Home heating price increases have certainly been a major concern for recession-strapped households in northern climates, but the possibility of having one’s heat completely shut-off in this new era of natural resource ‘muscle flexing’ and bitter political show-downs is perhaps a whole new energy policy boiling point in Europe and beyond. Russia’s decision this week to turn off the flow of gas from its Gazprom pipelines to the Ukraine, which in turn forced many European countries to rely on their (in some cases virtually nonexistent) gas reserves, demonstrates the dire need to identify alternatives to Siberia and the Middle East for our massive oil and gas dependencies. Given that my family and I are currently in Bulgaria for six weeks, we are experiencing the Gazprom gas cut-off crisis first-hand. This issue will not be going away any time soon, despite the band-aid patches that will crop up over the next few weeks and months.

Media sources from around the globe began reporting earlier this week that exports of Russian gas via Gazprom had ceased to flow from Russia to the Ukraine. Central and Eastern Europe were worst hit as the bitter cold shuddered in the New Year with temperatures plunging to -10 C or lower in some regions. Heating systems were shut down as regional officials grappled with how to allocate whatever reserves, if any, they had – does one prioritize the elderly, the very young, schools, hospitals? According to reports from the BBC, “the EU says it wants its own monitors to check the flow of gas. The EU depends on Russia for a quarter of its gas supplies, some 80% of which is pumped through Ukraine. The countries that have reported a total halt of Russian supplies via Ukraine included Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Macedonia, Serbia, and Austria. Italy said it had received only 10% of its expected supply.”

Here in Bulgaria the situation is particularly dire as gas reserves can be measured in days alone. Cities outside of Sofia have been more drastically affected, although family members of ours living in the capital’s Soviet-style blocs were trying to manage in freezing cold temperatures without any heat or hot water. Given that centralized heating is the norm for these communities, every household is affected when a shut down occurs.

Politics and not just economics are to blame for the finger pointing that is occurring back and forth across the border between the Ukraine and Russia, as each accuses the other for the cut-off in supply. Many view this crisis as a case of Russia’s Gazprom and the Ukraine’s Naftogaz taking the EU’s gas supply “hostage”. This is perhaps the 21st Century’s first glimpse into how future wars may be fought.

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Iran, Qatar and Russia have agreed to form an OPEC-style organization for gas exporting countries, the Islamic Republic"s oil minister said Tuesday after a trilateral meeting in Tehran.

The move would give Russia a greater say in international sales of natural gas and comes on the same day that OPEC Secretary General Abdalla Salem El-Badri arrived in Moscow to meet government officials.

Observers are watching those talks closely for signs of exactly what Russia wants from closer ties with the cartel, although there is no suggestion at this stage that Moscow is seeking full membership or would participate in an expected supply cut to be discussed Friday.

"The meetings went well and big decisions were made, and the groundwork was laid for the creation of a technical committee," Gholam Hossein Nozari said after Tuesday"s meeting with Qatar"s oil minister, Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, and the head of Russian energy giant Gazprom, Alexei Miller.

The results of today"s meeting will serve as a basis for cooperation so that other countries may join the association of gas exporting countries, Mr. Nozari said.

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The first evidence that millions of tons of a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed has been discovered by scientists.

The Independent has been passed details of preliminary findings suggesting that massive deposits of sub-sea methane are bubbling to the surface as the Arctic region becomes warmer and its ice retreats.

Underground stores of methane are important because scientists believe their sudden release has in the past been responsible for rapid increases in global temperatures, dramatic changes to the climate, and even the mass extinction of species. Scientists aboard a research ship that has sailed the entire length of Russia"s northern coast have discovered intense concentrations of methane – sometimes at up to 100 times background levels – over several areas covering thousands of square miles of the Siberian continental shelf.

In the past few days, the researchers have seen areas of sea foaming with gas bubbling up through "methane chimneys" rising from the sea floor. They believe that the sub-sea layer of permafrost, which has acted like a "lid" to prevent the gas from escaping, has melted away to allow methane to rise from underground deposits formed before the last ice age.

They have warned that this is likely to be linked with the rapid warming that the region has experienced in recent years.

Methane is about 20 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and many scientists fear that its release could accelerate global warming in a giant positive feedback where more atmospheric methane causes higher temperatures, leading to further permafrost melting and the release of yet more methane.

The amount of methane stored beneath the Arctic is calculated to be greater than the total amount of carbon locked up in global coal reserves so there is intense interest in the stability of these deposits as the region warms at a faster rate than other places on earth. ...

The Arctic region as a whole has seen a 4C rise in average temperatures over recent decades and a dramatic decline in the area of the Arctic Ocean covered by summer sea ice. Many scientists fear that the loss of sea ice could accelerate the warming trend because open ocean soaks up more heat from the sun than the reflective surface of an ice-covered sea.

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Chesapeake Energy Corp has cut capital expenditure for drilling by 17 percent through 2010 due to a plunge in natural gas prices and concerns about a U.S. market surplus, the company said on Monday.

The company also said a 50 percent drop in natural gas prices since June 30 had helped improve its energy price hedging position by $6 billion, and its shares rose 1 percent.

Chesapeake, which said it became the top U.S. natural gas producer last quarter, is also cutting its forecast of growth in gas production to 18 percent from 21 percent for this year and 16 percent from 19 percent for both 2009 and 2010.

It will temporarily cut production by a net 100 million cubic feet per day in the Mid-Continent, where wellhead prices of $3 to $5 per thousand cubic feet were "substantially below" break-even. That is 4 percent of its total capacity.

"We will monitor market conditions and bring curtailed natural gas production volumes back on stream as prices improve," Chief Executive Aubrey McClendon said.

The number of its operated drilling rigs will fall to about 140 rigs by the end of this year from 157 now, and that will stay steady for the next two years, the company said.

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In parts of Britain it is considered lucky for a bride to see a chimney sweep on her wedding day. A great many more brides will be blessed then, if the National Association of Chimney Sweeps (NACS) is to be believed, due to a marked rise in business.

As the nights get colder in the Northern Hemisphere many people are scouring the phone books for chimney sweeps as they look to use their fireplaces once more to cut rising fuel bills.

The rising price of fuel has led to a surge in householders opening up their fireplaces and chimneys, the NACS has claimed. "In the last year we"ve seen a huge rise in the older generations ripping out their gas fires and opening up their fireplaces," Martin Glynn the NACS president said in a statement.

Kim Harrison of Ace Chimney Specialists, Lincolnshire, confirmed that her business was busier than normal, even taking into account the seasonal upturn in trade which is expected at this time of year. "People are opening up fireplaces which have been closed for years," Harrison said. "People are also ordering in wood burning stoves, and multi-fuel stoves, with an eye to turning their central heating off entirely this winter."

Harrison went on to say that the number of people ordering back boilers, powered by wood burning stoves, has also increased significantly, as people look to alternatives to gas heating all over the house.

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