Shell and ExxonMobil regret Groningen earthquake problems

DutchNews, September 8, 2016

A condemned and shored-up
cafe. Photo: Graham Dockery

The two international oil firms which are responsible for extracting natural gas in Groningen on Thursday both expressed regret for the problems the drilling has caused in the province. 

Officials made the comments during a parliamentary hearing with Shell and ExxonMobil executives after being challenged by GroenLinks MP Liesbeth van Tongeren, broadcaster NOS reported.

‘We acknowledge that the people of Groningen are dealing with most of the problems caused by gas extraction, which we in the Netherlands can thank for our prosperity,’ Shell Nederland president Marjan van Loon said.

‘That is why the people of Groningen deserve our support. The NAM has expressed its regrets and I can fully support that. So I can say too, “I’m sorry, sorry”.’ 

Later Exxon Mobil Nederland upstream director Rolf de Jong also expressed regret for the problems caused by the drilling. Shell and ExxonMobil are 50:50 shareholders in the NAM, which has the licence to extract natural gas from underneath the province. 

Damage

The number of Groningen residents whose homes have been damaged by earthquakes caused by the gas extraction has risen to 100,000 according to a new report by Groningen university, the local community health service and provincial council. 

Only 60% of people whose houses have been hit by quakes once feel safe at home and the figure falls to 38% for those who have suffered damage more than once. The average for the rest of the country is 85%. 

The economic affairs ministry cut back the rate of gas extraction in Groningen at the start of this year after an increase in the frequency and magnitude of earthquakes in the area over the last decade. In the first six months of 2016 there were six quakes measuring 1.5 or more on the Richter scale, compared to 12 in the same period the previous year.

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"Recalibration of Free Choice"–  Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Loose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth,  4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Paddle wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical)  8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) - (Text version)

“…  4 - Energy (again)

The natural resources of the planet are finite and will not support the continuation of what you've been doing. We've been saying this for a decade. Watch for increased science and increased funding for alternate ways of creating electricity (finally). Watch for the very companies who have the most to lose being the ones who fund it. It is the beginning of a full realization that a change of thinking is at hand. You can take things from Gaia that are energy, instead of physical resources. We speak yet again about geothermal, about tidal, about wind. Again, we plead with you not to over-engineer this. For one of the things that Human Beings do in a technological age is to over-engineer simple things. Look at nuclear - the most over-engineered and expensive steam engine in existence!

Your current ideas of capturing energy from tidal and wave motion don't have to be technical marvels. Think paddle wheel on a pier with waves, which will create energy in both directions [waves coming and going] tied to a generator that can power dozens of neighborhoods, not full cities. Think simple and decentralize the idea of utilities. The same goes for wind and geothermal. Think of utilities for groups of homes in a cluster. You won't have a grid failure if there is no grid. This is the way of the future, and you'll be more inclined to have it sooner than later if you do this, and it won't cost as much.

Water

We've told you that one of the greatest natural resources of the planet, which is going to shift and change and be mysterious to you, is fresh water. It's going to be the next gold, dear ones. So, we have also given you some hints and examples and again we plead: Even before the potentials of running out of it, learn how to desalinate water in real time without heat. It's there, it's doable, and some already have it in the lab. This will create inexpensive fresh water for the planet.

There is a change of attitude that is starting to occur. Slowly you're starting to see it and the only thing getting in the way of it are those companies with the big money who currently have the old system. That's starting to change as well. For the big money always wants to invest in what it knows is coming next, but it wants to create what is coming next within the framework of what it has "on the shelf." What is on the shelf is oil, coal, dams, and non-renewable resource usage. It hasn't changed much in the last 100 years, has it? Now you will see a change of free choice. You're going to see decisions made in the boardrooms that would have curled the toes of those two generations ago. Now "the worst thing they could do" might become "the best thing they could do." That, dear ones, is a change of free choice concept. When the thinkers of tomorrow see options that were never options before, that is a shift. That was number four. ….”

