6A NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY,OCTOBER 10,2007
》 NATURAL GAS
Heating costs to rise this winter
BY JOHN WILEN ASSOCIATED PRESS Oil prices surge after summer outages
NEW YORK - Almost all Americans will pay a lot more to heat their homes this winter, even though temperatures are expected to be warmer than average.
That's the sobering message from an Energy Department report Tuesday that estimates heating oil costs are likely to jump 22 percent and natural gas bills, on average.
will rise 10 percent between October and March.
And while the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecasted a milder than average winter in most parts of the country, the agency also predicted Tuesday.
"I think we're going to have to get a lot of blankets, because there's no way we'll be able to afford to run the heat."
that temperatures will be 1.3 percent colder than last year.
In Massachusetts, where about 40 percent of homeowners rely on oil for heat, consumers are bracing for price spikes, said Michael Ferrante, president of the trade group, Massachusetts Oilheat Council.
"They are buttoning up their houses even more; they are turning down their thermostats; they are wearing sweaters," Ferrante said.
Surging crude oil prices are the
primary, but not the only, culprit for the jump in fuel oil costs. This spring and summer, American refineries experienced an unusual number of unexpected maintenance outages. The net result was that fewer refineries were producing gasoline, heating oil and other petroleum products.
The outages送 gasoline prices to a record $3.23 a gallon in late
PENNY TAYLOR Sarasota, Fla., resident
May as refiners scrambled to produce enough gasoline to meet peak summer driving demand.
"Because they used every ounce of the refinery to produce gasoline, it came at the expense of distillate fuels like home heating oll", said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alarcon Loring Corp. in Chicago.
Despite the government forecast, natural gas prices have been mostly falling in recent weeks. Inventories remained high as new sources of natural gas were tapped this year, and a cooler summer depressed demand.
"We could have all-time record storage by the beginning of February," said Tim Evans, an analyst at Citigroup. Inc., in New York.
But all of that could change if
oil prices stay high and electricity plant operators switch to natural gas for units that can burn either fuel, said Ron Denhardt, CEO of Strategic Energy & Economic Research, Inc., in Winchester. Mass.
On the other hand, supplies coming this year, including Anadarko Petroleum Corp's Independence Hub platform in the Gulf of Mexico and a portion of the huge Rockies Express natural gas pipeline project, are expected to boost natural gas supplies by 2 billion to 2.5 billion cubic feet.
"That's a lot of supply coming on," Denhardt said.
The Energy Department estimated a gallon of heating oil will rise to $2.88 this winter as crude oil prices stay high. Crude futures traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange have surged by more than a third from a year ago and settled Tuesday at $80.26 per barrel, up 1.2 percent for the day.
In Massachusetts, the Division of Energy Resources said dealers were charging an average $2.72 a gallon for fuel oil on Tuesday — a record high, and up 5 cents from the most recent survey on Sept. 18. The figure is 11 cents higher than the peak that followed a series of price spikes after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Heating oil is used by 7 percent of American households, mostly in the Northeast, while natural gas
heat is used by 58 percent of households. Another 30 percent are heated by electricity, which the Energy Department estimated will rise 4 percent in cost this winter.
For the 5 percent of American homes that use propane, winter heating costs are expected to increase 16 percent.
While some homeowners are choosing to convert to natural gas furnaces, oil dealers argue that such conversions don't pay off. An average conversion costs $5,575, the Massachusetts Oilheat Council says.
"I think consumers understand if they do the research, heating oil has been cheaper than natural gas in the past," said Ken Williams, owner of Scott-Williams Oil, in Quincy, Mass.
The wild card in the heating cost estimates is the weather. If the U.S. experiences a warmer than expected winter, prices of some fuels could decrease through the winter.
But if the winter is particularly cold, prices could jump more than expected. "You could have (supply) tightness if you're going to have a colder-than-normal winter," Evans said.
Penny Taylor, who spent about $350 a month last winter to heat her Sarasota, Fla., home with electric heat, blanched when she heard about Tuesday's price forecast from the Energy Department.
"I think we're going to have to get a lot of blankets, because there's no way we'll be able to afford to run the heat," Taylor said.
SIRNAK, Turkey — Turkey's ruling party decided Tuesday to seek parliamentary approval for an offensive against Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq, a move that could open a new front in the Iraq War and disrupt one of that nation's few relatively peaceful areas.
IRAQ WAR Turkey could launch attack against Kurdish rebels
The government did not say it had decided to launch such an attack, which could jeopardize Turkey's ties with the United States. The U.S. warned against sending troops across the border and urged Turkey to work with Iraq's government to quell the Turkish Kurd guerrillas.
