Russia Claims The North Pole+Oil, Gas, & Diamonds
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<font size="5"><center>New study estimates
vast supplies of Arctic oil, gas</font size></center>
McClatchy Newspapers
By Queenie Wong
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
WASHINGTON — An estimated 90 billion barrels of undiscovered but technically recoverable oil — three years of world consumption — lie north of the Arctic Circle, the U.S. Geological Survey reported Wednesday.
While the oil, along with vast quantities of natural gas, will be extremely difficult to tap, the promise is enough to make the frozen north the new — and maybe last — frontier for world energy producers.
Undiscovered oil and gas are thought to be present based on geology and probability. If they're further confirmed, they become reserves.
Currently, the five nations that border the Arctic — the United States, Russia, Denmark, Canada and Norway — all have their eyes on what geologists say is about a quarter of the world's undiscovered but technically recoverable oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids.
According to the new survey, the Arctic Alaskan Province, which includes offshore seabeds, has the greatest potential for undiscovered oil, an estimated 30 billion barrels.
Mark Myers, the director of the U.S. Geological Survey, said he hoped that the new estimates would contribute to future energy decisions.
"Before we can make decisions about our future use of oil and gas and related decisions about protecting endangered species, native communities and the health of our planet, we need to know what's out there," he said in a statement.
Geologist Donald Gautier, who led the study, added, "In our judgment, (the Arctic Alaska Province) is the most obvious place to look for oil north of the Arctic Circle right now."
While Arctic Alaska has the greatest undiscovered energy potential, other big stocks are thought to lie in the Amerasia Basin north of the two continents and also east of Greenland.
The West Siberian Basin contained the most undiscovered natural gas, with 651 trillion cubic feet, followed by the East Barents Basins, with 318 trillion cubic feet, and Arctic Alaska, with 221 trillion cubic feet.
The geological survey's study didn't consider the cost of recovery, but will publish an economic analysis of likely costs next year, said Brenda Pierce, the coordinator of the agency's Energy Resources Program.
Energy companies already have identified more than 400 oil and gas fields north of the Arctic Circle. High energy prices and global warming are making the forbidding region more inviting than ever.
McClatchy Newspapers 2008
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/257/story/45349.html
vast supplies of Arctic oil, gas</font size></center>
McClatchy Newspapers
By Queenie Wong
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
WASHINGTON — An estimated 90 billion barrels of undiscovered but technically recoverable oil — three years of world consumption — lie north of the Arctic Circle, the U.S. Geological Survey reported Wednesday.
While the oil, along with vast quantities of natural gas, will be extremely difficult to tap, the promise is enough to make the frozen north the new — and maybe last — frontier for world energy producers.
Undiscovered oil and gas are thought to be present based on geology and probability. If they're further confirmed, they become reserves.
Currently, the five nations that border the Arctic — the United States, Russia, Denmark, Canada and Norway — all have their eyes on what geologists say is about a quarter of the world's undiscovered but technically recoverable oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids.
According to the new survey, the Arctic Alaskan Province, which includes offshore seabeds, has the greatest potential for undiscovered oil, an estimated 30 billion barrels.
Mark Myers, the director of the U.S. Geological Survey, said he hoped that the new estimates would contribute to future energy decisions.
"Before we can make decisions about our future use of oil and gas and related decisions about protecting endangered species, native communities and the health of our planet, we need to know what's out there," he said in a statement.
Geologist Donald Gautier, who led the study, added, "In our judgment, (the Arctic Alaska Province) is the most obvious place to look for oil north of the Arctic Circle right now."
While Arctic Alaska has the greatest undiscovered energy potential, other big stocks are thought to lie in the Amerasia Basin north of the two continents and also east of Greenland.
The West Siberian Basin contained the most undiscovered natural gas, with 651 trillion cubic feet, followed by the East Barents Basins, with 318 trillion cubic feet, and Arctic Alaska, with 221 trillion cubic feet.
