Shell Oil and Others Sued For Wasting Gas In Nigeria

By Elaine Meinel Supkis

The big oil companies simply burn off natural gas in Africa because they don't want to bother with sharing it with the African people. Most of the oil in Africa is removed and used by Europe and America. We have zero interest in bettering the lives of African people. Worse, we pollute their air and water and intend to squeeze them dry and leave them in poverty. Meanwhile, it is cold here in the north. Give us more energy, world!

From Common Dreams:

Multinational oil companies were ordered by Nigeria's highest court this week to stop engaging in a decades-old process that indigenous and environmental rights groups say has been poisoning the oil-rich area where Africa's Niger River meets the Atlantic Ocean.

Gas flaring dominates the skyline in the Niger Delta
"This victory marks a new dawn in the struggle of the communities of the Niger Delta," said Reverend Nnimmo Bassey, executive director of the Nigerian group Environmental Rights Action, soon after the Federal High Court announced its judgment Monday against the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria. The decision is expected to have far-reaching implications for the local activities of ChevronTexaco, ExxonMobil, and other multinational oil giants as well.

"We expect this judgment to be respected and that for once the oil corporations will accept the truth and bring their sinful flaring activities to a halt," Bassey added.

The case was brought by the indigenous Iwerekan community in Delta State, with support from the Environmental Rights Action group affiliated with Friends of the Earth (FoE) International, a federation of environmental campaigners that claims 1.5 million members and supporters in 70 countries.

If you look at satellite photos of Africa at night, it is truly "the Dark Continent" which only Antarctica and Greenland can compete with innermost Africa for "most dark."

To see the actual photos, visit APOD.

Nigeria is a prime example of how oil companies can pervert and abuse natives if they latch onto the government. The CIA as well as our military has worked long and hard to prevent any Caesar Chavezes from taking power in Nigeria. The few times non-military men ran the place, they used the oil company's bribes to buy gold bathtubs and live in palaces. Then the people there rise up in fury and the goverment supresses rebellions using brutal force and the game goes on, civic life nearly nonexistent in that country as the wealth hemmorages out.

The Iraqis see this and know they are next. Ditto, Iran. Any oil pumping country that dares to share the wealth or make the lives of their people better by expanding education and building a serious infrastructure to make them independent of oil is crushed brutally. This is why Shell Oil, for example, burns off precious gas rather than pipe it to people there. To build the infrastructure to service these people costs money and frankly, the rich oil consuming nations have decided they don't want to be bothered!

Meanwhile, here in America, we writhe in pain due to high energy costs caused by weather and war. From the Albany Times Union:

Prices of wood pellets have gone through the roof over the past few months because of a number of factors, including the demand of more people turning to wood to avoid oil and natural gas costs, which have risen by double digit percentages the past two years.

Even at the high prices, many retailers can't get enough of the pellets. Local big box stores don't even have them. Small mom-and-pops might. Specialty energy supply houses could. Yet, wherever and whenever available, the price has risen by $100-$150 a ton in just a few months, and it is not necessarily a first-come, first-serve sale anymore.

"They won't even sell them to you if you haven't bought your stove from them," Denmark says about supply outlets he's tried. "They say, 'We're taking care of our customers first.' "

I got my kids a pellet stove and now we can't run the darn thing. This is annoying for us all but not near the ill will of seeing massive amounts of gas being burned off (which incidentally, increases global hydrocarbon pollution!) for no good reason.

The factories producing stove pellets will catch up, eventually, with demand. Of course, it won't be a cheap fuel anymore, all BTUs end up costing the same due to people switching over. But at least for now, we can switch! What troubles me is how Shell Oil and the other oil companies can get away with literally burning up the wealth of Nigeria and think no one can stop them.

Personally, I avoid Shell oil. Citco is part of Venezuela's system so I support them by buying their products. I suggest we all do this.

Chavez of Venezuela and Our Coming Energy Crisis This Winter

By Elaine Meinel Supkis

It is interesting watching Americans spending $200+billion to hang onto oil rich Iraq while being told to basically shiver to death this winter at home because Bush as no money to fund home heating costs, meanwhile, the man villified by the NYT and WP and all the mainstream media, Chavez of Venezuela, rides to the rescue on his white horse, unlike the Scrooges with Bush, he can spare Tiny Tim some oil for Christmas.

From the US News and World Report:

Falling gasoline prices make it easy to believe the nation has seen the last of the energy woes that swept in behind this year's Gulf Coast hurricanes. But they don't fool an unemployed woman on the Crow Indian Reservation, using the electric oven to warm her house on increasingly crisp Montana nights because her natural-gas heat has been cut off. For brickyard workers in Mill Hall, Pa., unemployment looms after the holidays, because it will be too expensive to fire the clay kilns this winter. And one retiree in a mobile home in Millinocket plans to take her asthma medication once daily instead of three times as prescribed, to save money to pay the kerosene bills that will soar in Maine's bitter cold.

