A team of researchers lead by mathematician Dr. Rui Carvalho at the Centre for Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge, have come up with a model that demonstrates how Europe can bolster its natural gas resiliency through cooperation and access to each others’ energy markets. Natural gas pipelines, and moreover the networks they create, are expensive to build and even more so to operate if not utilized at or near capacity. Therefore these researchers set about the task of calculating how in times of conflict or crisis European economies could weather a major disruption in gas supplies without adding new capacity. The result was the publication this month of their research in a report entitled, “Resilience of natural gas networks during conflicts, crises and disruptions.”
On March 26th, European leaders asked US President Obama to help in licensing the export of US derived shale gas to the continent. Such a request comes at a difficult time for all concerned. Tough and potentially costly decisions will have to be made in terms of directing America's natural gas to its best end-use. Gal Luft points out there has been an absence of significant discussion about how America's shale gas revolution can benefit one of the US economy's most important sectors-transportation.
Recent and ongoing security breaches at companies operating critical energy infrastructure have everyone concerned. There is a long way to go towards harmonizing and regularizing network security protocols across industries as Dr. Vincent Berk, CEO of FlowTraq a network security solutions provider, recently pointed out in an interview concerning cybersecurity with the Journal of Energy Security.
For many Americans and foreign alumni who’ve passed through the American university system, the month of March is known as March Madness. It is a month that basketball fans are glued to their televisions following the college basketball championship round-robin.
Elsewhere around the world March Madness in 2014 took on a much more sinister character. Russia’s take-over of Crimea is only the latest in a long series of bullying incursions that the world’s largest country has taken over smaller regional ones. Abkhazia in Georgia and Transnistria in Moldova jump to mind as the manifestation of Russian mingling in the affairs of states under former Soviet and now Russian influence.
In the past disputes between Russian nationalists, lead by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and its Ukrainian neighbor have been obscured through the fish-eyed lens of energy issues where Russia’s displeasure of ...