PowerSwitch

Having been always doomerish in my outlook the realisation of imminent peak oil really only confirmed many of my fears and clarified a lot of mis-conceptions I had about possible (bad) ends for society. In the year 2000 I was single, at the bad end of failed relationship, with a career going nowhere...

This is probably another accidental explosion caused by locals breaking a pipeline to steal the oil for local consumption. It is near Lagos, and away (as far as I know) from the oil producing regions and terminals, so it is unlikely to affect exports. The markets seem to have responded with a short ...

A quick look at the map shows that Isreal is surrounded by six muslim (or majority muslim) states. For an air strike on Iran Isrealli jets would have to overfly at least two of these and the most direct route takes them directly over Bagdhad. Either the Irealis are supremely confident their aircraft...

He recons there is a very immenient big breakthrough on Hydrogen; he explained it to me but it went way over my head. It could also be used for heavier space exploration were oil could be discovered for the food growning purposes. He was and is rather optimistic over the future despite PO. Err, we ...

Speaking from experience, when you are cutting coppice with handsaws
from ancient woodland to feed your high efficiency woodstove in Febuary
in a strong north-east wind flecked with hail, then a decent brush
reduces the area you need to protect from the cold considerably!

Cheers

Ralph

Although the light sweet crude oil price remains below an inflation-adjusted high of $97.21, reached in 1980, nervousness remains among traders about a further jump. Is is me, or is the inflation-adjusted record high inflating? I seem to remember a year or two back it was below $80. Maybe we are li...

Our current intention is to make injection capability operational before production. One critical element in restoring injection capability is the replacement of up to 30km of cabling. This work is underway. There are also two cooler units on the injection train which are identical in design to the...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1727977,00.html Mr Benn told the programme that civil servants in his department kept the deals secret from him and his predecessor, Frank Cousins. He had always suspected that civil servants were doing deals behind his back, but he never thought they would...

Possibly this was the diet of the middle classes and the rich, with the poor chewing on turnips or something. Not so far from the truth, apparently... . . . Esther Copley's Cottage Cookery (1849) suggests the poverty of the rural diet, for her recipes were for potato pie, stirabout, stewed ox-cheek...

from CNN

Shots and an explosion have been heard at oil refinery in Baqiq, eastern Saudi Arabia, the pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Arabiya TV reported Friday, quoting its own reporter.

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast ... finery.ap/

I am reading Lovelock's 'The Revenge of Gaia' and it is nothing short of apocalyptic on AGW. His argument is that if the earth did not contain any life, it would be much hotter, perhaps 45C average. This is because over the 3 billion years since live evolved the sun has increased its output by about...

I would question the fatality rate of the current human infections. Given that most outbreaks are in developing countries with limitted medical facilities, I would expect most infections to go unreported and undetected if they only caused mild to moderate symptoms. There will be heavy bias towards t...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4688452.stm He's going to get a nasty surprise when the UK follows Japan and passenger miles fall courtesy of rising prices :D http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4684456.stm Passenger numbers fell about 2% during the period at 44.04 million people from 44.84 ...

This is a 'comedy' show to be screened on More4 next month. Robert is obviously a peaknic based on this piece in today's grauniad : http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1699956,00.html There is a write-up of the record of the show by one of the live audience here. http://www.garbledonline.net/...

As far as British nukes are concerned, they are of course a US supplied missile system which I understood to be guided by GPS, so the US has absolute veto on our using them, because they can turn off the signal. (I assume the US built in some sort of signalling or have very fast launch detecting sat...