The US EPA and DOE released their updated list of most fuel efficient cars on the market in 2014. The all electric Chevy Spark, Honda Fit and Fiat 500e top the list. [Clean Technica] Geopolitical tension in the Middle East has been ratcheting up, first with last month’s Iranian embassy bombing in Beirut and now… Keep reading →
Scientists at Lehigh University are proposing modeling wind turbine blades on owls’ wings to mimic their stealth properties. “If the noise-reduction mechanism of the owl down can be established, there may be far-reaching implications to the design of novel sound-absorbing liners, the use of flexible roughness to affect trailing-edge noise and vibrations for aircraft and wind… Keep reading →
GENEVA: Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif is confident an agreement to end the Iranian nuclear crisis will be reached soon and that he would be able to sell it back home in Tehran despite hardline opposition there, he told Breaking Defense in an exclusive interview. “I would not agree on something if I didn’t believe… Keep reading →
Washington’s relationship with Riyadh has always been focused on mutually-beneficial policies, while politely ignoring considerable societal differences. There have certainly been periods of ideological conflict, but the House of Saud and the Obama Administration currently find themselves very far apart on several important issues. And while leadership in Washington thus far appears relatively unconcerned –… Keep reading →
Alternative fuel company Primus Green Energy has just opened a gas-to-liquids demonstration plant in New Jersey. With natural gas prices trading well below oil prices, and US gas reserves abundant, Primus’ product could provide a cost-competitive alternative to petroleum-based fuels for the domestic market. Here are some of the quick takeaways from a recent plant tour, which Breaking… Keep reading →
In this report published by the German Marshall Fund, Washington Institute fellow Simon Henderson discusses ways of surmounting the challenges Israel and Cyprus face as they seek to develop newfound oil and gas deposits in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. [The Washington Institute for Near East Policy] A bit further to the northeast, the Caspian Sea… Keep reading →
Unrest in Turkey could upset Kurdish and Israeli plans to develop, and ultimately export, oil and gas respectively. [Quartz] Shareholder activism – rather, activism by select shareholders – is upsetting energy company executives’ plans to hold on to their jobs until they choose to leave. [WSJ] Competition from independent Russian gas producers, such as Novatek,… Keep reading →
Israeli energy management systems company Panoramic Power announced this Monday that its technology was going to market. The company’s self-powered circuit sensor can provide customers with real-time detailed data on an entire building’s energy use through a wireless mesh network.
Among Panoramic Power’s financial backers is Israel Cleantech Ventures (ICV), a five-year old Israeli-based venture capital firm that was founded by three Ivy-League-educated Israeli transplants who moved from the East Coast with vast professional networks in the United States. One of the partners, Jack Levy, met with Breaking Energy in ICV’s offices in the Green Village, a quiet Tel Aviv suburb filled not only with environmental education programs but also with peacocks and chickens that roam the dusty lanes between houses. Keep reading →
As nations continue to wrangle over the control, development and transportation of Caspian basin oil and gas resources, recent new discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea have raised the potential conflict level between governments, corporations and other relevant parties. But the discovery of what appear to be substantial natural gas deposits, also presents great opportunity.
“There was some concern a number of months ago about these gas finds off the southern coast of Cyprus… now the US would have to have more of a naval presence in the Eastern Mediterranean in order to de-conflict these forces..,” Steven A. Cook, Council on Foreign Relations’ Hasib J. Sabbagh Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies told journalists at a recent roundtable for select media. Keep reading →
Nouriel Roubini gives an audience no shortage of scenarios to keep them up at night, but his number one worry right now is the looming threat of Iran building nuclear weapons. Specifically, it’s the risk of a confrontation between Israel and Iran, or the United States and Iran, Roubini told Michael Milken in front of hundreds of onlookers at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles Wednesday. Roubini, a notorious doomsayer and chairman of Roubini Global Economics, expects both Iran’s push into nuclear weapons and the pushback from Iran and Israel to ramp up in the second half of 2012.
