03.08.2009
A class of synthetic chemicals that are odorless, non-toxic, non-flammable, and chemically inert. The first CFC was synthesized in 1892, but no use was found for it until the 1920s. Their stability and apparently harmless properties made CFCs popular as propellants in aerosol cans, as refrigerants in refrigerators and air conditioners, as degreasing agents, and in the manufacture of foam packaging. They are now known to be partly responsible for the destruction of the ozone layer. When CFCs are released into the atmosphere, they drift up slowly into the stratosphere, where, under the influence of ultraviolet radiation from the Sun, they react with ozone (O3) to form free chlorine (Cl) atoms and molecular oxygen (O2), thereby destroying the ozone layer which protects the Earth’s surface from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays. The chlorine liberated during ozone breakdown can react with still more ozone, making the CFCs particularly dangerous to the environment. CFCs can remain in the atmosphere for more than a hundred years. Replacements for CFCs are being developed, and research into safe methods for destroying existing CFCs is being carried
Soviet built pipeline system connecting Central Asia and Russia. These pipelines known as the CAC system handle for instance more than 85% of Turkmenistan’s total gas exports. Turkmenistan is looking to establish new export routes for its natural gas
Expressed in pounds per square inch, this is the internal pressure exerted that will cause a pipe to fail
These are commonly layers of sedimentary rock separated by breaks called bedding planes. The sedimentary bed is the basic unit, or fundamental building block of stratigraphy. The lithologic composition of beds, their geometry, their trajectory, stacking patterns and hierarchies are used to interpret their depositional setting. Beds may signal a global process that acted over ten’s of thousand of years or may be very local products of events that acted over a matter of hours or days
In GSA negotiations, the base price defines what price the escalation is applied to and the actual or effective price may be above or below that base price depending on how the escalation factors move. A floor price is a level below which the price will not be allowed to go regardless of whether escalation would normally have taken it below that floor level. So normally, in GSA negotiations, sellers want a ‘floor price’ while buyers want a ‘ceiling price’ i.e. one that cannot be exceeded
British Gas owner Centrica plans to spend around £1.2bn converting the Baird gas field in the southern North Sea into the UK’s second largest gas storage facility. It is expected that the project will commence commercial operations in 2013.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) issued its first ever gas storage licence to the Gateway project in the east Irish Sea. The 600 million pound ($941.5 million) Gateway storage facility is expected to boost gas storage by 1.5 bcm and increase Britain’s overall capacity by around 30%. The project involves creating 20 new salt caverns under the sea to store the gas, and would connect the storage facility to the existing Barrow gas terminal in northwest England via pipeline.Concerns about Britain’s gas storage were raised after record demand and problems with Norwegian gas flow in January caused energy network operator National Grid to issue system balancing alerts, despite reassurances that there was more than enough supply. Britain has less gas storage capacity compared to other major European countries, due to its role as a gas producer, but as North Sea output declines the country is becoming reliant on imports, causing concerns about energy security.
The naturally-occurring ionizing radiation which every person is exposed to, arising from the earth’s crust (including radon) and from cosmic radiation