Europe faces energy crisis as Vladimir Putin cuts Russian gas supply
Europe has been plunged into an energy crisis after Vladimir Putin ordered Russia’s state-run gas company to cut supplies by 20 per cent.

As temperatures dropped below zero across much of Europe, the Russian prime minister instructed the head of Gazprom: “Cut it – starting today.”

The cut was ordered to punish neighbouring Ukraine, which Russia accuses of topping up its own gas supply by siphoning off energy meant for European consumers and sent through its pipelines.

But Naftogaz, Ukraine’s state-run gas company, said that it was European Union countries, including Britain, that would feel the effects of an increasingly bitter East-West energy row.

Browse by accuweather sometime. We miss your posts over there.

“Global warming threat to ski industry”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7809254.stm

Just tell them (the politicians) No. No CO2 cap and trade, No CO2 tax and No CO2 regulations. They (the politicians) understand being voted out of office. They (the politicians) understand being challenged in court. They (the politicians) understand bad press.

“Since CO2 is not the problem and governments already have many income streams, why would you allow them (governments) to create a new bureaucracy in the name of CO2?”

I don’t want them to, but if they are going to do anything, a carbon tax “at the mine” could (I think**) be done with much less bureaucracy than cap & trade on CO2 emissions. I think that’s what Hansen says also. Perhaps we should celebrate a bit of rationality from him.

** I know that just because it could doesn’t mean it would. Why? Because many disgruntled Cap & Traders will want revenge on the taxers and they’ll get it by creating odious regulations to implement the tax which will necessitate all sorts of data, tests, verifications and a bazillion inspectors which will make Cap & Trade look cheap.

This will be used by the elite bankers who govern our planet to further their fascist green socialist agenda blaming every hazard on the ignorant

Methane digesters work, but are somewhat slow and very large (best suited to pig farms and other places with lots of land) for the amount of methane produced. They also work best at high temperatures (ie tropical…) so in cold climates you have a heating and insulating problem (& cost) to solve. A 50 gallon digester will give enough methane to light a small candle sized flame… to heat your home would take a digester volume bigger than your yard full of swimming pool. Hot swimming pool. In the snow.

Ukraine has coal (though from what I can tell the mines are not run well / safely) and can kiss off Russian oil & gas by using their coal. It can be made into gas (producer gas, water gas, synthesis gas) and that can be further turned into methane / ethane / gasoline or Diesel fuel if desired.

Many companies around the world know how to do this, though the ones I find most interesting are SSL Sasol, RTK Rentech, SYNM Syntroleum, and SYMX Synthesis Energy Co. RTK has a plant near Los Angeles turning trash into fuels. SYMX and SSL have contracts to build facilities in China (who have clue). This is not a ‘theoretical’, it’s a solution.

I can only conclude that Ukraine are posturing / negotiating the relative rate for their gas transport fees.

Sadly, that won’t happen. I don’t think.

It’s like animal rights idiots expecting proper medicines and fancy perfumes. Try killing a few humans by testing drugs on them without animals first, eh? Try the animal rights activists as ‘guinea pigs’, eh? Yeah right…….

2009 should be about the following:
1. Acceptance of the striking PDO/AMO link to US temperature, in the absence of rigorous evidence implying artefacts/data fudging.
2. Setting up of similar evidence-based projects to study link to Europe.
3. Setting up of a 50 year interim power strategy (coal, gas, nuclear, with carbon abatement technology to make coal ‘clean’) to keep the world heated and lit until ‘renewables’ have been adequately tested, scaled-up, productised and cheapened to allow them to serve our needs effectively.
4. Committing to a 100 year monitoring project of surface temperature, air temperatures and arctic/antarctic ice patterns, linked to oceanic parameters, thereby building an evidence base to justify actions in the 22nd century if appropriate.
5. Developing geoengineering technology as a SINGLE, GLOBAL initiative: it is simply UNACCEPTABLE for any country to effect local climate change using such technology, since this will affect the whole world in pretty unpredictable ways. Wars using such technology are a risk in the absence of a single worldwide global deal being struck.
6. Debunking carbon dioxide theories unless scientifically rigorous proofs emerge that it has a significant role to play.
7. Planning for global cooling if the sunspot cycle is delayed another 6 months or more.

IMHO
4.

So what’s new? The version in the link is a completely conventional run-through of Snowball/Slushball Earth theory. The only new thing is a new proxy for measuring CO2 in the atmosphere (which was already known to have been extremely high from study of cap carbonates).

The whole incident just highlights the incredible ignorance of MSM journalists and their “slanting” of news. In short: never believe anything you read about climate in the MSM without checking it first.