"A Summary" – Apr 2, 2011 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Religion, Shift of Human Consciousness, 2012, Intelligent/Benevolent Design, EU, South America, 5 Currencies, Water Cycle (Heat up, Mini Ice Ace, Oceans, Fish, Earthquakes ..), Middle East, Internet, Israel, Dictators, Palestine, US, Japan (Quake/Tsunami Disasters , People, Society ...), Nuclear Power Revealed, Hydro Power, Geothermal Power, Moon, Financial Institutes (Recession, Realign integrity values ..) , China, North Korea, Global Unity,..... etc.) - (Text version)

“... Japan

Let us talk for a moment about Japan, and then I'll close the day of messages. There are thousands of souls on my side of the veil and they're just fine, more than fine. We have spoken so often of what happens at the Wind of Birth. I told you, before they even came in, they saw the potential. I looked in their eyes. "You may not last long. You know that, don't you? You're coming into this planet and you may not be here very long. And the passing that you will have with your family will not be pleasant, if any ever are. Why would you come in anyway?" I want to tell you what they said. When a soul has the mind of God, it understands fully what generates peace and what generates energy shift. You can clearly see what generates what the planet needs the most when you are about to arrive. So they said, "We're going to be part of one of the biggest compassion events the planet has ever seen." One earthquake, one tsunami. All of those who left that day will change the earth forever. And it already has. It was the same for the last tsunami as well.

Every single one of them on my side of the veil is getting ready to come back. Many old souls were involved, and just for a moment, if they could give you any information, if they could talk to you right now, if they could speak your language and look into your eyes, they would thank you for your compassion for them and those who are left. And they would say, "Be with those family members who are still alive. Enter their hearts every day and give them peace and keep them from crying, because we're OK."

Nuclear Power Revealed

So let me tell you what else they did. They just showed you what's wrong with nuclear power. "Safe to the maximum," they said. "Our devices are strong and cannot fail." But they did. They are no match for Gaia.

It seems that for more than 20 years, every single time we sit in the chair and speak of electric power, we tell you that hundreds of thousands of tons of push/pull energy on a regular schedule is available to you. It is moon-driven, forever. It can make all of the electricity for all of the cities on your planet, no matter how much you use. There's no environmental impact at all. Use the power of the tides, the oceans, the waves in clever ways. Use them in a bigger way than any designer has ever put together yet, to power your cities. The largest cities on your planet are on the coasts, and that's where the power source is. Hydro is the answer. It's not dangerous. You've ignored it because it seems harder to engineer and it's not in a controlled environment. Yet, you've chosen to build one of the most complex and dangerous steam engines on Earth - nuclear power.

We also have indicated that all you have to do is dig down deep enough and the planet will give you heat. It's right below the surface, not too far away all the time. You'll have a Gaia steam engine that way, too. There's no danger at all and you don't have to dig that far. All you have to do is heat fluid, and there are some fluids that boil far faster than water. So we say it again and again. Maybe this will show you what's wrong with what you've been doing, and this will turn the attitudes of your science to create something so beautiful and so powerful for your grandchildren. Why do you think you were given the moon? Now you know.

This benevolent Universe gave you an astral body that allows the waters in your ocean to push and pull and push on the most regular schedule of anything you know of. Yet there you sit enjoying just looking at it instead of using it. It could be enormous, free energy forever, ready to be converted when you design the methods of capturing it. It's time.

So in closing, do you understand what you're seeing? You're seeing intelligent design, quantum energy and high consciousness. You are seeing changes in Human nature. You're seeing countries putting things together instead of separating. You are seeing those who don't want war and instead want peace, good schools for their children, safety in their streets and a say in their government. We told you it was going to happen this way. I want my partner to teach these things that I have said in his 3D lectures for awhile. Many won't be able to know these things otherwise.  …”

Volkswagen CEO apologizes for cheating on US auto emissions tests

Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn has apologized for manipulating US diesel emissions tests. Fines and recalls loom on the horizon. But the biggest price to pay is VW's loss of face - and that of the German auto industry.

Deutsche Welle, 20 Sep 2015

Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn has been forced to apologize after the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that the firm had been using software to trick regulators into thinking the carmaker was complying with clean air laws.

Fresh from presenting the Volkswagen Group's latest models to champagne and flashing lights at the Frankfurt International Motor Show earlier this week, Winterkorn on Sunday avoided directly admitting willful deception. But the EPA's evidence was presumably strong enough to merit an apology.

Long winter ahead?

