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May 23, 2013
(Texas Tribune)
The Ogallala Aquifer suffered its second-worst drop since at least 2000 in a large swath of the Texas Panhandle, new measurements show.
The closely watched figures, published this week by the High Plains Underground Water Conservation District, cover a 16-county area stretching from south of Lubbock to Amarillo. The Ogallala wells measured by the district experienced an average drop of 1.87 feet from 2012 to 2013. That makes it one of the five or 10 worst drops in the district's more than 60-year history, said Bill Mullican, a hydrogeologist with the district.
“There are some pretty remarkable declines,” Mullican said. One well in the western part of the water district, he said, dropped 19 feet over the year.
(The Hill)
Legislators in the Senate are unveiling a bipartisan agreement to update federal toxic chemical regulations, though environmental groups are responding with mixed emotions.
Sens. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and David Vitter (R-La.) on Wednesday released an agreement to update the Toxic Substances Control Act, the consumer safety law passed in 1976.
The bill, which has the support of 14 other senators from both parties, gives new powers to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and lays out a clearer path for bringing new chemicals to the market.
(Climate Central)
Knowing how much methane is leaking from the natural gas system is essential to determining the potential climate benefits of natural gas use. Our extensive review of the publicly available studies finds that a pervasive lack of measurements makes it nearly impossible to know with confidence what the average methane leak rate is for the U.S. as a whole. More measurements, more reliable data, and better understanding of industry practices are needed.
It has been widely reported that shifting from coal to gas in electricity generation will provide a 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. In reality, the extent of reduced global warming impact depends largely on three factors:
(Bloomberg)
Stan Dempsey, an oil and gas lobbyist, raced from one committee hearing to another in Colorado’s statehouse this spring, defending the industry against an onslaught of bills.
While only one of 10 measures passed, the flurry of activity is one of several worrying signs to Dempsey and others in the industry that Colorado, an oil-patch state long seen as friendly to energy producers, is becoming a battleground over hydraulic fracturing, the drilling process fueling the nation’s energy boom.
“The politics have shifted in the state,” Dempsey, president of the Colorado Petroleum Association in Denver, said in an interview. “Energy has become a big issue.”
(Michigan Radio)
The U.S. House voted Wednesday to sidestep President Obama, and authorize the first leg of a controversial pipeline project carrying tar sands oil to the US from Canada.
Detroit Congressman Gary Peters used the opportunity to push for more scrutiny of petroleum coke — a byproduct of tar sands refining that’s already showing up in Detroit.
The proposed Keystone XL pipeline would bring tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada tar through the U.S. to Gulf Coast refineries. Much of the debate around importing that oil into the U.S. for refining has centered around Keystone.
But plenty of tar sands oil is already flowing to the U.S. — including the Marathon refinery in southwest Detroit.
(Wall Street Journal)
This car deal sounds too good to be true: Drive a car, almost free.
To entice drivers to try electric-powered cars, auto makers are lowering the price of entry to the zero-emission lifestyle.
A new round of discount leases on mainstream-brand plug-in cars such as the Nissan Leaf or Fiat 500e, combined with federal, state and local electric-vehicle incentives, could make a battery-electric car an extraordinarily economical way to get around for drivers. There are two big caveats: Drivers need to live in states offering tax incentives and can't drive very far in a single day.
May 22, 2013
(AP)
A deadly tornado hit suburban Oklahoma City on Monday. A quick look at some basic facts:
Q. Is global warming to blame?
A. You can't blame a single weather event on global warming. In any case, scientists just don't know whether there will be more or fewer twisters as global warming increases. Tornadoes arise from very local conditions, and so they're not as influenced by climate change as much as larger weather systems like hurricanes and nor'easters. They're not easy to incorporate in the large computer simulations scientists use to gauge the impact of global warming.
And when scientists ponder the key weather ingredients that lead to twisters, there's still no clear answer about whether to expect more or fewer twisters. Some scientists theorize that the jet stream is changing because sea ice in the Arctic is shrinking. And the jet stream pattern drives weather in the Northern Hemisphere.
(Omaha World-Herald)
As the Republican-controlled House prepares to once again register its support for the Keystone XL pipeline, the White House waved its veto pen and Nebraska-based opponents vowed to fight the project down to the county level if need be.The House is expected to approve legislation today written by Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., that would deem the controversial project approved and seek to sweep away obstacles such as drawn-out legal battles and regulatory delays.While testifying Tuesday before the House Rules Committee, Terry said it’s past time to move on the project, noting that it’s been nearly five years since TransCanada filed its permit to build the pipeline.
