EUROPE’S FRACKING PROBLEMS
The question of whether North America’s shale success can or will be replicated elsewhere is often quite narrowly constructed around the amount of gas that could, potentially, be underground. In the U.K., for example, a geological survey has estimated some 1.3 quadrillion cubic feet of gas is contained within the shale formations under the Bowland area in northwest England.
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THE number of people expected to die in Sydney from extreme heat will triple by the end of the century, a leaked draft report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns. Another 800,000 people will fall ill year from contaminated food and water – while more than 270,000 homes will be at risk of collapsing into the ocean from rising sea levels. The unreleased draft of the IPCC’s second report also warns that $226 billion worth of coastal assets including homes, rail and road infrastructure are at risk with just a 1.1m rise in sea levels.
A long-mooted $1bn project to develop natural gasfields off the Gaza Strip has won Israeli support in principle and is on track to be given the green light, Palestinian and Israeli government officials said.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is “very supportive” of the project, which would see the fields exploited on behalf of the Palestinian Authority by investors led by BG Group, an Israeli government official involved in the deal told the Financial Times.
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WITH so much focus on carbon emitted from the nation’s power plants, another environmental challenge related to electricity generation is sometimes overlooked: the enormous amount of water needed to cool the power-producing equipment.
In the United States almost all electric power plants, 90 percent, are thermoelectric plants, which essentially create steam to generate electricity. To cool the plants, power suppliers take 40 percent of the fresh water withdrawn nationally, 136 billion gallons daily, the United States Geological Survey estimates. This matches the amount withdrawn by the agricultural sector and is nearly four times the amount for households.
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l futuro delle rinnovabili è nella generazione distribuita legata all’autoconsumo ma, nell’attesa della regolamentazione mancante, questa strada resta difficile da percorrere a causa dell’incertezza normativa. Sullo sfondo c’è il timore dell’Autorità per l’Energia (Aeeg) che teme che l’aumento della quota di elettricità consumata senza passare per la rete possa portare a squilibri al sistema, rendendo troppo cara la bolletta di chi non autoconsuma. Ma le paure dell’Aeeg per Assorinnovabili sono esagerate e l’associazione lo dimostra con delle simulazioni presentate in due audizioni in Camera e Senato. Ne abbiamo parlato con il vicepresidente dell’associazione, Giovanni Simoni.
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One thing is indisputable about Peter Voser’s four-year stint in the Royal Dutch Shell hot seat: investors are a lot surer of Shell than they were in 2009. As chief financial officer and then as chief executive, Mr Voser helped transform a group that was rocked to its foundations by a reserves accounting scandal and was seen as the sick man of the oil industry.
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