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'Hydrogen highway' bad route, group saysAlternative fuel championed by governor flawed, but proponents say give it more time By Harrison SheppardSACRAMENTO BUREAU Saturday, November 20, 2004 - SACRAMENTO -- A report by a libertarian think tank seeks to debunk Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plans for a "hydrogen highway" by claiming hydrogen-fueled vehicles will make little difference in reducing harmful emissions. The report released this week by the Reason Foundation argues that even while hydrogen itself may be clean-burning, the processes used to manufacture and distribute hydrogen are dirty enough to nearly negate the benefits -- and the cost of conversion isn't...

Fill 'er up with ... coal? GILBERTON, Pa. -- Cars running on coal? It could happen in this country -- some day. John Rich Jr., whose family has worked the anthracite coal seams of eastern Pennsylvania for a century, plans to turn a $100 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy into the nation's first commercial plant converting waste coal, or culm, into low-emissions diesel fuel. Updating a technology first developed by German scientists in the 1920s, the $612 million plant would produce 5,000 barrels of diesel a day, eliminate hundreds of unsightly culm banks, and provide jobs in...

I have created a public register of "bump lists" here on Free Republic. I define a bump list as a name listed in the "To" field used to index articles. Free Republic Bump List Register

<p>This was going to be a column about oil. Instead, it's also about disease, poison, and a cool way to get rid of both. Actually, it's about a new technology — a new process that is going to make a Difference. One that's going to change things, and one you're going to be hearing a lot more about.</p>

Mining the moon for energy on Earth Bush's space visions kindle zeal for project of Madison scientists By SUSANNE QUICKsquick@journalsentinel.com Posted: Jan. 19, 2004 Forget about drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison think all the energy we need for the next millennium can be found on the moon. UW-Madison Photo/Joe Koshollek Gerald Kulcinski, a University of Wisconsin-Madison nuclear engineering professor, displays the only helium-3 reactor in the world, which is in his lab at the university. Helium-3 litters the moon's surface, he says. The energy source, helium-3, literally litters the...

Will Baron Rothschild give shares to President Putin? It seems that the main problem is solved: oil oligarch, head of Yukos Mikhail Khodorkovsky is waiting for his attorney in a cosy chamber meant for four prisoners of the detention center #4. But according to the Russian tradition, as soon as people do something they start thinking why it has been done. As it turns out, this aspect of the problem has not been considered yet. The Russian mass media report that for fear to lose the control over Yukos, Russia's largest and one of the world largest oil companies, the...

<p>The CIA and the Iraq Survey Group failed to pursue information that Iraq smuggled uranium to Iran five years ago, according to a former State Department official.</p> <p>The former Reagan administration official, Michael Ledeen, said in an interview that the CIA also blocked the Pentagon from pursuing contacts with an Iranian informant who provided information that "saved lives" of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.</p>

MOSCOW -(Dow Jones)- Russian Energy Minister Igor Yusufov said Friday that the government won't play an active role in shifting the denomination of oil contracts from U.S. dollars to euros. "It's a decision that will ultimately be made between the buyer and the seller," Yusufov told reporters at a briefing. "I don't see anything negative in going into a euro-based system." Yusufov's statement comes one day after Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) said that pricing of oil contracts in euros was "possible". Yusufov said that he saw a possible deal between Russia's largest oil company YukosSibneft, a...

President Vladimir Putin said Thursday Russia could switch its trade in oil from dollars to euros, a move that could have far-reaching repercussions for the global balance of power -- potentially hurting the U.S. dollar and economy and providing a massive boost to the euro zone. "We do not rule out that it is possible. That would be interesting for our European partners," Putin said at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in the Urals town of Yekaterinburg, where the two leaders conducted two-day talks. "But this does not depend solely on us. We do not want...

<p>September 29, 2003 -- FORGET anger on the Arab street. The emotion pervading OPEC, the offshore haven for the world's richest Mideast despots, is fear.</p> <p>At first glance, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries seems in fine form. The Saudi-dominated price-fixing cartel met in Vienna Wednesday to cut oil production quotas by 3.5 percent. The move proved the cartel can still shock: The surprise pushed oil-future prices up 5 percent and sent stock markets tumbling.</p>

The civil protection agency in Italy says a power cut has left large parts of the country in darkness. A spokesman said that as yet it was not possible to say how many areas were affected, or what the cause of the blackout was. The BBC's David Willey in Rome said he woke to find that there was no power at all, and only battery-powered appliances were working. He says that Rome, the Vatican and Naples are among the areas affected.

