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Issue 13 Jan. – Feb. 2009 |
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Also at www.zupt.com |
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INERTIAL NEWS |
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In this issue of Zest:
Inertial, Seismic, Survey and Other NEWS
A short History of Oil & Gas Supplies to Europe
Underground Mines
Underwater Metrology
Happy NEW YEAR!
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INERTIAL NEWS
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A SHORT HISTORY OF OIL & GAS SUPPLIES TO EUROPE1907 - Shell (British) and Royal Dutch merged to form Royal Dutch Shell 1908 - Oil discovered in Persia, Anglo Persian Oil company formed (Later BP) 1914-1918 - World War I, the first conflict where control of oil supply really mattered - needed for tanks, ships and planes. British Forces captured Baghdad in 1917. 1932 - Oil discovered in Bahrain 1938 - Oil discovered in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia 1939-1945 - World War II - control of oil supply from Baku and Middle East played a large role in the events of the war and the ultimate victory of the allies. AFTER WWII. U.S.S.R. supports anti-colonialist movements in various countries still under colonial administrations through propaganda, developmental and economic assistance, and in many cases military aid. In particular in Africa and the Middle East. 1951 - Anglo Iranian Oil Company nationalized 1954 - Anglo-Persian Oil Company renamed British Petroleum 1955 - Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal 1956 - Suez Crisis - Britain, France and Israel attempted to regain control of Suez Canal 1956 - Oil discovered in Algeria and Nigeria 1962 – Independence of Algeria 1969 - Qaddafi seizes power in Libya 1972 - Iraq nationalizes Iraq Petroleum Concession 1975 - First oil production from North Sea 1979 - Shah of Iran deposed, Ayatollah Khomeini takes power 1979 - Saddam Hussein becomes President of Iraq. End of Cold War. USSR becomes Russia. December 1999. Vladimir Putin becomes acting President of Russia, when president Boris Yeltsin resigns. 2003 - (Sept) - Mikhail Khodorkovsky, CEO of Yukos Oil Co (largest Russian oil company) is arrested.
2004 (Dec) - Renationalizing of Russian oil industry continued with Rosneft acquiring the largest unit of OAO Yukos Oil Co. Yukos has been forced into bankruptcy due to non payment of taxes. 2005 (July 4) - First import of LNG to United Kingdom in 20 years as North Sea natural gas production declines 2006 (Jan 1) - Russia attempts to penalize the Ukraine by blocking gas sales. 2006, Algeria’s Sonatrach and Russia’s Gazprom signed a general memorandum of understanding. 2006 (Sept) - Russia exerting nationalistic pressures on multi-national oil companies - Shell, Exxon and ConocoPhillips 2006 (Dec 22) - Gazprom to buy half of the Sakhalin-2 project from Shell and partners for $7.45Billion - continuing Russian efforts to have more control over their industry. February 2008. Russia agrees to forgive 93 percent of Iraq's debt of $12.9 billion to Russia. The remaining $900 million debt will be repaid in 17 years. In exchange, Moscow has requested access for Russian energy companies, including Lukoil, to some of the country's oil and gas deposits. July 2008, Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom offers to purchase all of Libya's gas and oil. 2008. Announcement in Kommersant that the Russians are preparing to take a draft charter for a gas OPEC to Iran for revision. 2008. Ariel Cohen of Heritage presents an analysis examining how debt forgiveness and arms deals have been the Kremlin's preferred instruments to land energy deals in North Africa and the Mideast.
TODAY. Currently aggregate production of the North Sea oil & Gas fields is widely accepted to be around peak levels, with oil having started its decline a couple of years ago. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the European Union should maintain an even-handed approach to the conflict between Russia and Georgia if it wanted to play a constructive role in forging long-lasting peace in the Caucasus.
Europe and Russia "have been successfully developing an interdependent relationship since the 1970s, based on security of supply and the guarantee of consumption," (S. Nies) … this has led to a situation whereby "Russia is just as dependent on being the number one gas exporter and on the reliability of its partner as the EU is as a consumer". euractiv.com 2009 (Jan) - Gas exports to Europe greatly reduced as a dispute between Russia and Ukraine causes a halt to gas exports through the Ukraine.
OTHER NEWS Shelby SuperCars (SSC), the company behind the world’s fastest production car, has announced plans to launch an electric supercar that is four times as powerful as the Tesla Roadster, later this year.
. A Swiss man has become the first person to fly solo across the English Channel using a single jet-propelled wing. bbc |
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. Graphically Cool Site of the Month |
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INERTIAL TIPS: GPS Control. The most common error made by inertial survey operators is to wrongly estimate the accuracy of the control positions they start from, or tie to.
An unaided inertial navigation system used for survey, needs an accurate position to align on, to update to, and to tie to at the end of a traverse.
Inertial navigation being a relative computation, the solution will never be more accurate than the control points it uses.
There are in particular, many misconceptions regarding the accuracy of control points established with GPS in general and Real-Time Kinematic GPS in particular (RTK GPS).
RTK GPS points are sometimes established by operators who do not understand the sources of error in their technology, and who do not “double or triple-check” their results. Too often an internally computed QA/QC value, given by the GPS receiver is the only measure of accuracy used by the Control provider. This value, sometimes as simple as numbers 1, 2, 3 etc… refers in general to the Dilution Of Precision that can be expected by the optimal GPS constellation at the time of recording, and sometimes mixed with a brief comparison of successive fixes etc…
These QA/QC values are not sufficient to evaluate many errors created during the collection of the GPS data: they do not take into account systematic errors such as: - antenna height errors - base station coordinates or height errors - datum errors (i.e. NAD27 vs NAD83, Ellipsoid Height vs MSL Height etc…)
Even the GPS signal multipath can be consistent for a few seconds during the recording of the control point.
Always check and recheck the control values, using different GPS survey teams, surveying the same point on different days, at different times, etc…
And never use a GPS control point established under a tree or close to an obstacle or moving objects (road side etc…).
Your inertial survey will never be more accurate than your control. GLOSSARY: GGyro Bias: If the system operates unaided
(without odometer/velocity or GPS or magnetometer aiding), the gyro bias
indicates the increase of angular error over time (in deg/h or deg/s). If the
system is aided with speed information (e.g. odometer or Doppler log), the
roll and pitch gyro drift can be compensated in the measurement system and
the gyro drift mainly affects the heading accuracy over time. If the system
consists of low drift gyros also the true heading can be estimated using
gravity and earth rate information (so-called north-seeking).
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MEMS & Nano:
. Motion Sensors in Mobile Handsets – From Technology Push to Market Pull…In 2012, much of the mobile handset market will be for accelerometers, which literally exploded in the latter part of 2008.
. Low Cost Gyro Incorporates a MEMS Based Single Axis Angular Rate Sensor: The LCG50 Gyro is ideally suited for embedded applications where mounting versatility is required such as in guidance and control systems, robotics, flight testing, short term navigation, and vehicle instrumentation. cstsensors |
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Lost City of Atlantis Not Found on Google Earth!