At the tipping point

This must read article is authored by Head of the United Nations, Ban Ki Moon, and published in the International Herald Tribune.

I hope, probably forlornly, that it is picked up by all the mainstream media.

_____________
Well, as of Tuesday morning, 20/11, the only references I've spotted are minor mentions (in the UK media) plus some serious coverage in one or two more obscure Canadian, Australian and South African publications.

IDEA- Axe deodorant

From Gizmondo.

That's toys for kids, OK.

I merely approve in principle of second use, however derived

Hydrogen from petroleum?

I missed this yesterday (well, I don't often trawl through stock exchange regulatory announcements), but feel that it is still worthy of comment.

It's about Exxon-Mobil, with partners, developing a new unique technology that "reduces carbon emissions and offers advantages over other Hydrogen delivery systems".

So I read on, with interest, the biggest of the big-oil boys looking at Hydrogen generation systems was definitely an eyebrow twitcher. Oh, the technology will use "liquid fuels ... gasoline, diesel, ethanol or biodiesel and convert them into hydrogen onboard the vehicle where it will be used in a fuel cell power train."

They claim that "it has the potential to be up to 80% more fuel efficient than today's internal combustion engine technologies and reduce CO2 emissions by up to 45%."

Now that's some claim and I'd like to see and understand more of the potential of this technology, but, and perhaps I'm being a little picky here, its fuel source is still petroleum, ethanol or bio-diesel based, so doesn't this sort of technology simply perpetuate big-oil's existing storage and distribution infrastructures.

And one other thing. Though I've forgotten an awful lot of my chemistry over the years, surely if you remove all (or most) of the Hydrogen from a bunch of complex hydrocarbon molecules as a fuel source, aren't you going to be left with an awful lot of Carbon, CO2 and other nasties to dispose of?

Well, d'uh!

Sometimes you come across pointless research that just makes you think 'what on earth is going on'!. This is one such - 'Hurricanes kill trees, fuel global warming'. Well, of course hurricanes kill trees, they destroy pretty much everything in their path. And we all know that trees are valuable carbon sinks whose destruction can take decades to recover.

Apart from some interesting numbers they've extrapolated, this seems a complete waste of research time and money!

Ouch!

This might be very painful for commercial enterprises and consumers right across the planet - Oil price could hit $150 a barrel.

On the other hand it could go down by $30 a barrel.

Isn't 'could' a great word.
____________________

Call for curb on speculators - The Guardian.