Cocaine use is on the rise in Europe with over 30% of adults saying they have tried the drug in England in the last year. Cocaine use has trebled over the last two decades. This trend is driven by:

• higher availability of the drug

• lower purity of street product has reduced the price of cocaine

• social acceptance amongst all walks of life (media is full of reports of middle class wine tastings where cocaine is served together with Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Camembert)

• the rather peculiar fact that it’s very difficult to get busted after using cocaine.

That last point is about to change.

The reason cocaine is difficult to establish is that it metabolises quickly and is usually out of the human system within 12 – 72 hours (depending on metabolism rate and amount taken).

Police in particular find cocaine difficult to test for as a saliva test is only conclusive for 5 to 10 minutes after taking the drug, and a urine test shows traces for about 2 – 5 hours post use. So by the time you’ve brought a suspect to the station he is likely to show as clean. Blood tests are more conclusive but come with other difficulties, such as administering the needle to an unruly suspect.

The Cocaine Fingerprint Development

Now researchers led by scientists from the University of Surrey have developed a non–invasive test based on mass spectrometry: they analyse a potential user’s fingerprints to detect cocaine use.

“When someone has taken cocaine, they excrete traces of benzoylecgonine and methylecgonine as they metabolise the drug, and these chemical indicators are present in fingerprint residue,” said lead author Dr Melanie Bailey from the University of Surrey.  “For our part of the investigations, we sprayed a beam of solvent onto the fingerprint slide (a technique known as Desorption Electrospray Ionisation, or DESI) to determine if these substances were present.

“The beauty of this method is that, not only is it non-invasive and more hygienic than testing blood or saliva, it can’t be faked,” added Dr Bailey. “By the very nature of the test, the identity of the subject is captured within the fingerprint ridge detail itself.”

The technology is now being miniaturised by a number of private contractors and will likely be available to police officers in the near future. This is likely to lead to a much tougher general policy stance and testing and conviction of potential users.

The question of course is: with increased scrutiny and possibility of getting caught will public perception of cocaine use change into the more negative territory and usage fall?

The post Fingerprints Will Soon Tell Police If Suspects are on Cocaine appeared first on BRIC Plus News.

I think we’re going to have strong indications of life beyond Earth within a decade, and I think we’re going to have definitive evidence within 20 to 30 years

Stofan also appeared confident such indications of life would be evident in our own solar system. So bearing that in mind, I thought it would be quite interesting to consolidate some of the findings and see, if life is found in the solar system – what are the most likely places where it might appear? I am deliberately ignoring Mars for this as that is a post in itself due to the multiple variations of life available there (quick fact: Mars produces 270 tons of methane a year, of which only 0.8% of which is accountable by asteroid impact, so presence indicates that there must be an active source on the planet in order to keep such levels in the atmosphere…).

Located deep in our solar system, here are the celestial bodies where we are most likely to find alien life, in reverse order.

Enceladus

Fig 1. Position of Enceladus vs other Saturn Satellites

Fig 2: Images of eruptions coming out from Enceladus oceans

Dimensions:      513.2 × 502.8 × 496.6 km

Surface temp.

• min −240 °C
• mean −198 °C
• max −128 °C

Atmospheric composition

• 91% water vapor
• 4% nitrogen
• 2% carbon dioxide
• 7% methane

Why life:

Enceladus is one of Saturn’s smaller moons in the outer reaches of our solar system. Recently Nasa’s Cassinni probe has detected a substantial ocean underneath its ice sheet. The ocean will likely be 6 miles (10 kilometres) deep, beneath an ice shell about 19 to 25 miles (30 to 40 kilometres) thick. The resulting pressure results in enormous gushes of water coming out from the subsurface at 2,189 km/h (1,360 mph). What is interesting is that some parts of the moon are significantly above temperature permitted by astronomical models (this allows the water below the surface to be kept liquid) and the source of this heat has not been identified, although theories such as existence of cryovolcanoes and radioactive heating are interesting.

Type of life:

Most likely microbial in nature. Since salt has been found on ocean surface, it is likely that it is interacting with seafloor, enhancing chances of finding life similar to that in earth’s deep oceans

Fig 3: Large ocean detected under ice – NASA model. The gravity measurements suggest that Enceladus is composed of layers of different materials, with a low-density core consisting of silicate rock underlying the ocean

Europa

Fig 4: Europa has one of the smoothest terrains in the solar system made from frozen water. The red lines across are linea, most likely made from eruptions of warm ice from below to the top.

