All Entries in the "Energy" Category
Lawmaker who apologized to BP may chair House energy panel
The Texas lawmaker who apologized to BP for the US government’s insistence that the oil giant set up a fund to compensate oil spill victims may soon be the most powerful voice in the House on US energy policy.
Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) is a leading contender for the chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, a position he held once before, during the 2004-2006 congressional session.
Barton brought attention to himself in June, when the Obama administration announced that BP would set up a $20-billion escrow fund to compensate businesses and households affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Full Story: Lawmaker who apologized to BP may chair House energy panel | Raw Story.
US Military Leadership Acknowledge Peak Oil,…
Two reports this week clearly indicate that the U.S. military is aware of the peak oil threat and is seriously pursuing development of alternative fuel and energy sources. The immediate costs of transporting fuel on the battlefield as well as the long-term costs of foreign oil dependency (and oil scarcity) have prompted a pragmatic shift to synthetic and biofuel testing.
As The Guardian reported this week, the U.S. navy has successfully tested an algae-based biodiesel fuel mix in a 49-ft gunboat at its Norfolk, Virginia naval base. This is one of the first steps toward the navy’s goal of running half its fleet on non-petroleum sources by 2020. Today’s cost of a gallon of algae-diesel fuel mix is $424, not far from the estimated $400 it now costs to get a gallon of gasoline to a war zone. The navy has committed to purchasing 150,000 gallons of domestic algae-based fuel, the costs of which should scale down as production ramps up.
Full Story: US Military Leadership Acknowledge Peak Oil,… | Gather.
DOT Awards $2.4 Billion for High-speed Passenger Rail Corridors
Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced yesterday that $2.4 billion has been awarded to “54 projects in 23 States” to be used for “planning and construction of intercity passenger rail service”.
Nevada is getting a high-speed train from Las Vegas to Southern California thanks to Senator Harry Reid. A total of 23 States will be getting new train systems thanks to Senator Harry Reid. Tens of thousands of jobs will be created by this 25 year project, thanks to Senator Harry Reid.
Full Story: DOT Awards $2.4 Billion for High-speed Passenger Rail Corridors – Las Vegas Democrat | Examiner.com.
German Grid Aching Under (Too Much) Solar Power
The German electricity grid faces instability because of too much solar power, an expert said.
Thanks to a generous feed-in tariff, the installation of rooftop solar panels and large-scale photovoltaic plants has exploded in Germany.
Stephan Kohler, chairman of the DENA agency, an energy adviser to the government, has warned that the green boom could turn into a disaster for Germany’s aging power grid.
“The network is facing a congestion due to solar power,” Kohler told the Berliner Zeitung newspaper. “That’s why the expansion of solar power has to be cut back quickly and drastically.
Full Story: German Grid Aching Under (Too Much) Solar Power | CommonDreams.org.
Ocean Technologies That Will Save The Planet (PHOTOS)
We can send a man to the moon, but the ocean is still a dark and mysterious place to resear
chers and scientists. The latest generation of ocean technology promises to help us more completely understand ocean species so we can protect and preserve them. It has helped us learn more about the effects of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and may just hold the key to a clean energy future.
Read on to find out how cutting edge advances are changing the way we see and interact with the ocean.
Wind Power Backbone Sought Off Atlantic Coast – NYTimes.com
Google and a New York financial firm have each agreed to invest heavily in a proposed $5 billion transmission backbone for future offshore wind farms along the Atlantic Seaboard that could ultimately transform the region’s electrical map.
The 350-mile underwater spine, which could remove some critical obstacles to wind power development, has stirred excitement among investors, government officials and environmentalists who have been briefed on it.
Google and Good Energies, an investment firm specializing in renewable energy, have each agreed to take 37.5 percent of the equity portion of the project. They are likely to bring in additional investors, which would reduce their stakes.
If they hold on to their stakes, that would come to an initial investment of about $200 million apiece in the first phase of construction alone, said Robert L. Mitchell, the chief executive of Trans-Elect, the Maryland-based transmission-line company that proposed the venture.
Full Story: Wind Power Backbone Sought Off Atlantic Coast – NYTimes.com.
How GM “Lied” About The Electric Car
The Chevy Volt has been hailed as General Motors’ electric savior. Now, as GM officially rolls out the Volt this week for public consumption, we’re told the much-touted fuel economy was misstated and GM “lied” about the car being all-electric.
In the past, and based on GM’s claims, we’ve gone so far as to call the Volt GM’s “Jesus Car.” And why wouldn’t we call it that? We were told the Volt would achieve 230 MPG fuel economy and would always use the electric drivetrain to motivate the wheels — only using the onboard gasoline engine as a “range extender” for charging the batteries. It now turns out that not only were those fuel economy claims misleading, but the gasoline engine is actually used to motivate the wheels — making the Volt potentially nothing more than a very advanced hybrid car and pushing some automotive journalists like Scott Oldham at Edmunds.com to claim “GM lied to the world” about it.
Full Story: How GM “Lied” About The Electric Car.
Here comes the sun: White House to go solar
Solar power is coming to President Barack Obama’s house.
The most famous residence in America, which has already boosted its green credentials by planting a garden, plans to install solar panels atop the White House’s living quarters. The solar panels are to be installed by spring 2011, and will heat water for the first family and supply some electricity.
The plans will be formally announced later Tuesday by White House Council on Environmental Quality Chairwoman Nancy Sutley and Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
Full Story: Here comes the sun: White House to go solar – The Globe and Mail.
Is solar wind the next renewable energy resource? – Technology & science – Discovery.com – msnbc.com
Team hopes concept could generate more power than humanity needs
Solar and wind power have long been two of the main contenders in the race to find the next big renewable energy resource. Rather than choosing between the two, scientists at Washington State University have instead combined them.
Using a massive 8,400-kilometer-wide (5,220-mile-wide) solar sail to harvest the power in solar wind, the team hopes their concept could generate 1 billion billion gigawatts of power, far more power than humanity needs — if they can get that power back to Earth.
“It’s quite amazing how much power it can actually produce,” said Dirk Schulze-Makuch, a scientist at Washington State University and a co-author of the paper, which appears in the International Journal of Astrobiology. “In principle it should work quite well, but there are some practical issues.”
Full Story: Is solar wind the next renewable energy resource? – Technology & science – Discovery.com – msnbc.com.
Study – World’s ‘Peak Coal’ Moment Has Arrived
Is the world about to begin running out of coal?
Two researchers say so. In a peer-reviewed article published in the journal Energy, they write that the world will hit “peak coal” production next year or shortly thereafter, and then mining would begin a long, steep decline.
Bottom line, say the paper’s co-authors, Tadeusz Patzek, a University of Texas engineering professor, and Greg Croft, a St. Mary’s College of California earth science professor, is that the 7 billion tons of coal the world is now mining and burning each year is about the best it can do.
“Our ability to produce this resource at 8 billion tons per year, in my mind, is a dream,” Patzek said.
Full Story: Study – World’s ‘Peak Coal’ Moment Has Arrived – NYTimes.com.
Oilsands need more regulation: Cameron
Alberta should put a moratorium on approving new tailings ponds until the science evolves to better handle the waste from oilsands mining, Avatar director James Cameron suggested Wednesday after a three-day tour of the controversial oil deposits.
Reclamation of tailings ponds isn’t yet sufficiently viable — either economically or scientifically — to offset the environmental impact of oilsands mining, and the province needs to regulate the industry more closely, he added.
“[Oilsands companies] are allowed to proceed on a promise. A promise that they will make good down the line, probably after some of us are already dead. Our children and our grandchildren are going to inherit this,” he told a news conference in Edmonton.
Full Story: CBC News – Edmonton – Oilsands need more regulation: Cameron.
A CONVENIENT TRUTH: Gearing Up For Climate Change Could Supercharge The Job Market
Could one major crisis be solved…. by solving another?
If we’re talking about the nation’s desperately poor job market on the one hand, and the dire threat of climate change on the other, then the answer is: Quite possibly, yes.
The solution to both would be an enormous investment in green technology and green jobs — creating a robust “clean energy economy” while reducing carbon emissions; putting millions of Americans back to work while increasing our energy independence; rebuilding our manufacturing base while saving consumers money on their energy bills; and saving the planet.
Full Story: A CONVENIENT TRUTH: Gearing Up For Climate Change Could Supercharge The Job Market.
California Energy Commission approves BrightSource Energy’s plans to build a 370 megawatt solar thermal power plant in the Mojave Desert
Over the objections of several environmental groups concerned about the impact on native plants and the desert tortoise, the California Energy Commission on Wednesday gave Oakland-based BrightSource Energy approval to build a 370-megawatt solar thermal power plant in California’s portion of the Mojave Desert.
BrightSource’s Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System is one of four large solar thermal power plants approved by the Energy Commission this month; five others are pending. The commission hopes to rule on all nine projects by the end of the year in order to qualify for federal stimulus funds.
If all nine are approved, they are expected to create more than 8,000 construction jobs and generate more than 4,300 megawatts of electricity. The Solar Energy Industries Association estimates that 1 megawatt of solar electricity is enough to power 200 homes, so the nine projects could power 860,000 homes.
Nuclear waste piles up with no disposal plan
Tens of thousands of tons of potentially lethal radioactive waste have been piling up across the nation for more than a generation, but the federal government has yet to decide how to get rid of it permanently.
After axing a multibillion-dollar plan to bury the waste beneath Yucca Mountain, Nev., President Barack Obama has asked an expert panel to recommend alternatives.
But the panel’s report isn’t due until January 2012. And the group’s recommendations aren’t binding on the White House or Congress.
In short, the country’s political leaders are no closer to a safe, permanent disposal plan for nuclear waste than they were a generation ago, when nuclear power became widespread and the Cold War was in full swing.
Full Story: Nuclear waste piles up with no disposal plan | APP.com | Asbury Park Press.
China Shakes the World
The year 2009 was a bad one for the United States. And no, I’m not talking about unemployment, or poverty, or home foreclosures, or banks too-big-to-fail, or any of the other normal bad news. I’m talking about something serious. As the world’s leading maker of things that go bang in the night (and I don’t mean Hollywood films), we took a hit last year. A big one. The planet’s leading arms-maker and dealer — that’s us by a country mile — with a 68.4% cut of the global market in 2008, had the value of its arms deals drop by almost $16 billion in the gloomy economic times of 2009. Consider it a blow to one of the few things Americans do well these days. Fortunately, there was a simpatico country rich enough to bail us out. I’m referring to Saudi Arabia, which is now doing for U.S. arms what the Chinese have long done for U.S. Treasury bills.
