Oil prices recover some lost ground
New York (UPI) Dec 9, 2015 -
Crude oil prices gained back some ground at the start of trading Wednesday, as expectations of lower U.S. oil production balanced against long-term pessimism.
"Bullish arguments sound increasingly hollow while bearish predictions of even lower prices ring a little less feeble," read a monthly column from Energy Intelligence.
This week, the price for the global benchmark, Brent, c ...
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U.S. gas prices will be even lower next year
Washington (UPI) Dec 9, 2015 -
Low oil prices and more fuel efficient vehicles mean the average U.S. price for a gallon of gas should be about 2 percent lower in 2016, a federal report said.
Motor club AAA reports a national average retail price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline at $2.02 for Wednesday, about 1 percent lower than last week. While holiday travel is heavy, overall consumer demand is lower in win ...
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NRDC claims win on bitumen debate
Calgary, Alberta (UPI) Dec 9, 2015 -
The Natural Resources Defense Council said it was vindicated by peer-reviewed studies showing heavier grades of crude oil should be treated with caution.
A 180-page study from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine finds diluted bitumen, a heavier grade of oil found in North America, has similar properties to other forms of oil immediately after a spill. Weatherin ...
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White House opposes legislative efforts to erase oil export ban
Washington (UPI) Dec 9, 2015 -
Efforts to reverse a 40-year-old ban on domestic crude oil exports through legislative action are not welcome, a White House spokesman said.
Congressional leaders are working to pass a massive government funding bill before Friday, when lawmakers break for holiday recess. Included in the measure is language meant to end a ban on U.S. crude oil exports.
Similar efforts to reverse ...
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UAW halts strike at China-owned US auto plant
Detroit (AFP) Dec 9, 2015 -
More than 3,000 workers at a Chinese-owned auto supplies plant in Saginaw, Michigan returned to work Wednesday after the powerful UAW union halted a strike pending a contract vote.
The United Auto Workers called off the day-long strike at Nexteer Automotive, which builds steering systems for major automakers. The union is preparing a revised tentative contract for a ratification vote, but th ...
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Programmers create unlikely IT boom in Belarus
Minsk (AFP) Dec 9, 2015 -
Despite its state-controlled economy, Belarus has become an unexpected top performer in information technology, with its programmers developing such worldwide hits as the World of Tanks game and mobile messenger app Viber.
More than 38,000 people work in the IT sector and the value of its companies' exports is growing by 40 to 50 percent per year. It is expected to reach $800 million (740 mi ...
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Australian identified as possible Bitcoin founder: reports
Sydney (AFP) Dec 9, 2015 -
Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright has been identified by tech publications as possibly the mysterious founder of online cryptocurrency Bitcoin, shortly before his Sydney home was reportedly raided in a tax probe Wednesday.
There has long been speculation about who was behind the software written in 2009 under the Japanese-sounding name Satoshi Nakamoto, with various media outlets unsucces ...
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US says China unfairly taxes imported aircraft
Washington (AFP) Dec 8, 2015 -
The United States launched a WTO challenge to China's aircraft taxation on Tuesday, accusing Beijing of discriminating against foreign-made airplanes in breach of global trade rules.
President Barack Obama's administration said Beijing's exemption of certain airplanes in its nascent domestic aircraft industry from a 17 percent value-added tax was unfair to foreign aircraft suppliers.
In ...
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NREL estimates economically viable US renewable generation
Golden CO (SPX) Dec 09, 2015 -
Analysts at the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) are providing, for the first time, a method for measuring the economic potential of renewable energy across the United States.
A study applying this new method found that renewable energy generation is economically viable in many parts of the United States largely due to rapidly declining technology costs.
...
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Saint Lucia showcases its renewable energy transition
Paris, France (SPX) Dec 10, 2015 -
Today, in keeping with its promise to transition to 35% renewable energy for electricity generation by 2020 and reduce electricity consumption in the Public Sector by 20% by 2020, the Government of Saint Lucia announced a new partnership in solar energy generation that will benefit one of its most iconic institutions.
Dr James Fletcher, Saint Lucia's Minister for Sustainable Development, E ...
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PowerCell to hydrogen gas storage from excess renewable energy output
Gothenburg, Sweden (SPX) Dec 09, 2015 -
The leading fuel cell company PowerCell Sweden AB (publ) announces partnership with Wallenstam AB, Midroc Automation AB and Hydrogen Sweden to jointly launch a pilot study on developing a system where surplus energy from wind and solar energy can be temporarily stored as hydrogen which then together with fuel cells provides electricity on cloudy and windless days. The purpose of the study is tha ...
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Clean energy innovators ready to scale up operations
Canberra, Australia (SPX) Dec 10, 2015 -
Clean energy start-ups and entrepreneurs have welcomed the Federal Government's renewed focus on innovation with the sector already primed to scale up its operations. Luke Osborne from Canberra-based start-up Reposit Power says tax breaks for people who invest in new ideas are important.
"We have to reward people who are willing to take risks and push boundaries," Mr Osborne said. "Austral ...
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Hard economic lessons as China's coal boom ends
Datong, China (AFP) Dec 9, 2015 -
Coated in thick black dust, hundreds of miners emerge after another shift gouging out the coal that fuelled China's boom and its choking pollution - an industry now crippled by oversupply, but whose companies are seen as too big to fail.