Dimensions: c.3,100km in diameter

Surface temp.

• min      -223C
• mean    -171C
• max      -148C

Atmosphere:

• Majority molecular oxygen (0₂)

Why life:

Next to the largest planet in our solar system, Jupiter, Europa has an outer layer of frozen and liquid water 100 km thick. The likely presence of hydrogen peroxide on the planet provide an important potential energy source for life forms. Like on Enceladus, since salt has been found on ocean surface, it is likely that it is interacting with seafloor, enhancing chances of finding life.

Type of life:

Most likely microbial in nature. Since salt has been found on ocean surface, it is likely that it is interacting with seafloor, enhancing chances of finding life similar to that in earth’s deep oceans. In addition Europa’s atmosphere might provide a slightly different type of life than that on earth:

The scientists think hydrogen peroxide is an important factor for the habitability of the global liquid water ocean under Europa’s icy crust because hydrogen peroxide decays to oxygen when mixed into liquid water. “At Europa, abundant compounds like peroxide could help to satisfy the chemical energy requirement needed for life within the ocean, if the peroxide is mixed into the ocean (NASA)

Fig 5: Most likely scenario for Europas internal structure

Titan

Fig 6: Titan’s atmosphere photograph by Cassinni

Diameter: 5,152km

Temperature:  −179.5 °C

Atmosphere composition

• Stratosphere:
  • 4% nitrogen (N2),
  • 4% methane (CH4),
  • 2% hydrogen (H2);
• Lower troposphere:
  • 0% N2, 4.9% CH4

Why life:

Saturn’s largest moon, Titan is the only moon with a dense atmosphere and the only other stellar body besides earth where we have observed surface liquid.

Titan is does not have liquid water; however, its thick atmosphere is chemically active and rich in carbon compounds. A large amount of liquid methane and ethane is present on the surface which has led to speculations that these liquids might take the place of water in living cells different from those on Earth.

Type of life:

Life forms on Titan would be different to water based ones found on earth, relying instead on a methane metabolic process:

Recent results from the Cassini mission suggest that hydrogen and acetylene are depleted at the surface of Titan. Both results are still preliminary and the hydrogen loss in particular is the result of a computer calculation, and not a direct measurement. However the findings are interesting for astrobiology. Methane-based (rather than water-based) life – ie, organisms called methanogens — on Titan could consume hydrogen, acetylene, and ethane. The key conclusion of that paper (last line of the abstract) was “The results of the recent Huygens probe could indicate the presence of such life by anomalous depletions of acetylene and ethane as well as hydrogen at the surface.” (Source)

Fig 7: Titan’s clouds

Figure 8: Spectography of hydrocarbon lakes on Titan

To conclude:

Although the locations described are distant and cold, they provide scientifically plausible environments for life to flourish, although its form may be chemically very different than that found on earth.

The post Where is Life Most Likely in the Solar System? appeared first on BRIC Plus News.

On first look, the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) might just look like a lab, but the work happening inside will change the future of humanity forever. Its aim? To create energy, efficient energy that will never run out. Energy that will power our homes and drive our cars cheaply. It will save humanity…that is, if humans don’t spoil it first. 

Science Editor Vasily Koledov visits the site and learns about the inner workings of the international fusion research project ITER: a project wrestling with budget constraints, global politics and even defence ministries looking for information on nuclear bombs. Thankfully, a team of dedicated scientists are working against all that to rescue the future of the planet. Tony Donne, head of Eurofusion at CCFE, tells Vasily about how fusion can change the world and what still needs to be done for it to do so.

VK: Tony, thank you for taking your time to meet. Please could you explain the situation at the moment?

TD: Right now we are at CCFE which operates the JET Fusion reactor which is the Largest working fusion reactor in the world. The reactor is close to hitting break even (make as much fusion energy output as energy input to start the reaction). The research here is focused on studying hot plasma inside the reactor which heats up to 100-150 million degrees Celsius.
Alongside this, we are helping build the ITER reactor in France which is currently one of the largest scientific projects worldwide at a cost of around 16bn EUR. This will be a 500MW reactor, capable of delivering 10x more power than is currently being put in.
ITER is an international project, being built in France with participation from Russia, India, China, the U.S. and many other countries. Brazil is also planning to join.
In parallel we are preparing to start work on DEMO which will be a follow on project from ITER and will be a fully working 2GW plant ready to be plugged in to the grid.

