Chad suspends work by Chinese oil company CNPC
N'Djamena (AFP) May 23, 2014 -
Chad has suspended all work by the local unit of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) for allegedly violating environmental law, Oil Minister Djerassem Bemadjiele said in a letter seen by AFP on Friday.
The ministerial letter accused CNPC's Chadian subsidiary of systematically carrying out polluting practices banned by both Chadian and international legislation and said that all of th ...
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Russian gas monopoly wants better ties with Azerbaijan, seen as a European savior
St. Petersburg, Russia (UPI) May 23, 2013 -
Russian energy company Gazprom said Friday it was upbeat about the potential to build stronger ties with its counterparts in Azerbaijan.
Alexei Miller, the chairman of the Russian energy company, met Friday in St. Petersburg with his counterpart at the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic, Rovnag Abdullayev.
Gazprom said both sides paid "special attention" to gas purchase ...
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Iraq repairs oil pipeline after months of attacks
Baghdad (AFP) May 24, 2014 -
Iraqi engineers began repairs Saturday to a northern oil pipeline that has been disabled for months by militant attacks, costing the country millions of dollars in lost revenues, officials said.
The repairs to 40 kilometres (25 miles) of the pipeline, which runs from the northern province of Kirkuk to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, are expected to take between 10 days and two weeks, oil ministr ...
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Iraq files case against Turkey over Kurdish oil exports
Baghdad (AFP) May 23, 2014 -
Baghdad launched legal action against Ankara Friday after oil from Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region was exported to international markets without the cental government's consent, potentially worsening already-poor ties between the neighbours.
The sudden decision to call for arbitration by Iraq, which came after shipments began on Thursday evening, is the latest move in a years-long row in wh ...
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Holiday travelers paying about the same at the pump, Energy Department says
Washington (UPI) May 23, 2013 -
U.S. drivers are paying an average $3.67 for a gallon of gasoline ahead of Memorial Day, the start of summer driving season, the Energy Department said Friday.
Memorial Day, May 26, is considered the start of the summer driving season. After an increase of 42 cents per gallon from early February to late April, the Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the Energy Depa ...
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Uber taxi app seeks capital at $12 bn value: report
New York (AFP) May 23, 2014 -
Uber, the startup app that connects people with taxis and drivers, is seeking to raise fresh capital that would give it a $12 billion value, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
The Journal said Uber, which has already raised significant venture capital, is seeking $500 million from various investor groups.
The company did not respond to an AFP query on the report.
San Francisco- ...
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Expanding Nord Stream, building South Stream, will help Europe with gas, Gazprom says
St. Petersburg, Russia (UPI) May 23, 2013 -
Expanding the Nord Stream pipeline through the Baltic Sea, and building the South Stream counterpart, is good for Europe, Russian energy company Gazprom said.
Alexander Medvedev, Gazprom's deputy chairman, met in St. Petersburg with Han Fennema, chairman of gas infrastructure company Gasunie, to discuss gas supplies to Europe.
Lingering debt issues between Ukraine, which hosts a ...
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British government reviews shale oil potential in country's southeast
London (UPI) May 23, 2013 -
The British government said Friday it estimates there may be as much as 8.5 billion barrels of oil in a shale basin in the southeast of the country.
The British Geological Survey and Department of Energy and Climate Change published data Friday on the Weald basin in the southeast of the country.
It said there may be between 2.2 billion and 8.5 billion barrels of shale oil in plac ...
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U.S. rail regulator said most rail companies following rules for Bakken oil
Washington (UPI) May 23, 2013 -
The U.S. rail industry is following the rules for shipping Bakken crude oil, though some violations exist on the margins, the nation's top rail regulator said.
Last year, the Department of Transportation and the Federal Railroad Administration launched the so-called Bakken Blitz, spot inspections of crude oil shipments by rail to determine if the industry was labeling their cargoes prop ...
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China gas deal a symbolic victory for Russia but won't leave Europe dry
Moscow (AFP) May 25, 2014 -
The $400 billion gas deal Russia signed with China was a symbolic victory for Moscow as it is locked in a dispute with the West over Ukraine, but the scale of the deal is not as massive as it seems at first blush, according to analysts.