"If they have a problem, they need to work together to resolve it, and I'm not sure that unilateral incursions are the way to go." State
Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. "We have counseled, both in public and private, for many, many months, the idea that it is important to work cooperatively to resolve this issue."
In the past, Turkish troops have made small-scale "hot pursuit" raids into Iraq that officials say do not require Parliament's approval. The last major incursion against the militant separatists operating out of Iraq's Kurdish region was in
1997.
There are widespread fears that a Turkish offensive would destabilize Iraq's Kurdish area, which has largely escaped the violence and political turmoil afflicting regions dominated by Shiite Muslims and Sunni Arabs.
Iraqi Kurds, who run a virtual mini-state in Iraq's north, have vowed to defend their borders.
Associated Press
Researchers win Nobel Prize for physics discovery
SCIENCE
BY BRIAN BERGSTEIN ASSOCIATED PRESS
The effect is called giant magnetoresistance, but it enables amazing things at the miniature level.
France's Albert Fert and Germany's Peter Gruenberg independently described giant magnetoresistance in 1988, then saw the electronics industry apply it in disks with incredible amounts of storage.
Two European scientists won the 2007 Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for their discoveries of the phenomenon, which spurred some of computing's most astonishing developments.
"I can hardly think of an application that has a bigger bang than
the magnetic hard drive industry," said Phil Schewe, a physicist and spokesman for the American Institute of Physics.
Fert, 69, is the scientific director of the Mixed Unit for Physics at
ery would have such wide application, Fert told The Associated Press: "You can never predict in physics. ... These days when I go to my grocer and see him type on a computer, I say, "Wow, he's using something I put together in my mind! It's wonderful."
Here's how it works.
As a metal disk spins inside a hard drive, an arm with a sensitive electromagnetic head at its tip hovers over the disk, somewhat like the needle on a record player (though it doesn't make contact). This head reads bits of data by registering the magnetic bearing of individual particles; it writes data by changing that magnetic orientation.
For disk drives to increase in capacity, those magnetic particles
"I can hardly think of an application that has a bigger bang than the magnetic hard drive industry."
Asked if he'd thought his discov-
PHIL SCHEWE American Institute of Physics
CNRS/Thales in Orsay, France, while Gruenberg, 68, is a professor at the Institute of Solid State Research in the west German city of Juelich. They will share the $1.5 million prize.
Gruenberg told reporters that he was not too surprised to win the Nobel. "Because I have received a lot of awards, I was often asked, 'When will the big award come?' Gruenberg said.
must become smaller, so more can be packed into the same amount of space. But these evertinier materials produce fainter magnetic signals, which means the read-write head in the
disk drive has to become more sensitive.
What Fert and Grunenberg independently discovered was that thin layers of alternating metals could detect weak changes in magnetism — and translate them into "giant" changes in electrical resistance.
In other words, the particles used in data storage could get smaller and still produce the electrical signals that computers read as ones or zeros.
》 CRIME
Kidnapper persuaded not to kill boy
BY CHRISTOPHER LEONARD ASSOCIATED PRESS
Michael Devlin, 41, pleaded guilty Tuesday to kidnapping, sexually assaulting and attempting to murder Shawn Hornbeck, a day after pleading guilty to kidnapping another boy.
Devlin admitted his crimes in graphic detail to Washington County Circuit Court Judge Sandra Martinez just feet away from Shawn's weeping
POTOSI, Mo. — A former pizzeria manager said Tuesday that he attempted to kill a boy he kidnapped and held captive in his apartment, but the child persuaded him not to do it.
parents, Pam and Craig Akers.
Prosecutors said Devlin snatched Shawn at gunpoint when the 11-year-old was riding his bike in the remote town of Richwoods. He kid-napped William "Ben" Ownby in January, and police who found Ben four days after he was taken were shocked to discover a 15-year-old Shawn in Devlin's apartment.
"I attempted to kill (Shawn) and he talked me out of it," Devlin said in court.
Prosecutors said the combined pleas mean he will not be eligible for parole until he is more than 100 years old. He was sentenced to three life terms plus 60 years in prison Tuesday, in addition to a life sentence he received Monday.
Washington County prosecutor John Rupp said he was satisfied with the sentences Devlin received.
Devlin's defense attorneys and Shawn's parents declined to comment Tuesday. Devlin was expected to plead guilty later in the day in St. Louis County to 71 felony charges, including kidnapping and sexual assault.
Devlin's attorneys have said he accepted a plea deal after reviewing the evidence collected by state and federal authorities. The boys' families said they were relieved because the pleas will spare the teens from testifying and reliving the ordeal.
"You heard it from his own mouth. You've heard what kind of a monster he is." Rupp said after the hearing.