VK: What is the status of ITER – I know the project has been plagued by delays and cost over runs?

TD: ITER has had its share of problems. Personally, I think it has become too political (by politicians, not scientists). Selection of manufacturing is based on regional allocation rather than actual competency at the manufacturing. All the parties involved want to deliver finished products. Everyone wants to make superconducting coils, vacuum vessel cooling systems in particular.
So you end up with five factories built to make materials around the world whereas it could all have been done with one. Also all parties “deliver in kind” (i.e. deliver finished products) so the actual central team running the project has no money. The central team sets its requirements and sends to parties. Parties come back saying they do not have the budget and so things take far longer than they should. Having a decentralised model has led to ITER suffering a lot from a cost and time perspective. Current estimates are that is should be online by 2024-25.

So you end up with five factories built to make materials around the world whereas it could all have been done with one. If budgeted and executed more sensibly, ITER could have been built for half the price.

If budgeted and executed more sensibly, ITER could have been built for half the price. This has impact on work going on at DEMO as it will be too early to start work on this full speed until ITER is complete and we can get data from it.

VK: What about competition from the U.S., including the National Ignition Facility (NIF)? I also heard of some developments in the tokomak field by Lockheed Martin and other private corporations?

TD: NIF (the principal U.S. based fusion project which unlike the tokomak design in JET and ITER is aimed at starting a reaction by firing lasers at a helium particle) are far behind magnetic fusion. They have not reached ignition, they’ve just managed to obtain net yields and alpha particles. But what they did not calculate is that they have 196 lasers that are 200m long [which they need to fire up to start the ignition]and so they miscalculated energy requirement by a factor of 10,000. They also are only able to do the ignition once per day and as such, have a very long way to go.

Lasers firing at one particle. Looks great – not very efficient.

I believe inertia fusion has a long way to go [before commercialisation]and is mainly driven by military interest. This is because since there is a moratorium on underground nuclear testing, this is an ideal way to make a miniature hydrogen bomb so you can do tests in lab and still get data. Budget into NIF is over two thirds from Department of Defence.

Lockheed Martins technology is “nonsense” – their patent application cannot work. Concept was already proposed in 1960s.

There is a moratorium on underground nuclear testing, this is an ideal way to make a miniature hydrogen bomb so you can do tests in lab and still get data

Companies like General Fusion in Vancouver want a reactor by 2020. They’re doing good work but going slower than expected.

VK: But is there a large-scale fusion program in the U.S.?

TD: In the U.S. there are 3 major tokomaks. But no umbrella organisation like Eurofusion. This is because in the U.S. they tend to only have a 10 year strategy so difficult to plan these long term projects. They focus a lot on research but not to actually build a new plant.

At a meeting in Washington fusion leaders – Russian, Europeans Chinese and Koreans – have a roadmap but the U.S. does not. One of the problems of the US is that they have a lot of fossil fuels and so fusion is not an issue. Politicians are just not putting a lot of money into this.

U.S are the least reliable partner for ITER. In 1999 they jumped out of consortium thinking design was too complicated. Japan, Russian and India continued as well as China. Then they came back.

The United States are the least reliable partner of ITER. In 1999 they jumped out of consortium thinking design was too complicated. Japan, Russian and India continued as well as China. Then they came back. Chinese are really pushing fusion due to pollution factors. In China every week they fire a new coal plant.

Chinese are really pushing fusion due to pollution factors. In China, every week they fire a new coal plant. And when you open one you operate for 30 years so things will not get much better. The level of pollutants in the air in Japan coming from China, are very high on many days (high the density of particulates in atmosphere) and so people are suffering. Korea has it even worse as it is between the two.

China actually has their own tokomak program, a large superconducting tokamak that is smaller than JET but similar to Germany. The Chinese do very good research.

Mark Kempanaars pictured with Ruby Crystal Rod taken from Roof Lab Ruby Laser

VK: I understand there are several fuels that can go into a fusion reactor – which are the most efficient?

TD: There are 3 types of fuel we can use: Deuterium–Tritium , Deuterium–Helium 3 and Deuterium–Deuterium.

