT SHARES IN HALLIBURTON IN 2007…GEORGE SOROS!
Soros makes Halliburton stealth buy…Report reveals billionaire funder of left-wing groups invests more than $62 million
December 2, 2010…Obama Administration Imposes Seven-year Drilling Moratorium
BP says sees support from govts after oil spill
December 3, 2010
…On Monday, Brazil’s state oil regulator, ANP, said it would wait until 2011 to decide whether to approve BP’s proposed purchase of Devon Energy’s offshore oil blocks.
Haroldo Lima, director general of the ANP, told Reuters in an interview it was still awaiting specific information it had sought from BP, chiefly about its strategy and intentions in Brazilian oil as well as more details about the recent oil rig disaster in Gulf of Mexico.
Analysts said they had expected the deal, announced in March, to close sooner.
“Brazil is particularly significant for us as we are preparing to operate in the deepwater there … I am hopeful that approval will be granted in the near future,” Dudley said.
BP wants to expand in Brazil and has held talks with state oil company Petrobras about working together further and is considering participating in bidding for exploration rights, including some for very deep areas below the salt layer, Dudley said.
http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/world-news/bp-says-sees-supportgovts-after-oil-spill_502922.html
The moratorium continues in the Gulf of Mexico, why? Could it be more of the green agenda of the Obama administration?


Drilling mud..the actual material, water-based muds, removed from the borehole from the drilling operation. To this mud barium sulphate, potassium chloride, bentonite, caustic soda, citric acid, soda ash and polymers are added for stabilizing and weighting. Drilling muds and drill cuttings can be contaminated by a variety of heavy metals such as mercury, chromium, cadmium, lead and barium. The initial drill cuttings are deposited on the seabed. Subsequent material is discharged at the surface of the oil rig but will eventually deposit on the seafloor. This is likely to be the most significant and regular impact on the deep sea. In just 30 years in the North Sea 1.5 million tons of drill cuttings were left on the seafloor. http://deepseanews.com/2010/05/anatomy-of-an-ecological-catastrophe-what-to-expect-in-the-deep-gulf-of-mexico/
After the oil spill off the Gulf of Mexico fish around the oil rigs had a high concentration of mercury, chromium, barium, arsenic, cadmium and other heavy metals making them questionable for consumption. High volumes of heavy metals discharged from the oil rigs disrupt the oceans food chain causing life cycle mutagenic damages…

Planes all the sudden stop spraying the skies with chemicals across the United States after the moratorium…why?

What is going on with Washington DC ?
Why did the Obama administration have progressive organizations represent the people who work on the rigs ? Why isn’t there drilling in 500′ of water?
2012
No wonder Obama visted the EPA this January!
EPA = Recovery Act!
Recovery Act = $60 million allocated to the ARM Climate Research Facility!
Obama Visits EPA, Vows to Support in 2012
President Obama visited the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Jan. 10 and pledged to stand by its work amid growing attacks by industry…“I want you to know that you’ve got a President who is grateful for your work and will stand with you every inch of the way as you carry out your mission,” Obama said. “I don’t buy the notion that we have to make a choice between having clean air and clean water and growing this economy in a robust way… I think that is a false debate.” The speech comes as the EPA prepares to execute its ambitious agenda for 2012, which includes the implementation of new mercury and clean-air regulations and the unveiling of new climate-change rules, all of which are expected to face intense political backlash.
ARM and the Recovery Act
Through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science received $1.2 billion, with $60 million allocated to the ARM Climate Research Facility.
http://www.arm.gov/about/recovery-act
Campaign : The Two Column Aerosol Project (TCAP)
This campaign is designed to provide a detailed set of observations with which to 1) perform radiative and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) closure studies, 2) evaluate a new retrieval algorithm for aerosol optical depth (AOD) in the presence of clouds using passive remote sensing 3) extend a previously developed technique to investigate aerosol indirect effects, and 4) evaluate the performance of a detailed regional-scale model and a more parameterized global-scale model in simulating particle activation and AOD associated with the aging of anthropogenic aerosols. To meet these science objectives, the ARM Mobile Facility (AMF) and the Mobile Aerosol Observing System (MAOS) will be deployed on Cape Cod (MA) for a 12-month period starting in the summer of 2012 in order to quantify aerosol properties, radiation and cloud characteristics at a location subject to both clear- and cloudy- conditions, and clean- and polluted-conditions. These observations will be supplemented by two aircraft intensive observation periods (IOPS), one in the summer and a second in the winter. Each IOP will require two aircraft. The first aircraft will be equipped with a suite of in situ instrumentation to provide measurements of aerosol optical properties, particle composition (sampled through both an isokinetic and counterflow virtual impactor inlets) and direct-beam irradiance. The second aircraft will fly directly over the first and use a multiwavelength High Spectral Resolution Lidar and scanning polarimeter to provide continuous optical and cloud properties in the column below. Each mission will consist of the two aircraft simultaneously making measurements within two columns of air. One column will be located over the AMF/MAOS Cape Cod site while a second column will be located a few hundred kilometers east of Cape Cod. The in situ aircraft will make a series of stair-step profiles within the first column followed by sampling within and above the marine boundary layer as it transits to the second, more remote column for a second set of stair-step profiles. The second aircraft will provide concurrent downward profiling measurements from above.