This is the same trip that California had to take when Bush and his Lay buddy at Enron decided to loot California and soften them up for Schwarzenegger. It didn't matter if it tipped America into a recession. They backtracked and cut taxes and began the most ferocious public spending spree ever witnessed in our history running up almost $3 trillion in red ink. In the middle of this spending spree, they continue to cut taxes, making things worse and simultaneously piously telling the poor to go hang.

Into this breach stepped the understandibly popular President of Venezuela, shaming America by personally funding susidized oil for communities that ask for it. So far, Massachusetts and the Bronx have signed up. It will be interesting to see how many upstate NYers will die this year before NY's Repub govenor asks for help? Then the NYT will have to say something nice about Chavez which will tick them off since he isn't a tool of either America or Israel.

"A frozen New Orleans." A winter failure (in NYC, for example) could prove catastrophic, because any extended loss of heat could cause water pipes to burst in residential and commercial buildings alike. Also, the thousands of "traps" where steam escapes (and billows from manhole covers) could freeze and fail, causing distribution pipes to crack or lose pressure. Former Central Intelligence Agency chief Jim Woolsey, now active on energy issues, argues that parts of the city "could resemble a frozen New Orleans." Also, repressurizing the system could prove laborious and hazardous, because of the power of steam escaping from cracks. "Nobody could simulate the kind of disaster that could happen," says Adam Victor, president of TransGas Energy, a company that has been trying to build a backup power plant in the city but has run into opposition from residents and city officials who prefer building parkland at the old industrial waterside location. Con Edison downplays concerns about the system. "You can't say never because something can always break," says Chris Olert, utility spokesman. "But we've upgraded the plant so it's in tip-top condition, and we've bought plenty of gas for the steam system." Power will be available for New Yorkers, he says, though at a cost up 30 to 35 percent over last year.

As a super in NYC in the past, when it went below zero and we didn't get an oil delivery in the middle of the oil crisis back in the seventies, I frantically tried to keep the pipes from freezing and failed. Once we got heat going again, we had to fix the entire building and it cost the landlord so dearly, he abandoned the property.

The cascade of problems when the heat fail are significant and very expensive. Not to mention, avoidable. Most buildings and most systems are designed to use energy to create the bubble of comfort rather than, like my house, exploit as much of nature as possible to run without energy. This refusal to be sensible is going to be our collective downfall. Houses that can't be converted like operate like mine will be abandoned over the years or turned into very low quality slums with no water since the pipes will burst. Copper thieves will tear them apart, seeking the metal in the pipes.

From Yahoo:

As oil and natural gas prices soar, public schools are having to make some tough decisions: turning down the thermostat, finding alternative sources of fuel, even cutting back on the school week.

At Menomonie High School in western Wisconsin, principal Tom Wiatr has dropped the temperature a few degrees. Students started wearing zip-up sweatshirts and fleeces to stay warm, raising questions about a school rule against wearing jackets indoors.

I remember the seventies and early eighties (imagine that!) I tried to get my daughter's school in NYC to let me cover the leaky windows with plastic so the kids wouldn't freeze in the classroom facing the Atlantic Ocean's winds. They refused.

The hike in taxes to keep schools running thanks to Bush and his windfall oil buddies reaping vast profits for themselves will wipe out what pitiful pennies remain of the famous Bush tax cuts. The President could demand his rich buddies start a "Leave No Child Frozen" fund and the oil companies could dedicate, say, 2% of their vast profits to fund it and heat for the elderly and poor but of course, this will never happen unless Americans notice the grim mirror image of Bush and Mr. Scrooge only Scrooge denied himself comforts unlike Bubble Boy who lives in a splendidly warm and pleasant enviroment.

From the BBC:

The leftist front-runner for Sunday's election in Bolivia, Evo Morales, has ended his campaign saying his movement is "a nightmare for the United States".
Mr Morales has vowed to end free-market policies and legalise the growing of coca, which has traditional uses but is also used in the production of cocaine.

Bush was nearly chased out of South America. His appearances in varioius countries had to be held far from the maddening crowds and forelorn and pathetic, not to mention stewed to the gills, he stumbled about, denouncing Chavez in quavering tones.

So what has he done for anyone? Got oil?

Chavez has oil and he is using it deftly as a tool to gain political power and he is determined to shoo us out of South America. Since popular sentiment is on his side, this isn't hard to do, is it? The "free trade" free booters who work for US corporations are desperately trying to keep control of various countries but one by one, the people are electing those that we don't want. Historically, the USA murders or corrupts those it doesn't want down in the south and Bush frets about this, desperate to unleash dictators upon the populations even as he bays about how America is for freedom and democracy.

Well, we will get democracy in spades, here at home, I pray, as well as abroad. The DeLay Texas mess whereby he gerrymandered and gerryrigged an electoral map that would keep right wing whites in power is now being torn up in court just as he and his ilk are now standing trial for rank corruption. And down there is all that oil. The oil the Texan elite refuse to share with fellow Americans.

This is going to be a very interesting winter.

