While it’s been the subject of rumor, gossip and misinformation for the last several years, this time it’s real: drilling off the north shore of Cuba is scheduled to begin November 1 . Six wells are planned to be drilled with this rig by the various international companies who own exploration rights off the north shore of the island

While it’s been the subject of rumor, gossip and misinformation for the last several years, this time it’s real: drilling off the north shore of Cuba is scheduled to begin November 1. Six wells are planned to be drilled with this rig by the various international companies who own exploration rights off the north shore of the island.

…Spanish energy company Repsol and its partners are now bringing the Chinese-built [drilling rig] Scarabeo 9 to a site off Cuba’s northwest coast, where it aims to drill as soon as November at a depth of more than 5,500 feet, deeper than the blown-out well that spewed 5 million barrels of crude into the Gulf last summer.

The [rig’s] journey to Cuba will take two months, and once it arrives it will be put into operation almost immediately, said the official, who asked not to be identified. It will be used first as an exploratory well for a consortium led by Spanish oil giant Repsol YPF, which drilled the only offshore well in Cuba in 2004 and said at the time it had found hydrocarbons.

The current trade embargo requires the operation contain less than 10% U.S. content. Of the major components, only the blowout preventer (BOP) is an American product (Cameron International).

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A high-level delegation of U.S. oil-spill experts traveled to Havana this week to meet with Cuban officials. It has urged the Obama administration to cooperate with the Castro government on a joint-response plan that could avert environmental catastrophe for both countries. …

Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), a long-time Castro foe, criticized the delegation’s visit, saying it gave “credibility” to Cuba’s attempt to become “the oil tycoons of the Caribbean.” Other lawmakers have also urged retaliatory measures against Repsol.

Repsol, the operator of the first Cuban drilling venture, is a large Spanish oil company with operations in 29 countries, including a $10 billion investment in Iran. It is also a lessee in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.

… Bromwich confirmed that federal officials have talked with Spain’s Repsol about its plans to drill off Cuba later this year but haven’t made a deal to ensure that work meets the same standards it would if it were in U.S. waters.

Repsol has said it plans to begin drilling a well as soon as this summer in Cuban waters. Other international oil companies have lined up drilling afterward, including Malaysia’s Petronas and India’s ONGC Videsh. Cuban officials have said five wells could be drilled in the country’s Gulf of Mexico territory. [Source.]

In U.S. waters, drilling is regulated by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management &etc. (BOEMRE), an agency of the Department of the Interior led by Director Michael Bromwich. U.S. Federal jurisdiction ends 45 miles from Florida’s shores. This drilling will take place 60 miles from Florida.

While Cuban oil officials will manage and regulate the operations, the engineers and crews doing the actually drilling will be composed of experienced international oil workers, said [Lee Hunt, representing the International Association of Drilling Contractors, part of the U.S. delegation]. An Italian firm, Saipem, will be operating the rig, and Repsol’s partners include Statoil, a Norwegian company that he and others praise as a world leader in safe deepwater drilling.

“Cuban oil officials will manage and regulate the operations…” Oh, joy.

To all you NIMBYs in Florida and elsewhere, you can rest well with the knowledge that the best of Cuban industrial technology will brought to bear in overseeing this operation.

(IJR News, May 20, 2011 ) Kentucky – Solar flares affect all layers of the solar atmosphere (photosphere, corona, and chromospheres), heating plasma to tens of millions of Kelvin’s and accelerating electrons, protons, and heavier ions to near the speed of light. This type of energy, if one can imagine, is enough energy to feed all the earth’s human demands for many years. Could this be our next source to explore?Although a massive solar storm could leave millions of people around the world without electricity, running water, or phone service, government officials say, Earth Energy Exploration (EEE) believes we must look beyond our capabilities and challenge ourselves like never before. See if we can capture that energy much like Michael J. Fox did in the movie “Back to the Future,” when they captured lightening to produce the amount of energy required for them at that time. Movies of yesterday become reality of tomorrow.

Solar storms happen when an eruption or explosion on the surface of the sun sends radiation or electrically charged particles toward Earth. Minor storms are common and can light up the Earth’s northern skies and interfere with radio signals. To illustrate the magnitude and power of these storms, scientists have observed that every few decades, the sun experiences a particularly large storm. These can release as much energy as one billion hydrogen bombs.

The frequency of incidence of solar flares varies, from several per day when the Sun is particularly “active” to less than one each week when the Sun is “quiet”. Large flares are less frequent than smaller ones. Solar activity varies within an 11-year cycle (the solar cycle). At the peak of the cycle, there are typically more sunspots on the Sun and hence more solar flares.

Solar flares rise and fall on an 11-year cycle, and last year (2009) marked what scientists thought was the solar minimum. But through the beginning of 2009, the sun stayed unusually quiet. However in October of 2009, NASA discovered some Earth Energy firsts. A major sunspot appeared on the backside of the sun, where it was captured by NASA’s STEREO instrument (http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/instruments/instruments.shtml).

“This is the biggest event we’ve seen in a year or so,” said Michael Kaiser, research scientist with the heliophysics division at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. “Does this mean we’re finished with the minimum or not? It’s hard to say. This could be it. It’s got us all excited.”

People have been counting sunspots since Galileo first observed one in the early 17th century. Through the 28 cycles that have been well-documented, stretching from 1745 to today, the average cycle length has been 11 years, but shorter and longer cycles have been observed. The polarity of solar storms also alternates, so technically, a full cycle is 22 years. Either way however, being able to track consistency and its outburst of energy allows mankind to also be able to investigate ways to predict and capture it as well.

Newly uncovered scientific data of recorded history’s most massive space storm is helping a NASA scientist investigate it’s intensity and the probability that what occurred on Earth and in the heavens almost a century-and-a-half ago could happen again, but this time being prepared and possibly capturing its massive energy.

Earth Energy Exploration continues its mission along with International Journalism Review, to educate the masses on oil and gas properties and educating alternative energy in various areas to let investors make sound decisions. Most recently, EEE has begun to brainstorm in the world of science to look at earth’s energy beyond what we think is possible today.

If you want to know more about the oil and gas industry or energy exploration, we recommend starting on the EEE website but you need a password to their website and it is “success.” Go to www.eartheei.com , please check back often as EEE is helping in the funding of a non-profit and informational and educational source for science and the world. (www.earthenergyexplorationbeyond.com).

References
Kopp, G.; Lawrence, G and Rottman, G. (2005). “The Total Irradiance Monitor (TIM): Science Results”. Solar Physics 230: 129–139. doi:10.1007/s11207-005-7433-9.
“The Mysterious Origins of Solar Flares”, Scientific American, April 2006
Socioecohistory / worldpress /NASA warns of super solar storm 2012
Tamrazyan, Gurgen P. (1968), “Principal Regularities in the Distribution of Major Earthquakes Relative to Solar and Lunar Tides and Other Cosmic Forces”, ICARUS (Elsevier) 9: 574–592.
“New Study Questions the Effects of Cosmic Proton Radiation on Human Cells”. Retrieved 2008-10-11. A New Kind of Solar Storm
“Japan launches Sun ‘microscope'”. BBC. 2006-09-23. Retrieved 2009=05-19.
“Superflares could kill unprotected astronauts”. NewScientist.com. Retrieved 17 June 2005. Mewaldt, R.A., et al. 2005. Space weather implications of the 20 January 2005 solar energetic particle event. Joint meeting of the American Geophysical Union and the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society. May 23–27. New Orleans. Abstract.

Written By Chris Greenman, Independent Journalist (IJR) /
www.GreenmanConsulting.org

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