Probably nothing wrong with tweaking bacteria genes into producing petroleum products. It’s not like a release of these solar-converting bacteria spread across the world’s oceans would be a problem (I mean look at how well the Valdez spill cleaned up).

At the very least, it looks like they require a great deal of carbon input (CO2) which makes me wonder how much energy we’d have to put into the system to generate CO2 which ends up as oil. But if the little buggers are using solar to re-bond petroleum chains then it might be semi-efficient.

Could all be talk and PR for VCs, but Venter does have quite the track record. (From EcoGeek)  Read more 

Greg Palast provides his own version of Season’s Greetings with a Tiny-Tim-size message of hope.

Good and Evil at the Center of the Earth:
A Quechua Christmas Carol
by Greg Palast
December 24th, 2007

…
I know this is an incredibly simple story. Indians in white hats with their dead kids and oil millionaires in black hats laughing at kiddy cancer and playing musical chairs with oil assets.

But maybe it’s just that simple. Maybe in this world there really is Good and Evil.  Read more 

Fortune Magazine describes the next likely oil disaster: pipeline leaks and breaks along the Gulf Coast.

Full disclosure: I remember Ixtoc I, the exploratory well off the Mexican coast owned in part by then-Governor Bill Clements.
This thing spewed ten to thirty THOUSAND barrels of crude a day into the Gulf, and  Read more 

Forget dead troops. Forget a trillion dollars missing from the treasury. The war is about making money, and when you factor in the upward direction of oil prices due to speculation and neoliberalism, this data makes a lot of sense. If you’re an oil exec taking advantage of the new Iraqi “constitution” which gives away oil revenues to Western interests, that is:

Iraq is sitting on potential reserves of 100 billion barrels, nearly twice as much as currently estimated, according to a study by energy analysts IHS.

If these reserves were exploited, it said, Iraq could overtake Saudi Arabia as the world’s top oil producer.  Read more 

As we all know, Henry Kissinger has, “Jeff Gannon” style, been discreetly slipping into the Bush Bunker White House to give Inerrant Boy advice. So, it’s interesting that Henry the K just published an Op-Ed in the the United Arab Emirates Khaleej Times Online, and not in Pravda on the Potomac or Izvestia on the Hudson. (Readers? I’m Googling on this article, and can’t find it anywhere else.) I imagine that’s because Kissinger imagines that, when he makes a case for continuous war without end, the autocrats of the oil states in the Gulf are a more appropriate audience than the people who do the dying, the voting, and the paying: The American people. After all, Our Henry’s an Aristocrat like the rest of the Beltway Wienie Chompers. That said, Henry always has been a fine writer:  Read more 

In response to CD's question, I thought I dig up an oldie but goodie:  Read more 

I wonder what will happen now that the election is secured and the conservatives have won? The economy won’t be able to withstand the Iranian oil bourse coupled with an exit from the dollar by China. If/when, that happens, this will be the beginning of an incredibly painful correction in the American way of life.  Read more 

There are days when I sincerely wonder how anyone could still be a supporter of the war. For countless reasons, the best that can be said about Iraq today is that the sand is getting plenty of liquid red fertilizer. Not that this will surprise you, but it looks like puppet boy doesn’t want to be seen as a puppet anymore.

Privately, however, Maliki criticized what he called the patronizing U.S. tone toward the Iraqi government and warned U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad to respect Iraq’s sovereignty, two of the prime minister’s advisors said.

“I’m a friend to the United States, but not America’s man in Iraq,” Maliki told Khalilzad, according to Hassan Senaid, one of the prime minister’s closest advisors.  Read more 

I know next to nothing about Russian/Georgian relations. I do know energy resources are at the heart of how they deal with each other. This can’t be good:

MOSCOW, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) — Russia cannot rule out military action in dealing with mounting tensions with neighboring Georgia, the daily Kommersant reported on Monday.

“All diplomatic steps that are usually taken in such strained relations have been exhausted … The next action could be the breaking of diplomatic relations and a military operation,” the report warned, quoting an unnamed source with Russia’s Defense Ministry.

Relations between Moscow and Tbilisi have been increasingly strained since Georgian authorities arrested four Russian officers last week, charging them with spying activities.

Russia has recalled its ambassador in Tbilisi and evacuated itscitizens.  Read more 

LOL!

But if I were Robert Palmer, I’d be pissed. Ruining a classic video like that is almost a crime. Almost.

Quote of the day, or at least for me, from the ever impressive Nur AC:

Concerning the “Kill them all” thread below, the US is doomed to “cut and run” for the following reason: The Arab world has only 25% of the oil.  Read more 

I’m sure some of our NSA/DoD readers think I’m some kind of left wing wacko who spits on troops and burns flags, but that’s not really true. In that spirit, let’s forget about the war for a second and talk about this. I’m posting the whole thing, but if you go to the site you’ll find that many live links are embedded in the page. Good job, soldiers!

Not that long ago, the idea of the Sierra Club and the Army Corps of Engineers working on the same side of an issue might’ve seemed silly. But these days, the Army sees dependence on foreign oil as a major national security risk. And so the engineers are calling on DC to make a bunch of changes straight out of the environmentalists’ playbook — like mandating better gas mileage and giving out tax credits for green energy. (Although the bit about “open[ing] up Federal lands for oil and natural gas” might not exactly be met with huzzahs at Sierra HQ.)  Read more 

I honestly believe that most of Bush’s Iranwar chatter is hot air. I just don’t see the Chinese, to whom we owe something like a trillion dollars and without whom our entire economy would collapse, letting him get in the way of their oil. Exhibit A:

Twenty-two Arab nations have agreed to boost energy cooperation and increase trade with China at the end of a two-day meeting in Beijing.

Analysts see the meeting as part of Beijing’s strategy of pushing for stability in the Middle East in order to secure future oil supplies.

Middle East nations already provide China with about 44 percent of its oil imports and with its economy showing no signs of slowing down, Beijing wants to get more oil from the region. For that to happen, China’s leaders say, there first needs to be peace in the Middle East and the key to that is the settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  Read more