The geological survey's study didn't consider the cost of recovery, but will publish an economic analysis of likely costs next year, said Brenda Pierce, the coordinator of the agency's Energy Resources Program.
Energy companies already have identified more than 400 oil and gas fields north of the Arctic Circle. High energy prices and global warming are making the forbidding region more inviting than ever.
McClatchy Newspapers 2008
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/257/story/45349.html
LOL. QueEX. I am glad to see how you can see both sides of an issue and not be so stuck on Bush bashing and blaming for everything negative.
Damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. Like what's mister peace maker Obama is going to do better since Bush is known as the war monger. So if the what's the recommendation they are making for the war monger Bush to take with Russia and Putin or is Bush now a pussy and not a war monger anymore.
I hope you took notice also that Bush didn't give in to anything Putin was trying to act tough over. The missile defense plans is still on track and none of the partners have backed out. So just because Bush is not going on picking anymore fights doesn't mean that he has backed down from any. While people are saying that the diplomatic approach is what is working with Korea it didn't just happen to because it was always it. It's the fear that Bush put in them and the neighbors that forced everyone to the table. It's more like you all deal with em before my crazy ass get em. IMO
<font size="5"><center>
In Arctic 'cold war,' Russia plows ahead</font size><font size="4">
A new cold war is breaking out in the
race for Arctic oil, natural gas and minerals</font size></center>
The Russian icebreaker Yamal, Canadian icebreaker Louis
S. St. Laurent and the Coast Guard Cutter Polar Sea
rendezvous near the North Pole.
McClatchy Newspapers
By Queenie Wong
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
WASHINGTON — A new cold war is breaking out in the race for Arctic oil, natural gas and minerals, and it involves front-line icebreakers. Russia has seven and the United States has three, if you count one that's laid up in Seattle and won't be seaworthy for a year.
The competition is heating up because of global warming and high energy prices. They've made the Arctic coastline and seafloor, despite their harsh climate, one of the most appealing places in the world for energy exploration. Much the same goes for the gold, platinum, copper and other metals found along the Arctic coast and likely in its continental shelves.
The increased traffic that Arctic exploitation entails will mean more work for icebreakers, Adm. Thad W. Allen, the commandant of the Coast Guard, told a House of Representatives committee recently. So will retreating ice, which has opened the Northwest Passage (over Canada) and the Northern Sea Route (above Russia) in summer to container ships and oil tankers.
Not only is Russia's fleet more numerous, it's also nuclear-powered and its icebreakers are bigger. The biggest, named 50 Years of Victory, can power through more than 9 feet of solid ice without slowing down. Ice thicker than 6.5 feet reduces the strongest U.S icebreaker, the diesel-powered Polar Sea, to backing up and ramming.
The differences give Russia a vastly expanded range through Arctic ice, which covers an area as big as California and Texas combined. And that ice locks up nearly a quarter of the world's undiscovered oil and natural gas, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
"We are losing ground in the global competition," Allen told the House committee.
"I'm concerned we are watching our nation's ice-breaking capabilities decline," he later added.
Neither the Northwest Passage, the U.S. continental shelf offshore of Alaska, nor the waters beyond it are charted adequately, according to a study last year by the National Research Council, an independent policy adviser to the federal government. Seabed mapping is a major mission for U.S. icebreakers, and the council concluded that the Coast Guard needs two more of them. Allen told lawmakers he agreed.
The seaworthy U.S. fleet consists of two ships: the Polar Sea, built in 1976 and nearing the end of its 30-year service life, and the Healy, launched in 1997. The Healy was designed mainly for scientific research and can cruise only through ice up to 4.5 feet thick.
The third icebreaker, the Polar Star, is as capable as the Polar Sea, but it's been dock-bound since 2006 awaiting possible refurbishment.
The U.S. and Russia have additional, smaller ships with ice-breaking abilities, but they're not suitable for polar work.
It's natural that Russia — and Canada, for that matter — would care more about ice-breaking than the United States would, retired Coast Guard Rear Adm. Robert North said in an interview. Both countries have more ports and citizens and longer shorelines above the Arctic Circle than the United States does. That puts Russia and Canada, which has six icebreakers, at an advantage as Arctic exploration intensifies.
