Bloomberg: Space May Be Next Frontier for Earth's Crude Oil Giants
The Middle East has an outsize impact on energy here on Earth. One analyst thinks some regional powerhouses may leverage that role into the development of natural resources in space.
Countries like the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are developing space programs and investing in nascent private space commodity initiatives, said Tom James, a partner at energy consultant Navitas Resources. Doing so could give them a foothold in building extraterrestrial reserves of water -- a substance likely to fuel travel within space -- and other resources that could be used for in-space manufacturing.
“Water is the new oil of space,” James said in Singapore. “Middle East investment in space is growing as it works to shift from an oil-based to a knowledge-based economy.”
Guardian: British Power Generation Achieves First Ever Coal-Free Day
Friday was Britain’s first ever working day without coal power since the Industrial Revolution, according to the National Grid.
The control room tweeted the milestone on Friday. It is the first continuous 24-hour coal-free period for Britain since use of the fossil fuel began. West Burton 1 power station, the only coal-fired plant that had been up and running, went offline on Thursday.
The U.K. has had shorter coal-free periods in 2016, as gas and renewables such as wind and solar play an increasing role in the power mix. The longest continuous period until now had been 19 hours -- first achieved on a weekend last May, and matched on Thursday.
The Washington Post: Changes to Energy Dept. Websites Downplay Renewables as a Replacement for Fossil Fuels
The Energy Department is changing its website to cut down on Obama-era language touting renewable energy sources as a climate-friendly replacement for fossil fuels, according to reports from an environmental watchdog group.
Whereas the site formerly touted technologies such as wind, solar and geothermal energy as a replacement for sources such as coal, oil and natural gas, the department’s website now focuses on renewable energy’s potential to create jobs, according to the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, a network of academics and nonprofit groups that has been monitoring federal websites.
Reuters: Trump to Set New Executive Orders on Environment, Energy This Week
U.S. President Donald Trump this week will sign new executive orders before he completes his first 100 days in office, including two on energy and the environment, which would make it easier for the United States to develop energy on and offshore, a White House official said on Sunday.
"This builds on previous executive actions that have cleared the way for job-creating pipelines, innovations in energy production, and reduced unnecessary burden on energy producers," the official said on condition of anonymity.
On Wednesday, Trump is expected to sign an executive order related to the 1906 Antiquities Act, which enables the president to designate federal areas of land and water as national monuments to protect them from drilling, mining and development, the source said.
Slate: Here Are Some More Terrible Things Uber Has Been Doing
Silicon Valley and its enablers have mostly stood by (when they weren’t actively cheering) while ride-haling service Uber waged their long war against unions, local governments, the press, women, the police, and the very concept of employment. But, as New York Times reporter Mike Isaac revealed in a gangbusters profile of Uber CEO Travis Kalanick on Sunday, the company may have finally done something to shock the conscience of even the most Randian tech overlords: They violated Apple’s Terms of Service.
Early in 2015, Isaac reports, Kalanick was called in to meet with Apple CEO Tim Cook after Cook discovered that Uber was keeping permanent identifying information about iPhones that had the Uber app installed, even after Uber was uninstalled or the device was wiped entirely clean. Not only was this not a bug or an oversight, but, in an echo of the company’s former practice of “greyballing” (serving local authorities fake data to protect drivers from sting operations in places where Uber was illegal), Kalanick reportedly personally set up an elaborate espionage operation to deceive Apple about how the app functioned.