Leader of the Nationals in the Senate Barnaby Joyce writes to the Agmates community.

“Every age comes up with a witch to burn, a sect that apparently if it is not succumbed will bring about the destruction of an empire, an issue that occupies the rigours of the day.”

http://tinyurl.com/7opzv7

The claim in the nuclear section that the LFTR reactor design is needed to solve the concerns that have “prevented Thorium from being used in solid fueled nuclear reactors” is false. Thorium Power (THPW) is a company that makes solid fuel bundles with Thorium. They have bundles in reactors today doing long term burn / acceptance tests.

http://www.thoriumpower.com/default2.asp?nav=technology_solutions&subnav=tech_pub

The notion that we need to develop a whole new reactor design to use Thorium is seriously broken. The bundles can be, and presently are being, loaded into a Russian standard power reactor today.

I thought it was ’cause Texans figgr’d 10,000 sq. ft. was a good enough size for a small cottage, but a Big House, well, those needed a bit more room!

(Wife’s family is from Texas & I’ve learned to speak a bit of it myself ;-)

California talks a lot of BS, but when are they going to be the leader in wind? All along their coast: from San Diego (thru Malibu) to San Francisco, and up to Sacra(mental). I can just picture those towers behind the Golden Gate Bridge.

We’re too busy destroying our industry to build anything. Besides, tacky things don’t belong near the coast; they belong in places that are flat, and empty, and don’t have beaches… We don’t need to actually do anything, we just need to tell you what to do; oh, and import stuff from folks who, like, do do things … you wouldn’t mind sending us some electricity would you? Oh, and $40 Billion of Tarp money too… You better or we’ll wash your windshield…

I have not verified it, but I heard on the TV that California had one IPO last year. One. So much for wealth creation… We’re headed for a deficit variously estimated at $10 Billion now to $40+ Billion next year. The state is planning to send IOUs to employees starting in February. They did this once before a few years back, so it’s not an idle threat. The answer from our legislature? Raise more taxes… “Beatings will continue until moral improves” and “Taxes will be raised until businesses return to the state”…

It saddens me greatly that the once great state of California that made more fortunes than anywhere has come to such ruin. It makes me more worried to see the same disease propagating to DC. If you want to know what’s in store for the rest of the country, just look at what the same folks and the green socialism agenda did here. (And no, I’m not a republican. I’m an independent… I think they all stink.)

Oh, and I second the hope that a frozen no sun spots winter will dampen the AGW enthusiasm… here and abroad. Go Vaclav!

Disclaimer: I’m not funded by big or little oil, and don’t own XOM stock.

I’m not funded by anyone either, dang it. I do own oil stocks, but I’m only buying OOTUS – Out Of The U.S. since I’m fairly certain the Dem congress will be taxing US oil to death. (Primarily PBR in Brazil, PCZ and PGH in Canada and some flakey alternative oil companies into algae and other interesting but money losing things – PSUD, OOIL, RTK, SYNM, VRNM because I would like them to succeed.)

FWIW, in another thread I’d mentioned that the Obama emphasis on alternative energy would take a lot of copper and when prices started up would be time to buy. Well, JJC (copper) jumped up 5% today and more the prior market day. It’s at the 25 day moving average. A bit more and it crosses the 50 to confirm the rally. PCU (+13% today) and FCX (copper miners) have started a good up run. SQM (lithium miner) and FAN, PBW, & GEX (alternative energy wind / solar funds) have all started runs up off the bottom. You may not be able to influence the AGW movement in DC, but maybe you can make money off of it… Hopefully enough to pay the added gas taxes when they hit.

DISCLOSURE: I own some of PCU, FAN, GEX, PGH, PCZ, PBR, and some other small positions in alternative energy companies. None of this colors my opinions and I will trade in or out of them as charts indicate (moving average crossovers) but it is considered ‘good form’ to disclose potential conflicts of interest. Oh, and I own some CLNE (T. Boone Pickens company pushing natural gas / wind instead of oil) more as a political statement against imported oil, though it looks like it’s finally bottomed and started up.

I’m avoiding Euro zone stocks, but have put a fair amount of money into Brazil (EWZ, BAK, CZZ), China (FXI), and India (EPI & IFN or IIF) in the last few days due to the CO2 free pass they get. I’ve also put money into Australia (EWA, IAF) since they are levered to China. When I say that CO2 policies and Cap & Tirade will drive investment to CO2 free pass countries it is not idle speculation, it’s a statement of personal action…

Maybe I’ll move to Texas after California implodes… No income tax. Sigh.