Denmark and Norway, which also border the Arctic, have capable ice-breaking fleets, too.
"We are in a five-nation race for the Arctic, and right now we are running fifth," Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., said at the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing on icebreakers last month.
U.S. icebreakers today serve a variety of missions: In the summer, they steam through Arctic ice and deliver scientists to locations where they map the seabed and collect sediment and wildlife samples. The mapping helps ships navigate and provides a rough draft for oil and gas exploration. Mapping of the underwater continental shelf that stretches offshore for many miles someday could support the United States' claims to Arctic resources.
In the Antarctic, icebreakers cut a channel each year that enables resupply ships to reach the U.S. research base on the shore of McMurdo Sound.
Both poles are seeing a surge in tourism, and the likelihood of using icebreakers for search and rescue missions is growing.
Long-term needs matter, because it takes eight to 10 years to go from approving the construction of new icebreakers to their delivery, according to the Congressional Research Service.
In this session of Congress, the House has authorized a study of the Coast Guard's need for icebreakers. A Senate bill authorizes the construction of two new icebreakers, but it hasn't passed.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/46477.html
In Arctic 'cold war,' Russia plows ahead</font size><font size="4">
A new cold war is breaking out in the
race for Arctic oil, natural gas and minerals</font size></center>
The Russian icebreaker Yamal, Canadian icebreaker Louis
S. St. Laurent and the Coast Guard Cutter Polar Sea
rendezvous near the North Pole.
McClatchy Newspapers
By Queenie Wong
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
WASHINGTON — A new cold war is breaking out in the race for Arctic oil, natural gas and minerals, and it involves front-line icebreakers. Russia has seven and the United States has three, if you count one that's laid up in Seattle and won't be seaworthy for a year.
The competition is heating up because of global warming and high energy prices. They've made the Arctic coastline and seafloor, despite their harsh climate, one of the most appealing places in the world for energy exploration. Much the same goes for the gold, platinum, copper and other metals found along the Arctic coast and likely in its continental shelves.
The increased traffic that Arctic exploitation entails will mean more work for icebreakers, Adm. Thad W. Allen, the commandant of the Coast Guard, told a House of Representatives committee recently. So will retreating ice, which has opened the Northwest Passage (over Canada) and the Northern Sea Route (above Russia) in summer to container ships and oil tankers.
Not only is Russia's fleet more numerous, it's also nuclear-powered and its icebreakers are bigger. The biggest, named 50 Years of Victory, can power through more than 9 feet of solid ice without slowing down. Ice thicker than 6.5 feet reduces the strongest U.S icebreaker, the diesel-powered Polar Sea, to backing up and ramming.
The differences give Russia a vastly expanded range through Arctic ice, which covers an area as big as California and Texas combined. And that ice locks up nearly a quarter of the world's undiscovered oil and natural gas, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
"We are losing ground in the global competition," Allen told the House committee.
"I'm concerned we are watching our nation's ice-breaking capabilities decline," he later added.
Neither the Northwest Passage, the U.S. continental shelf offshore of Alaska, nor the waters beyond it are charted adequately, according to a study last year by the National Research Council, an independent policy adviser to the federal government. Seabed mapping is a major mission for U.S. icebreakers, and the council concluded that the Coast Guard needs two more of them. Allen told lawmakers he agreed.
The seaworthy U.S. fleet consists of two ships: the Polar Sea, built in 1976 and nearing the end of its 30-year service life, and the Healy, launched in 1997. The Healy was designed mainly for scientific research and can cruise only through ice up to 4.5 feet thick.
The third icebreaker, the Polar Star, is as capable as the Polar Sea, but it's been dock-bound since 2006 awaiting possible refurbishment.
The U.S. and Russia have additional, smaller ships with ice-breaking abilities, but they're not suitable for polar work.
