Singapore Hit By Worst Dry Spell in 29 Years

peakoil.com -> planetark.com (archive) :

Singapore is suffering its worst dry spell in 29 years, sparking rare bush fires in the densely populated Southeast Asian island and cranking the country's ubiquitous air conditioners into overdrive.

Singapore, just 140 km (85 miles) north of the equator, usually sees relatively dry weather in February as Southeast Asia's northeast monsoon season shifts south. But February this year is the driest since 1976, the government said on Monday.

Fire fighters have fought 388 bush fires since Jan. 1. That compares with 355 for all of 2003 and 500 last year, Singapore's Civil Defence Force said. The biggest engulfed vacant land the size of about 15 soccer fields on Feb. 17.

The National Environment Agency said temperatures have reached a high of 34 degrees Celsius (93.2 degrees Fahrenheit) almost daily since Jan. 20., with Feb 9 - the first day of the Lunar New Year - hitting 35.5 degrees Celsius (95.9 degrees Fahrenheit), the hottest day in 15 years.

Most of Singapore received less than 1 mm (0.04 inch) of rainfall in the first two weeks of February.

The National Environment Agency said the current dry spell, which runs usually once every five years, should ease by the end of February. The longest dry spell, which hit Singapore in the same period in 1976, lasted 35 days.

(2005-02-24 21:34:14 SGT) [Env] Permalink

Monday February 21, 2005

Peak Oil May Be Now : Matt Simmons

peakoil.com -> aljazeera.net :

As oil stubbornly refuses to fall below $45 a barrel, a major market mover has cast a worrying future prediction. Energy investment banker Matthew Simmons, of Simmons & Co International, has been outspoken in his warnings about peak oil before. His new statement is his strongest yet, "we may have already passed peak oil".

The subject of peak oil, the point at which the world's finite supply of oil begins to decline, is a hot topic in the industry ... speaking exclusively to Aljazeera, Simmons came out with a statement that, if proven true over time, could herald by far the biggest energy crisis mankind has known.

"If Saudi Arabia have damaged their fields, accidentally or not, by overproducing them, then we may have already passed peak oil. Iran has certainly peaked, there is no way on Earth they can ever get back to their production of six million barrels per day (mbpd)."

... the idea that Saudi Arabia could force its production up to 12mbpd or higher is met with scorn by Simmons. "This is dangerous stuff," warns Simmons. "If we say they have not peaked and then they choose to further increase production, they will only hasten their field decline, and waste huge amounts of valuable oil into the bargain. And oil, as we are only now coming to realise, is the world's most precious resource."

(2005-02-21 11:37:07 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

Peak Oil and Swedish Government

energyresources -> runningonempty2 :

According to this message from Lars Oloffson in Sweden, the government of Sweden is aware of "peak oil" and is getting ready ...

In the Swedish Consumer Agency ("Konsumentverket") monthly magazine, "Råd och Rön", there is a four page "peak oil" article. The totally advertisement-free magazine has 125 000 subscribers, and is read by 520000 swedes (out of 9 million) every month, most highly aware consumers ...

(2005-02-21 11:32:54 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

The "United States of Europe" ?

peakoil.com -> cnn.com :

As Bush arrives in Europe, he's presented with a clear message: the EU is becoming a united block, strengthening its geopolitical power. A fact which we can no longer ignore ...

MADRID, Spain (CNN) - Spanish voters gave overwhelming support for the European Union constitution Sunday, voting for ratification by a more than 4-1 margin in the first national vote on the proposed charter. Interior Ministry figures showed 10.1 million voters - 76.4 percent of the 13.3 million who cast ballots - supported ratifying the constitution ..

Quenching your printer's exotic thirst

news.com :

The sheer size of the ink galaxy took me by surprise. But it shouldn't have. The reason so much choice exists is simple. As the prices of printers have dropped drastically over the past decade, ink prices haven't. Nowadays, every time I replace the black-and-white cartridge in our $80 Deskjet 3650 with a new name-brand HP No. 27 (which last week cost $17.88 at Amazon), the replacement adds another 22 percent to the cost of the printer.

"Most of the profit in the printer industry is in the printer supplies, which is why the manufacturers want proprietary products to go into their printers as much as possible, and it's why we sell well over a thousand different printer products," said Dana Larrabee, president of InkjetCartridge.com ...

Firefox reaches 25 million downloads

news.com :

Look out, Microsoft.

That's the message this week from the Mozilla Foundation, whose Web browser Firefox has surpassed 25 million downloads in 100 days.

Mozilla, which released the free 1.0 program in November, says an average of 250,000 people download Firefox every day and more than half a million Web sites feature Firefox promotions. The group promotes the program as an alternative to Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which has become a target for computer virus writers and other security exploits ...

(2005-02-21 11:14:11 SGT) [Tech] Permalink

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