Chernobyl Sarcophagus Cracking Up?

Twenty four years after a reactor exploded at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, the nightmare is far from over.  As another anniversary ticks by, attention for a moment turned to the former power plant and the threat it still poses.  In particular, the huge concrete sarcophagus that entombed the destroyed the reactor.  The concrete was plastered together pell mell after the accident and the work was roughshod.  Not surprisingly, the concrete tomb hasn't held up well, and needs to be replaced, or else it could all come crumbling down, unleashing radiation still trapped inside.

Houston Oil Firm Frontera Drilling In Georgia

The standard boilerplate on Georgia is that the Caucasus country may be small but strategically important.  Straddling the Black and Caspian Seas, Georgia is seen by Washington and Brussels as a key fossil fuel transit country.  The Baku-Ceyhan pipeline attests to that.  It's all part of the grand strategy to tug the region out of Moscow's orbit.  Less know is the fact that Georgia has a little oil of its own and a Houston-based drilling firm is doing its darnedest to suck it out of the ground. 

GECF, A New Natural Gas OPEC?

Image via Wikipedia

Could a cartel of natural gas suppliers team up to form a cartel much like OPEC?

That could be in the cards if you believe Leonid Bokhanovsky, the newly elected secretary general of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, GECF.

That may be a new alphabet soup group we'll have to get used to, although it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue like OPEC, and maybe fear a bit.