Kennedy Wants No Wind Mills Off Shore Where He Lives

By Elaine Meinel Supkis

As Asia and Europe extends renewable energy facilities the USA fiddles while the earth burns. The bubble around the rich is huge. They want to be energy pigs while exporting the mess creating this energy to poor folk who can live in foul air, foul water and industrial noise.

From the New York Times

AS an environmentalist, I support wind power, including wind power on the high seas. I am also involved in siting wind farms in appropriate landscapes, of which there are many. But I do believe that some places should be off limits to any sort of industrial development. I wouldn't build a wind farm in Yosemite National Park. Nor would I build one on Nantucket Sound, which is exactly what the company Energy Management is trying to do with its Cape Wind project.

Of course, Kennedy wants to burn tons of energy living his fabulous, upperclass lifestyle. He wants pristine nature in all Her glory. If this means crushing the lives of others, it is just Jim Dandy.

So he turns on his lights and my trees die from acid rain and the drought/flood cycle inflicting my mountain these days. Kennedy can sail about merrily, his eyes not disgraced by the vision of anything man-made while coal burning plants belch more toxins into the air, killing not only my trees but my very own son, aggravating his asthma.

I feel rather strongly about this. Kennedy basically wants me, my trees, my son, all of us to just shut up and drop dead so he can enjoy sailing unimpeded. Great.

Throughout America, we bellow we must change only one thing we are unable to change is our desire to live in the Garden of Eden while dooming the greater mass of humanity to live in the Pits of Hell. This is why we transported our dirty industries to China. China gets pollution and we get to pretend the degradation of the planet isn't caused by us even though we are the consumers of all that pollution producing stuff from Asia.

From Xinhuanet:

Energy experts predicted that the implementation of the Law on Renewable Resources on January 1, 2006 will open up a huge market in China for renewable solar energy.

The new law is expected to boost the development of the country's solar power industry, said the experts.

The Law on Renewable Energy, which was approved by the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee in February this year, will encourages all units and persons to use solar energy-based generation systems. It is regarded as an important law for the safety of China's environment and for the development of its energy resources.

When my father first came to China after Nixon's visit there, one of the many things the Chinese wanted to learn from him was all about solar energy.

They rationally understand there is no future in oil. It is a one time bonanza which we must use wisely so we can create a planet-wide energy net that is renewable. America has historically gone the other way, pretending this world is a ball of oil and can be pumped recklessly forever and ever. The ecosystem is now in greater and greater danger and we want to live in our bubble and eat it, too.

From the Manchester Journal:

Discussion of the proposed windmills on Glebe Mountain has so far focused on aesthetic and environmental issues. I should like to add some comment on the practical and financial aspects of this project. As a scientist I always find it disturbing that the public is often called upon to make important decisions in the absence of relevant data.

Due to the unpredictable nature of wind, the market value of electricity produced by windmills is quite low, at something less than 2.5 cents per KiloWatt-Hour. Given the high cost of construction and maintenance of windmills such as those proposed one can reasonably expect the actual cost of the power generated to greatly exceed its true market value, probably costing in the vicinity of 9-10 cents per KiloWatt-Hour. Clearly wind power is not a practical endeavor and cannot be expected to yield economic benefits to the public as a whole.

Being giganticus energeticus, we T-rex around the entire energy issue. Since we want to live in a total bubble, this requires unheard of and totally impractical energy needs.

I, for example, use no airconditioning. I use little heat, building my house to be energy efficient and solar energy use is very high thanks to the simple act of designing a sane house, not some energy dependent bubble zone.

I lived in a tent on this mountain for ten years. No running water and only one solar panel for electricity. We lived just fine. Far from merely surviving, we thrived. I love my much stronger bubble, a tent is not good in terrible storms! But the energy use isn't that much higher, in the house.

We are at the Hubbert Oil Peak. This means, all systems are going full blast and all possible sources of fossil fuels are being exploited to the maximum and the discovery of new fields is shrinking rapidly, they are smaller and smaller and harder and harder to find!

So we have a very limited time frame, less than twenty years, I will be in my seventies with another thirty years to go since I intend to live to see 2050, and we will be in the iron grip of the Real Energy Crisis, the Dawn of the Really Dark Ages if we don't do the right thing now!

The windmills off the coast are a feeble attempt at dealing with all this. It is 100% useless unless it is coupled with forcible changes to the building codes and redirection of Federal funds. We don't need to build more civilian housing in the path of hurricanes such as Martha's Island or Miami or New Orleans! We should be in the middle of a very massive retrofitting of all American homes in the north to take advantage of passive and active solar energy and on all southern houses, 100% of them should be already installing solar energy panels! 100% of them should be built with small windows facing the south and west whereby the most hot sunlight falls, they should have thick walls with masonary exteriors to take up the heat during the day and expell it at night like my parent's ranch did. Only the windows faced WEST and the house overheated until we built big verandahs with sun blocks!

It infuriates me, how childish adults are concerning all this. If they want natural purity, then they can join me and live on a mountain in a tent with no running water and kerosene lamps at night! Go to bed early, get up early. In winter, scream if you go into bed without first warming it with a brick! Heh. Brrr.