For a whopping $60 billion — yes, Virginia, that is “billion” — the Saudis, according to Jim Lobe of Inter Press Service, have agreed to buy 84 F-15s and 175 helicopters as part of the largest arms deal in U.S. history. In addition, the sale, soon to be presented to Congress for approval by the White House, could end up involving a supplemental $30 billion deal “to upgrade the Saudi kingdom’s naval forces and yet another for new missile-defense systems.” (You didn’t even know that Saudi Arabia had a navy, did you?) This, Lobe writes, will “by itself exceed the value of all conventional arms transfer agreements signed worldwide by developing and developed countries alike in 2009 — $57.5 billion.” And there’s even an added bonus for U.S. arms makers. Though this sale is theoretically aimed at Iran, the Saudi military, for all its weaponry, has shown little urge to fight, or to fight effectively. This will, however, surely mean billions more in compensatory U.S. weaponry flowing to Israel. (And keep in mind that, after years of disastrous war and occupation unleashed by the Bush administration’s 2003 invasion, the American-built Iraqi military may soon offer U.S. arms-makers thanks in the form of major new tank and plane orders.
Full Story: Tomgram: Michael Klare, China Shakes the World | TomDispatch.
Nuclear waste piles up with no disposal plan
Tens of thousands of tons of potentially lethal radioactive waste have been piling up across the nation for more than a generation, but the federal government has yet to decide how to get rid of it permanently.
After axing a multibillion-dollar plan to bury the waste beneath Yucca Mountain, Nev., President Barack Obama has asked an expert panel to recommend alternatives.
But the panel’s report isn’t due until January 2012. And the group’s recommendations aren’t binding on the White House or Congress.
In short, the country’s political leaders are no closer to a safe, permanent disposal plan for nuclear waste than they were a generation ago, when nuclear power became widespread and the Cold War was in full swing.
Full Story: Nuclear waste piles up with no disposal plan | APP.com | Asbury Park Press.
World Bank invests record sums in coal
Last year, $3.4bn was invested in the dirtiest fossil fuel despite international commitments to cut emissions
Record sums were invested last year in coal power – the most carbon intensive form of energy on the planet – by the World Bank, despite international commitments to slash the carbon emissions blamed for climate change.
The World Bank said this week that a total of US$3.4bn (£2.2bn) – or a quarter of all funding for energy projects – was spent in the year to June 2010 helping to build new coal-fired power stations, including the controversial Medupi plant in South Africa. Over the same period the bank also spent $1bn (£640m) on looking and drilling for oil and gas.
However, the Bank Information Centre, which examined the spending, disagreed and said the figure invested in coal was $4.4bn in the fiscal year 2009-10.
Full Story: World Bank invests record sums in coal | Environment | guardian.co.uk.
California Falls Behind In Waste-To-Energy Race
Government officials from around the world used to come to this port city to catch a glimpse of the future: Two-story piles of trash would disappear into a furnace and eventually be transformed into electricity to power thousands of homes.
Nowadays, it’s U.S. officials going to Canada, Japan and parts of Western Europe to see the latest advances.
The Long Beach plant, for all its promise when it began operations roughly 20 years ago, still churns out megawatts. But it is a relic, a symbol of how California, one of America’s greenest states, fell behind other countries in the development of trash-to-energy technology.
Full Story: California Falls Behind In Waste-To-Energy Race.
Wall St. firm behind slow solar on federal lands?
Not a light bulb’s worth of solar electricity has been produced on the millions of acres of public desert set aside for it. Not one project to build glimmering solar farms has even broken ground.
Instead, five years after federal land managers opened up stretches of the Southwest to developers, vast tracts still sit idle.
An Associated Press examination of U.S. Bureau of Land Management records and interviews with agency officials shows that the BLM operated a first-come, first-served leasing system that quickly overwhelmed its small staff and enabled companies, regardless of solar industry experience, to squat on land without any real plans to develop it.
Full Story: Wall St. firm behind slow solar on federal lands? – U.S. news – Environment – msnbc.com.
The Republican Who Dared Tell the Truth About Oil
Matt Simmons understood the wages of addiction and wasn’t afraid to sound warnings, even to George W. Bush.
“A call to arms may be wrong. We may not even know who the enemy is. And maybe the enemy is us.” — Matt Simmons
After criticizing the reckless conduct of BP in the Gulf of Mexico most of the summer, 67-year-old Matt Simmons eased into his hot tub at his home in North Haven, Maine on Aug. 8. For a short while the famous oil analyst might have pondered his grandiose plans for the world’s largest $25-billion offshore wind farm. But Simmons then suffered a heart attack and drowned.
The New York Times duly observed the passing of “the noted energy banker” while Forbes called him “the crazy uncle of the oil patch.” And that he was. Gadfly. Visionary. Contrarian. Educator. “Crude Cassandra.” Conservative. Together with millions of Americans and Europeans, I dearly miss the life-long Republican and let me tell you why.
Full Story: The Tyee – The Republican Who Dared Tell the Truth About Oil.
Another Oil Rig Explodes in the Gulf
The Coast Guard is saying there are no immediate signs of a spill from an oil platform fire in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast.
All 13 crew members were rescued from the water in the second such disaster in the Gulf in less than five months.
The Coast Guard initially reported an oil sheen a mile long and 100 feet wide had begun to spread from the site of the fire, about 200 miles west of the site of BP’s massive spill. But officials said at a Thursday afternoon news conference that boats at the platform have not seen any oil sheen.
Full Story: No sign of oil spill after Gulf platform fire.
Temporary cap that stopped oil gusher removed
Engineers removed a temporary cap Thursday that stopped oil from gushing into the Gulf of Mexico from BP’s blown-out well in mid-July. No more oil was expected to leak into the sea, but crews were standing by with collection vessels just in case.
The cap was removed as a prelude to raising the massive piece of equipment underneath that failed to prevent the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
The government wants to replace the failed blowout preventer first to deal with any pressure that is caused when a relief well BP has been drilling intersects the blown-out well.
Full Story: Temporary cap that stopped oil gusher removed – KCBD, NewsChannel 11 Lubbock |.
Is Fracking Even Worse Than Drilling?
With cleanup of the Gulf of Mexico barely underway, energy companies are already assuming a crouching stance in anticipation of a no-holds-barred attack by environmentalists on what the industry says is the next major breakthrough in natural resource extraction.
The breakthrough is called fracking – short for hydraulic fracturing – the process of injecting water and chemicals into reservoirs to fracture rock and free up gas and oil.
Critics say fracking can poison water supplies. They also say it uses large amounts of fresh water and generates large amounts of wastewater with limited disposal options. Hydraulic fracturing injects high volumes of water, chemicals and particles underground to create fractures through which gas can flow for collection.
According to the industry, fracturing has been used in roughly 90 percent of wells in operation today and 60 to 80 percent of new wells will require fracturing to remain viable. The industry contends the process is safe.
Full Story: ENERGY: Is Fracking Even Worse Than Drilling?.
Drilling Moratorium Stays, Feds Tell Oil Spill Commission
The top federal offshore oil drilling regulator is telling the presidential oil spill commission that the temporary halt to deepwater drilling will remain in place for a few more months.
The Interior Department issued the moratorium after the deadly April 20 BP oil rig explosion. It was overturned in court and reissued on July 13.
Louisiana officials and residents have pleaded with the oil spill commission to do something about the moratorium. The presidential panel asked Interior officials whether they had any say in the matter and whether individual rigs could get exceptions.
Full Story: Drilling Moratorium Stays, Feds Tell Oil Spill Commission.
Do-it-yourself solar power for your home
Imagine outfitting your house with small, affordable solar panels that plug into a socket and pump power into your electrical system instead of taking it out.
That’s the promise of a Seattle, Washington-based start-up that is working to provide renewable energy options — solar panels and wind turbines — for homes and small businesses. The panels cost as little as $600 and plug directly into a power outlet.
The company, Clarian Power, aims to be the first to bring a plug-in solar power system to the market, in 2011.
Clarian’s president, Chad Maglaque, says the company’s product is different from existing micro-inverters, which convert solar panels’ power into AC current. Maglaque says his system has built-in circuit protection, doesn’t require a dedicated electrical panel and plugs directly into a standard electrical outlet.
Full Story: Do-it-yourself solar power for your home – CNN.com.
White House may drop deepwater drilling moratorium early
Now that the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history has effectively been stopped, the White House is considering an early end to its moratorium on deepwater drilling.
But four months after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, regulators have only started to make good on promises to overhaul drilling. Tough measures are stalled in Congress. A $1 billion emergency response network proposed by the industry won’t be operational for another year.
And while doomsday scenarios from the BP spill, like oil washing up the East Coast, have not come to pass, there are no guarantees that drilling will be any safer once it does resume.
What’s changed is “not enough to make a big difference,” said Charles Perrow, a Yale professor who has studied the spill in the Gulf.
Full Story: White House may drop deepwater drilling moratorium early | Raw Story.
Gas Is Really Costing Us About $15 a Gallon
Calculating the true cost of living in a country built on oil.
This might be an opportune time to make a disclosure: I am a BP shareholder. Admittedly, I’ve never attended the company’s annual meeting, and if I did, I would have very little weight to throw around.
I own two shares of BP stock. I received my stake in the company as a Christmas gift in 1989, when I was 14 years old. The previous June, I had taken a “summer enrichment” course in the Des Moines public schools, designed as an introduction to the world of business. The teacher gave each of us in the class a modest hypothetical budget to invest in the stock market.
Earnest young capitalists, we made our picks and then followed the quotes in the morning paper. I invested heavily in Amoco and finished the summer feeling that my portfolio had done quite well. As a result, my younger brother decided that I should receive a real piece of the enterprise that was once John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. He conspired with my mom to get me an Amoco share for the holidays.
I’ve watched the oil industry as an interested party ever since. In 1998, my Amoco stock split, turning my one share into two. Then, a few months later, the company was acquired by BP. This “oil mega-merger,” as the BBC called it, gave me a stake in yet another energy titan. It also allowed the combined corporation to shed 6,000 jobs, prompting its new chief executive, Sir John Browne of BP, to confidently assure the press that “he hoped the merger will increase pre-tax profits of the two partners by ‘at least’ two billion dollars by the end of 2000.”
Full Story: Gas Is Really Costing Us About $15 a Gallon | Environment | AlterNet.
Federal Nuclear Waste Panel Overlooks Public Mistrust, Experts Say
A renewed federal effort to fix the nation’s stalled nuclear waste program is focusing so much on technological issues that it fails to address the public mistrust hampering storage and disposal efforts, according to 16 social science researchers from across the country.
Writing in the latest issue of the journal Science, experts including Sharon Friedman of Lehigh University say that President Obama’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future is not focusing enough on the social and political acceptability of possible solutions.
“While scientific and technical analyses are essential, they will not and arguably should not carry the day unless they address, substantively and procedurally, the issues that concern the public,” the experts write.
Full Story: On The Hill: Federal Nuclear Waste Panel Overlooks Public Mistrust, Experts Say.