(E&E Daily, sub req'd)
A war of words is brewing over hydraulic fracturing and efforts to ban or limit it in California.
Activists who believe they've created negative buzz around the oil and gas extraction process also called "fracking" have launched a new battle: persuading the state's Legislature to look at also restricting different drilling techniques. Green groups warn that other oil recovery methods underway are equally risky, including one they fear could rapidly balloon in use.
Because those aren't labeled as "hydraulic fracturing," proposed moratoriums and other restrictions might not apply.
"We're developing all of these regulations with a very narrow definition of hydraulic fracturing," said Andrew Grinberg, oil and gas program coordinator at Clean Water Action. "We're leaving out potentially a large part of the well stimulation that may be going on in California."
(StateImpact Pennsylvania)
Discord over how to best protect the environment from impacts of natural gas drilling has led to a coalition of grassroots environmental groups shunning the Environmental Defense Fund. The groups plan to hold a conference call on Wednesday to "send a message ... disapproving of [EDF's] willingness to be coopted by industry interests on the issue of hydraulic fracturing for shale gas."
EDF recently drew the ire of fractivists when it announced its participation in The Center for Sustainable Shale Gas Development, a collaboration with energy companies and philanthropical organizations to develop performance standards related to protecting air and water quality. EDF is the only national environmental group to join the coalition, which also includes PennFuture, Group Against Smog and Pollution, and the Pennsylvania Environmental Council. [CSSD includes two organizations that also provide funds to StateImpact Pennsylvania: the Heinz Foundation and the William Penn Foundation.]
(The Hill)
New Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz vowed Tuesday to help advance a big bipartisan energy efficiency bill that's moving through Congress and make conservation a major priority using his existing authorities.
Moniz, sworn-in earlier Tuesday, used a major Washington, D.C. energy efficiency conference as the platform for his first public remarks in the new job, telling the audience that efficiency is a vital part of meeting the nation's climate and energy challenges.
"Let me just say off the bat that I have been working these problems for quite a while, I have never seen a credible solution to the climate risk mitigation challenge, to reach the kinds of goals we need to reach, without the demand side playing a very, very important part in that," Moniz said at the EE Global 2013 conference hosted by the Alliance to Save Energy.
(SustainableBusiness.com)
A new report shows solar energy's growing role in powering military installations and military homes across the US.
As of early 2013, over 130 megawatts (MW) of solar PV are supplying energy to Navy, Army and Air Force bases in at least 31 states and the District of Columbia, says the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).
Just as importantly, solar energy is playing an increasingly central role in making the military's energy supply more secure, more affordable and less reliant on unstable foreign sources. And it is protecting our troops.
(The Independent)
The battle against global warming has received a transformational boost after China, the world's biggest producer of carbon dioxide, proposed to set a cap on its greenhouse gas emissions for the first time.
Under the proposal China, which is responsible for a quarter of the world's carbon emissions, would put a ceiling on greenhouse gas emissions from 2016, in a bid to curb what most scientists agree is the main cause of climate change.
It marks a dramatic change in China's approach to climate change that experts say will make countries around the world more likely to agree to stringent cuts to their carbon emissions in a co-ordinated effort to tackle global warming.
(Bloomberg)
Elon Musk, Tesla Motors Inc. (TSLA)'s chief executive officer and co-founder, said in a Twitter post the electric-car maker will “probably” repay its Energy Department loan as early as tomorrow.
A separate announcement Tesla was planning on the expansion of its so-called Supercharger network is being pushed back to next week “given govt loan repayment this week (prob Wed),” Musk said yesterday.
The maker of Model S sedans was planning to pay off the remaining portion of its Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing loan this week, two people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg on May 17.
May 21, 2013
(Houston Chronicle)
Canadian energy producers lobbying for U.S. approval of the Keystone XL pipeline are targeting undecided Democratic lawmakers in Washington in advance of a decision on the $5.3 billion project.
The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, which represents more than 100 energy producers including Canadian Oil Sands Ltd. (COS) and Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM)’s Imperial Oil Ltd. (IMO), will travel to the U.S. capital next month to promote TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s plan to carry Alberta oil-sands crude to Gulf Coast refineries. A decision by U.S. President Barack Obama on the pipeline is expected this year.
