Posted by Not fracking with millions of gallons of water this time round — waterless fracking. Americans love a good game with lots of momentum and game-changing shifts. Who would have thunk — shale gas extraction is turning out to be one of the most exciting games in town. The Original Natural Gas Game Changer Over the…
Our neighbor to the south plans to swim against the tide. The tide in question is the world’s rising emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), and with the March 2012 data from the Mauna Loa Observatory now in, that tide has risen to new heights. At 394.45 parts per million, it is the highest monthly average…
Does it make climate sense to drive cars with natural gas? Our nation appears to be rapidly moving to a natural gas-powered economy. Advances in hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and horizontal drilling have made huge deposits of natural gas in shale and tight sands commercially viable. (See “Hydrofracturing: An Energy Revolution.”) Suddenly the United States is…
Taxpayers could end up being on the hook for a very large bill. Subsidies have been very much on the minds of lawmakers of late. The Obama administration failed in its bid to get Congress to withdraw the substantial subsidies we provide to the oil and gas industry. And the New York Times reports that…
Come along on a test drive of the Nissan Leaf. Ever wonder what one of those all-electric cars feels like when you’re behind the wheel? Well, here’s your chance. We’ll start by getting the lowdown on what it means to be a “zero-emission vehicle” from one of the Energy Department’s car specialists. We’ll kick the…
A look at things a year after one of the world’s worst nuclear accidents. On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake erupted some 50 miles off Japan’s Tohoku coast. The ensuing tsunamis set off by the quake devastated communities up and down the Japanese coast, killing some 20,000 people. The one-two natural-disaster punch also…
Congressional deadlock and new scientific insights force new direction. The news on the avoid-dangerous-climate-change front seems to get ever bleaker. On the Policy Side, Little to No Progress The probability of a U.S. policy to curb greenhouse gas emissions any time soon is as close to zero as you can get — President Obama said…
Steady as we go with energy but definitely not on our climate target. Presidential Disconnect? A little more than two years ago in Copenhagen President Obama committed the United States (in a non-binding pledge) to work with the international community to prevent global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.5 degrees Fahrenheit) above…
Highlights from a workshop on the environmental and social implications of fracking. A group of the nation’s leading experts on energy and the environment are at Duke this week attending a workshop to try to ferret out the facts (and tamp down the hype) around shale gas and fracking, the controversial method for extracting natural…
The Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, but there seems little chance that the 17th Conference of the Parties in Durban, South Africa, will end with an international plan on the next steps for climate change. The major sticking point remains how to split the responsibility for emission cuts between developed and developing economies.
Three scientists walk into a hearing room … Seriously. This week I was on Capitol Hill talking about global warming with Richard Muller of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project and Ben Santer of the Lawrence Livermore National Lab. The Congressional briefing was organized by Congressmen Ed Markey (D-MA) and Henry Waxman (D-CA), who…
Recently I’ve argued that in some cases, as in discerning the long-term global temperature trend, a little common sense will suffice. But sometimes the climate system can surprise you — what seems like common sense may prove to be not so commonsensical. The climate impact of white roofs may provide a case in point.
When assessing green energy subsidies, a little history helps. With Solyndra grabbing headlines (see here and here), “federal subsides” for green energy is beginning to challenge “regulations” as the epithet du jour among those proffering the sacrifice of America’s environment on the altar of the economy and jobs. (A false dichotomy in the opinion of…
In the past, it was unions vs. mining companies. Today, environmentalists are lining up against mining companies over the practice of large-scale surface mining, aka mountaintop removal, in the Central Appalachians. Environmentalists claim the process permanently scars the land and pollutes the water. Mining interests maintain that pollution is limited, the land can be reclaimed, and coal mining is critical to West Virginia’s — and the nation’s — economic health.
When it comes to water from hydrofracking, the question of safety is murky at best. The Chemical Cocktail of Fracking Fluid For many folks the big baddie of hydraulic fracturing, also called hydrofracking or fracking, is fracking fluid — the mixture of water, sand, and chemicals that’s injected deep below the surface to fracture the…
A tactical retreat or an abdication? It’s a scant 14 months to the 2012 elections. The economy’s in the tank, as are the president’s poll numbers. (See here, here, here and here.) The pundits tell us (for instance here and here) that Obama will pivot to jobs, jobs, jobs in an effort to rehabilitate his…
Whether at Christmas time or in the heat of summer, nobody likes a lump of coal. Unfortunately, that’s what the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is delivering in its latest report.
A city of 300 in Alaska is at the cutting edge of bioenergy. The Backstory It’s ironic. In resource- and fossil fuel-rich Alaska, Tanana residents are paying more than seven times the national rate for their electricity and are shipping in diesel fuel to heat their buildings and water. Probably the name Tanana (pronounced TAN-uh-naw)…
Hillary Clinton is in the tar sands hot seat. Is she asking the right questions? The U.S. State Department is in the rare position of having to decide on an environmental issue. TransCanada wants to expand an existing pipeline to bring tar sand oil from Alberta, Canada, to Texas. Because it’s an international project, the…
Ethanol has had its highs and lows. Which way is it headed now? Fermentation. What would we do without it? It’s a little trick that microbes figured out billions of years ago as a way of getting energy from carbohydrates. Then way back in prehistoric times, we humans figured out how to hijack that microbial…
While we debate about building new nukes, waste builds — and builds up — at the ones we already have. The tsunami-induced nuclear disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex has sparked renewed debate about nuclear power’s future. Countries such as Germany and Switzerland have decided the risk ain’t worth the juice and have announced…
Scientist and lawyer duke it out over who is the greener generation. A lawyer I know, who, I am convinced, likes to rattle my chain from time to time, recently sent me an essay entitled “The Green Thing.” (It’s all over the web, but it looks like it may have originated here.) It’s about an…
A smoking gun in the form of methane isotopes links the two. Shale Gas: Game Changer or Potential Problem? The abundant, cleaner-burning fossil fuel known as shale gas has been hailed as a bridge fuel that’ll allow the transition from coal to a renewable-fueled future. Not only that, drilling for shale gas has propped up…
Nobody likes a methane leak. Now, now, don’t go there. We’re talking about leaks from natural gas production — and more specifically from horizontal drilling and hydrofracturing (or fracking) to extract natural gas locked inside shale. A look at the seesaw saga of the so-called bridge fuel to a bright, clean, renewable-fueled future. First came the natural gas “gold rush” …
Does the good outweigh the bad? The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s report on “Emissions of Greenhouse Gases in the United States 2009” was officially released on March 31st. Two of its key conclusions: Total U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases were down by about 5.8 percent relative to 2008 — a…
