On
Dec. 11, 2005, a series of explosions rocked the Buncefield oil depot just north
of London, injuring 43 people and displacing thousands of nearby residents,
according to BBC reports. In the largest peacetime fire in Europe, smoke covered
London and reached as far away as Spain, as the fires burned for three days.
Twenty tanks, each holding 3 million gallons of fuel, went up in smoke.
London was completely covered by the black
plume of smoke seen over England in this Envisat image, taken within five hours
of a blaze that began Dec. 11 at an oil depot just north of the city.
More than 71 million gallons of kerosene, diesel fuel and gasoline are stored
in tanks at the site, which sends fuel to Heathrow and Gatwick airports. Still,
the explosions did not badly interrupt service at either airport. French oil
company Total, which runs the depot, and other oil companies that use it immediately
diverted fuel shipments so as not to create shortages.
Initial investigations suggested that the explosions were ignited by a tank
rupture that vented volatile vapors around the depot, according to the Daily
Telegraph, though officials cautioned that the damage is so extensive they may
never be able to sort out the full details of what went wrong. Health officials
have been monitoring air quality there since the explosions.
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Despite many signs pointing toward the passage of authorization for drilling
in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), the U.S. Senate once
again defeated the measure in a vote shortly before the Christmas recess.
Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens (R) had attached the ANWR measure to the fiscal year
2006 defense appropriations bill, upsetting many Democrats such as Senate Minority
Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who said in a statement that “our military
is being held hostage by this issue, Arctic drilling,” according to E&E
Daily, Dec. 22, 2005. The bill also included funding for the military and
Hurricane Katrina victims, as well as families that need heating cost assistance
this winter.
Senate Democrats filibustered the bill due to the ANWR provision, prompting
removal of ANWR from the bill and allowing the defense legislation to pass on
Dec. 21. The House of Representatives had already passed the military spending
bill on Dec. 19, in which ANWR was included. Both houses recessed until mid-January,
without reconciling the bill.
Earlier in 2005, authorization for drilling in ANWR had been included in the
budget reconciliation bill (which is immune from filibusters) that cleared the
Senate, but failed in the House because of a “revolt” by House Republican
moderates and House Democrats spurred by ANWR and spending cuts, among other
issues. Some drilling proponents and energy analysts had suggested that the
timing was right for the passage of exploration authorization, due largely to
high energy prices in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita (see Geotimes,
December 2005).
Exploration proponents such as Stevens and Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), chair of
the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said in statements that they
would keep pressing for drilling in ANWR in the coming year. Domenici said he
plans to try to include the drilling measure in the fiscal year 2007 budget
reconciliation package.
Megan Sever
Links:
"Tight home fuel supply," Geotimes,
December 2005
U.S. Geological Survey tungsten commodity specialist Kim B. Shedd has compiled the following information on tungsten, an important metal used in wear-resistant materials and lighting.
Tungsten has the highest melting point of all metals, one of the highest densities
and, when combined with carbon, is almost as hard as diamond. These and other
properties make it useful in a wide variety of important commercial, industrial
and military applications.
One hundred years ago, the main use of tungsten was as an additive to steel,
and scientists were just beginning to research the use of tungsten filaments
in lightbulbs. Today, although lamp filaments may be the most familiar use of
tungsten, the leading use is in cemented carbides. Cemented carbides, which
are also called hardmetals, are made by pressing and sintering tungsten carbide
particles in a binder matrix of cobalt metal powder. The resulting wear-resistant
parts are used in tools and equipment by the construction, metalworking, mining,
and oil and gas drilling industries.
Today, tungsten is still used to make high-speed and tool steels. Pure tungsten
metal or alloy is also used to make metal contacts, electrodes and wires in
a variety of electrical, electronic, heating, lighting and welding applications.
Tungsten heavy alloys are used to make armaments, heat sinks, radiation shielding,
and weights and counterweights. Tungsten is also used in superalloys and wear-resistant
alloys. A relatively new use for tungsten alloys and composites is as a substitute
for lead in bullets and shot. The main chemical use for tungsten is to make
catalysts.
Government stockpiles have played an important role in tungsten supply and demand
over the years. During the Cold War, large quantities of tungsten materials
were stockpiled in the United States and Soviet Union. From 1992 until 2004,
tungsten materials were released from former Soviet stockpiles and exported
to Western markets. Sales of tungsten materials from the U.S. government’s
National Defense Stockpile began in 1999 and continue today. At proposed disposal
rates, sales of U.S. government stocks of tungsten ores and concentrates could
last about seven more years.
China has long been the world’s leading tungsten ore producer. More than
90 percent of the world’s tungsten is mined there.
In the late 1990s, the Chinese government began a program to make full use of
its tungsten resources and to try to stabilize world tungsten prices. This program
included regulating the production of tungsten concentrates through mine closures
and production quotas, and regulating tungsten exports by restricting the volumes
and types of tungsten materials and products that could be sent out of the country.
The export of tungsten ore concentrates was forbidden, and over the years there
has been a gradual shift toward exporting more value-added downstream tungsten
materials and products.
In recent years, most of the remaining tungsten mine production took place in
Austria, Bolivia, Canada, Portugal, Russia and possibly North Korea. High prices
in the past few years have resulted in various companies working towards developing
tungsten deposits or reopening inactive tungsten mines in Australia, China,
Peru, Russia, the western United States and Vietnam.
Demand for tungsten tends to follow general economic conditions and industrial
activity. During the past decade, the growth in China’s economy has resulted
in a significant increase in Chinese consumption of tungsten raw materials to
produce downstream products, such as cemented carbide tools, for its domestic
market. China is now estimated to be the world’s leading tungsten consumer.
Visit minerals.usgs.gov/minerals
for more information on tungsten.
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