Deuterium–Tritium has the highest reaction possibility so it needs the lowest temperatures for combustion but presents two challenges. Firstly, tritium is radioactive (half life 12.5 – after 100 years all tritium is gone – which is why there is so little on earth). The neutron hits the wall of the reactor and energy of neutron generates heat and makes tritium from lithium. The problem is that it activates the wall of the machine, so this means at the end of lifetime the wall of the reactor is [radio]active. In a fusion reactor, the advantage over fission is that we can choose fuel.

Deuterium –Helium 3 would be good as Helium is advantageous (its neutronless). The fusion product is helium 4 plus a proton which essentially means no radiation at all. The challenge is Helium 3 is difficult to obtain

Deuterium – Deuterium – would produce a strong reaction but needs an internal combustion temperature that is nearly 5x higher than Deuterium –Tritium (so around 500 million celsius) which is difficult with current materials.

What is fascinating is that to run a reactor, you need about 500kg of fuel per 2GW reactor per year (deuterium and tritium combined) which is very little. To start a reactor you need about 10-20kg. You can actually take the fuel for the whole reactor, fit it into your car and drive as it’s not radioactive.

There is no problem with fuel supply as in every litre of water there’s 32mg of deuterium. Lithium is also rare but we can actually recycle old car batteries and use it as fuel.

What is interesting about the reactor design, is when we put a lithium over the reactor, when the neutron hits the lithium it splits into tritium and helium 4. As a result the reactor makes its own fuel. Helium 4 is also very valuable by product.

There is no problem with fuel supply as in every litre of water there’s 32mg of deuterium. Lithium is also rare but we can actually recycle old car batteries and use it as fuel. To clarify: the fuel cycle is not in itself fully regenerative meaning Deuterium and Lithium still have to be injected into the reactor periodically.

Confused? To understand the nuclear fusion process, see our fusion demystified article.

VK: What are the costs of setting up a fusion reactor?

TD: Initially the fusion reactor, due to the complicated production processes, will be more expensive to set up than a conventional nuclear reactor, but then fuel is free.

What is interesting is that these power plants do not take a lot of space. The ITER reactor will be 30 meters in diameter (only 2x larger at 10x the power of JET).

Nuclear power stations have a much larger dead area around the site where you cannot build. In this scenario, the very worst thing that can happen is tritium in gas form leaks out, but there will be only a few grams in the atmosphere (due to the small sizes of fuel needed for reaction to take place). So by the time it gets beyond the site area its completely diffused and non-lethal.

VK: What are the key challenges for fusion projects?

TD: Mainly politics and funding. The global fusion research budget is £3bn. In comparison, solar is £100bn and wind is £500bn. In addition, solar and wind have much smaller units.

If the industry jumps on fusion and starts funding projects, it will be easier.

There are other scientific hurdles – most important is heat exhaust. At the moment heat exhaust are 10MW/sqm. This is what you have on surface of the sun, so you need to create materials that can lie on the surface of the sun for many years. The big advantage is we can go with cooling. Currently we have materials that can do 20MW/sqm  but for DEMO we might need more.

VK: What is the status of private funding

Larger energy companies have a shorter energy strategy than one that would put fusion onto their roadmap.

General Fusion is a private company that’s got $30m from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and another $20 from other investors. Private investment could speed things up. Fusion dynamics do a hybrid of inertia fusion and magnetic fusion. They start with plasma like in ITER, compress it, then again, to get more density and efficiency. What is cool is that they are making it in a plasma in a tank surrounded by TNT.

The post The Politics of Power: Inside ITER and the International Fusion Energy Project appeared first on BRIC Plus News.

When people talk about nuclear power plants, they’re talking about power created by fission energy. Remember that word, fission. Fusion energy works from a completely different scientific principle, and offers the advantage of clean renewable energy on a large scale. It also has some earth shattering properties, so you may want to get your head around it. For instance did you know

• A Nuclear fusion reactor operates at temperatures of 100,000,000 degrees Celsius (that’s 10 times hotter than the sun)
• Fuel used in this reaction can be made from water and lithium and then from by-products of reactions – so once a reactor is running it does not require additional fuel.
• In the worst case scenario, if a reactor blows up and releases the particles into the air, they would not cover more than a few hundred meters around site, thus relatively safe.