<p>VIENNA -- Iraq's oil minister, in his strongest overtures so far to foreign investors, invited international oil companies to pitch investment ideas to Baghdad and said the country's interim government plans to quickly seek outside help in developing its vast but dilapidated petroleum industry.</p>

The U.S. Senate yesterday approved the Bush administration’s full request for research into new types of nuclear weapons, rejecting a Democratic effort to eliminate funding for those and other nuclear weapon activities (see GSN, Sept. 16). The Senate voted 53-41 to reject an amendment offered by Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) that would have eliminated $21 million requested by the Bush administration to explore earth-penetrating and low-yield nuclear weapons. Their amendment would also have delayed site selection for a new plutonium “pit” production facility and ended an effort to reduce the time needed to prepare for resuming...

The Associated Press WASHINGTON Sept. 9 — A plan to help build nuclear power plants with federal loan guarantees has been shelved as part of Congress' energy bill, according to supporters of the program. Still, lawmakers are continuing to discuss ways to help the nuclear industry develop the next generation of reactors, including expansion of government-sponsored research and tax benefits for such plants, according to people involved in the discussions. The proposed loan guarantees had been included in legislation the Senate was considering but fell by the wayside when that version was abandoned in favor of one that contained only...

<p>Scientists at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst have developed a battery that uses iron-breathing bacteria to eat the sugars in carbohydrates and turn them into electricity. Previous research has shown it is possible to use microbes to turn organic matter into electricity, but the process required the use of added materials to shuttle the electrons, making such fuel cells expensive and not long-lasting.</p>

<p>Following the major blackout on the East Coast last week, the demand for Distributed Generation -- using small, on-site power plants -- is heating up.</p> <p>Distributed Generation is like having a small power plant on-site at a commercial or industrial property. While the property still is connected to the grid, it gets its heat and power from natural gas fired generators so it never has to lose power in a blackout.</p>

ASHINGTON, Aug. 19 — President Bush stood at a gasoline station near his ranch in Texas today and said he had been calling for an energy bill to modernize the nation's electricity grid "for a long time." Mr. Bush is quite right. A comprehensive energy policy was part of his platform as a candidate for president and seemed prescient from his very first week in office, when he was forced to ensure there was enough power in California to ease the state's rolling blackouts. By May 2001, largely because of the California crisis, Mr. Bush had released his energy plan....

DISCOVER Vol. 24 No. 5 (May 2003) Table of Contents Anything into Oil Technological savvy could turn 600 million tons of turkey guts and other waste into 4 billion barrels of light Texas crude each year By Brad Lemley Photography by Tony Law Gory refuse, from a Butterball Turkey plant in Carthage, Missouri, will no longer go to waste. Each day 200 tons of turkey offal will be carted to the first industrial-scale thermal depolymerization plant, recently completed in an adjacent lot, and be transformed into various useful products, including 600 barrels of light oil. In an industrial park in...

The Slammer worm penetrated a private computer network at Ohio's Davis-Besse nuclear power plant in January and disabled a safety monitoring system for nearly five hours, despite a belief by plant personnel that the network was protected by a firewall, SecurityFocus has learned. The breach did not post a safety hazard. The troubled plant had been offline since February, 2002, when workers discovered a 6-by-5-inch hole in the plant's reactor head. Moreover, the monitoring system, called a Safety Parameter Display System, had a redundant analog backup that was unaffected by the worm. But at least one expert says the case...

PARK RIDGE, Ill. — California and the automotive industry settled their legal differences last week, setting the stage for the emergence of fuel cell cars and likely writing off any broad acceptance of battery-powered vehicles. General Motors Corp., DaimlerChrysler Corp., Isuzu Motors Ltd. and approximately a dozen vehicle dealers agreed to drop their lawsuit against the state in return for new zero-emission-vehicle regulations that would no longer force automakers to build battery-powered cars."The key is the enactment of those [regulations]," said a GM spokesman. "Once that happens, all of us will dismiss the lawsuit and move forward."Issued by the California...