crooks and liars – Page 12

Failure of US bid to flood Europe with Gas from Fracking

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by TheFreeOnline A few months ago US officials were openly boasting that they would steal the market for Russian gas in Europe by replacing it with their own LNG now flowing from the devastated fracking fields of America.

But in recent weeks not a single cargo of Frack Gas has reached Europe..What went wrong?

It seems that with so much anti Russian hysteria they overlooked the price difference. . Gas shipped from the first US LNG export terminal was at one point priced in Rotterdam at $7.85 to $8.35 per mbtu while the average Euro price was $ 5.35, (May 2017 European price, see Climate-lethal US frack-gas Footnote 3) .

Even the rabidly anti Russian Baltic Republics seem to have shut up about bashing Putin with US gas, while Rotterdam has signed up as the trans-shipment center for cheap LNG from the new Russian LNG plant in the Arctic.

Frack-Gas is the same as normal gas, only that it’s up to 3 times more lethal than coal for the climate. Because extracting it requires fracturing shale in thousands of small wells with ultra toxic chemicals causing massive methane leaking.

Two of the biggest customers at present of US fracking gas , Shell and Gas Natural, who have 20 year ‘take or pay’ contracts, have been shipping most of their gas instead through the Panama canal to the Far East, where prices until now have been up to $3 per mbtu higher.

US fracking gas and oil depends on almost cost free loans and near immunity from water and air pollution laws and clean-up costs as well as a blind climate change denial policy.

The business, which has made the US nearly self–sufficient in ‘natural’ gas, LPG and oil for now, is often seen as a patriotic push to conserve US supremacy as the petrodollar scam wobbles and the right to ‘infinite debt’ comes into question.

Ironically the first giant LNG export plant in Sabine Pass, Louisiana, was first hit a glancing blow by the classic ‘climate change hurricane’ Harvey. . Though the company Cheniere claimed there was no damage there was still a queue of LNG tankers waiting to load at the port a month later and LNG journals were rejoicing that things were ‘getting back to normal’. (see Recovery Continues as Sabine Pass)

Cheniere forced to close two Sabine Pass LNG tanks following dangerous leak

Then there is the ongoing leaking tank disaster. The 6 mega plant ‘trains’ at Sabine Pass have been built in record time. Too fast it seems because last week the company was ordered to close down two of the five immense tanks where the gas is compressed by 600 times and held at minus 150 C until loaded onto the tankers. Continue reading “Failure of US bid to flood Europe with Gas from Fracking”

Class War smash Qatari Royals and promote Protest Rights

Comment, Feb 9th

There’s something delicious about seeing very rich and powerful people take on a fight and then realise they’ve bitten off more than they can chew. They’re not used to it and sometimes seemingly small victories are the best we can hope for.

Last week Class War founder, Ian Bone, promoted globally on facebook the idea of redressing the balance on housing in London by occupying the Shard. There are multi million quid apartments in the building laying empty year and after year, meanwhile homelessness is on the rise and the vast majority of Grenfell survivors have still not been re-housed.

Before I go further I should say I’m part of Class War. My PhD research from the inside of the group has unearthed many examples of both the authorities and the media imagining that Class War just has to press a button somewhere and the unruly mob of thousands rises from the streets to literally devastate the avenues where the wealthy live. Class War are organising protests all the time and the size of a protest doesn’t really have an exact science behind it; some things take off and most things don’t. The vast majority of Class War events pass without any media interest. This means that when they do take off and large numbers attend a demo and boisterous things occur the police and others can look terribly inadequate so there has become a standard theme to policing Class War events: they send at least a van of cops along, hours in advance just in case, presumably with others on standby if they feel it necessary.

Continue reading “Class War smash Qatari Royals and promote Protest Rights”

Tabarnia: A not-so-funny Joke on Catalan Democracy

At first sight the Imaginary Kingdom of Tabarnia may be funny and subversive, (of course there’s less support for Independence on the industrial Catalan coast due to ”immigration” from other parts). But at second glance it’s another maneuver by the far right to sabotage the relatively progressive independence movement.