Solar panels and wind turbines to be installed on schools and hospitals
Solar panels could be fitted to the roof of every public building and wind turbines installed in hospital car parks under plans for local authorities to earn £100 million a year from generating green electricity.
Previously councils were not allowed to make money from installing renewable energy schemes like hydro electric plants on rivers for fear of upsetting the electricity market.
But as part of the Coalition’s plans to become ‘the greenest government ever’, town halls will be able to profit from ‘mini power stations’ for the first time.
Full Story: Solar panels and wind turbines to be installed on schools and hospitals – Telegraph.
Minerals Service Had a Mandate to Produce Results
On March 5, 1997, an obscure federal official with a puckish grin entered a hotel ballroom here and greeted 1,000 jittery oilmen on what would prove a landmark day.
For years, fading interest in the Gulf of Mexico had punished the local economy and left Louisiana to mourn its “Dead Sea.” Now, rising oil prices and new technology were setting off the deep-water version of a gold rush. Interest in drilling ran so high that the official, Chris Oynes, was heading into the annual lease auction with a record number of sealed bids.
In giddier times before the bust, his predecessor presided over the auction in a jaunty red blazer, but Mr. Oynes was far too conservative for that. Or so everyone thought — until he opened his briefcase and brought down the house with a size 46 scarlet jacket, an omen of the coming deep-water boom.
Full Story: Minerals Service Had a Mandate to Produce Results – NYTimes.com.
BP: We might drill again in disaster zone
BP PLC said Friday it might someday drill again into the same lucrative undersea pocket of oil that spilled millions of gallons of crude, wrecked livelihoods and fouled beaches along the Gulf of Mexico.
“There’s lots of oil and gas here,” Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said at a news briefing. “We’re going to have to think about what to do with that at some point.”
The vast oil reservoir beneath the blown well is still believed to hold nearly $4 billion worth of crude. With the company and its partners facing tens of billions of dollars in liabilities, the incentive to exploit the wells and the reservoir could grow.
Full Story: BP: We might drill again in disaster zone | Raw Story.
Democrats To Leave Town Having Ditched Even Their Scaled-Back Energy Bill
Senate Democrats plan to head home for their annual August recess without acting on the scaled-down energy and oil-spill related legislation they unveiled just a week or so ago after having abandoned a more-ambitious comprehensive climate and energy bill.
That leaves undone one more piece of the Democratic agenda, despite weeks of angry rhetoric heaped on BP for the Gulf Coast oil spill and vows from Democrats that they would hold the energy giant accountable.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) blamed Republicans for having to leave untouched the Clean Energy Jobs and Oil Accountability Act before senators return to work in September.
Full Story: On The Hill: Democrats To Leave Town Having Ditched Even Their Scaled-Back Energy Bill.
Automotive X Prize Finalists : 9 Cars That Could Change The World
They’re aerodynamic, they’re snappy, and, best of all, they’re efficient.
The Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize has announced the finalists in its competition to develop a new breed of energy efficient vehicles.
Just 9 cars (down from 136) remain in the competition, which aims to “inspire a new generation of super fuel efficient vehicles.” The cars, which go through a grueling series of tests and technical inspections to determine their road-worthiness, must be able to handle real-world scenarios. “It is about developing real, production-capable cars that consumers will want to buy, not science projects or concept cars,” the X Prize Foundation explains.
Check out the finalists in the slideshow below, then vote for your favorite on the X Prize website.
Full Story: Automotive X Prize Finalists (PHOTOS): 9 Cars That Could Change The World.
Los Angeles Pushing To Become Nation’s Mass Transit Leader
The region famous for jilting the street car to take up a love affair with the automobile is trying to rekindle its long ago romance with commuter rail.
If successful, the novel plan to borrow billions from the federal government, led by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, would result in the largest transit expansion project in the nation.
Los Angeles County voters agreed two years ago to pay a half-cent sales tax over the next 30 years to extend train and rapid bus lines, projects that would routinely require federal assistance.
Full Story: Los Angeles Pushing To Become Nation’s Mass Transit Leader.
Fracking With Food: How the Natural Gas Industry Poisons Cows and Crops
Natural gas drilling operations have mucked up food from Colorado to Pennsylvania. So why is no one paying attention?
On the morning of May 5, 2010, nobody could say for sure how much fluid had leaked from the 650,000-gallon disposal pit near a natural gas drill pad in Shippen Township, Penn. — not the employees on site; not the farmers who own the property; not the DEP rep who came to investigate.
But there were signs of trouble: Vegetation had died in a 30’ by 40’ patch of pasture nearby. A “wet area” of indeterminate toxicity had crept out about 200 feet, its puddles shimmering with an oily iridescence. And the cattle: 16 cows, four heifers and eight calves were all found near water containing the heavy metal strontium. Strontium is preferentially deposited in cows’ bones at varying levels depending on things like age and growth rates. Since slaughtering 28 cattle on mere suspicion can devastate a farmer financially, nobody knows what, if anything, the cows ingested. They’re now sitting in quarantine.
The Shippen Township incident isn’t the first time hydraulic fracturing, a controversial gas extraction technique that involves shooting water, sand and a mix of chemicals into the ground to release gas, has been blamed for livestock damage. But for farmers in the northeast whose land sits atop the gas-rich Marcellus Shale formation, it is a wake-up call – an event that raises questions about fracking’s compatibility with food production.
Full Story: Fracking With Food: How the Natural Gas Industry Poisons Cows and Crops | Food | AlterNet.
Renewable energy: Wind farm ‘mega-project’ is underway in California
The Alta Wind Energy Center — with plans for thousands of acres of turbines to generate electricity for 600,000 Southern California homes — officially breaks ground Tuesday.
It’s being called the largest wind power project in the country, with plans for thousands of acres of towering turbines in the Mojave Desert foothills generating electricity for 600,000 homes in Southern California.
And now it’s finally kicking into gear.
The multibillion-dollar Alta Wind Energy Center has had a tortured history, stretching across nearly a decade of ownership changes, opposition from local residents and transmission infrastructure delays.
Full Story: Renewable energy: Wind farm ‘mega-project’ is underway in California – latimes.com.
US scrambles emergency teams to new Gulf oil leak
The well, located about 65 miles (104 kilometers) south of New Orleans, was ruptured when it was struck by a dredge barge called Captain Buford pulled by a tug, Pere Ana C.
Reports of a giant fountain of oil were downplayed by US authorities who said only a light sheen was visible on the surface, some six feet (1.8 meters) above the damaged wellhead.
Unrelated to the massive gusher recently capped by BP deep down on the seabed, the incident did occur in a nearby part of the Gulf of Mexico and clean-up vessels were redeployed to surround it with 6,000 feet of boom.
Full Story: AFP: US scrambles emergency teams to new Gulf oil leak.
6 Reasons Nuclear Energy Advocate Stewart Brand Is Wrong
Nuclear energy is a Dark Age technology, defined by unsustainable costs, inefficiencies, eco-destruction, radiation releases and much more.
Stewart Brand has become a poster boy for a “nuclear renaissance” that has just suffered a quiet but stunning defeat. Despite $645 million spent in lobbying over the past decade, the reactor industry has thus far failed to gouge out major new taxpayer funding for new commercial reactors.
In an exceedingly complex series of twists and turns, no legislation now pending in Congress contains firm commitments to the tens of billions reactor builders have been demanding. They could still come by the end of the session. But the radioactive cake walk many expected the industry to take through the budget process has thus far failed to happen.
The full story is excruciatingly complicated. But the core reasons are simple: atomic power can’t compete, and makes global warming worse.
Full Story: 6 Reasons Nuclear Energy Advocate Stewart Brand Is Wrong | Environment | AlterNet.
Clean Energy and the U.S. Handicap: One Man’s Story
On-again, off-again federal support cripples emerging industries in the United States, America’s pre-eminent wind energy pioneer believes.
Jim Dehlsen, America’s most successful wind power innovator and entrepreneur, has been tilting at windmills since the early 1980s.
Back then, he installed one of the largest wind farms in the world in the mountains near Mojave, Calif., where a strong gust could snap a windmill blade in two. He called it his “Victory Garden.”
Today, at 73, Dehlsen is producing one of the most advanced and efficient windmills in the world, employing 300 people at a plant in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. And he is building a plant in England to manufacture the largest offshore windmill in the world, creating 500 green jobs.
Full Story: Clean Energy and the U.S. Handicap: One Man’s Story | Miller-McCune Online.
Federal records show steady stream of oil spills in gulf since 1964
The oil and gas industry’s offshore safety and environmental record in the Gulf of Mexico has become a key point of debate over future drilling, but that record has been far worse than is commonly portrayed by many industry leaders and lawmakers.
Many policymakers think that the record before the BP oil spill was exemplary. In a House hearing Thursday, Rep. John J. “Jimmy” Duncan Jr. (R-Tenn.) said, “It’s almost an astonishingly safe, clean history that we have there in the gulf.” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the industry’s “history of safety over all of those times” had provided the “empirical foundation” for U.S. policy.
But federal records tell a different story. They show a steady stream of oil spills dumping 517,847 barrels of petroleum — which would fill an equivalent number of standard American bathtubs — into the Gulf of Mexico between 1964 and 2009. The spills killed thousands of birds and soiled beaches as far away as Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Altogether, they poured twice as much as oil into U.S. waters as the Exxon Valdez tanker did when it ran aground in 1989.
Full Story: Federal records show steady stream of oil spills in gulf since 1964.
Oliver Stone: US should nationalize oil resources
The Gulf of Mexico oil spill shows that the United States should follow the example of South American socialists in nationalizing its energy industry, filmmaker Oliver Stone said Tuesday.
The Academy Award-winning director of “Born on the Fourth of July” and “JFK” said that America’s country’s natural wealth was too important to be left in private hands, telling journalists in central London that oil and other natural resources “belong to the people.”
“This BP oil spill is typical” of what happens when private industry is allowed to draw revenue on what should be a public good, Stone said.
“We shouldn’t make this kind of profit on oil or on health or on war or on prisons. All these industries should be public industries.”
Full Story: Oliver Stone: US should nationalize oil resources – Yahoo! News.
Obama To Open Up 1.8 Million Alaskan Acres To Oil Drilling
The Interior Department is offering oil and gas leases on 1.8 million acres of Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve while promising to protect critical migratory bird and caribou habitat.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says the Bureau of Land Management will offer 190 tracts with bids to be opened Aug. 11 in Anchorage. The sale is one of dozens, mostly in Western states, that Salazar announced in November.
The petroleum reserve covers 23 million acres on Alaska’s North Slope. That’s an area slightly smaller than the state of Indiana.
Full Story: Obama To Open Up 1.8 Million Alaskan Acres To Oil Drilling.
