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Almost unnoticed by the world media...
Oil rises 18 pct in October
Oil soars in October, rising to $93 per barrel on expectations of bigger world appetite
31 October, 2011
NEW YORK (AP) -- Oil soared 17.7 percent in October on the expectation that the world's thirst for petroleum would keep growing despite economic struggles in the West.
West Texas Intermediate, the benchmark oil in the U.S., jumped from about $79 to $93 per barrel during the month as fears of another U.S. recession subsided while Europe struck a landmark deal to reduce Greece's debt. Demand from emerging markets remains strong. And a strategy calling for traders to buy WTI futures contracts while selling another variety, Brent crude, also boosted the price of WTI.
The conditions that fostered the increase remain in place.
"Oil demand is higher worldwide," said Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service. "Other parts of the world, most notably South America, are consuming a lot of our (petroleum) products."
For article GO HERE
‘Ryots’ are small peasnt farmers in India
Power cuts hit ryots, crops getting ruined
1 November, 2011
NAGPUR: The state's farmers are reeling under one of the worst power crisis with no end in sight. MSEDCL has enforced a weekly power cut for the first time and says that while the power situation has improved it can't commit when this weekly cut will end....
The weekly cut is wreaking havoc on the kharif crop, which now needs adequate water every day. Power supply to agriculture is erratic on remaining six days, which has caused a lot of crop damage.
Wardha-based farmer activist Vijay Jawandhia said that besides the weekly power cut, farmers were getting power supply during the day only four days a week. "On the remaining two days we get it at night. And there are innumerable interruptions."
"Farmers are not able to use water in wells. The cotton yield will reduce by 35% only due to load-shedding. Two crops of soybean will not be possible this year. The harvest of gram and tear will get delayed and the second crop will have a problem next summer," Jawandhia said.
For article GO HERE
India grapples with coal shortfalls
UPI,
31 October, 2011
NEW DELHI, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- Amid a growing population and robust economy, India is finding it increasingly difficult to boost its coal supply.
Although the government aims to double power generation over the next decade, India faces a shortage of about 100 million tons of coal in the next year, The Australian newspaper reports. That's equal to more than half its power generation capacity.
As a result of the shortages, dozens of power plants under construction will be halted. Coal accounts for about 70 percent of total energy consumption in India.
While India has the world's largest coal resources after the United States and China, many of its coal fields are situated in heavily forested area and face environmental constraints and delays in obtaining licenses.
Aside from domestic supplies being inadequate, the consistency of Indian coal is not always up to par for the country's needs.
For article GO HERE
Japanese urged to wrap up to save winter power
1 November, 2011
After months of being told to strip off to keep cool for summer, Japanese workers were Tuesday being urged to wrap up for winter in an energy-saving "Warm Biz" campaign.
As the nation continues to face possible electricity shortfalls in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster that has left dozens of atomic reactors offline, the government is asking people to keep warm the old-fashioned way.
Officials are telling homes and offices to set heaters and air conditioners no higher than 20 degrees C (68 F).
Average temperatures in Tokyo fall to around six degrees C in January and February and the government is advising people to wear extra layers of clothes and eat hot meals to keep out the cold.
For article GO HERE
Catastrophic Drought in Texas Causes Global Economic Ripples
30 October, 2011
The drought map created by University College London shows a number of worryingly dry areas around the globe, in places including East Africa, Canada, France and Britain.
But the largest area of catastrophic drought centers on Texas. It is an angry red swath on the map, signifying what has been the driest year in the state’s history. It has brought immense hardship to farmers and ranchers, and fed incessant wildfires, as well as an enormous dust storm that blew through the western Texas city of Lubbock in the past month.
“It’s horrible,” said Don Casey, a rancher in central Texas who sold off half his cattle after getting only about two inches of rain over a one-year stretch and may sell more. “Even if it starts raining, it’s going to take so long for the land to recover”
At the moment, 70 percent of Texas is experiencing “exceptional drought” — the worst classification — along with 55 percent of Oklahoma and significant chunks of Louisiana, New Mexico and Kansas. Northern Mexico is also affected .
Because it covers a huge and economically significant area, the Southwestern drought is having effects across the United States and even internationally, particularly in the food and agriculture sectors.
Some of the farthest-reaching effects may be on world cotton markets. Texas produces about 50 percent of U.S. cotton, and the United States in turn grows between 18 and 25 percent of the world’s cotton, according to Darren Hudson, director of the Cotton Economics Research Institute at Texas Tech University. This year, however, yields even from irrigated crops have fallen about 60 percent on the high plains where the bulk of Texas’s cotton crop grows, Mr. Hudson said. Farmers have given up on their “dry-land,” or unirrigated, cotton crops.
World cotton prices, which had been at historic highs, have fallen recently, Mr. Hudson said, but that is mainly because the sluggish economy and other factors have outweighed the loss of supply.
For article GO HERE
Study: Climate change causing Mediterranean droughts
31 October, 2011
Human-caused climate change is responsible for about half of the increased wintertime droughts occurring in the Mediterranean region, says a new U.S.-funded study.
In the last 20 years, 10 of the driest 12 winters have occurred in lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, from Gibraltar to the Middle East, which get most of their precipitation during the winter, according to a new analysis by scientists at NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES).
"The magnitude and frequency of the drying that has occurred is too great to be explained by natural variability alone," says study author Martin Hoerling of NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo. "This is not encouraging news for a region that already experiences water stress, because it implies natural variability alone is unlikely to return the region's climate to normal."
For article GO HERE
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