The ITER project, an acronym for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, seeks to do the possible with impractical tools. There is no doubt that humanity can accomplish fusion in a quick and dirty way by making a bomb, or run reactions that don’t produce useful amounts of energy outputs, but unlike fission the ability to run…
The Iranian currency shuffle continued again this week as Tehran announced it would take the Chinese yuan as payment for crude oil deliveries from its trading partner in Beijing. While the U.S. secretary of state was in New Delhi convincing one of Tehran's more faithful clients to back away from Iranian crude, Iranian officials were…
The Department of Homeland Security has issued an alert warning that computer networks connected to privately-owned natural gas pipelines are presently under cyber attack in an “intrusion campaign” that began some four months ago and could extend to Canada. The “amber” alert, the second highest cyber threat level, has been ongoing since December 2011, when…
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Steven Chu contributed a statement to an announced breakthrough in research into tapping the vast fuel resource of methane hydrates that could eventually bolster already massive U.S. natural gas reserves.As Al Fin pointed out yesterday natural gas is priced to a barrel of oil equivalent at about $10-$11 per…
The European ban, due to take effect at the beginning of July, on importing Iranian oil will also prevent European insurers from covering any tankers carrying crude from Tehran to the rest of the world. This effect will be felt particularly hard in London, which is the main district for marine insurance.Without insurance tankers will…
Japan, the third largest economy in the world, has relied on nuclear energy to provide 30% of its energy for four decades, but this weekend it became the first major, modern economy to operate without nuclear power.On Saturday the Tomari Nuclear Power Plant’s reactor 3 shut down, leaving Japan’s energy grid completely nuclear free.Junichi Sato…