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Archive for January 15th, 2015
Polish farmers blockaded Chevron frackers for 400 days and stopped drilling in their region
Posted by Inhabitat: None Given on January 15th, 2015
Inhabitat: In July, Chevron abandoned its plans to drill for gas in Zurawlow, Poland, after farmers and families from Zurawlow (and four nearby villages) blockaded a proposed shale drilling site with tractors and other pastoral machinery for 400 days. Now, that victory is inspiring other Poles to fight back against the fracked gas industry.
According to a soon-to-be-outdated Polish Geological Institute study in March 2012, estimated recoverable shale gas beneath the country`s surface is estimated to be between...
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How cities in Asia could drastically slow climate change
Posted by Quartz: None Given on January 15th, 2015
Quartz: Cities--the best of which are bastions of transit networks, bike paths, compact apartments and chirpy baristas--are growing faster than litters of sewer rats, exacerbating their already-high hungers for energy. The trend is so steep that a new analysis projects that urban centers will be burning through three times more energy in the year 2050 than was the case in 2005.
But what sounds like a threat could also be viewed as an opportunity. The new study, by five European and American researchers...
China met 2014 pollution control targets: ministry
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 15th, 2015
Reuters: China has met its 2014 targets for air and water pollution control, the official news agency Xinhua said on Thursday.
The environmental protection minister, Zhou Shengxian, told an annual government meeting that authorities last year banned 7 million high-emission vehicles from the road, shut down 50,000 coal-fired furnaces, installed denitrification and desulfurisation equipment in power plants and factories, and added new sewage treatment plants, Xinhua said.
Zhou said the annual targets...
Humans Cross Another Danger Line for Planet
Posted by Scientific American: Mark Fischetti on January 15th, 2015
Scientific American: Five years go an impressive, international group of scientists unveiled nine biological and environmental “boundaries” that humankind should not cross in order to keep the earth a livable place. To its peril, the world had already crossed three of those safe limits: too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, too rapid a rate of species loss and too much pouring of nitrogen into rivers and oceans—primarily in the form of fertilizer runoff. Now we have succeeded in transgressing a fourth limit: the...
Obama’s Proposed Methane Emissions Cuts Ignore Existing Sources
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on January 15th, 2015
Environment News Service: The Obama Administration today announced a new goal to cut methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by 40 to 45 percent from 2012 levels by 2025, and a set of actions to put the United States on a path to achieve this goal.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will initiate a rulemaking effort to set standards for emissions of methane and volatile organic compounds from new and modified oil and gas production sources, and natural gas processing and transmission sources, but not for existing...
Companies Will Be Legally Required to Reveal Chemicals Used for Fracking in U.K
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 15th, 2015
Guardian: Fracking companies will be legally bound to reveal the chemicals used to blast gas out of every well they drill and to better monitor for groundwater pollution, under concessions made by the government in parliament. But the Labour party, which proposed the changes, said many flaws remained and ministers remain “zealously opposed” to the necessary regulation.
The Labour party proposed over a dozen amendments to the infrastructure bill currently passing through parliament, including baseline measurements...
New Contaminants Emerge From Oil & Gas Wells
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 15th, 2015
Daily Climate: Two hazardous chemicals never before known as oil and gas industry pollutants -- ammonium and iodide -- are being released into Pennsylvania and West Virginia waterways from the booming energy operations of the Marcellus shale, a new study shows.
Treatment plants were never designed to handle these contaminants.
The toxic substances, which can have a devastating impact on fish, ecosystems, and potentially, human health, are extracted from geological formations along with natural gas and oil...
California Fracking Hasn’t Unearthed Oil Boom
Posted by San Francisco Chronicle: David R. Baker on January 15th, 2015
San Francisco Chronicle: About 20 percent of California's oil and natural-gas production uses hydraulic fracturing - with almost all of it happening in one corner of the San Joaquin Valley - according to the most authoritative survey yet released of fracking in the Golden State.
Oil companies frack 125 to 175 of the roughly 300 wells drilled in California each month, according to the survey released Wednesday by the California Council on Science and Technology. Nearly 93 percent of all fracked wells lie in western Kern...
U.S. Senate Proposal May Leave Canada with a Pyrrhic Victory on Keystone XL
Posted by Globe and Mail: Paul Koring on January 15th, 2015
Globe and Mail: Canada’s Natural Resources Minster Greg Rickford was on Capitol Hill again Tuesday pitching Keystone XL, as Senate supporters of the controversial pipeline tried to round up sufficient votes to override U.S. President Barack Obama’s threatened veto of any Congressional attempt to force approval of the project to ship Alberta oil sands crude to the Texas Gulf coast. After meeting Senator Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat and Keystone XL backer, Mr. Rickford said: “I thanked Senator Manchin for...