Free Republic

The goal, the report describes, is to find ways to “sow panic and chaos or snarl logistics in the event of a U.S.-China conflict in the Pacific.” China’s threat to America now includes schemes to disrupt power and water supplies, communications and even transportation systems, according to officials cited in a new report. Experts quoted by the Washington Post explained that hackers linked to China’s People’s Liberation Army already have succeeded in breaching “the computer systems of about two dozen critical entities over the past year.” The goal, the report describes, is to find ways to “sow panic and chaos...

It's nationwide knowledge that in early May the Colonial Pipeline company suffered a severe cyberattack that shut down its pipeline connecting Texas to the East Coast. On June 1, JBS Foods suffered another crippling cyberattack. According to industry estimates, JBS controls 20 percent of the slaughtering capacity for American cattle and hogs. The JBS attack also generated headlines. The FBI and security officials believe two criminal organizations conducted the attacks. Their names sound a bit like those of the sinister super gangs found in James Bond novels. However, these gangs aren't fiction nor are their crimes. A crime group called...

On Thursday, the U.S. government sold the Federal Helium Reserve, a massive underground stockpile based in Amarillo, Texas, that supplies up to 30% of the country’s helium. Once the deal is finalized, the buyer — which will likely be the highest bidder, the industrial gas company Messer — will claim some 425 miles of pipelines spanning Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma, plus about 1 billion cubic feet of the only element on Earth cold enough to make an MRI machine work. Regulatory and logistical issues with the facility threaten a temporary shutdown as it passes from public to private ownership, and...

Following the news that Trans Mountain Corporation will start filling the expanded pipeline in February, with first crude to be loaded from Vancouver in April, Canadian crude prices jumped to the narrowest discount to WTI since August 2023. U.S. refiners used to cheap Canadian crude will need to start budgeting more for the commodity from this spring. Canadian oil producers are preparing for the 890,000 bpd in takeaway capacity growth. ... U.S. refiners used to cheap Canadian oil might need to reach deeper into their pockets to keep buying it. The idea behind the Trans Mountain expansion was to turn...

For both energy hungry India and its swiftly growing neighbor, Pakistan, the need for natural gas is more pressing than ever. Pakistan has one of the world’s fastest growing populations and its demand for gas will expand significantly over the next two decades. India’s gas demand will almost double by 2015 and due to the decline of its reserves it will be forced to import increasing amounts of gas. As the world’s second largest gas reserve, Iran is the most geographically convenient supplier of gas to both countries. ...Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline is "a...

"Accidents" and deaths may be inevitable in extreme climate activism that could merit blowing up thousands of pipelines, author and radical climate activist Andreas Malm said in a startling new interview. The "How to Blow Up a Pipeline" writer and activist gave an interview to The New York Times on his upcoming follow-up book, "Overshoot: How the World Surrendered to Climate Breakdown." At the top of the exchange, Malm was questioned on how "it’s hard to think that deaths don’t become inevitable if there is more sabotage" like blowing up pipelines. "Sure, if you have a thousand pipeline explosions per...

The pipe was not covered with aggregate, although such a cover was intended to protect the pipe specifically from anchor damage. (BORDER GUARD DEPARTMENT) The Balticconnector gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia should have been protected by a 2-meter gravel cover. This is evident from the joint environmental impact assessment of Finland and Estonia from 2015. The assessment specifically took into account the dragging of the anchor along the seabed. The pictures published by the [Finnish] Navy show that there were no rocks protecting the pipe at the point of damage." https://www.iltalehti.fi/kotimaa/a/3a...

The three incidents that resulted in damage to a gas pipeline and two telecom cables between Estonia, Finland and Sweden "are related", Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said. Finland on Friday said it had raised its risk assessment for gas supply security as a result of the damage to the Balticconnector Finland-Estonia pipeline, which operator Gasgrid has said could be out of commission until April or longer. "An important gas import connection will be out of use during the winter season 2023/2024 for at least five months," the Finnish National Emergency Supply Agency said in a statement. The risk level...

Late tonight Israel launching air strikes into Syria... Israel's Credit Outlook lowered from "stable" to "negative"... Finnish investigators say the anchor of a Chinese container ship became dislodged damaging a natural gas pipeline... Russian Aerospace Forces in Syria striking targets of terrorist groups in the northwestern Idlib Region... The Pentagon now says that two dozen US military personnel were hurt in drone attacks on American bases in Iraq and Syria... Today a Russian SU-27 fighter intercepted a US spy drone approaching Russia in the Black Sea... The United Auto Workers expanding their strike against automakers to include a General Motors...

The European Union (EU) spent $100 million of taxpayer funds on building over 30 miles of water pipelines for Palestinians in Gaza, despite Hamas having bragged about their ability to turn the piping materials into makeshift rockets online. The EU participated in a number of initiatives between 2015 and 2022 to ensure Palestinians have fresh water, including working alongside UNICEF to install an 11-mile pipeline to Khan Yunus and Raha in southern Gaza. Footage emerged, in 2021, of Hamas fighters digging up the pipes and fashioning them into rockets to launch over the border into Israel. Despite this, the EU...

