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Next bad news for the German Federal Government: Stricter regulations of the financial markets are endangering the green energy transition. The knockout blow for the financing of offshore wind farms is the so-called matching maturities rule which was aggravated to stabilize the financial markets. “Offshore wind farms cannot be financed by anyone. We have just been banned from doing this,” said Commerzbank board member Markus Beumer.—Henning Krumrey, Wirtschaftswoche, 12 May 2012

Europe’s manufacturers are rapidly losing ground to US rivals because of soaring energy costs and the failure of the continent’s governments to be “rational” about nuclear power and shale gas, the head of one of the world’s biggest chemicals groups has warned. In an interview with the Financial Times, Jean-Pierre Clamadieu, warned that energy costs should be ranked alongside the eurozone crisis as the most urgent problem confronting industry.—James Boxell, Financial Times, 14 May 2012[Registration Required]

The Green River Formation—an assemblage of over 1,000 feet of sedimentary rocks that lie beneath parts of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming—contains the world’s largest deposits of oil shale. USGS estimates that the Green River Formation contains about 3 trillion barrels of oil. At the midpoint of this estimate, almost half of the 3 trillion barrels of oil would be recoverable. This is an amount about equal to the entire world’s proven oil reserves. The vast untapped energy resources of Green River, the largest oil shale deposit in the world, provide additional support for the idea that “peak oil” is “peak idiocy.”—Mark J. Perry, Carpe Diem, 12 May 2012

In climate talks beginning on Monday in Bonn, India will oppose the EU’s move to start negotiations on the draft of a new climate protocol in 2012 itself. Considering it another shift in the goalpost by the Europeans, the Indian team of negotiators is expected to point out that no consensus was built at Durban last year that the only way forward is a new protocol that renders Kyoto Protocol redundant.—Nitin Sethi, Times of India, 14 May 2012

Let me conclude: The integrity of the science media will depend on whether they will encourage critique and fault-finding analysis by consensus sceptics - or whether they will continue their course towards unbalanced campaign journalism. Given the well-documented reluctance of mainstream science media to accept submissions by critical scientists and the aversion to report on critical papers published elsewhere, I remain unconvinced that science journalism will moderate its blinkered attitudes in the near future.—Benny Peiser: Editorial Bias And The Crisis Of Science Communication, European Parliament, 18 April 2007

Items of notes and interest from the web.