Gulf of Mexico awash with 27,000 abandoned wells
More than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells lurk in the hard rock beneath the Gulf of Mexico, an environmental minefield that has been ignored for decades. No one – not industry, not government – is checking to see if they are leaking, an Associated Press investigation shows.
The oldest of these wells were abandoned in the late 1940s, raising the prospect that many deteriorating sealing jobs are already failing.
The AP investigation uncovered particular concern with 3500 of the neglected wells – those characterised in federal government records as “temporarily abandoned”.
Full Story: Gulf of Mexico awash with 27,000 abandoned wells – report – World – NZ Herald News.
The push for energy deregulation threatens America’s heartland
David Sirota:
In recent weeks, Washington has provided ample evidence that the fossil-fuel industry remains as powerful as ever in the wake of the Gulf Coast apocalypse. Whether it’s Louisiana’s Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu demanding more offshore drilling as her state gets covered in sludge, or Texas Republican Rep. Joe Barton criticizing the government for forcing BP to finance a spill-relief fund, major political players in D.C. still do energy firms’ bidding, leaving both national parties disinclined to champion stronger environmental statutes.
Such Beltway intransigence is certainly atrocious, and has rightfully generated media fury. However, congressional reluctance to proactively legislate eco-friendly regulation is less outrageous than the state-based push for full-on deregulation.
The key political battlefield in this little-noticed but big-impact fight is Colorado, which holds one of the country’s largest oil and natural gas reserves. In the state’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign, former congressman Scott McInnis, a Republican, and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, have turned the race into a competition to see who is more enthusiastic about shredding the minimal energy regulations already on the state’s books.
Full Story: Opinion | The push for energy deregulation threatens America’s heartland | Seattle Times Newspaper.
“OPERATE TO FAILURE”
GLOBAL CATASTROPHE REACHES EPIC PROPORTIONS
As BP Oil Spill Lets the Genie Out Of The Bottle
Why has it been so difficult to put this GENIE (Oil & Gas) back into the bottle (Macondo Prospect, Gulf of Mexico)? Or at least keep any more of him from coming out?
There are many reasons, on many different levels, but let’s start with BP and the culture of corporate superiority that has evolved at this corporate behemoth since its founding in 1908. We’re talking about the granddaddy here – the Anglo-Persian Oil Company – which was the first to develop the oil and gas reserves discovered in the Middle East. Simply put, when you’re the biggest and the oldest in that neck of the woods, you get used to doing it your way, and ONLY your way.
Well, British Petroleum’s way of developing oil and gas throughout their planetary stomping grounds (Planet BP — a BP online, in-house magazine) is known to many insiders and outsiders alike by the catchphrase that goes like this – “OPERATE TO FAILURE”
Full Story: GLOBAL CATASTROPHE REACHES EPIC PROPORTIONS | Phoenix Rising from the Gulf.
Wind’s Latest Problem: It Makes Power Too Cheap
Utilities don’t like wind not because it’s not competitive, but because it brings prices down for their existing assets, thus lowering their revenues and their profits. Thus the permanent propaganda campaign against wind. The reality is that wind power brings prices down for consumers.
by Jérôme Guillet, President and CEO at Energy Bankers à Paris
Bloomberg has a somewhat confusing article about the newest complaint about wind power, but the gist of it is that wind power is an issue for the industry because it brings their revenues down:
operators in Europe may have become their own worst enemy, reducing the total price paid for electricity in Germany, Europe’s biggest power market, by as much as 5 billion euros some years
Windmill Boom Cuts Electricity Prices in Europe
On windy nights in northern Germany, consumers are paid to keep the lights on.
Twice this year, the nation’s 21,000 wind turbines pumped out so much power that utilities reduced customer bills for using the surplus electricity. Since the first rebate came with little fanfare at 5 a.m. one October day in 2008, payments have risen as high as 500.02 euros ($665) a megawatt-hour, about as much as a small factory or 1,000 homes use in 60 minutes.
The wind-energy boom in Europe and parts of Texas has begun to reduce bills for consumers. Electricity-network managers have even ordered windmills offline at times to trim supplies. That hurts profit for wind-farm operators, said Christian Kjaer, head of the European Wind Energy Association, which represents RWE AG of Germany, Spain’s Iberdrola SA and Dong Energy A/S of Denmark.
“We’re seeing that wind energy lowers prices, which is great for the consumers,” Kjaer said at his group’s conference in Warsaw this week. “We as producers have to acknowledge that this means operating the existing plant fewer hours a year, and this has an effect on investors” and profit.
Full Story: Windmill Boom Cuts Electricity Prices in Europe – Bloomberg.
The Upcoming Nuclear Peril: Worse Than the BP Oil Disaster
How many crises will it take? The recent destruction wrought by Big Finance and Big Oil will pale in comparison to the destruction wrought by Big Nuclear if we do not use the Gulf disaster as an opportunity to end our dangerous addiction to dirty fuels and to reject the illusion that any industry will “regulate” itself.
The nuclear industry has captured our government and governments around the globe. One single nuclear mistake, whether it be an accident or a security breach, could leave a 10,000-year path of destruction. Even while functioning properly and in accordance with the law, nuclear power plants produce cancer-causing poisons, which enter the bodies of humans at toxic levels.
Today we face a nuclear peril unlike anything we have ever known. We are approaching a tipping point in the global spread of nuclear technology because of a largely out-of-sight, worldwide free-for-all among nuclear power companies and their allied national governments to expand their share of the fast-growing international nuclear energy market. Unless we begin to confront the mounting dangers, we have little chance of keeping nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists and carcinogenic toxins out of our bodies.
Full Story: t r u t h o u t | The Upcoming Nuclear Peril: Worse Than the BP Oil Disaster.
‘Not enough money in world’ to pay every spill claim: oil fund czar
The prominent US lawyer managing BP’s 20-billion-dollar oil disaster fund said Wednesday not all claimants will be paid, especially some of those seeking compensation for falling houses prices.
“There’s not enough money in the world to pay every single small business that claims injury no matter where or when,” Kenneth Feinberg told the House of Representatives Committee on Small Business.
“You’ve got to decide in a principled way… and work out some definition in that regard,” he said, while stating his determination to “pay every eligible claim.”
Full Story: ‘Not enough money in world’ to pay every spill claim: oil fund czar | Raw Story.
Report sees need for 500 additional biofuels plants
More than 500 new biorefineries will be needed around the country to meet the nation’s goal of tripling biofuel consumption by 2022, according to a government study.
The Agriculture Department estimates in the report that the plants would cost about $168 billion, a price tag the USDA termed “substantial.”
There are about 200 corn ethanol plants now in operation nationwide, including 40 in Iowa.
A 2007 law required that refiners use 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022, with all but 15 billion gallons coming from sources other than corn. Meeting that target will require building facilities that can convert a wide range of new biofuel feedstocks, including crop residue, forest thinnings, municipal waste, perennial grasses and other sources of cellulose. The industry is expected to easily reach 15 billion gallons of corn ethanol production by 2015.
“The bottom line here is that we need to make a commitment to this industry,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
Full Story: Report sees need for 500 additional biofuels plants | desmoinesregister.com | The Des Moines Register.
U.S. to issue more flexible oil drilling moratorium
The U.S. government will revise its restrictions on offshore drilling, which could allow some deepwater oil projects to go forward after a court threw out the Obama administration’s blanket drilling ban, a senior official said on Wednesday.
U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told a congressional panel the new moratorium would be adjusted and would include criteria for ending the ban. He did not provide more details on how the new moratorium would get around the judge’s ruling or when it would be released.
He suggested some drilling in proven oil fields might move forward. That would be good news for companies like Petrobras and Royal Dutch Shell, which were set to delay major projects on fields that offer the best new source of domestic crude.
“It might be that there are demarcations that can be made based on reservoirs where we actually do know the pressures and the risks associated with that versus those reservoirs which are exploratory in nature,” Salazar said.
Full Story: U.S. to issue more flexible oil drilling moratorium | Reuters.
The Coming Era of Energy Disasters
Isn’t it strange that, no matter how terrible the news from the Gulf, the media still can’t help offering a lurking, BP-influenced narrative of hope? Here’s a recent headline from my hometown paper, for instance: “Signs of Hope as BP Captures Record Oil Amounts.” The piece is based on a BP report that, last Thursday, its woefully inadequate, ill-fitting “top hat” had captured more than 25,000 barrels of the gushing oil — that is, five times more than it long claimed was spewing from its busted well (25 times more than it originally suggested).
With semi-official estimates in the range of 35,000-60,000 barrels escaping a day (and those numbers regularly on the rise), this represents a strange version of hopeful news. Ominously enough, by the end of July, with a new, larger, “tighter” cap theoretically in place, BP is aiming to capture up to 80,000 barrels a day (that is, 20,000 barrels more than it has publicly acknowledged might possibly be spewing from the floor of the Gulf). In all such articles, the real narrative of hope, however, involves the relief wells, the first of which is now within “200 feet” of the busted well. Usually, the date for one of those wells to plug the leak is given as “early August” or “mid-August” and it’s regularly said that the drilling of those wells is advancing “ahead of schedule.”
Whatever “signs of hope” do exist, however, they’re already badly beslimed by on-gushing reality. On the very day that BP announced its 25,000-barrel capture, huge amounts of methane were also reported to be pouring into the Gulf. Until now, this had evidently been largely overlooked (or under-reported), even though methane in high concentrations can deplete water of its oxygen and so suffocate marine life, creating vast dead zones and inhibiting the natural breakdown of the spilling oil. According to John Kessler, a Texas A&M oceanographer, the Deepwater Horizon spill represents “the most vigorous methane eruption in modern human history.”
Full Story: Tomgram: Michael Klare, The Coming Era of Energy Disasters | TomDispatch.
U.S. to issue more flexible oil drilling moratorium
The U.S. government will revise its restrictions on offshore drilling, which could allow some deepwater oil projects to go forward after a court threw out the Obama administration’s blanket drilling ban, a senior official said on Wednesday.
U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told a congressional panel the new moratorium would be adjusted and would include criteria for ending the ban. He did not provide more details on how the new moratorium would get around the judge’s ruling or when it would be released.
He suggested some drilling in proven oil fields might move forward. That would be good news for companies like Petrobras and Royal Dutch Shell, which were set to delay major projects on fields that offer the best new source of domestic crude.
“It might be that there are demarcations that can be made based on reservoirs where we actually do know the pressures and the risks associated with that versus those reservoirs which are exploratory in nature,” Salazar said.
“We will in the weeks and months ahead take a look at how it is that the moratorium in place might be refined,” he said.
Full Story: U.S. to issue more flexible oil drilling moratorium | Reuters.
It’s Official: First Commercial Production Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles for Sale
Yes, there have been a few commercial hydrogen fuel cell production cars built (such a by Honda and Daimler) but they have been for lease and not for sale. Yesterday I talked about hydrogen fuel cell Sysco forklifts and palette trucks powered by Plug Power Gendrive systems possibly being the first commercial production hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for sale on the market.