(Reuters)
Days before a Shell drillship went aground in the storm-tossed Gulf of Alaska, it was clear that towing failures could spell disaster for the vessel, the crew and the marine environment, a company official told a U.S. Coast Guard panel on Monday.
The Kulluk, having completed preliminary drilling on an exploration well in the Beaufort Sea, broke away from its tow lines, and support vessels attempting to regain control of the drillship developed their own engine and mechanical problems, Norman Custard, Royal Dutch Shell's Alaska emergency response leader, told the panel.
Custard said he began planning for a crew evacuation on December 27, four days before the Kulluk grounded off Kodiak Island.
(Reuters)
Water levels in U.S. aquifers, the vast underground storage areas tapped for agriculture, energy and human consumption, between 2000 and 2008 dropped at a rate that was almost three times as great as any time during the 20th century, U.S. officials said on Monday.
The accelerated decline in the subterranean reservoirs is due to a combination of factors, most of them linked to rising population in the United States, according to Leonard Konikow, a research hydrologist at the U.S. Geological Survey.
The big rise in water use started in 1950, at the time of an economic boom and the spread of U.S. suburbs. However, the steep increase in water use and the drop in groundwater levels that followed World War 2 were eclipsed by the changes during the first years of the 21st century, the study showed.
(AP)
Federal regulators have indefinitely delayed a decision on the proposed restart of the shuttered San Onofre nuclear power plant in California, raising new questions Monday about whether the twin reactors will produce electricity again.
The seaside plant between San Diego and Los Angeles has been dark since January 2012, after a small radiation leak led to the discovery of unusual damage to hundreds of tubes that carry radioactive water.
Operator Southern California Edison wants permission to restart the Unit 2 reactor and run it at reduced power in hopes of stopping vibration and friction that was blamed for damaging tubing.
(Los Angeles Times)
For decades, war has been waged over the holy grail of America's Arctic frontier, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The wide coastal plain on the edge of the Beaufort Sea contains stunning populations of caribou, grizzly, musk oxen and other wildlife -- and also an abundant pool of oil and gas.
While Congress has periodically taken steps to consider opening up oil and gas development in the refuge, President Obama and many congressional Democrats have rebuffed any drilling on what conservationists often call America's Serengeti.
Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell, a Republican, launched a new bid Monday to at least determine what the argument is about. In a proposal to the U.S. Department of the Interior, Parnell said Alaska is willing to consider a $50-million contribution to launching a full oil exploration program in a section of the coastal plain, complete with modern 3D seismic studies.
(Reuters)
Environmental concerns over the practice of hydraulic fracturing to tap shale gas will be on the European Union's agenda this year, EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger told a German newspaper.
"It is absolutely right to seek to protect areas where there is drinking and ground water, like at Lake Constance. At an EU level the topic of fracking and environmental protection will be looked at more closely this year," Die Welt quoted Oettinger as saying in an article published in its online edition on Monday.
May 20, 2013
(Politico)
Climate activists already pessimistic about the Obama administration's upcoming decision on the Keystone XL pipeline are seizing on another reason for worry: The president’s grass-roots political organization is refusing their pleas to take a stance against the project.
Organizing for Action has been winning cheers from environmentalists for calling out climate change skeptics in Congress. But they say activists who support OFA also want the group to press President Barack Obama to oppose the pipeline, which they call a major threat to the Earth's climate.
(The Times-Tribune)
State environmental regulators determined that oil and gas development damaged the water supplies for at least 161 Pennsylvania homes, farms, churches and businesses between 2008 and the fall of 2012, according to a cache of nearly 1,000 letters and enforcement orders written by Department of Environmental Protection officials and obtained by The Sunday Times.
The determination letters are sent to water supply owners who ask state inspectors to investigate whether oil and gas drilling activities have polluted or diminished the flow of water to their wells.
(The Globe and Mail)
The Inuvialuit living in the Mackenzie Delta of the Northwest Territories watched incredulously in September of 1999, as a particularly violent storm swept the Arctic Ocean 20 kilometres inland, killing all vegetation in its path and leaving lakes infused with salt water.
Local elders said nothing like it had ever happened in the known history of their people - and it turns out they were right.