The December 21 election in Catalonia produced some striking results and accentuated the deepening polarisation in the region. In the middle of what the pro-independence camp called a “Spanish occupation”, with the region’s autonomy practically repealed, the Catalan President Carles Puigdemont forced into self-exile in Belgium and some Catalan legislators sent to prison, those who support Catalonia’s independence from Spain still managed to maintain a slim majority in the regional parliament after the snap election.

The leaders of the ”winning” Ciutadans’party have been exposed as prominent fascists who received huge financial support from the far right central government

The unionists in Catalonia, however, did not accept defeat gracefully. The pro-union Citizens Party won the majority of votes* across the region, but failed to secure the necessary majority to either govern alone or in a pro-Spain coalition. (*note.. this is a misleading … the well financed Citizens Party (Ciutadans) had more votes than any other,37%, but only because the 3 allied independence parties ran separately, Junts and ERC who got over 21% each, plus CUP (the ‘anarcho-republicans’) with 4.2%. Nearly all the media nevertheless proclaim that the right-wing Citizens ”won” the election.) Continue reading “Tabarnia: A not-so-funny Joke on Catalan Democracy”

‘France is secretly Fracking Algeria already’.. claims French MP

LEER en Español Aqui https://wp.me/pIJl9-aXr

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

Scandal in France, a deputy accuses the government of secretly allowing fracking in its ex colony of Algeria. If France really is fracking in Algeria, the gas would be twice as harmful to our climate emergency as coal. And if the new gas pipeline from Timimoun built by TOTAL brings this gas to the general gas network, it would also reach the two gas pipelines that supply two thirds of Iberia’s gas (22 bcm).

And the Spanish government has announced several times that the new controversial Midcat gas pipeline would serve to ‘export gas from Algeria to France’.

Fracking in the Sahara is a nightmare because it lacks an average of 16.65 million liters of water for each of thousands of perforations. And because of the danger of contaminating groundwater in the aquifer that gives life to all the mega-desert oases.

We have published an article ”Algeria Green-lights climate-lethal Fracking Gas with EU Imperialists TOTAL and CEPSA, 18 Jan 2018 ” detailing the decision of the Algerian government to renounce the ban on fracking. We included the news that fracking would start at the Timimoun gas field in the south west desert.

Timimoun, where the fracking may begin, is the ancient center of 200 magical oasis villages set into majestic cliffs. All are 100% dependent on clean aquifer water.

But then came another report that fracking would take time to organize and the extraction in Timimoun, Ahnet and Reggane, (which starts already in April 2018 with 40 wells only in Timimoun) by TOTAL, CEPSA, and Sonatrach, will be by conventional methods, and that only by chance was it announced along with the news that fracking will begin. (But TOTAL has explored and developed these places for decades and in the US a fracking drill is assembled in a matter of weeks.) Continue reading “‘France is secretly Fracking Algeria already’.. claims French MP”

Site where new Migrant Prison is Due to be Built Occupied by CGT Anarchist Union

CGT occupies the land of Botafuegos where the Government plans to build a CIE

By RojoyNegro_Digital on, 02/02/2018

Some thirty CGT activists from different parts of the Spanish geography have occupied the Botafuegos site this afternoon, where the Government plans to build a Foreigner Internment Center (CIE).

Members of the union have come from different points of Catalonia, Aragon, Madrid and Andalusia, and have occupied with tents the site loaned by the City of Algeciras to the Ministry of the Interior for the construction of the CIE.

The general secretary of CGT Andalucía, Miguel Montenegro, said that “what we want is to denounce the future construction of the CIE in Algeciras and to shout loud and clear that we do not want more borders, more innocent prisoners and more deaths in invented prisons as happened at Archidona’s CIE at Christmas. “ Continue reading “Site where new Migrant Prison is Due to be Built Occupied by CGT Anarchist Union”