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SOTT Focus: Water For Oil: The Devil's Bargain For Natural Gas

Alice Joyce
SOTT.net
Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:22 UTC
Dirty water cannot be washed - African proverb


If you had a choice between filling your car of the future with natural gas (now being promoted as a viable, green, clean, future alternative to oil), or quenching your thirst with unpolluted water which would you choose? This is not a hypothetical question. If the natural gas lobby continues to have its way, natural gas - the supposed safe, ecologically friendly fuel source - may do some serious damage to the earth's water.

In 2002 advances in horizontal drilling (a technology invented by Halliburton in 1949), drastically reduced the costs previously required to extract natural gas from rock and shale located miles deep within the earth. Although the industry asserts that the process is safe, does the following industry summary from slide 65 of a January 17, 2008 Halliburton power point presentation entitled A Historic Perspective of Hydraulic Fracturing inspire confidence?
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Info

Carnegie Mellon researchers develop tool to rank death rates

Chriss Swaney
Carnegie Mellon University
Thu, 27 Aug 2009 01:05 UTC
Pittsburgh - Have you ever wondered what the chances are that you may die in the next year? Would it be from illness or an accident? Is it something you can control? Or is it completely out of your hands?

A new Web site, www.DeathRiskRankings.com, developed by researchers and students at Carnegie Mellon University, allows users to query publicly available data from the United States and Europe, and compare mortality risks by gender, age, cause of death and geographic region. The Web site not only gives the risk of dying within the next year, but it also ranks the probable causes and allows for quick side-by-side comparison between groups.
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Question

Australia: Mysterious Tubular Clouds Defy Explanation


Wired Science
Mon, 24 Aug 2009 23:51 UTC
Tubular Clouds
© Mick Petroff/APOD
These long, crazy-looking clouds can grow to be 600 miles long and can move at up to 35 miles per hour, causing problems for aircraft even on windless days.

Known as Morning Glory clouds, they appear every fall over Burketown, Queensland, Australia, a remote town with fewer than 200 residents. A small number of pilots and tourists travel there each year in hopes of "cloud surfing" with the mysterious phenomenon.

Similar tubular shaped clouds called roll clouds appear in various places around the globe. But nobody has yet figured out what causes the Morning Glory clouds.

Comment: Could this be the explanation of what was seen in the video in this article?

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Evil Rays

'Exploding' iPhones investigated


BBC News
Wed, 26 Aug 2009 22:53 UTC
iPhone
© APThe iPhone's lithium ion batteries are thought to be to blame
French consumer groups are investigating reports of iPhones that explode or crack spontaneously.

An 80-year-old from the Paris suburbs was among eight people who said their phones' screens were affected, according to the AFP news agency.

Consumers in the UK, Holland and Sweden have reported similar problems, prompting an earlier EU investigation.
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Better Earth

Earth's Mantle: Untapped Oil Source?

Michael Reilly
Discovery News
Mon, 27 Jul 2009 18:13 UTC
Image
New Source for Black Gold?
Oil, one of the most important, valuable substances on the planet may form in an unexpected place, according to a new study -- the crushing hot furnace of Earth's mantle.

The petroleum we rely on to fuel our cars and heat our homes were formed over millions of years as ancient, dead algae and plankton were compressed in layers of sediment and heated. Because of this, oil companies know to look for new reserves in places that are, or once were shallow marine environments.

See this link for the original article.

Comment: Will this be yet another piece of evidence ignored by the mainstream media about the abiotic origins of oil?

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Bizarro Earth

Flashback The strange heresies of Thomas Gold: if the maverick astronomer's theories about oil are right, we'll be able to drive for a long time

Sonia Shah
Playboy
Tue, 01 Nov 2005 18:26 UTC
Sometime next year, from off the coast of Japan, we should find out if he is right. Working onboard the Chikyu, a 210-meter ship equipped with a huge drilling platform, a team of geologists, engineers and oceanographers led by Japan's Center for Deep Earth Exploration hopes to drill the world's deepest hole. The 8.5-inch aperture will penetrate seven kilometers under the earth's crust to pierce its mantle and solve some of our most profound mysteries. For the first time, human eyes may see the molten rock that makes up 84 percent of Earth's volume. According to astronomer Thomas Gold, they may tap into the source of the planet's energy and the cradle of life itself.

If correct, Gold's theory will change the way we think about everything from energy to our role in the universe. Corporate and state power contingent on the vagaries of the oil market could disintegrate. Environmental policies would have to adjust to a new paradigm. Even cultural values premised on the uniqueness of life would have to be made anew. For decades Gold's theory has enraged the scientific establishment. "Every fact is against him," says an Amoco geochemist. "Completely absurd," adds a Colorado School of Mines geologist. "A waste of time," says another, "on about the same level as saying sugarplum fairies will cure cancer."
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Better Earth

Flashback Test backs creation of oil deep in Earth

Stephen Strauss
The Globe and Mail
Tue, 13 Aug 2002 18:12 UTC
Russian and American researchers have come up with a radically new recipe for making oil.

Take some rusty iron, add a soupçon of marble, throw in a bit of water, then heat and squeeze the mixture at temperatures and pressures thought to exist more than 100 kilometres below the surface of the Earth. At the right pressures and temperatures, some of the iron, marble and water turn into methane, ethane, butane, propane and a host of other hydrocarbons.

The successful experiment, reported today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is thought by its authors to be the most conclusive laboratory evidence for what is called the abiotic theory of oil formation.
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Magnify

Tracing King Tut's Roots

Dr. Zahi Hawass
Asharq Alawsat
Tue, 25 Aug 2009 23:11 UTC
Image
© Unkown
Al-Awsat- Tutankhamen, the golden pharaoh, continues to bedazzle the Cairo, Asharq entire world. The discovery of King Tut's tomb, which took place around 85 years ago, remains the most important archeological discovery of our time, not just in Egypt, but in the entire world.

This was the first time that a royal tomb of one of Egypt's pharaohs was discovered untouched, and with the complete set of funeral furniture which was buried with the King. In addition to this, there was also the treasures and jewelry which blinded anybody who set eyes on them. It is hard to believe that these beautifully crafted and delicate jewels were made over 3,500 years ago.
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Info

Ancient Map Offers Key to Mesoamerican History

Francisco Miraval
Latin American Gerald Tribune
Tue, 25 Aug 2009 23:00 UTC
Denver - A map painted by Mexican Indians in the mid-16th century has become a key document for understanding the migration of Mesoamerican peoples from their land of origin in what is now the U.S. Southwest, according to a scholar at Harvard University Divinity School.

"Five years of research and writing (2002-2007) by 15 scholars of Mesoamerican history show that this document, the Map of Cuauhtinchan 2, with more than 700 pictures in color, is something like a Mesoamerican Iliad and Odyssey," Dr. David Carrasco told Efe in a telephone interview.
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Info

Staggering ancient structure speaks to us down the ages

Ron Ferguson
The Press and Journal
Tue, 25 Aug 2009 22:51 UTC
And so it goes on - yet another spectacular archaeological find in Orkney, but this one is a real "biggie", an astonishing discovery which is really exciting archaeologists. VisitScotland is also pretty chuffed, especially as tourism is expected to take a bit of a knock in the aftermath of the al Megrahi business.

So, what's it all about? Experts have unearthed a Neolithic "cathedral" - a massive building of a kind never before seen in Britain. It has left archaeologists stunned.

This is not like finding a couple of bits of broken pottery. This is literally groundbreaking.
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