This was confirmed yesterday by Plug Power’s Teal Vivacqua and Sysco VP Gary M. Mills. Okay, perhaps forklifts and palette trucks are not as sexy as hydrogen cars. And, perhaps the fact that they operate in a warehouse away from the public eye also makes a difference along with the fact that not everyone will own one.
But, this is still an important milestone in the advancement of hydrogen vehicles. You see many people think that the first hydrogen fuel cell car of record was the 1966 General Motors Electrovan. And, they would be correct.
But, the first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle actually predates this by 7 years. The first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle of record was a 1959 Allis-Chalmers farm tractor, developed by Harry Karl Ihrig.
Obama officials still approving flawed Gulf drilling plans
Despite President Barack Obama’s promises of better safeguards for offshore drilling, federal regulators continue to approve plans for oil companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico with minimal or no environmental analysis.
The Department of Interior’s Minerals Management Service has signed off on at least five new offshore drilling projects since June 2, when the agency’s acting director announced tougher safety regulations for drilling in the Gulf, a McClatchy review of public records has discovered.
Three of the projects were approved with waivers exempting them from detailed studies of their environmental impact — the same waiver the MMS granted to BP for the ill-fated well that’s been fouling the Gulf with crude for two months.
Full Story: Obama officials still approving flawed Gulf drilling plans | McClatchy.
Billions of New Nuke Giveaways in Kerry-Lieberman Bill Exposed
BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN TAX BREAKS FOR EACH NEW REACTOR UNDER KERRY-LIEBERMAN WIPE OUT RISK FOR UTILITIES ALREADY BENEFITING FROM MASSIVE LOAN GUARANTEES
Earth Track Analysis Finds That Just Two of the Subsidies Add Another $1.3 Billion to $3 Billion in Tax Breaks Per Reactor; May Make It More Likely Taxpayers Will Face Downside Risk.
Washington, D.C. — The nuclear industry could end up facing no risk under massive tax break subsidies in the Kerry-Lieberman climate bill, according to an important new analysis conducted for Friends of the Earth by the research organization Earth Track. These tax breaks totaling $9.7 billion to $57.3 billion (depending on the type and number of reactors) would come on top of the Kerry-Lieberman measure’s lucrative $35.5 billion addition to the more than $22.5 billion in loan guarantees already slated for nuclear power.
Friends of the Earth President Erich Pica said: “Doling out an additional $1.3-$3 billion in tax breaks per new reactor means the industry would be at the table playing almost entirely with taxpayer money. Industry will have little to lose when a reactor goes belly up. While taxpayers are bankrolling the industry’s nuclear gamble they would share in none of the reactor’s financial returns. In fact, all taxpayers will receive if the reactors are built is responsibility for disposing of the waste. By contrast, investors stand to make billions with no risk should their reactor gambit goes belly up and enter bankruptcy.”
Full Story: Billions of New Nuke Giveaways in Kerry-Lieberman Bill Exposed | Friends of the Earth.
Massive spill forces fossil fuels rethinking
It’s become clear after the recent BP oil disaster that the time to rethink energy resources has certainly arrived
s it possible to energize our civilization without fear? Fear of oil spills and oil wars, fear of nuclear meltdowns and nuclear waste, fear of global warming and polluted air and water?
It is, according to Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), among the world’s most respected authorities on alternative energy strategies. In a new video available at www.rmi.org/rmi/ReinventingFire#video, Lovins makes the case that a richer, fairer, cooler, safer world is now possible because saving and replacing fossil fuels works better — and costs less — than buying and burning them.
Events such as the U.S. Gulf Coast oil spill — the Three Mile Island of deepwater drilling — expose the true costs and dangers of fossil fuel. Supposedly, we use oil as a fuel because it is cheaper and easier to use — and more profitable — than alternatives such as wind, solar or conservation. But that assumption changes when drilling for deep-water oil goes awry and it costs the oil producer billions to deal with the mess.
Switching to alternative energy may not be a choice but a necessity. As author Jeff Rubin points out, U.S. President Barack Obama’s moratorium on offshore oil drilling is a potential game changer.
Full Story: Massive spill forces fossil fuels rethinking.
The Next Drilling Disaster?
How Long Will the Natural Gas Industry Run Amok in the Northeast? From Pennsylvania to Ohio, natural gas drilling is wreaking havoc on communities and landowners. What will it take to get stronger regulatory oversight?
A tour of Dimock, Pennsylvania, with Victoria Switzer is a bumpy ride over torn-up roads, around parking lots filled with heavy machinery and storage tanks, and past well pads that not long ago were forests. The winter here was quiet, but with the thawing ground came the return of the rigs, the trucks, the constant noise and lights of a twenty-four-hour-a-day gas drilling operation. “It’s a modern-day Deadwood out here,” Switzer says, likening the activity to the gold rush. “No rules, no regs, just rigs.”
The “occupation,” as she calls it, hasn’t just transformed Dimock into an industrial hub; it has also damaged the local water supply and put residents’ health at risk. After a stray drill bit banged four wells in 2008, Switzer says, weird things started happening to people’s water: some flushed black, some orange, some turned bubbly. One well exploded, the result of methane migration, and residents say elevated metal and toluene levels have ruined twelve others. Then, in September 2009, about 8,000 gallons of hazardous drilling fluids spilled into nearby fields and creeks. The contamination and related health problems have prompted fifteen families to file suit against Cabot Oil and Gas, the primary leaseholder in the area, alleging fraud and contract violation and seeking to stop the damage from spreading.
If she could do it all over again, Switzer says, she never would have signed the 2006 drilling lease that helped open Pandora’s Box here. But at the time, she’d never heard of hydrofracking—the Cabot representative didn’t mention the word to her when he gained the rights to drill on her land. The story of gas drilling in Dimock begins more than a mile below the earth’s surface in the Marcellus Shale, a huge rock formation that extends from New York to Tennessee. Some geologists estimate that the Marcellus contains enough shale gas to power the United States for two decades. But the gas is caught in millions of tiny pores and can be extracted only through hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking, a controversial process that requires blasting millions of gallons of water, sand and toxic chemicals deep underground to create fissures that open the pores and free gas to rise to the surface.
Full Story: The Next Drilling Disaster? | The Nation.
Maryland, 12 other states form offshore wind partnership
Maryland has joined a dozen other Atlantic coast states to form a partnership exploring offshore wind power generation.
The U.S. Department of the Interior is organizing the Atlantic Offshore Wind Consortium, which will work to ease collaboration and coordination among coastal states to help launch offshore wind mills.
Other members are Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.
Offshore wind power could help meet a Maryland goal of using 20 percent renewable energy by 2022. Achieving that proportion of renewable energy nationwide would take 54 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2030, according to the Department of Energy.
Full Story: Maryland, 12 other states form offshore wind partnership – Baltimore Business Journal.
Windmill Boom Curbs Electric Power Prices for RWE
On windy nights in northern Germany, consumers are paid to keep the lights on.
Twice this year, the nation’s 21,000 wind turbines pumped out so much power that utilities reduced customer bills for using the surplus electricity. Since the first rebate came with little fanfare at 5 a.m. one October day in 2008, payments have risen as high as 500.02 euros ($665) a megawatt-hour, about as much as a small factory or 1,000 homes use in 60 minutes.
The wind-energy boom in Europe and parts of Texas has begun to reduce bills for consumers. Electricity-network managers have even ordered windmills offline at times to trim supplies. That hurts profit for wind-farm operators, said Christian Kjaer, head of the European Wind Energy Association, which represents RWE AG of Germany, Spain’s Iberdrola SA and Dong Energy A/S of Denmark.
Full Story: Windmill Boom Curbs Electric Power Prices for RWE (Update2) – Bloomberg.com.
BP stock tumbles as feds announce oil-spill probes
BP’s stock plummeted and took much of the market down with it Tuesday as the federal government announced criminal and civil investigations into the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. BP engineers, meanwhile, tried to recover from a failed attempt to stop the gusher with an effort that will initially make the leak worse.
Attorney General Eric Holder, who was visiting the Gulf to survey the fragile coastline and meet with state and federal prosecutors, would not say who might be targeted in the probes into the largest oil spill in U.S. history.
“We will closely examine the actions of those involved in the spill. If we find evidence of illegal behavior, we will be extremely forceful in our response,” Holder said in New Orleans.
Full Story: BP stock tumbles as feds announce oil-spill probes – Yahoo! News.
Oil and gas development permits overwhelmingly approved by Louisiana
The catastrophic blowout of BP’s Deepwater Horizon, still spewing oil from the seafloor off the coast of Louisiana, has shone a bright light on the federal government’s lax oversight of Big Oil.
But Louisiana also has a history of accommodation to the industry’s role in coastal erosion, which devours the equivalent of a football field of the state’s wetlands every 38 minutes.
Any pipeline, oil well or other energy development in Louisiana’s 19-parish coastal zone needs a state permit, a stamp of approval saying the work results in “no net loss” of wetlands. State regulators are supposed to weigh a project’s environmental risks against its economic benefits, but the balance is tipped overwhelmingly in favor of oil and gas, a Times-Picayune review of five years of state records shows.
Full Story: Oil and gas development permits overwhelmingly approved by Louisiana | NOLA.com.
‘This Scares Everybody’ Says BP: Top Kill Fails, Imperils Gulf; ‘There Are No Solar Spills’
Juan Cole:
British Petroleum’s attempt to plug the petroleum gusher a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico through a “top kill,” pumping mud into the oil pipeline in hopes of plugging it up, has failed, according to Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles.
The LAT quotes him as saying, chillingly, at a news conference Saturday in Robert, LA, “After three full days, we have been unable to overcome the flow from the well, so we now believe it is time to move on to another option . . . This scares everybody – the fact that we can’t make this well stop flowing or the fact that we haven’t succeeded so far.”
Worse, the best estimates of independent scientists for the amount of petroleum being released daily is now north, possibly well north, of 25,000 barrels a day.
To put this rate in perspective, it should be noted that oil companies routinely invest substantial resources to get fields going in places such as the Philippines, Indonesia and Iraqi Kurdistan that pump 7,000 to 15,000 barrels of petroleum a day.
Full Story: ‘This Scares Everybody’ Says BP: Top Kill Fails, Imperils Gulf; ‘There Are No Solar Spills’ | CommonDreams.org.
Poll: 51 Percent of Americans Oppose Offshore Oil Drilling
As the Deepwater Horizon leak continues to dump oil into the Gulf of Mexico, American opinions about offshore oil drilling have begun to shift. More than half now believe the risks of offshore drilling outweigh the benefits, according to a nationwide survey by Virginia Commonwealth University released today.