So what is the difference between nuclear fusion energy and the nuclear energy found in conventional nuclear reactor?

The nuclear power plants that exist today utilise something called the “fission” reaction process (remember that word?).

In a fission reaction the goal is to split the atom in order to produce large amounts of energy.

This is what a typical nuclear fission reaction looks:

A neutron irradiates a Uranium (U235) atom. The number 235 refers to the mass of the atom – i.e. the number of protons and neutrons in the nuclei. Spontaneous fission reactions occur for only the very heaviest nuclides  those with mass numbers of 230 or more.

For a short moment this creates what I like to call an ‘excited state’. Uranium 236 which then splits into lighter elements (Barium and Krypton) and releases free neutrons (as well as plenty of radiation via gamma rays) setting off a chain reaction. One of these neutrons striking another nucleus results in fission.

Fission Energy

Nuclear fusion is the complete opposite process: whereas in fission we are trying to split the atom to create a new nucleus, in fusion we are mixing them together – at very high speed – to create a new nucleus.

In fission we are using heavy atoms, in fusion we want to use the lightest possible. Incidentally, this is the exact same process that goes on in our Sun. So in a fusion reactor we are essentially recreating the sun except burning 10 times higher (yes, that’s 100 million degrees Celsius). Since we are recreating the reaction in a smaller space and this requires more energy.

A typical fusion reaction looks like this:

The deuterium fuel is abundant and is actually found in water (c.6mg per litre), but tritium must be either bred from lithium (including old car batteries) or harvested in the operation of the deuterium cycle (in other words – the reactor, once running, MAKES ITS OWN FUEL). As such there are no additional fuel costs for a nuclear fusion reactor once it is up and running.

So to summarise, nuclear fusion energy:

• Produces more energy during the reaction
• Endless supply of fuel
• Leaves very little radioactive waste

To understand how the reaction works in practice we can refer to the CCFE website:

“To get energy from fusion, gas from a combination of types of hydrogen – deuterium and tritium – is heated to very high temperatures (100 million degrees Celsius). One way to achieve these conditions is a method called ‘magnetic confinement’ – controlling the hot gas (known as a plasma) with strong magnets. The most promising device for this is the ‘tokamak’, a Russian word for a ring-shaped magnetic chamber.”

Figure 1: A Tokomak reactor. Source: http://www.ccfe.ac.uk/How_fusion_works.aspx

The Tokamak reactor design is required as the temperatures inside are so high they would melt the materials of the reactor on collision and hence have to be kept away from surfaces via magnetic currents.

The future of energy therefore  appears far from traditional methods. Keep an eye on my opinion pages, as  I will reveal some of the exciting private start-ups in fusion energy who aim to accelerate the pace and attracted large investments from the likes of Paul Allen and Jeff Bezos.

The post More Efficient than the Sun: The Future of Sustainability Energy is Here appeared first on BRIC Plus News.

In December 2013, something shocking happened: the Chinese Yutu (or “Jade Rabbit”) rover landed. Sent to explore the soil content around the moon, Chinese scientists discovered a much younger geological surface than that explored by NASA during the Apollo landings in 1969-1972, and by the Soviet lunar missions.

These results are the first detailed look at the moon’s surface, and the results are complex. Crucially, the results found that the moon has been – geologically speaking — extremely active over the last 3 billion years, with at least 9 layers in its soil – 5 more than previous estimates – all formed through volcanic eruptions. This is the latest in China’s recent interest in the moon and lunar exploration. In November last year, China became only the third nation to launch a successful test mission to the moon and back.

But what does it all mean?

These ground breaking findings underpin a larger movement in lunar exploration activity, in particular from the Chinese government. The Yutu rover is part of the Chinese Chang’e program to explore the moon, with the goal of identifying resources available for mining. Ouyang Ziyuan, a prominent Chinese geologist and chemical cosmologist is the chief scientist for the Chang’e program. He has previously urged for the exploration and mining of the Moon’s surface for uranium, titanium and Helium-3: a power source that can one day be used in nuclear fusion power stations of the future.

According to China space expert Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, “China wants to go to the moon for geostrategic reasons and domestic legitimacy.”