"I personally am deeply sorry that we have broken the trust of our customers and the public," said Winterkorn in a statement. "We will cooperate fully with the responsible agencies, with transparency and urgency, to clearly, openly and completely establish all of the facts of this case."

He added that VW has also ordered an external investigation. And in the spirit of further damage control, the carmaker has pulled from YouTube its ads marketing the diesel-powered cars as being better for the environment.

VW is facing fines of up to $18
billion in the US

The technology used by VW in the EPA tests allowed its diesel cars to release fewer smog-causing pollutants during tests than in real-world driving conditions.

Environmental, consumer health hazards

Despite the apology, things are already looking grim for the carmaker. The EPA said VW installed the software in nearly half a million cars in models from the last seven years, including the Audi A3, VW Jetta, Beetle, Golf and Passat - and that the software may have hidden up to 40 times the acceptable level of harmful pollutants, causing both environmental and consumer health hazards.

VW is facing fines of up to $18 billion (15.9 billion euros). It will also have to fix the cars at its own expense. But the bigger cost of the EPA's discovery is to VW's image - and potentially that of the German car industry as a whole.

Daimler, which shares the German auto industry's Big Three label along with VW and BMW, commented sparingly on the issue.

"I know too little about the case to judge just how justified the accusations against Volkswagen are, and whether we can be a 100 percent certain of them in every way," said CEO Dieter Zetsche.

Coming clean

But a transparent approach to an impending crisis is key, said Stefan Bratzel, a professor specializing in innovation research at the Bergisch Gladbach University of Applied Sciences.

"This is obviously negative for the German car industry, but speculation has to be kept in check," Bratzel told DW. "Volkswagen and - if it comes to it - other German carmakers have to be proactive and transparent and say whether this was an isolated problem in the US, or whether this is a pattern."

Volkswagen will also eventually have to make clear who within the organizational structure is responsible, and just how high up they are.

"An administrator didn't just decide this on his own," said Bratzel. "Somebody would have signed off on this."

Trouble on the homefront

Calls for an investigation have already come in VW's native market. Germany's Green Party wants a probe to determine whether emissions test manipulation has also taken place in Germany.

"We will emphatically demand an investigation in parliament and examine whether German authorities have helped along illegal activities by deliberately looking the other way," said Bärbel Höhn, the chair of the Green Party's environmental committee.

All this comes at a time when the biggest threat to the German car industry was thought to be the Chinese economic slowdown. But as VW's shareholders are bound to learn when markets open on Monday, what's bad for the environment and for health will likely end up being bad for business.

(dpa, AP)

US government has expanded its investigation of pollution-skirting devices in

 diesel vehicles to other manufacturers after Volkswagen admitted it used them

to thwart environmental standards (AFP Photo/Thomas Samson)

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Indian govt sorry for dumping Bhopal waste in 2008

Radio Netherlands Worldwide, 11 July 2010 - 9:26am

The Indian government has apologised for secretly dumping toxic waste from the 1984 Bhopal gas leak, the world's worst industrial disaster, in an incinerator two years ago.

About 40 tonnes of toxic waste still at the site of the Union Carbide pesticide plant that spewed deadly gas over Bhopal city was taken at night in 2008 to an incinerator at Pithampur 230 kilometres (140) miles) away.

Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, in the latest attempt to end controversy over the disaster's legacy, said the continuing clean-up had to be done openly.

"I admit as minister that it was wrong to have brought those 40 tonnes of waste to Pithampur," Ramesh, who did not hold the environment role at the time, told reporters on Saturday.

"Whatever we do needs to be done with adequate transparency. I am ready to admit publicly that transporting that waste from the Union Carbide factory secretly during the night hours was wrong."

According to the government, 3,500 lives were lost in the immediate aftermath of the Bhopal gas leak, but rights group calculate that 25,000 people died in the years that followed.

One year after poisonous gas from the factory poured into Bhopal's slums, local authorities collected 350 tonnes of waste and left it in the factory yard. Most of it remains there untreated.

The government has vowed to finally clean up the site and to improve compensation after public outrage over last month's court verdicts into who was responsible.

Seven Indian managers were given prison sentences of just two years each after being found guilty of criminal negligence, triggering a furious response from survivors' groups.

The government also pledged to again try to expedite Warren Anderson, the American who was chief executive of Union Carbide at the time of the disaster and who now lives in New York state.

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