The volumes to be shipped east won't cut Russia's dependence on selling gas to the West, nor would they lead to shortages in Europe.
Under the 30-year de ...
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New, fossil-fuel-free process makes biodiesel sustainable
Lansing MI (SPX) May 23, 2014 -
A new fuel-cell concept, developed by an Michigan State University researcher, will allow biodiesel plants to eliminate the creation of hazardous wastes while removing their dependence on fossil fuel from their production process.
The platform, which uses microbes to glean ethanol from glycerol and has the added benefit of cleaning up the wastewater, will allow producers to reincorporate t ...
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New analysis eliminates a potential speed bump in quantum computing
San Diego CA (SPX) May 23, 2014 -
A quantum particle can search for an item in an unsorted "database" by jumping from one item to another in superposition, and it does so faster than a classical computer ever could.
This assertion assumes, however, that the particle can directly hop from any item to any other. Any restriction on which items the particle can directly hop to could slow down the search.
"Intuition says ...
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NASA's Alternative Fuel Effects Research Showcased
Palmdale CA (SPX) May 23, 2014 -
Social media followers and news media representatives from across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom came to the high desert of Southern California May 20 to learn about a NASA project that is investigating the effects of alternative fuels on the environment.
Based at NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center's facilities in Palmdale and Edwards Air Force Base, California, the NA ...
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Bending helps to control nanomaterials
Helsinki, Finland (SPX) May 23, 2014 -
A new remedy has been found to tackle the difficulty of controlling layered nanomaterials. Control can be improved by simply bending the material.
The mechanism was observed by Academy Research Fellow Pekka Koskinen from the Nanoscience Center of the University of Jyvaskyla together with his colleagues from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the US. Bending decreases interaction be ...
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Power plant emissions verified remotely at Four Corners sites
Los Alamos NM (SPX) May 23, 2014 -
Air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from two coal-fired power plants in the Four Corners area of northwest New Mexico, the largest point source of pollution in America, were measured remotely by a Los Alamos National Laboratory team.
Led by Laboratory senior scientist Manvendra Dubey, the study is the first to show that space-based techniques can successfully verify international re ...
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New method for propulsion in fluids
Boston MA (SPX) May 23, 2014 -
Researchers at MIT have discovered a new way of harnessing temperature gradients in fluids to propel objects. In the natural world, the mechanism may influence the motion of icebergs floating on the sea and rocks moving through subterranean magma chambers.
The discovery is reported this week in the journal Physical Review Letters by associate professor of mechanical engineering Thomas Peac ...
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NIST chip produces and detects specialized gas for biomedical analysis
Washington DC (SPX) May 23, 2014 -
A chip-scale device that both produces and detects a specialized gas used in biomedical analysis and medical imaging has been built and demonstrated at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Described in Nature Communications,* the new microfluidic chip produces polarized (or magnetized) xenon gas and then detects even the faintest magnetic signals from the gas.
Polariz ...
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Not all diamonds are forever
Houston TX (SPX) May 23, 2014 -
Images taken by Rice University scientists show that some diamonds are not forever. The Rice researchers behind a new study that explains the creation of nanodiamonds in treated coal also show that some microscopic diamonds only last seconds before fading back into less-structured forms of carbon under the impact of an electron beam.
Billups and Yanqiu Sun, a former postdoctoral researcher ...
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NCNR neutrons highlight possible battery candidate
Washington DC (SPX) May 23, 2014 -
Analysis of a manganese-based crystal by scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has produced the first clear picture of its molecular structure. The findings could help explain the magnetic and electronic behavior of the whole family of crystals, many of which have potential for use in batteries.
The famil ...
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Stanford, MIT scientists find new way to harness waste heat
Stanford CA (SPX) May 23, 2014 -
Vast amounts of excess heat are generated by industrial processes and by electric power plants. Researchers around the world have spent decades seeking ways to harness some of this wasted energy. Most such efforts have focused on thermoelectric devices - solid-state materials that can produce electricity from a temperature gradient - but the efficiency of such devices is limited by the availabil ...
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