Views about offshore drilling are likely influenced by the major oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the survey. The leak has been ongoing since an April 20 explosion aboard a drilling rig. The leak raises the specter of environmental risks from offshore drilling when the process goes awry.
When asked specifically about the risk and benefit tradeoffs of offshore drilling, a 51-percent majority indicate the environmental risks outweigh the benefits; 35 percent think the benefits outweigh the environmental risks.
Full Story: Poll: 51 Percent of Americans Oppose Offshore Oil Drilling | LiveScience.
Renewable Energy Focus – More bioenergy than oil in Sweden
Bioenergy passed oil as the biggest energy source in Sweden in 2009 in final energy use.
Bioenergy represented 31.7% of the final energy use, compared to 30.8% oil, according to preliminary Swedish Energy Agency statistics presented by the Swedish Bioenergy Association (Svebio).
Svebios says the total share of renewable energy, using the definition in EU:s renewable energy directive (RED), was 46.3% in 2009 – well ahead of the EU target trajectory, and only 3.7% short of the EU target of 49% in 2020.
The major renewable energy source beside bioenergy in Sweden is hydropower. Wind power is still a relatively small contributor to the energy supply.
The main reason for the fast increase of renewable energy in recent years is the steady growth of bioenergy use, Svebio says.
Full Story: Renewable Energy Focus – More bioenergy than oil in Sweden.
FPL smart meters: FPL installing digital ‘smart meter’ devices to empower consumers
Devices wirelessly send information about electricity use to the Web, where it can be accessed by customers to drive conservation efforts
In the past year, Kevin Linn has cut more than $100 from his monthly electric bill simply by raising his thermostat to 79 or 80 degrees when he’s not home, turning off his pool pump six hours a day and running his water heater for only a few hours in the morning and evening instead of all day.
The Coral Springs resident credits a new “smart meter” installed last year in his home by Florida Power & Light with prompting him to make the changes by allowing him to track – and trim – his electricity use.
Linn is one of 550,000 FPL customers in South Florida – including 325,000 in Broward County and 225,000 in Miami Dade – with smart meters. But he’s about to get a lot more company. FPL, the state’s largest utility, plans to replace nearly all of its 4.5 million customers’ meters by 2014 and make other improvements to make the region’s power grid more reliable. FPL will start installing smart meters in Palm Beach County as early as this year and will have 670,000 there by 2012.
Full Story: FPL smart meters: FPL installing digital ‘smart meter’ devices to empower consumers – South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com.
Oil spill shows drilling is not the answer
Sen Bernie Sanders:
The lesson to learn from the oil spill it is that there must be no new offshore drilling. We must transform our energy system
The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is an unmitigated disaster. Its full consequences will not be known for decades. What we do know, however, is that BP president, Tony Hayward, was incredibly wrong when he stated that the spill will have “a very, very modest environmental impact“. Quite the contrary! In fact, one of the most beautiful and productive coastal regions of the world is being turned into a giant cesspool and, in the midst of a major recession, thousands of workers are going to lose their livelihoods.
It goes without saying that BP must pick up the full costs of the cleanup and the economic damages. BP earned $5.6bn in the first quarter of this year. BP, not the American taxpayer, must pay for the devastation it caused.
Further, we must learn that with any risky technology, whether it is offshore oil drilling or nuclear power, it is not good enough to be 99% safe. One event can have a calamitous and irreversible impact. We need a major investigation to understand how this accident occurred. We must make certain that precautions are put in place so nothing like it ever happens again.
Full Story: Bernie Sanders | Oil spill shows drilling is not the answer | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.
The real cost of cheap oil
The Gulf disaster is only unusual for being so near the US. Elsewhere, Big Oil rarely cleans up its mess
Big Oil is holding its breath. BP’s shares are in steep decline after the debacle in the Gulf of Mexico. Barack Obama, the American people and the global environmental community are outraged, and now the company stands to lose the rights to drill for oil in the Arctic and other ecologically sensitive places.
The gulf disaster may cost it a few billion dollars, but so what? When annual profits for a company often run to tens of billions, the cost of laying 5,000 miles of booms, or spraying millions of gallons of dispersants and settling 100,000 court cases is not much more than missing a few months’ production. It’s awkward, but it can easily be passed on.
The oil industry’s image is seriously damaged, but it can pay handsomely to greenwash itself, just as it managed after Exxon Valdez, Brent Spar and the Ken Saro-Wiwa public relations disasters. In a few years’ time, this episode will probably be forgotten – just another blip in the fortunes of the industry that fuels the world. But the oil companies are nervous now because the spotlight has been turned on their cavalier attitude to pollution and on the sheer incompetence of an industry that is used to calling the shots.
Full Story: The real cost of cheap oil | John Vidal | Comment is free | The Guardian.
Oil drilling in Arctic called off
The Obama administration today will suspend planned exploratory oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean off Alaska until at least 2011, a casualty of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
The suspension will be part of a report that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will give to President Barack Obama, who’s likely to address the suspension as well as other proposals stemming from Salazar’s report, at a White House news conference today to address tough new safety rules on offshore drilling.
The move will stop Shell from drilling five wells in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas off northern Alaska weeks before it had hoped to start work, an administration official told McClatchy Newspapers.
The move will stop for now a controversial expansion of oil drilling in a part of the world that could hold vast stores of oil and natural gas, but which environmentalists warn would come at great risk.
Full Story: Oil drilling in Arctic called off | cleveland.com.
Coast Pipelines Face Damage as Gulf Oil Eats Marshes?
Spill could hasten marsh erosion, leaving infrastructure vulnerable.
In addition to threatening wildlife, the thick oil oozing into U.S. Gulf Coast marshes (pictures) may be hitting the oil and gas industry where it hurts: in its own coastal infrastructure.
A vast network of pipes and platforms is woven into these wetlands, and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill could literally expose them to potential ruptures and wreckage, experts say.
If oil kills off marsh plants, wetlands will turn to open water, putting the shallowly buried coastal pipelines at risk of ships strikes, storms, and corrosive salt water. Each rip means more leaking oil, costly repairs and replacements, and in some cases, new wetland-restoration projects.
(Related: “Nuclear Reactors, Dams at Risk Due to Global Warming.”)
Even without the added threat of the Gulf of Mexico spill, Louisiana has the highest rate of human-induced coastal erosion in the country, according to the Texas-based Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies
Full Story: Coast Pipelines Face Damage as Gulf Oil Eats Marshes?.
5 turbines in the works for wind power project in Lake Erie
A local nonprofit development group racing to erect the first offshore wind turbine in the Great Lakes has reached an agreement with General Electric Co. to supply five turbines for a $100 million demonstration project in Lake Erie.
The Lake Erie Energy Development Corp., known as LEEDCo, and Gov. Ted Strickland are to announce the deal in Dallas today during the annual conference of the American Wind Energy Association.
The cutting-edge turbines would stand 300 feet above the lake and be clustered six miles or so off Cleveland’s shore, northwest of the city’s drinking water crib.
Full Story: 5 turbines in the works for wind power project in Lake Erie | cleveland.com.
US has approved 19 environmental drilling waivers since oil spill
On May 14, President Barack Obama announced that oil companies would no longer be given license to bypass environmental reviews of their drilling projects.
“We’re also closing the loophole that has allowed some oil companies to bypass some critical environmental reviews,” Obama said.
But in the month since the BP-run Deepwater Horizon (above right) exploded and collapsed into the sea, its drill site spewing an unending current of oil into the open ocean, the US government has granted at least 19 environmental waivers for gulf drilling projects and 17 drilling permits. Most are for deepwater drilling operations, similar to that conducted by the ill-fated rig.
Full Story: US has approved 19 environmental drilling waivers since oil spill | Raw Story.
Executive Order Expected to Raise Fuel Standards
President Obama has decided to use his executive power to order tougher fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks, accelerating the fight against climate change without waiting for Congress, administration officials said Thursday.
Mr. Obama plans to announce on Friday that he is ordering the creation of a new national policy that will result in less greenhouse-gas pollution from medium- and heavy-duty trucks for the first time and will further reduce exhaust from cars and light-duty trucks beyond the requirements he has already put in place.
Under rules that were eventually formalized last month, new cars have to meet a combined city and highway fuel economy average of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016. The administration said the new rules would cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases by about 30 percent from 2012 to 2016.
The plan Mr. Obama will announce on Friday will order further improvements in fuel efficiency for cars and light trucks made in 2017 and beyond, and in medium and heavy trucks made in 2014 through 2018.
Full Story: Executive Order Expected to Raise Fuel Standards – NYTimes.com.
…it’s going to take 20 years to develop more efficient truck engines saving 3.7 miles per gallon?? AND, this is his response to the spill????? Really??????????
Arizona Official Threatens to Cut Off Los Angeles Power as Payback for Boycott
A member of Arizona’s top government utilities agency threw down the gauntlet in a letter to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, threatening to cut off the city’s power supply as retribution for the city’s boycott of Arizona.
If Los Angeles wants to boycott Arizona, it had better get used to reading by candlelight.
That’s the message from a member of Arizona’s top government utilities agency, who threw down the gauntlet Tuesday in a letter to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa by threatening to cut off the city’s power supply as retribution.
Gary Pierce, a commissioner on the five-member Arizona Corporation Commission, wrote the letter in response to the Los Angeles City Council’s decision last week to boycott the Grand Canyon State — in protest of its immigration law — by suspending official travel there and ending future contracts with state businesses.
Full Story: FOXNews.com – Arizona Official Threatens to Cut Off Los Angeles Power as Payback for Boycott.
BP’s Own Probe Finds Safety Issues on Atlantis Rig
BP operates rig in Gulf without proper safety documents; experts say this can lead to a spill
The company whose drilling triggered the Gulf of Mexico oil spill also owns a rig that operated with incomplete and inaccurate engineering documents, which one official warned could “lead to catastrophic operator error,” records and interviews show.
In February, two months before the Deepwater Horizon spill, 19 members of Congress called on the agency that oversees offshore oil drilling to investigate a whistle-blower’s complaints about the BP-owned Atlantis, which is stationed in 7,070 feet of water more than 150 miles south of New Orleans .
The Associated Press has learned that an independent firm hired by BP substantiated the complaints in 2009 and found that the giant petroleum company was violating its own policies by not having completed engineering documents on board the Atlantis when it began operating in 2007.
Stanley Sporkin, a former federal judge whose firm served as BP’s ombudsman, said that the allegation “was substantiated, and that’s it.” The firm was hired by BP in 2006 to act as an independent office to receive and investigate employee complaints.
Full Story: BP’s Own Probe Finds Safety Issues on Atlantis Rig – ABC News.
Shell Arctic Drilling Plan Gets Court Approval
A federal appeals court Thursday removed a legal challenge standing in the way of Shell Oil’s plans to drill wells off Alaska’s shore this summer.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a case that challenged federal approval of Shell’s exploratory drilling plans in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas.