Faint interest in film glorifying activists bent on violence, destructionJames Cameron caught little heat for a shocking admission. He hearts eco-terrorism. It’s one thing for the “Avatar” director to be so green he makes his cast and crew eat vegan. That seems quaint compared to a quote that got ignored by most press outlets. Now, we have an entire film dedicated to eco-activists willing to employ violence to suit their needs. And it’s clear where the story’s empathy lies. “How to Blow Up a Pipeline” deserves some sort of Truth in Advertising award. The story follows a gang of eco-thugs...

The question of who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines is likely to remain an unsolved mystery for some time.Even as new details surface from European investigators, one of the most intriguing clues to recently emerge comes not from official probes but via a 29-year-old open-source analyst based in Denmark. Oliver Alexander spent months analyzing data from the maritime Automatic Identification System, or AIS, from vessels that passed near the site of three out of the four pipeline ruptures shortly before the damage. He noticed that the Minerva Julie, a 600-foot Greek-flagged tanker, was headed east from Rotterdam when, on...

America’s “inability to build things” is crippling it, the economics writer Noah Smith wrote in a blog published on Monday. The “things” he’s referring to are housing, transit, solar power, transmission lines, semiconductor production, you name it. They’re being stalled because of permitting and development rules in particular but the NIMBY (or “not-in-my-backyard”) crew in general. Smith is a well-known economics commentator, but his “bit of a rant” struck a chord with many on Twitter, including its CEO, Elon Musk. Smith’s blog post, on his personal Substack, stresses that America used to be unwilling to spend on building things, but...

For those of us of younger generations, Seymour "Sy" Hersh is not a well-known name. But in days past, his investigative journalism was nothing short of award-winning. Hersh earned his 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for exposing the 1968 My Lai Massacre in Vietnam and the ensuing government cover-up. His resume includes writing as a first-rate reporter for The New Yorker and the New York Times, participating in the reporting on the 1972 Watergate scandal. His 2004 article in the New Yorker called "Torture at Abu Graib" covered the disgusting abuse of prison inmates by U.S. intelligence officials, proving...

Former President Donald Trump detailed his plan for “reclaiming American energy dominance” and creating the “power plants, pipelines, grids, ports, refineries, and shipping terminals of tomorrow” in his latest campaign ad video shared exclusively with Breitbart News.Trump, who remains the lone candidate in the 2024 presidential primary field, pledged to “bring back a pro-American energy policy at long last” if he is elected to the Oval Office, unveiling his plan to de-regulate the industry, once again exit the Paris Climate Accords, and “rapidly” approve “worthy” domestic energy infrastructure projects to lower prices and create jobs for Americans:I will deploy a...

The New York Times called it a “mystery,” but the United States executed a covert sea operation that was kept secret—until now The U.S. Navy’s Diving and Salvage Center can be found in a location as obscure as its name—down what was once a country lane in rural Panama City, a now-booming resort city in the southwestern panhandle of Florida, 70 miles south of the Alabama border. The center’s complex is as nondescript as its location—a drab concrete post-World War II structure that has the look of a vocational high school on the west side of Chicago. A coin-operated laundromat...

The brutal, unrelenting cold that lasted for several days over the Christmas holiday froze off a sizable portion of Appalachia’s ample gas production, cutting off supply to power plants when they needed it most. Gas transmission pipelines said the gas they were promised simply didn’t show up. On the electric grid that connects Pennsylvania to 12 other states, at one point almost 25% of the capacity on the system either didn’t start up or broke while operating, leaving coal and petroleum-fired units to pick up the slack. PJM, a Valley Forge-based grid operator, is still analyzing what happened during the...

WASHINGTON, Kan., Dec 10 (Reuters) - Residents near the site of the worst U.S. oil pipeline leak in a decade took the commotion and smell in stride as cleanup crews labored in near-freezing temperatures, and investigators searched for clues to what caused the spill.. ....Pipeline operator TC Energy (TRP.TO) said on Friday it was evaluating plans to restart the line, which carries 622,000 barrels per day of Canadian oil to U.S. refineries .. ...

SALEM, Ore. -- The U.S. government has taken a step toward approving the expansion of a natural gas pipeline in the Pacific Northwest — a move opposed by environmentalists and the attorneys general of Oregon, California and Washington state. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, announced Friday it has completed an environmental impact statement that concluded the project "would result in limited adverse impacts on the environment.”....

Distillate levels in the United States have plummeted to the lowest levels since 2008.. Low distillate inventories have sent diesel prices soaring. ... The primary distillates are diesel, jet fuel ,and heating oil). However, in 2008 distillate levels were low coming out of spring. Currently, they are low going into fall. That’s far worse than the situation in 2008. Distillate demand generally spikes in spring — when farmers are planting crops — and in fall, when they are harvesting those crops and people start buying fuel oil for winter. Thus, a low distillate inventory in late April 2008 isn’t quite...