The Tongmei Group they work for deep underground is typical of the lumbering and inefficient state-owned firms that dominate cities in China's industrial h ...
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Turkey says not dependent on Russia for nuclear plant
Istanbul (AFP) Dec 9, 2015 -
Turkey on Wednesday insisted it was not dependent on Russia to build its first nuclear power plant amid uncertainty over the $20 billion project because of the crisis in relations between Ankara and Moscow.
Russia's state atomic agency Rosatom began constructing the plant in Akkuyu in the southern Mersin province on the shores of the Mediterranean in April.
But the Kremlin has refused t ...
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Chinese steel dumping threatens sector recovery in Europe, US
Paris (AFP) Dec 9, 2015 -
European and US steel producers are only slowly emerging from a 2008 sector meltdown, but already they are faced with a new challenge: Chinese dumping.
Chinese steel is overabundant since a sharp slowdown in the Asian giant's economy has sapped domestic demand, and is shipping to world markets at cut-down prices.
"China now sells its excess steel to the EU market at prices that do not ev ...
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U.S. offshore wind project wraps up inaugural construction season
Providence, R.I. (UPI) Dec 9, 2015 -
Five foundations are set after an inaugural construction season for what will become the first commercial offshore U.S. wind farm, developers said.
Deepwater Wind, one of the developers behind the Block Island wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island, said five steel platforms are now installed.
The project should yield 30 megawatts of electric power, powering the 17,000 homes on ...
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Why Is The US Reluctant To Bomb ISIS Oil Fields?
Washington DC (SPX) Dec 10, 2015 -
There has been some revealing new information coming out recently regarding the strategy against ISIS. One aspect many find troubling is the apparent failure of U.S. and coalition forces to sufficiently target and destroy oil infrastructure located in ISIS territory, which accounts for a significant portion of the terror group's annual income.
The argument goes, if we want to impact their ...
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New approaches for hybrid solar cells
Munich, Germany (SPX) Dec 10, 2015 -
Using a new procedure researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Ludwig Maximillians University of Munich (LMU) can now produce extremely thin and robust, yet highly porous semiconductor layers. A very promising material - for small, light-weight, flexible solar cells, for example, or electrodes improving the performance of rechargeable batteries.
The coating on the wa ...
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Campaigners dig in for London Heathrow airport fight
Harmondsworth, United Kingdom (AFP) Dec 9, 2015 -
On a bright December day in the degraded countryside around Europe's biggest airport, campaigners stacked piles of wood for barricades and vowed they would never allow the sprawling hub to expand further.
The "Grow Heathrow" camp, occupying scrubland close to the London airport, began in 2010 to stop the construction of a third runway that would demolish hundreds of homes and which activists ...
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As Paris summit tries to save the planet, how green is France?
Paris (AFP) Dec 9, 2015 -
UN climate change chief Christina Figueres may have called Paris "a beacon of hope for the world" as leaders gathered last week to begin hammering out a deal to slow global warming.
But how good is the city's - and France's - environmental record?
France leads the G20 group of industrialised countries in low-carbon energy, but experts point out that is only because of its massive relia ...
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Stanford scientists develop 'Shazam for earthquakes'
Stanford CA (SPX) Dec 10, 2015 -
An algorithm inspired by a popular song-matching app is helping Stanford scientists find previously overlooked earthquakes in large databases of ground motion measurements.
They call their algorithm Fingerprint And Similarity Thresholding, or FAST, and it could transform how seismologists detect microquakes - temblors that don't pack enough punch to register as earthquakes when analyzed by ...
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Satellites show global plant growth is not keeping up with CO2 emissions
Minneapolis MN (SPX) Dec 10, 2015 -
Because plants need carbon dioxide to grow, scientists have expected rising atmospheric CO2 to substantially enhance plant growth, offsetting a portion of human CO2 emissions and, in turn, slowing climate change. However, new research from the Institute on the Environment published today in Nature Climate Change adds to a growing body of research challenging this expectation.
The study, le ...
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U.S. awards Raytheon SM-3 Block IIA production contract
Washington DC (UPI) Dec 08, 2015 -
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency has placed a $543 million order for 17 of Raytheon's Standard Missile-3 Block IIA interceptors.
The order follows the second flight test conducted by the Missile Defense Agency and the U.S. Navy.
Testers evaluated the SM-3 Block IIA's warhead and divert attitude control system functionality, steering control function, booster separation and rocket ...
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US investigating possible Iran missile test
United Nations, United States (AFP) Dec 8, 2015 -
The United States is conducting a "serious review" into reports that Iran carried out a new round of ballistic missile testing in violation of UN resolutions, its United Nations envoy said Tuesday.
If reports of testing in November are confirmed, the United States will go before the UN Security Council "and seek appropriate action," Samantha Power told journalists.
"The US is conducting ...
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SES-9 arrives at Cape Canaveral for mid-January Launch
Luxembourg (SPX) Dec 11, 2015 -
SES has announced that SES-9 has safely arrived at Cape Canaveral, Florida, and is being processed for a mid-January 2016 launch on board Space X's newly upgraded Falcon 9 rocket.
SES-9 will be positioned at 108.2 degrees East and provide both replacement and incremental capacity for a prime video neighbourhood over Asia which already serves over 22 million households with high quality bro ...
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