Geriatric constipation
By John Busby
2009-05-21

British Energy (BE) has issued a report “Managing spent fuel at Sizewell B” which was prepared for issue at a public exhibition to “explain the options that British Energy are considering for managing spent fuel at Sizewell B nuclear power station from 2015 onwards”. John Busby touches on some of the unresolved issues.

ITER iterations
By John Busby
2009-05-05

Our energy analyst,  John Busby, while attending the Sixth Annual International Conference in Cork in 2007 of ASPO,  the Association for the study of Peak Oil and Gas, was struck by the presentation of Michael Dittmar, a CERN physicist working on the Large Hadron Collider, in which he highlighted the miniscule supply of tritium, one of the essential fuels for the fusion reactor.

The fusion reactor is promoted as the ultimate source of the world’s energy, based on the sun’s energy production by the fusion of hydrogen atoms, but does in fact rely on the fusion of deuterium and tritium. There are many perhaps irresolvable problems in fusion research, but as this article will argue, the impossible scale-up in tritium production from kilograms to tonnages, will prove to be its nemesis.

An anxious world, desperate to find a solution to an energy crisis, funds the research which it hopes will lead to the deployment of fusion reactors at the end of the century when but a modicum of fossil fuels will remain. Michael Dittmar believes this to be an illusion, a view shared by John Busby as he attempts to explain this complex subject to our readers.

On NATO's 60th Anniversary - Part II
By Rui Namorado Rosa
2009-04-29

In Part II of "On NATO's 60th Anniversary, Rui Namorado Rosa looks to the future role and impact of NATO on not just the American/European alliance but on the world: 

The USA has a global network of more than 750 foreign military bases to impose “the arrangement for the 21st century” (in the words of Vice President Dick Cheney). USA geostrategic priorities have shifted from Europe further a field toward southern Asia and China. As its network grows, it is increasingly encountering opposition in “host” nations and even the United States itself.

The Border Cartels Challenge Obama
By Carlton Meyer
2009-04-21

In the great movie “Traffic,” the head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), played by Michael Douglas, holds a meeting with the nation’s top drug warriors. He states that the war on drugs has clearly failed, and asks for new, fresh ideas, something out of the box. There was no response, just silence. “Traffic” was released nine years ago, yet President Obama will encounter that same silence as he searches for solutions to the drug cartels in Mexico. He will make no progress if he relies on advice from their unofficial American allies, the drug enforcement cartel and the homeland security cartel.

On NATO’s 60th Anniversary - Part I
By Rui Namorado Rosa
2009-04-17

The evolving World-wide war-machine

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO’s very existence came into question, but a new Strategic Concept was agreed that same year. NATO was no longer needed to defend Western Europe from an unlikely threat from the economically and politically debilitated Russia and its former allies. Amid debates over NATO’s future purpose, institutional survival took hold because the military nature of the alliance in effect relied on a deeper ideological understanding over protecting the political interests of the ruling elite and the major economic state and oligarchic stakes. Member states had invested much, were accustomed to the operating procedures of the alliance and  continued to pursue the very same ends.