Planned flights: 2012-07-06 — 2012-07-30; and February 2013 (TBD)
RESEARCH NEEDS AND STRATEGIES FOR INTERNATIONAL COORDINATION
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
OCTOBER 2010
During the 111th Congress, the U.S. Committee launched an initiative to better understand
the issues surrounding climate engineering, and collaborated with the U.K. Committee to explore the subject.
The U.S. Committee convened three public hearings to explore the science, governance, risks, and research needs associated with climate engineering. A summary of each hearing follows this section.
This report consolidates information gathered during eighteen months of inquiry, and focuses on the research needs associated with climate engineering. It identifies key research capacities, skills, and tools located within U.S. federal agencies that could be leveraged to inform climate engineering science responsibly….
Climate engineering, or geoengineering, can be defined as the deliberate large-scale modification of the earth’s climate systems for the purpose of counteracting and mitigating anthropogenic climate change. The strategies which fall under this definition are loosely organized into two types: Solar Radiation Management and Carbon Dioxide Removal.
Solar Radiation Management (SRM) methods propose to reflect a fraction of the sun’s radiation back into space,3 thereby reducing the amount of solar radiation trapped in the earth’s atmosphere and stabilizing its energy balance.
Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) methods, also known as Air Capture (AC), propose to reduce excess CO2 concentrations by capturing CO2 directly from the air and storing the captured gases as a solid through mineralization, or consuming it via biological processes. CDR is different from direct capture, which targets carbon from a single point source and stores it in sedimentary formations. A
comprehensive discussion of the variety of proposed strategies can be found in the U.K. Royal Society report, discussed below, although it is expected that some proposals for climate engineering will continue to evolve into completely new technical concepts over time.
While proposals for climate engineering in some form have been around for decades, climate
change research and regulation efforts have been almost wholly focused on mitigation through emissions reductions and, more recently, adaptation to the effects of a changing climate. Because of the inherent risks and uncertainties, climate engineering, thus far, has not represented a technically viable, environmentally sound, or politically prudent option for preventing or adapting to climate change. However, in recent years a growing number of credible scientific bodies have engaged in more serious deliberation to the concept of climate engineering.
Geoengineering Cost Analysis Final Report - Prepared Under Contract to The University Of Calgary
October 30, 2010
Executive Summary
Geoengineering has been defined as: “the deliberate large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment to counteract anthropogenic climate change.”
As Lord Rees, chair of The Royal Society, wrote in the forward to the Society’s 2009 report on geoengineering.
“The continuing rise in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases, mainly
caused by the burning of fossil fuels, is driving changes in the Earth’s climate. The long-term consequences will be exceedingly threatening, especially if nations continue ‘business as usual.’ in the coming decades. Most nations now recognize the need to shift to a low-carbon economy, and nothing should divert us from the main priority of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions.
But if such reductions achieve too little, too late, there will surely be pressure to consider a ‘plan B.’.—to seek ways to counteract the climatic effects of greenhouse gas emissions by ‘geoengineering’. Far more detailed study would be needed before any method could even be seriously considered for deployment on the requisite international scale. Moreover, it is already clear than none offers a ‘silver bullet’, and that some options are far more problematic than others.”
5.3.1 Large passenger and cargo transport airplanes are well suited to geoengineering due to their size and affordability but provide limited usefulness due to a lack of high-altitude capability. Regional operations allow the Boeing 747 to operate from 1 or more bases and carry a large payload of 128,000 kg (less than max capacity to allow for better performance at max altitude) per sortie, requiring 47 sorties per day from the fleet. At a release rate of 0.03 kg/m flown, mission lengths are short enough to allow a fleet of 14 747s to execute the 47 sorties a day. By limiting leg length to the 1,600 km required to hit the preferred dispersal rate, fuel burn is kept to 0.016 kg/m per aircraft. Altitude is limited to 13.7 km (45kft).
Costs are as follows:
Aircraft Acquisition Cost: $0.8 Billion FY10 USD / Yearly Operations cost: $1.0 Billion FY10 USD / Yearly Total Cost (including depreciation and interest): $1.1 Billion FY10 USD
…analysis shows airplane geoengineering is possible up to 30.5 km (100kft), at these altitudes, the need for development of a new high altitude propulsion system provides a large amount of uncertainty to aircraft development costs
http://theintelhubradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/AuroraGeoRep…


Normal ice formation…
A top Republican senator has ordered an investigation into the Environmental Protection Agency’s alleged suppression of a report that questioned the science behind global warming.