The expedited ruling followed oral arguments last week in Portland, Ore.
The court determined that the federal Minerals Management Service met its obligations to consider the potential threat to wildlife and the risk for disaster before it approved Shell’s Arctic Ocean project.
Full Story: Shell Arctic Drilling Plan Gets Court Approval.
French Nuclear Industry Faces Meltdown
A much-awaited report on France’s nuclear industry — due out later this week — is understood to offer ways for France’s diverse nuclear industry to work together to garner big contracts around the globe.
It may succeed. That is, if the government can use it to end, or at least calm, a complex of feuds among the heads of France’s biggest energy companies.
The stakes are high. Clean nuclear power is enjoying a renaissance and France is home to some of the world’s largest players in the nuclear industry. Indeed, it is president Nicolas Sarkozy’s dream to streamline the nuclear power sector, from design to operation, working as a team to win high profile contracts around the world.
“All bosses of France’s biggest energy companies more or less hate or at least despise each other, for one reason or another,” an executive at one French energy company told Dow Jones Newswires under conditions of anonymity
Full Story: French Nuclear Industry Faces Meltdown – The Source – WSJ.
Poll: Support for More Offshore Oil Drilling Plummets
In the wake of the growing environmental disaster brought about by the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, Americans have turned far less supportive of increased drilling for oil and natural gas off the U.S. coastline, according to a new CBS News survey.
Forty-six percent of Americans now say the support offshore drilling – a 16 point drop from the 64 percent who backed such drilling back in July of 2008, when “drill, baby, drill” was an oft-chanted Republican campaign slogan.
Forty-one percent, meanwhile, say the costs and risks of offshore drilling are too great – up from 28 percent in the summer of 2008.
The Obama administration ended the moratorium on new offshore drilling off some coastal areas prior to the collapse of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig site, though no new drilling had yet been authorized. It has vowed not to authorize new drilling until the cause of the Gulf leak is clear.
Full Story: Poll: Support for More Offshore Oil Drilling Plummets – Political Hotsheet – CBS News.
Gulf spill reminds America: The era of ‘easy oil’ is over
To meet the world’s boundless thirst for oil, drillers are searching in the sand and mud of remote western Canada, the tough shale rock of North Dakota and more than a mile under the seas off the southern U.S. coast, where a drilling accident has sent hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude spewing into the Gulf of Mexico.
Why are we going nearly to the ends of the earth and the bottom of the seas for oil?
The answer, say many experts, is that we’re consuming as much oil as we ever have but the era of “easy oil” is in our rearview mirror and receding fast.
Full Story: Gulf spill reminds America: The era of ‘easy oil’ is over | McClatchy.
Oil You May Never See
Center For American Progress
Large Portion of Gulf Coast Oil Is Exported
Even after the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, many politicians continue to insist that the United States must expand offshore oil drilling despite the huge health, economic, and environmental damages in the event of a blowout. They assert that this oil is essential for U.S. economic health and national security. For instance, two weeks after the BP disaster began, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) reiterated that the United States needs “more environmentally responsible development of America’s energy resources.” These are code words for more offshore oil drilling.
More offshore drilling in the Gulf Coast region, however, may not do much to increase our energy security. A CAP analysis (.xls) of Energy Information Administration data found that a large portion of the oil produced in the Gulf Coast region is actually exported to other nations, and this undoubtedly includes some of the offshore oil produced there (see chart at right).
The entire nation is divided into Petroleum Administration for Defense Districts, or PADDs, which are “a geographic aggregation of the 50 States and the District of Columbia into five Districts.” PADD III is the Gulf Coast region of Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, and Texas.
Full Story: Oil You May Never See.
First U.S. offshore wind farm receives approval
After almost a decade of federal study and analysis, the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) approved the Cape Wind project, allowing the first U.S. offshore wind farm to move ahead.
Cape Wind is a 130-turbine wind power project on submerged federal lands in Nantucket Sound off the Massachusetts coast. DOI required the developer of the $1 billion wind farm to agree to additional binding measures to minimize the potential adverse impacts of construction and operation of the facility.
Located in a 25-square-mile section of Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound, the Cape Wind project will have a maximum electric output of 468 megawatts (MW), with an average anticipated output of 182 MW. That’s enough to meet 75% of the electricity demand for Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket Island combined. The Cape Wind developer hopes to begin construction by the end of this year. See the Cape Wind press release.
Full Story: First U.S. offshore wind farm receives approval.
Nuclear Power Nearly as Dangerous as Weapons, Critics Say
The quest for nuclear disarmament is likely to fail if governments and corporations continue to promote nuclear technologies as a solution to the world’s energy needs, say independent experts.
Their warning comes as international talks on the future of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) continue here at U.N. headquarters in New York. The review meeting on the 1970 treaty is due to conclude by the end of this month.
At the meeting, many delegates from countries that do not possess nuclear weapons called for those nations who have them to take speedy actions towards disarmament. Citing the treaty, some also said it was their “inalienable” right to use peaceful nuclear technologies.
Just like the representatives of nuclear weapons states, almost none of the delegates from non-nuclear countries offered any views on the pros and cons of the use of nuclear technologies for so-called “civilian and peaceful purposes”.
Full Story: Nuclear Power Nearly as Dangerous as Weapons, Critics Say – IPS ipsnews.net.
Shell to court: We’re ready to drill Arctic Ocean
Shell Oil is ready to drill in the Arctic Ocean this summer and asked a federal appeals court Thursday to rule quickly on a challenge by environmentalists concerned about the risk of a major spill after the Gulf of Mexico disaster.
Kathleen Sullivan, an attorney for Shell, said the company has spent at least $3.5 billion on Alaska operations in the past few years as it prepares for exploratory drilling set for July in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas.
“Shell has waited years to recover its investment,” Sullivan told a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Portland. “We’re ready to go.”
“I’m sure Shell would like to win,” replied Chief Judge Alex Kozinski.
Full Story: The Associated Press: Shell to court: We’re ready to drill Arctic Ocean.
We Need a Road Map to a Coal Free Future
In the wake of the worst coal mining disaster in 40 years, compromise and political machinations this spring have resulted in a regulatory crisis of failure; workplace safety in the mines, including the black lung scandal, has emerged as a national tragedy; toxic coal ash remains uncategorized as hazardous waste; mountaintop removal operations and devastating strip mining in 24 states continue under regulatory plunder, not abolishment; billions of taxpayers’ dollars pour down the black hole of carbon capture and storage boondoggles, increasing coal production; climate legislation hangs in the balance of political games.
In 1776, Thomas Paine challenged our country to embrace the cause of independence over compromise. In a moment of crisis, he declared: “We have it in our power to make the world over again.”
Our modern-day Paine, James Hansen at the NASA Goddard Center, has issued a similar clarion call: “Coal is the single greatest threat to civilization and all life on our planet. Our global climate is nearing tipping points.”
Full Story: We Need a Road Map to a Coal Free Future | CommonDreams.org.
In wake of massive oil spill, support for offshore drilling has ‘fallen dramatically.’
At the end of March, after the Obama administration announced that it would “approve new oil and gas drilling off U.S. coasts for the first time in decade,” a poll by Rasmussen Reports found that 72 percent of U.S. voters believed that offshore oil drilling should be allowed — the highest level of support for drilling that Rasmussen had found in nearly three years of surveying. But now, in the wake of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Rasmussen has found that support for offshore drilling has “fallen dramatically”:
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 58% of voters believe offshore oil drilling should be allowed. But that’s down 14 points from 72% just after President Obama’s announcement at the end of March that he was lifting the ban on offshore drilling for the first time in years.
Twenty-three percent (23%) now oppose offshore drilling. Nineteen percent (19%) remain unsure whether it’s a good idea or not.
However, while most support drilling, 69% are at least somewhat concerned that offshore drilling may cause environmental problems. That’s up from 49% in March.
Full Story: Think Progress » In wake of massive oil spill, support for offshore drilling has ‘fallen dramatically.’.
Deepwater Horizon oil spill sparks calls for $10bn levy on BP and drilling ban
Arnold Schwarzenegger ends support for California oil expansion as political backlash against oil industry takes hold
The catastrophic spill in the Gulf of Mexico set off a backlash against the oil industry yesterday, with a demand for a ban on future offshore drilling. The anger came as BP executives admitted in a private briefing for members of Congress that the gusher on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico could reach 40,000 barrels a day – eight times higher than the current estimate – if they cannot cap the flow.
It also carries the risk of a financial sting, with the White House yesterday backing a proposal by senators that would put oil companies on the hook for up to to $10bn (£6.5bn) for the cost of a spill.
The White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said the administration supported a proposal to make liability retroactive. The cap would be 133 times greater than the $75m bill that BP, which operated the Deepwater Horizon rig, faces under existing US laws following its explosion on 20 April. “It’s time to believe our eyes and accept the obvious risks of drilling,” Robert Menendez, a Democratic senator from New Jersey, told a press conference. “This is about making Big Oil responsible for its excesses.”
Full Story: Deepwater Horizon oil spill sparks calls for $10bn levy on BP and drilling ban | Environment | The Guardian.
Restoring Leadership in U.S. Solar Manufacturing
The U.S. has done little to maintain its place of prominence in manufacturing as the rest of the world caught up and eventually surpassed us. Now, we may add solar manufacturing to our growing list of losses.
After the end of the Second World War virtually anything produced anywhere in the world could and would be produced in the United States. American corporations founded many industries that are ubiquitous around the world today. We not only created the nuclear weapon, but its peaceful counterpart nuclear energy.
We created the first telephone systems, and then the first mobile phone systems.
We created the automobile and were once major champions of passenger rail.
We created the personal computer as well as the Internet, which has perhaps done more to integrate the world than any other product or system in existence today.
Full Story: Restoring Leadership in U.S. Solar Manufacturing | Economy In Crisis.
Second oil rig overturns in Gulf of Mexico, no injuries reported
Officials say an oil drilling rig on its way to a scrap yard has overturned in Louisiana.
No injuries have been reported.
The rig overturned about 80 miles west-southwest of New Orleans. The Coast Guard said in a news release Friday that the drilling unit overturned in the Charenton navigational canal.
It can carry about 20,000 gallons of diesel fuel, but Coast Guard officials did not know how much fuel was on board. Coast Guard investigators say no fuel leaks have been found.
Full Story: AP: Second oil rig overturns in Gulf of Mexico, no injuries reported | rgj.com | The Reno Gazette-Journal.
A New Way to Power the Planet?
In February 2010 Silicon Valley start-up Bloom Energy debuted what it believed was a true revolution in the electricity industry. Its creators heralded the small, elegant energy “server” as a modern marvel the likes of which had never been seen before. The device is made of cheap materials, can both store and generate energy, and is allegedly more efficient and flexible than other output technologies.