It's natural that Russia — and Canada, for that matter — would care more about ice-breaking than the United States would, retired Coast Guard Rear Adm. Robert North said in an interview. Both countries have more ports and citizens and longer shorelines above the Arctic Circle than the United States does. That puts Russia and Canada, which has six icebreakers, at an advantage as Arctic exploration intensifies.
Denmark and Norway, which also border the Arctic, have capable ice-breaking fleets, too.
"We are in a five-nation race for the Arctic, and right now we are running fifth," Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., said at the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing on icebreakers last month.
U.S. icebreakers today serve a variety of missions: In the summer, they steam through Arctic ice and deliver scientists to locations where they map the seabed and collect sediment and wildlife samples. The mapping helps ships navigate and provides a rough draft for oil and gas exploration. Mapping of the underwater continental shelf that stretches offshore for many miles someday could support the United States' claims to Arctic resources.
In the Antarctic, icebreakers cut a channel each year that enables resupply ships to reach the U.S. research base on the shore of McMurdo Sound.
Both poles are seeing a surge in tourism, and the likelihood of using icebreakers for search and rescue missions is growing.
Long-term needs matter, because it takes eight to 10 years to go from approving the construction of new icebreakers to their delivery, according to the Congressional Research Service.
In this session of Congress, the House has authorized a study of the Coast Guard's need for icebreakers. A Senate bill authorizes the construction of two new icebreakers, but it hasn't passed.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/46477.html
And the beat goes-on
Georgia says Russian aircraft bombed its air bases
Aug 8 03:21 PM US/Eastern
By MUSA SADULAYEV
Associated Press Writer
DZHAVA, Georgia (AP) - Russia sent columns of tanks and reportedly bombed Georgian air bases Friday after Georgia launched a major military offensive to retake the breakaway province of South Ossetia, threatening to ignite a broader conflict.
Hundreds of civilians were reported dead in the worst outbreak of hostilities since the province won defacto independence in a war against Georgia that ended in 1992. Witnesses said the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali was devastated.
"I saw bodies lying on the streets, around ruined buildings, in cars," said Lyudmila Ostayeva, 50, who had fled with her family to Dzhava, a village near the border with Russia. "It's impossible to count them now. There is hardly a single building left undamaged."
The fighting broke out as much of the world's attention was focused on the start of the Olympic Games and many leaders, including Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Bush, were in Beijing.
The timing suggests Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili may have been counting on surprise to fulfill his longtime pledge to wrest back control of South Ossetia—a key to his hold on power. .............Full Breitbart.com article
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<font size="5"><center>
In Arctic 'cold war,' Russia plows ahead</font size><font size="4">
A new cold war is breaking out in the
race for Arctic oil, natural gas and minerals</font size></center>
The Russian icebreaker Yamal, Canadian icebreaker Louis
S. St. Laurent and the Coast Guard Cutter Polar Sea
rendezvous near the North Pole.
McClatchy Newspapers
By Queenie Wong
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
WASHINGTON — A new cold war is breaking out in the race for Arctic oil, natural gas and minerals, and it involves front-line icebreakers. Russia has seven and the United States has three, if you count one that's laid up in Seattle and won't be seaworthy for a year.
The competition is heating up because of global warming and high energy prices. They've made the Arctic coastline and seafloor, despite their harsh climate, one of the most appealing places in the world for energy exploration. Much the same goes for the gold, platinum, copper and other metals found along the Arctic coast and likely in its continental shelves.
The increased traffic that Arctic exploitation entails will mean more work for icebreakers, Adm. Thad W. Allen, the commandant of the Coast Guard, told a House of Representatives committee recently. So will retreating ice, which has opened the Northwest Passage (over Canada) and the Northern Sea Route (above Russia) in summer to container ships and oil tankers.
Not only is Russia's fleet more numerous, it's also nuclear-powered and its icebreakers are bigger. The biggest, named 50 Years of Victory, can power through more than 9 feet of solid ice without slowing down. Ice thicker than 6.5 feet reduces the strongest U.S icebreaker, the diesel-powered Polar Sea, to backing up and ramming.