The 98-page report, co-authored by EPA analyst Alan Carlin, pushed back on the prospect of regulating gases like carbon dioxide as a way to reduce global warming. Carlin’s report argued that the information the EPA was using was out of date, and that even as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have increased, global temperatures have declined.
“He came out with the truth. They don’t want the truth at the EPA,” Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla, a global warming skeptic, told FOX News, saying he’s ordered an investigation. “We’re going to expose it.”
The controversy comes after the House of Representatives passed a landmark bill to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, one that Inhofe said will be “dead on arrival” in the Senate despite President Obama’s energy adviser voicing confidence in the measure.
According to internal e-mails that have been made public by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Carlin’s boss told him in March that his material would not be incorporated into a broader EPA finding and ordered Carlin to stop working on the climate change issue. The draft EPA finding released in April lists six greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, that the EPA says threaten public health and welfare.
An EPA official told FOXNews.com on Monday that Carlin, who is an economist — not a scientist — included “no original research” in his report. The official said that Carlin “has not been muzzled in the agency at all,” but stressed that his report was entirely “unsolicited.”
“It was something that he did on his own,” the official said. “Though he was not qualified, his manager indulged him and allowed him on agency time to draft up … a set of comments.”
Despite the EPA official’s remarks, Carlin told FOXNews.com on Monday that his boss, National Center for Environmental Economics Director Al McGartland, appeared to be pressured into reassigning him.
Carlin said he doesn’t know whether the White House intervened to suppress his report but claimed it’s clear “they would not be happy about it if they knew about it,” and that McGartland seemed to be feeling pressure from somewhere up the chain of command.
Carlin said McGartland told him he had to pull him off the climate change issue.
“It was reassigning you or losing my job, and I didn’t want to lose my job,” Carlin said, paraphrasing what he claimed were McGartland’s comments to him. “My inference (was) that he was receiving some sort of higher-level pressure.”
Carlin said he personally does not think there is a need to regulate carbon dioxide, since “global temperatures are going down.” He said his report expressed a “good bit of doubt” on the connection between the two.
Specifically, the report noted that global temperatures were on a downward trend over the past 11 years, that scientists do not necessarily believe that storms will become more frequent or more intense due to global warming, and that the theory that temperatures will cause Greenland ice to rapidly melt has been “greatly diminished.”
Carlin, in a March 16 e-mail, argued that his comments are “valid, significant” and would be critical to the EPA finding.
McGartland, though, wrote back the next day saying he had decided not to forward his comments.
“The administrator and the administration has decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision,” he wrote, according to the e-mails released by CEI. “I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office.”
He later wrote an e-mail urging Carlin to “move on to other issues and subjects.”
“I don’t want you to spend any additional EPA time on climate change. No papers, no research, etc., at least until we see what EPA is going to do with climate,” McGartland wrote.
The EPA said in a written statement that Carlin’s opinions were in fact considered, and that he was not even part of the working group dealing with climate change in the first place.
“Claims that this individual’s opinions were not considered or studied are entirely false. This administration and this EPA administrator are fully committed to openness, transparency and science-based decision making,” the statement said. “The individual in question is not a scientist and was not part of the working group dealing with this issue. Nevertheless the document he submitted was reviewed by his peers and agency scientists, and information from that report was submitted by his manager to those responsible for developing the proposed endangerment finding. In fact, some ideas from that document are included and addressed in the endangerment finding.”
The e-mail exchanges and suggestions of political interference sparked a backlash from Republicans in Congress.
Reps. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., and Darrell Issa, R-Calif., also wrote a letter last week to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson urging the agency to reopen its comment period on the finding. The EPA has since denied the request.
Citing the internal e-mails, the Republican congressmen wrote that the EPA was exhibiting an “agency culture set in a predetermined course.”
“It documents at least one instance in which the public was denied access to significant scientific literature and raises substantial questions about what additional evidence may have been suppressed,” they wrote.
In a written statement, Issa said the administration is “actively seeking to withhold new data in order to justify a political conclusion.”
“I’m sure it was very inconvenient for the EPA to consider a study that contradicted the findings it wanted to reach,” Sensenbrenner said in a statement, adding that the “repression” of Carlin’s report casts doubt on the entire finding.
Carlin said he’s concerned that he’s seeing “science being decided at the presidential level.”
“Now Mr. Obama is in effect directly or indirectly saying that CO2 causes global temperatures to rise and that we have to do something about it. … That’s normally a scientific judgment and he’s in effect judging what the science says,” he said. “We need to look at it harder.”
The controversy is similar to one under the Bush administration — only the administration was taking the opposite stance. In that case, scientist James Hansen claimed the administration was trying to keep him from speaking out and calling for reductions in greenhouse gases. (FOX News’ Major Garrett contributed to this report.)
98 page document: http://cei.org/cei_files/fm/active/0/DOC062509-004.pdf
