Scientists from Carleton University in Ottawa and Queen's University in Kingston, who attribute the surge to global warming, have looked at tree trunks and lake beds to determine that no comparable event has occurred in at least 1,000 years.
(Reuters)
Extreme global warming is less likely in coming decades after a slowdown in the pace of temperature rises so far this century, an international team of scientists said on Sunday.
Warming is still on track, however, to breach a goal set by governments around the world of limiting the increase in temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times, unless tough action is taken to limit rising greenhouse gas emissions.
"The most extreme rates of warming simulated by the current generation of climate models over 50- to 100-year timescales are looking less likely," the University of Oxford wrote about the findings in the journal Nature Geoscience.
(Guardian)
New York city could experience up to 22% more deaths from extreme summertime heat in the coming decade under global warming, according to a study of the impact of climate trends.
The higher deaths will be partially offset by a reduction in deaths due to the milder winters predicted in Manhattan.
Overall, however, the net effect of the new temperature norms under climate change would be to increase weather-related deaths in New York city by up to 6.2% a year by the 2020s, according to the scientists.
The study, published in Nature Climate Change, predicted oppressive summer temperatures would exact an increasingly heavy toll on people living in metropolitan areas such as Manhattan in the coming decades.
(McClatchy Newspapers)
The push for mass coal exports from Washington state, already facing a huge environmental battle, also could get hit with slowing Chinese demand for coal shipments.
The American coal industry, stung by a drop in U.S. demand, hopes to revive its fortunes by sending Rocky Mountain coal to Asia from proposed terminals near Bellingham and Longview, Wash.
But a recent report by Wall Street colossus Goldman Sachs says this will be a transformational year for China, with its seaborne coal imports dropping for the first time since the global financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 and continuing to decline in the coming years. China’s own coal production has spiked, Goldman Sachs said, along with investment in Chinese railroads to move its coal.
Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2013/05/17/2905933/chinas-hunger-for-american-coal.html#storylink=cpy
Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2013/05/17/2905933/chinas-hunger-for-american-coal.html#storylink=cpy
(Guardian)
Major international oil companies are buying off governments, according to the world's most prominent climate scientist, Prof James Hansen. During a visit to London, he accused the Canadian government of acting as the industry's tar sands salesman and "holding a club" over the UK and European nations to accept its "dirty" oil.
"Oil from tar sands makes sense only for a small number of people who are making a lot of money from that product," he said in an interview with the Guardian. "It doesn't make sense for the rest of the people on the planet. We are getting close to the dangerous level of carbon in the atmosphere and if we add on to that unconventional fossil fuels, which have a tremendous amount of carbon, then the climate problem becomes unsolvable."
Hansen met ministers in the UK government, which the Guardian previously revealed has secretly supported Canada's position at the highest level.
(AP)
The Coast Guard will kick off hearings Monday on how a Royal Dutch Shell PLC drill barge used for Arctic Ocean exploratory drilling ended up aground off a remote Alaska island.
The Kulluk was under tow and bound from the Aleutian Islands’ Dutch Harbor to a Seattle shipyard when it ran into rough Gulf of Alaska water. It broke from its towing vessel, and after four days of futile attempted hookups, ran aground New Year’s Eve in shallow water off Sitkalidak Island, near Kodiak Island.
Damage to the ship led to Shell’s decision not to drill in Arctic waters in 2013.
(Reuters)
Texas has joined the crowd of Gulf of Mexico states to file suit against BP Plc, Halliburton Co and others for their role in one of the worst oil spills in U.S. history.
The complaint, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Beaumont, Texas, alleges that the companies and others "engaged in willful and wanton misconduct" for their role in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
The state has accused the firms - as well as Transocean, Anadarko and BP America in its suit - of violating Texas' environmental regulations. Texas is seeking money from "lost" tourism revenues due to the spill, as well as monies that would have been generated from state park entrance and concession fees by visitors to the coastal communities.
(Gloucester Times)
Environmental activists are vowing to do everything they can to help Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful Edward Markey in his special election battle with Republican challenger Gabriel Gomez.
During the Democratic primary, environmental groups spent nearly $1.8 million in outside money to help Markey defeat Stephen Lynch.
Markey and Lynch had agreed to the so-called People’s Pledge, which discouraged outside groups from launching television, radio or Internet campaign ads. That forced the groups to spend most of their money on organizing and get-out-the-vote efforts.
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