The differences give Russia a vastly expanded range through Arctic ice, which covers an area as big as California and Texas combined. And that ice locks up nearly a quarter of the world's undiscovered oil and natural gas, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
"We are losing ground in the global competition," Allen told the House committee.
"I'm concerned we are watching our nation's ice-breaking capabilities decline," he later added.
Neither the Northwest Passage, the U.S. continental shelf offshore of Alaska, nor the waters beyond it are charted adequately, according to a study last year by the National Research Council, an independent policy adviser to the federal government. Seabed mapping is a major mission for U.S. icebreakers, and the council concluded that the Coast Guard needs two more of them. Allen told lawmakers he agreed.
The seaworthy U.S. fleet consists of two ships: the Polar Sea, built in 1976 and nearing the end of its 30-year service life, and the Healy, launched in 1997. The Healy was designed mainly for scientific research and can cruise only through ice up to 4.5 feet thick.
The third icebreaker, the Polar Star, is as capable as the Polar Sea, but it's been dock-bound since 2006 awaiting possible refurbishment.
The U.S. and Russia have additional, smaller ships with ice-breaking abilities, but they're not suitable for polar work.
It's natural that Russia — and Canada, for that matter — would care more about ice-breaking than the United States would, retired Coast Guard Rear Adm. Robert North said in an interview. Both countries have more ports and citizens and longer shorelines above the Arctic Circle than the United States does. That puts Russia and Canada, which has six icebreakers, at an advantage as Arctic exploration intensifies.
Denmark and Norway, which also border the Arctic, have capable ice-breaking fleets, too.
"We are in a five-nation race for the Arctic, and right now we are running fifth," Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., said at the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing on icebreakers last month.
U.S. icebreakers today serve a variety of missions: In the summer, they steam through Arctic ice and deliver scientists to locations where they map the seabed and collect sediment and wildlife samples. The mapping helps ships navigate and provides a rough draft for oil and gas exploration. Mapping of the underwater continental shelf that stretches offshore for many miles someday could support the United States' claims to Arctic resources.
In the Antarctic, icebreakers cut a channel each year that enables resupply ships to reach the U.S. research base on the shore of McMurdo Sound.
Both poles are seeing a surge in tourism, and the likelihood of using icebreakers for search and rescue missions is growing.
Long-term needs matter, because it takes eight to 10 years to go from approving the construction of new icebreakers to their delivery, according to the Congressional Research Service.
In this session of Congress, the House has authorized a study of the Coast Guard's need for icebreakers. A Senate bill authorizes the construction of two new icebreakers, but it hasn't passed.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/46477.html
Damn the US got caught slipping for real.
We got rolled on, plowed over, yeah
Metals are being sent to China like there is no tomorrow, even if we wanted to build better icebreakers, then there may not be enough metal for armour and bullets, then again, you have to wonder if, there are any American citizens who still know how!!?(sarcasm)...
K
kwazdog
Guest
bullshit!
Kwaz,
I'd like to leave the extraterrestrials in the exterrestrial threads but, one question: why is it that the extraterrestrial beings and their machines all seem to look like "Man" as in "Humans" or something "Man" as in "Humans" made?
That is, why do extraterrestrials all seem to look like some form of "Man" as in "HuMans" ??? i.e., two legs, two arms, fingers, a torso, and a head. And, why do extraterrestrial vehicles all look like a damn saucer or bowl, something made by man ???
Do you see what I'm getting at? If we are such low and limited beings, why would those well beyond us look anything like us? Is it because man tends to see and invent things, in his own image ??? - because that is his reality. If so, doesn't that lend a lot of credence to saying the extraterrestrial images that we have seen so far are just figments of our imagination ???
I'm not saying whether extra's exist or not; but if they do, maybe we haven't discovered them/it yet, because we've been too busy "Imagining Shit"
QueEx
I'd like to leave the extraterrestrials in the exterrestrial threads but, one question: why is it that the extraterrestrial beings and their machines all seem to look like "Man" as in "Humans" or something "Man" as in "Humans" made?
