Israel's Natural Gas Bonanza Could Help Electric Cars -- Or Start A War

Amidst all its struggles to develop clean and cleaner technologies (and a recent war with Gaza), it seem that Israelis got a huge gift this week: they were celebrating the discovery of a massive estimated 3 trillion cubic feet natural gas pocket found buried 1.5 km below the sea floor, some 90 km off the coastal city Haifa.

Sounds like great news. Shai Agassi from Better Place will finally have the cleaner fuel source to launch his nation-wide electric car scheme in Israel, and Israel can stop buying natural gas from Egypt. But no so fast. Lebanon is staking its claim, saying that the natural gas reserve also belongs to the Lebanese. Could this be the means for Israel to make peace with Lebanon, once and for all, or could it lead to renewed conflicts?

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[mamacat]

Natural gas is a valuable commodity, but the countries of the area have lots of sunshine as well. Where is the solar power development?

[KillTheMessenger]

I believe Israel has a long history of solar water heater use and they had research programs for solar ponds. Since last year they seem to have a solar incentive program running where people and businesses get paid for electricity they feed into the power net.

[forpeace]

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Knowing I srael from his past and last months it will start a W a r again.

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[batguano]

Its curious, forpeace, that Israeli navy gunboats are shelling the coastline/beach areas of Gaza right now, after the "cease-fire" to "keep Gaza fishermen from going to sea". I wonder if this blatant violation of their self-declared cease-fire has anything to do with this issue or just to maintain the blockade and keep Pals from feeding their families?

[KillTheMessenger]

The US uses 23 trillion cubic feet a year. At that rate this field would be exhausted in seven weeks. Two weeks or so if we count the whole world.

That's it, folks. You can all go home now. Nobody will make war over NG that's worth seven weeks of US or two weeks worth of the world's consumption.

And remember: whenever they find a "giant" new oil or gas field, always do the laugh test by calculating how long it would last if the world was to use it at the current rate. Only if you are not on the floor laughing is the thing worth the news.

[SARGE1]

Well It Would Be An Intelligent Thought To Take In Account That America Has 42 Times The Population And America Has Over 100 Times The Energy Requirement Of Israel.The Find Itself If Worth 4 Billion Dollars And Not Implied To Provide A Magical Energy Supply For Israel.

-Sarge

[KillTheMessenger]

It's not an intelligent thought at all because hydrocarbon reserves are a worldwide problem. It doesn't matter where the stuff came from, it's still a tiny amount on the scale of things.

[batguano]

Is this the whole story?

"Gaza is a small strip of land on the Mediterranean Sea. Its territorial waters extend to about 35km off the coast. In 1999, the oil firm BG International discovered a huge deposit of natural gas 32km from the Gaza coast. The Gaza Marine gas field contains 1.2 trillion cubic feet of gas valued at over $4 billion. As per the Oslo peace accords, which created Gaza, Israel has security control over air and water around Gaza. So, it wrangled a deal with BG to get access to Gaza Marine gas at cheap rates.

But before the deal could go through, Hamas won the elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2006. This sparked off a bitter power struggle between Hamas and the pro-west Fatah. Ultimately, the Palestinian Authority split in 2007, with Hamas taking control of Gaza and Fatah taking control of West Bank. One of the first things that Hamas did after getting elected was to declare that the natural gas deal would have to be renegotiat­ed"......

see the entire piece @ http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Gas_deal_coming_polls_behind_military_operations_in_Gaza/articleshow/3935036.cms

[chaos4700]

Yeah. Puts Israel's attack on Gaza into full perspective, doesn't?

[forpeace]

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batguano
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That is very true and here is another link:

War and Natural Gas: The I s raeli I n vasion and G aza's Off shore Gas Fields

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11680

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[forpeace]

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batguano
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That is very true and here is another link:

W ar and N atural G as: The I s raeli I n v asion and G aza's Off shore G as Fields

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11680

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