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Archive for August, 2013
Gas Fracking: No Time for Nuance
Posted by Huffington Post: Carl Safina on August 4th, 2013
Huffington Post: My friend Andrew Revkin, whom I greatly respect, has lately been pointing out certain problems with critiques of gas fracking, and pointing out how it could be greatly improved.
They want more gas until something better can come along. This is the "bridge" argument. Those proponents viewing fracking from the sidelines see that gas is cleaner than coal -- well, what isn't? -- and thus a "bridge" between coal and the next big thing. (The ones in it for the money couldn't care less about "bridges"...
Powerful Calif. water district backs tunnel plan
Posted by Associated Press: Gosia Wozniacka on August 4th, 2013
Associated Press: As a giant harvesting machine uprooted and sucked in hundreds of tomato plants a row at a time, Dan Errotabere contemplated massive strips of bare land on his farm.
"Everything we have in our operation is under duress," he said, looking at a stretch of fallow acres once covered in garlic, onions and other crops.
Errotabere and hundreds of others who run massive farms in California`s Central Valley have left tens of thousands of acres barren this year after seeing their water supplies severely...
Roots breakthrough for drought-resistant rice
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 4th, 2013
Agence France-presse: Japanese biotechnologists on Sunday said they had developed a rice plant with deeper roots that can sustain high yields in droughts that wipe out conventional rice crops. It is the third breakthrough in new cereal strains in less than two years, boosting the quest to feed the world's spiralling population at a time of worsening climate change. Writing in the journal Nature Genetics, a team led by Yusaku Uga of the National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences in Tsukuba describe how they found...
United Kingdom: Fracking will meet resistance from southern nimbys, minister warns
Posted by Guardian: Patrick Wintour on August 4th, 2013
Guardian: A warning that fracking may soon lead to fierce resistance from middle-class southern nimbys has been given by the energy minister Michael Fallon.
Fallon, a strong supporter of shale gas, told a private meeting in Westminster: "We are going to see how thick their rectory walls are, whether they like the flaring at the end of the drive."
Fallon, who is MP for Sevenoaks in Kent, said exploratory studies for fracking were already poised to start in the north of England and were set to spread the...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on United Kingdom: Fracking will meet resistance from southern nimbys, minister warnsUnited Kingdom: Balcombe’s eco-warriors have the limelight, but a strong local contingent wants to be heard
Posted by Telegraph: Cole Moreton on August 4th, 2013
Telegraph: "I was reading the Telegraph on the train and I noticed a little paragraph saying, 'Cuadrilla to Frack in Sussex'. I knew this was the company that caused the earthquakes in Lancashire, so I thought, 'How interesting'. Then I looked down the story and saw they were coming to my village...'
He smiles and steps out of the way as a battalion of police officers comes past. We are on the road just south of Balcombe in West Sussex, where the oil and gas company Cuadrilla is trying to drill a well, and...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United Kingdom: Balcombe’s eco-warriors have the limelight, but a strong local contingent wants to be heardUnited Kingdom: Michael Fallon defends fracking comments
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 4th, 2013
BBC: Energy minister Michael Fallon has defended comments about fracking, in which he appeared to suggest the process would affect those living near gas drilling sites.
Mr Fallon told a private meeting it would test "how thick their rectory walls are" and "whether they like the flaring at the end of the drive".
In the past, he has described shale gas as an "exciting new energy resource".
The Tory minister told the BBC his latest comments were "light hearted".
His remarks, reported in the Mail...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United Kingdom: Michael Fallon defends fracking commentsUnited Kingdom: Fracking boss Francis Egan receives bomb threat over shale gas exploration
Posted by Telegraph: Peter Dominiczak on August 4th, 2013
Telegraph: Francis Egan, the chief executive of Cuadrilla, has send he was send an email threatening to bomb his company headquarters if he did not cease activities in the UK.
Cuadrilla announced that it has started as exploratory drilling began at a site in Balcombe, West Sussex, despite anti-fracking protests by local people and activists from across the UK.
Villages across the UK have said that they will block any attempts to drill in the wake of the Balcombe protests.
Writing in the Mail on Sunday...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United Kingdom: Fracking boss Francis Egan receives bomb threat over shale gas explorationUnited Kingdom: Why the ‘dash for gas’ has got off to a false start
Posted by Guardian: Fiona Harvey, on August 3rd, 2013
Guardian: For all the talk of a dash for gas, the government-backed race for a new generation of power stations has had few willing participants thus far. So the suggestion last week by the chief executive of Drax, the UK's biggest coal-fired power station, that she might invest in new gas plants was a surprise. Nonetheless, her words were hedged with a caution shared by the rest of the energy industry. "We could start to look at it. But it would depend very much on the details of the government's energy market...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United Kingdom: Why the ‘dash for gas’ has got off to a false startUnited Kingdom: Lib Dem president Tim Farron warns fracking could harm countryside ‘for decades’
Posted by Telegraph: Robert Watts on August 3rd, 2013
Telegraph: In the first major attack on fracking by a leading member of the Coalition, Tim Farron, the Lib Dems' president, said he was "greatly worried' by the Government's "dash for shale gas' and that he would lobby for measures that would severely limit its potential development.
Mr Farron's views clash strongly with those of Ed Davey, the Energy Secretary and a fellow Lib Dem. Mr Davey has said he is "excited' about the secure supply of energy and thousands of jobs that shale-gas extraction could create....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United Kingdom: Lib Dem president Tim Farron warns fracking could harm countryside ‘for decades’United Kingdom: The water companies and the foul stench of exploitation
Posted by Guardian: Nick Cohen on August 3rd, 2013
Guardian: Sounding more like an admonishing primary school teacher than ever, Margaret Thatcher announced in 1976 that the was that they" always run out of other people's money". I have thought since the crash of 2008 that the same can now be said for the vast system of state capitalism she bequeathed us.
The price of deregulating the banks we know about to our cost. We have received fair warning that George Osborne's taxpayer-subsidised mortgage market will be emptying your wallet when the next bubble...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United Kingdom: The water companies and the foul stench of exploitation