That is, why do extraterrestrials all seem to look like some form of "Man" as in "HuMans" ??? i.e., two legs, two arms, fingers, a torso, and a head. And, why do extraterrestrial vehicles all look like a damn saucer or bowl, something made by man ???
Do you see what I'm getting at? If we are such low and limited beings, why would those well beyond us look anything like us? Is it because man tends to see and invent things, in his own image ??? - because that is his reality. If so, doesn't that lend a lot of credence to saying the extraterrestrial images that we have seen so far are just figments of our imagination ???
I'm not saying whether extra's exist or not; but if they do, maybe we haven't discovered them/it yet, because we've been too busy "Imagining Shit"
QueEx
Russian hackers penetrate Pentagon computer system in cyber attack
Computer hackers suspected of working from Russia successfully penetrated Pentagon computer systems in one of the most severe cyber attacks on US military networks.
By Alex Spillius in Washington
Last Updated: 12:11AM GMT 01 Dec 2008
The electronic attack was so serious that Adm Michael Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, briefed President George W Bush and Robert Gates, the defence secretary.
Defence officials told the Los Angeles Times that the attack struck computers within the US Central Command, which oversees Iraq and Afghanistan, and involved malicious software - known as "malware" - that permeates a network.
"This one was significant, this one got our attention," said an official, speaking anonymously.....................http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/3535165/Russian-hackers-penetrate-Pentagon-computer-system-in-cyber-attack.html
When should cyber attacks be considered an act of war, and what boundaries must the President-elect make?
When Do Online Attacks Cross the Line Into Cyberwar?
The rising number of cyberattacks prompts calls from a commission to define the threat more clearly
By Alex Kingsbury
Posted December 9, 2008
The international community urgently needs to establish legal norms when it comes to computer and online crimes to help define and deter a problem that is escalating in severity, cyber security experts say.
A bipartisan commission examining the nation ' s cybersecurity infrastructure concluded this week that the next president needs to clearly articulate the value of the nation ' s cyber d omain . Of course, many groups are already looking at the issue, from NATO, which is focused on military applications, and the Department of Homeland Security to the European Union.
But the commission urged action from the White House directly. " The president should state as a fundamental principle that cyberspace is a vital asset for the nation and that the United States will protect it using all instruments of national power, in order to ensure national security, public safety, economic prosp erity, and the delivery of critical services to the American public. ".................http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/world/2008/12/09/when-do-online-attacks-cross-the-line-into-cyberwar.html
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Re-establishing Naval links to the past?
Russian warships in Cuban visit
A group of Russian warships is to visit Cuba for the first time since the Soviet era, the Russian navy has said.
The visit, scheduled for 19-22 December, will be led by the destroyer Admiral Chabanenko.
Recently the ship took part in joint manoeuvres with Venezuela and became the first Russian vessel to navigate the Panama Canal since World War II.
The naval activities are being seen as an attempt by Moscow to strengthen its influence in the region.
Cuba's revolutionary leadership was closely allied to the Soviet Union (USSR) during the Cold War, but relations have weakened since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
There have recently been attempts to revive ties...............http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7783294.stm
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Russian oil giant Gazprom has shut off gas to the entire nation of the Ukraine at the start of the winter season no less. If not mistaken something similar happened to Georgia back in the winter of '05-'06.
Russia shuts off gas to Ukraine
Russia has stopped all gas supplies to Ukraine after the collapse of talks to end a row over unpaid bills and prices.
Russia's gas giant Gazprom said it turned off the taps at 0700 GMT, when its contract to supply Ukraine ended.
Ukraine insists it has paid off its debts to Gazprom, but Russia contests this. The two countries have also failed to agree on a price for 2009.
The EU urged Russia and Ukraine to resume negotiations and not to let the dispute disrupt supplies to Europe.
A similar row between Gazprom and Ukraine at the beginning of 2006 led to gas shortages in several EU countries. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7806870.stm
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