US shale shifts global power balance
A steeper-than-expected rise in US shale oil reserves is about to change the global balance of power between new and existing producers, a report says.
A steeper-than-expected rise in US shale oil reserves is about to change the global balance of power between new and existing producers, a report says.
Natural-colour image of the agricultural fields between the Japanese city of Sendai and Sendai Bay.
Amazonian forest cleared in Ecuador, a mountain levelled in Peru, the Cerrado savannah converted to soy fields in Brazil and oil fields under development in Venezuela’s Orinoco belt.
Ecuador plans to auction off more than three million hectares of pristine Amazonian rainforest to Chinese oil companies, angering indigenous groups and underlining the global environmental toll of China’s insatiable thirst for energy.
A center of Cold War chemical manufacturing, the city’s 300,000 residents have one of the lowest life expectancies in the world thanks to waste injected directly into the ground. “Average life expectancy is roughly 45 years,” Robinson (of the Blacksmith Institute) says. “Fifteen to 20 years less than the Russian average and about half a Westerner’s.”
Underlying northwestern North Dakota is a massive rock formation, referred to as the Bakken shale, which holds an estimated 18 billion barrels of crude oil. When this resource was first discovered in 1951, recovering it was financially unfeasible because the oil was embedded in the stone. Then, around 2008, everything changed, and North Dakota boomed. New drilling technology called hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” became widespread, and oil production took off. As of 2013, there are more than 200 active oil rigs in North Dakota, producing about 20 million barrels of oil every month — nearly 60 percent of it shipped by rail, rather than pipeline. The rigs and support systems have resculpted the landscape, millions of dollars are being spent on infrastructure upgrades across the area, and thousands of oil field workers have arrived, living in new or temporary housing. Gathered below is a collection of images of this recent boom, spread across North Dakota’s wide open plains.
Smurfit Stone Container plant in Hodge is located at the site of a former International Paper mill.
Hydro-Québec’s Manic-cinq electric power plant, located 214 km north of Baie-Comeau, Quebec. This aerial view of the 1528 MW power plant has been taken from the top of the Daniel-Johnson Dam. On the photograph, 4 of the 8 turbine groups of the station are generating power.
The hydroelectricity power station consists of concrete five vertical Francis turbines; three at 32.5 MW, one at 42.3 MW and another at 67.5 MW. The power station receives water by means of five 223 ft (68 m). high intake towers and then into penstocks. Water released from the power station moves down a 150 ft (46 m). long tailrace tunnel before being discharged back in the Saluda River.[1]
During construction, workers laid 18,590 cubic yards (14,210 m3) of roller-compacted concrete in one day, setting a North American record.