To this extent in June 2014, Chinese newspaper The People’s Daily reports that “Chinese aerospace researchers are working on setting up a lunar base,” based on a speech by Zhang Yuhua, deputy general director and deputy general designer of the Chang’e-3 probe system. The timeline is vague, but the Chinese have indicated that they want to set up a permanent Lunar colony some time in the mid 2020s to begin moon resource mining and research operations.

Figure 1: Picture of the Rover’s path and drilling activity around the Landing site

Private U.S. corporations are also interested in visiting the moon, but the nature of these missions is more commercial in nature, seeing it as a touristic and research opportunity, with the intention to own, lease and operate inflatable space habitats on the moon.

As such, it is important to see today’s discovery, not only as an important milestone for understanding the geological make up of our nearest celestial body, but also as a precursor to a large increase in lunar exploration activity and increased human interaction with the universe.

Sources

http://www.space.com/28810-moon-history-chinese-lunar-rover.html

http://www.space.com/23855-how-china-change3-moon-rover-works-infographic.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2992065/Chinas-Yutu-rover-finds-layers-inside-moon.html

http://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/yutu-peers-inside-moon-180954551/?no-ist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Lunar_Exploration_Program

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Chinas_Yutu_rover_reveals_Moons_complex_geological_history_999.html

http://www.universetoday.com/107716/china-considers-manned-moon-landing-following-breakthrough-change-3-mission-success/

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/347/6227/1226

http://www.leonarddavid.com/giving-the-moon-the-business-u-s-faa-backs-bigelow

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The collapse of oil prices that started in July of 2014 has had wide-ranging implications on the fortunes of most oil producing nations and has received endless coverage in the media with particular attention being paid to the negative effects on their economies. As such, a number of opinions have become prevalent in the market – in particular the resulting weakness of the Russian economy and the likely resilience of Saudi Arabia.
It is therefore of interest to see what the real big picture of the situation is and its likely effect on the health of this group of countries going forward.

First, let’s start by looking at the difference in the cost of oil production (i.e. the physical cost to extract a barrel from the ground) and the market price that is needed by a country to balance their budget (i.e. what price the country then needs to sell the oil on the open market in order to generate sufficient revenue to cover government expenses on infrastructure, welfare etc.).

Figure 1: Breakeven production and budget breakeven costs. Source: Agora Financial and Total S.A.

As we can see from Figure 1, there is a wide gap between cost of producing a barrel of oil and the required sale price needed to budget the balance. For instance, Saudi Arabia can produce oil at very competitive prices – c.$5-$10 per barrel, however needs to sell it at a minimum of $75 to balance its budget. This is similar to the price Russia needs to balance its budget, however Russia’s cost of production are almost double those of Saudi Arabia.
Why is this difference so high? In order to understand this, we need to look at how much of a countries’ GDP is based on their Export earnings.

Figure 2: Oil export earnings as % of GDP. Source: euanmearns.com

Looking at Figure 2, the picture becomes rather interesting. We see that certain oil producing countries, such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iraq are far more reliant on oil revenue for their GDP income than more diversified economies such as Russia and even Iran. As such the next question that is worth asking is – what will be the effect on a governments’ annual deficit if oil stays at $50?

Figure 3: Annual government deficit at US$50 / barrel. Source: euanmearns.com

Figure 3 shows the impact on state economies of a sustained fall in oil price to US$ 50 per barrel. Whereas Kuwait, Qatar and Russia will be least hit by this situations most oil producers, including UAE, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia will be strongly affected.

Since countries will be using their foreign reserves to plug in gaps in their domestic reserves, the final question we need to ask is – how long will these last?

Figure 4: Duration of foreign reserves at US$ 50 per barrel. Source: euanmearns.com

Looking at Figure 4, we can see that if oil remains at US$50 per barrel, Venezuela, Nigeria, Ecuador and Angola will ruin out of foreign reserves within 18 months and will require international assistance. Iran, Iraq, UAE and Libya will be able to last for another 24 months and only Saudi Arabia, Russia, Algeria, Qatar and Kuwait will be able to sustain a prolonged oil price glut of 4 years or more.

Sources

http://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/Oil-Wars-Why-OPEC-Will-Win.html
http://uk.businessinsider.com/citi-breakeven-oil-production-prices-2014-11
http://wolfstreet.com/2014/09/12/the-countries-most-at-risk-from-declining-oil-prices/
http://graphics.wsj.com/lists/opec-meeting

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