Submitted by New Energy News Blog
Introducing a NewEnergyNews Friday feature.
LIVE EARTH MUMBAI
Live Earth show to help light homes with solar energy
Shilpa Jamkhandikar, September 20, 2008 (Reuters)
“India will host the next Live Earth concert…The December event will see U.S. rocker Jon Bon Jovi and Bollywood’s biggest superstar, Amitabh Bachchan share the stage…The concert will be held in India’s financial capital Mumbai on Dec. 7…”
KBR (HALLIBURTON) MAN GUILTY OF BRIBE
Former KBR official pleads guilty to bribery in Nigerian LNG project
Nick Snow, September 15, 2008 (Oil & Gas Journal)
“A former official of Kellogg Brown and Root Inc. pleaded guilty on Sept. 3 to federal charges that he participated in a scheme to bribe Nigerian officials over a 10-year period…Albert “Jack” Stanley entered a guilty plea in US District Court in Houston to charges that he conspired to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and to commit mail and wire fraud while he was working for MW Kellogg Co., and later Kellogg Brown and Root from 1995 through 2004…He agreed to cooperate with law enforcement authorities in ongoing investigations as part of the agreement…
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF OIL SHALE
Reactions mixed as BLM issues EIS for oil shale
Nick Snow, September 8, 2008 (Oil & Gas Journal)
The US Bureau of Land Management issued a final programmatic environmental impact statement Sept. 4 to guide the use of public land containing oil shale and tar sands in three western states…Utah’s two Republican US senators each greeted BLM’s step with cheers as Colorado’s Democratic governor and a major national environmental organization condemned it…
EINSTEIN’S ‘FRIDGE
Einstein fridge design could help global cooling; Scientists relaunch a 1930 invention that uses no electricity and would reduce greenhouse gases
Alok Jha, September 21, 2008 (UK Observer)
An early invention by Albert Einstein has been rebuilt by scientists at Oxford University who are trying to develop an environmentally friendly refrigerator…Modern fridges are notoriously damaging to the environment. They work by compressing and expanding man-made greenhouse gases called freons – far more damaging that carbon dioxide…Malcolm McCulloch…completed a prototype of a type of fridge patented in 1930 by Einstein and his colleague, the Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard. It had no moving parts and used only pressurised gases to keep things cold…Einstein and Szilard’s idea avoids the need for freons…
FRENCH GET OUT OF THEIR CARS
France’s drop in motor fuel demand ‘unprecedented
Doris Leblond, September 18, 2008 (Oil & Gas Journal)
France’s 12.3% decline in motor fuel consumption in August vs. the same time in 2007 is being called “unprecedented” … The slack seemed to have been taken up by increased use of collective transport and restrained driving habits.