The Bloom Energy Server, often called the “Bloom Box,” currently generates electricity from a natural gas source. The methane goes in, goes through a series of catalyzed chemical reactions, and electricity comes out. Because of its usage of natural gas, the energy server is not a stand-alone solution to human-induced climate change or pollution.
However, the portability of the energy source itself does increase efficiencies. Instead of producing gigawatts of power at a central location and transmitting that energy across a vast power grid, individual consumers could purchase a “bloom box” and make energy at home. Natural gas burns much cleaner than coal, it is also easier to extract, and it is less hazardous to employee safety. More importantly, the U.S. has vast domestic supplies of natural gas that could be tapped to feed any Bloom-induced spike in demand.
Full Story: A New Way to Power the Planet? | Economy In Crisis.
Salazar approves Cape Wind
America’s “energy future” has trumped the most cherished sacred site of the People of the Dawn – the indigenous Wampanoags who welcomed the first European settler colonists to Turtle Island.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has approved the Cape Wind project, a controversial wind power factory in Nantucket Sound, despite objections from the Wampanoag nations, who consider the area sacred and from environmentalists and federal historic preservation agencies who fear the project will devastate the Sound’s rich biodiversity, and impact dozens of significant traditional, cultural, historic and archaeological properties.
“After careful consideration of all the concerns expressed during the lengthy review and consultation process and thorough analyses of the many factors involved, I find that the public benefits weigh in favor of approving the Cape Wind project at the Horseshoe Shoal location,” Salazar said in an announcement at the State House in Boston accompanied by Massachusetts Gov. Duval Patrick, a strong supporter of the project.
Full Story: Salazar approves Cape Wind | Indian Country Today | Content.
Official: Salazar to Make Wind Farm Ruling in Mass
U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has made his choice about whether to approve the nation’s first offshore wind farm, off Cape Cod, and will make the announcement Wednesday in Boston with Gov. Deval Patrick, a supporter of the project, a Massachusetts Statehouse official confirmed Tuesday.
Salazar plans to brief the governor and other officials Wednesday before making his decision public at a Statehouse news conference, the official said. The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak ahead of the announcement.
If Salazar approves, the decision on the controversial Cape Wind project would clear the way for a 130-turbine wind farm in Nantucket Sound.
The plan to announce the decision with Patrick bodes well for advocates of Cape Wind, as the governor has been a supporter of the project. It also comes as Salazar’s boss and Patrick’s good friend, President Barack Obama, makes a two-day, three-state Midwestern trip, focusing on his economic and clean energy programs as job creators. On Tuesday, the president toured an Iowa company that makes blades for wind turbines.
Full Story: Official: Salazar to Make Wind Farm Ruling in Mass – ABC News.
Book’s Astounding Allegation: Chernobyl Radiation Killed Nearly One Million People | Environment | AlterNet
Emissions from this one reactor exceeded a hundred-fold the radioactive contamination of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki according to a new book.
Nearly one million people around the world died from exposure to radiation released by the 1986 nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl reactor, finds a new book from the New York Academy of Sciences published today on the 24th anniversary of the meltdown at the Soviet facility.
The book, “Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment,” was compiled by authors Alexey Yablokov of the Center for Russian Environmental Policy in Moscow, and Vassily Nesterenko and Alexey Nesterenko of the Institute of Radiation Safety, in Minsk, Belarus.
The authors examined more than 5,000 published articles and studies, most written in Slavic languages and never before available in English.
Full Story: Book’s Astounding Allegation: Chernobyl Radiation Killed Nearly One Million People | Environment | AlterNet.
Amtrak ridership is up, but passengers grouse about frequent delays
Amtrak’s Northeast Regional train No. 177 was scheduled to arrive at Union Station at 1:25 a.m., but at that witching hour, it had made it only as far as Philadelphia, where it was stopped cold.
A half-asleep passenger asked a more conscious traveler what had happened. “Someone got hit by another train” farther south, outside Wilmington, Del., he replied.
In the cafe car, the staff had laid out free bottled water, trail mix, shortbread cookies, crackers and a cheese spread. But the travelers wanted their beds, not a buffet. The train finally left Philly at 2:58 a.m., arriving in Washington a little over two hours later. The sun was rising, and cabs were scarce.
Full Story: Amtrak ridership is up, but passengers grouse about frequent delays.
7 Dirty Secrets The Coal Industry Doesn’t Want You To Know
The Dirty Secrets Of Coal (PHOTOS) -
Coal is a dirty and dangerous business. It produces more than half of the energy in the U.S. because it is a cheap resource, but it comes at a high human and environmental cost. The coal industry is the single largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions — and that’s just the beginning. We’re taking a look at some of the dirtiest secrets the coal industry doesn’t want you to know.
Coal is still deeply embedded in our energy culture because the supply is plentiful and cheap. It supplies more than half the electricity consumed by Americans. That means every time you switch on a light or charge your phone, it’s likely thanks to the coal industry. And according to a New York Times report report, big coal isn’t showing any signs of letting up– Peabody Energy, the largest private coal company, is thriving domestically and abroad.
Full Story: The Dirty Secrets Of Coal (PHOTOS).
Fuel Imports Putting U.S. At Risk
According to Prochaska, this year the U.S. is importing nearly 70 percent of its oil. Just 40 years ago the percentage of oil imported was just 24 percent. Because America’s oil reserves are dwindling, the percentage of oil America imports will only grow over time.
The minor pain that comes with greater fuel efficiency standards will be well worth the rewards, according to Joe Prochaska, a Nashville lawyer and a member of the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Environmental Council.
“Our cars today will be a drag on the American economy and a yearly subsidy to anti-American regimes,” he writes at the Nashville Tennessean. “Americans must set some baseline rules to protect our economy against another sudden oil embargo or against the slow strangulation that comes from paying billions every day to dictators.”
Last year President Barack Obama announced new fuel economy standards of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016. The move will lessen greenhouse gas emission and America’s reliance on foreign oil, force automakers to innovate to achieve even higher fuel efficiency standards and help to decrease the exploding trade deficit.
Full Story: Fuel Imports Putting U.S. At Risk | Economy In Crisis.
Study Finds That Fossil-Fuel Subsidies Are Hurting Global Environment, Energy Security
A comprehensive assessment of global fossil-fuel subsidies has found that governments are spending $500 billion annually on policies that undermine energy security and worsen the environment.
The study, titled “The Politics of Fossil-Fuel Subsidies” by David Victor, a professor of political science with the University of California-San Diego’s School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS), was one of five released Thursday by the Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI) of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD).
GSI’s goal is to reform, reduce and ultimately eliminate fossil-fuel subsidies, which are highest in Iran, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, India and Venezuela. The reform effort received a boost September 2009 when President Obama and other world leaders met in Pittsburgh, Pa., for the Group of 20 Summit. They agreed in a non-binding resolution to phase out fossil-fuel subsidies, but the measure didn’t attempt to resolve difficult political issues such as how governments would actually achieve a phaseout. Victor’s study addresses the political challenges.
Full Story: On The Hill: Study Finds That Fossil-Fuel Subsidies Are Hurting Global Environment, Energy Security.
Surprise Coal Mine Inspections: Feds Target 57 ‘Problem’ Mines
Nearly 60 problem U.S. coal mines have been hit with surprise inspections aimed at preventing another explosion like the one that killed 29 miners in West Virginia, the nation’s chief mine safety regulator said Wednesday.
The Mine Safety and Health Administration did not immediately reveal how many problems were found during the weekend crackdown. A spokeswoman said that information is still being compiled.
The raids targeted 57 mines, including 23 in West Virginia and 14 in Kentucky and involved 275 federal inspectors, MSHA said. Eight of the mines belong to Massey Energy Co., a $4.17 billion company that ranks among the largest coal producers in the United States.
Full Story: Surprise Coal Mine Inspections: Feds Target 57 ‘Problem’ Mines.
US military warns oil output may dip causing massive shortages by 2015
• Shortfall could reach 10m barrels a day, report says
• Cost of crude oil is predicted to top $100 a barrel
The US military has warned that surplus oil production capacity could disappear within two years and there could be serious shortages by 2015 with a significant economic and political impact.
The energy crisis outlined in a Joint Operating Environment report from the US Joint Forces Command, comes as the price of petrol in Britain reaches record levels and the cost of crude is predicted to soon top $100 a barrel.
“By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 million barrels per day,” says the report, which has a foreword by a senior commander, General James N Mattis.
Full Story: US military warns oil output may dip causing massive shortages by 2015 | Business | The Guardian.
Calculate lives into the cost of coal
People in the mining camps of the Appalachian coal fields know the perils of the industry upon which, for generations, their fragile communities have depended.
The evidence cannot be ignored. It is around them in those mountain hamlets every day of their lives.
They hear it in the rasping coughs of gray-faced men, driven from the pits with lungs lacerated by years of breathing coal dust.
They see it in the shuffling gait of neighbors broken, disabled — often missing limbs — the victims of roof falls and mechanical mishaps.
Full Story: Calculate lives into the cost of coal – KansasCity.com.
U.S. Army To Court Martial ‘Birther’ Officer For Refusing To Follow Obama’s Orders
NBC News reports that the Army will court martial Lt. Col. Terry Lakin because of his refusal to deploy to Afghanistan. Lakin is part of the discredited “birther” movement, and as such believes that orders from President Obama are “illegal.”
Read more from NBC News here. Watch Lakin’s video below explaining why he believes Obama is not a natural born citizen.
WATCH:
Full Story: Terry Lakin, ‘Birther’, To Be Court Martialed By US Army.
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If we don't change our ways soon...
A new report by the Royal Society, chaired by Nobel prize-winning biologist Sir John Sulston warns that world population must be stabilized and consumption in wealthy nations must be reduced or the entire planet is in big trouble. As the report reads: "The number of people living on the planet has never been higher, their levels of consumption are unprecedented and vast changes are taking place in the environment. We can choose to rebalance the use of resources to a more egalitarian pattern of consumption... or we can choose to do nothing and to drift into a downward spiral of economic and environmental ills leading to a more unequal and inhospitable future."This is the same warning that President Jimmy Carter gave Americans back in the 1970's - but it was ignored when Ronald Reagan came to power with a "more positive" message basically telling Americans we can do whatever we want. And then after 9/11 - Bush told us all we should go shopping and consume ever more.And now with corporations calling the shots in Washington - long-term sustainability of the planet takes a back seat to short-term profits. If we don't change our ways soon - and embrace clean, alternative energy and educate women around the plant - then we all could be headed for a rough century.-Thom(Is there any chance we will learn in time? Tell us here.) -
LEGALIZE Democracy
" We the corporations" On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. __________
MOVE to AMEND
a project of the CAMPAIGN TO LEGALIZE Democracy
Help end Corporate personhood
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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. 
moveon.org
