DEP losing staff to gas drilling industry – News – The Times-Tribune
February 6, 2011
Shell to explore for gas in the Karoo, why Johan Rupert has some concerns.
February 6, 2011
Shell to explore for gas in the Karoo, why Johan Rupert has some concerns.
ALEC HOGG: It’s Wednesday February 2 2011 and in this special podcast we speak with the chairman of Richemont, Johan Rupert, not about Richemont’s issues but more about what is going on in the Karoo. Johan, your family, in fact, has deep roots into the Karoo, looking through your father’s biography by Ebbe Dommisse, your great, great grandfather came to South Africa in 1858 to a town called Graaff-Reinet and on Friday, Graaff-Reinet was the scene of a discussion or a public meeting that you said some stuff that has been shaking up the oil industry.
JOHANN RUPERT: Good afternoon Alec, good afternoon, listeners. It’s really the whole question of drilling for gas through the Greater Karoo, over 90 000 square kilometers and the method in which the oil companies wish to operate. We’re not against looking for gas, we are not against the methodology if used in the right area, with the right safeguards. So, for instance, if you go into the desert and it’s shallow, there can be containment. What worries us is the unseemly haste with which this whole process is going forward. We don’t think the legal framework was designed for this fracking method and we are very, very scared about the irreversibility of the ecological damage, should it occur.
GHG Howarth update on footprint of gas vs coal — Jan 2011
February 6, 2011
GHG update for web — Jan 2011 (2).pdf (application/pdf Object).
Assessment of the Greenhouse Gas Footprint of Natural Gas from Shale Formations
Obtained by High-Volume, Slick-Water Hydraulic Fracturing
Robert W. Howarth
David R. Atkinson Professor of Ecology & Environmental Biology, Cornell University
(Revised January 26, 2011)
Natural gas is widely advertised and promoted as a clean burning fuel that produces less greenhouse gas
emissions than coal when burned. While it is true that less carbon dioxide is emitted from burning natural
gas than from burning coal per unit of energy generated, the combustion emissions are only part of story
and the comparison is quite misleading. With funding from the Park Foundation, my colleagues Renee
Santoro, Tony Ingraffea, and I have
assessed the likely footprint from
natural gas in comparison to coal.
We submitted a draft of our work
to a peer-reviewed journal in
November, and now have a revised
manuscript under consideration by
the journal. The revision is
improved with input from
reviewers and also uses new
information from a November 2010
report from the EPA. The EPA
report is the first significant update
by the agency on natural gas
emission factors since 1996, and
concludes that emissions –
particularly for shale gas – are
larger than previously believed.
Our research further supports this
conclusion.
Clean Air Under Siege – NYTimes.com
February 6, 2011
Clean Air Under Siege – NYTimes. Feb. 6, 2011.
Shortly after he entered the Senate in 2007, John Barrasso told his Wyoming constituents that the country’s biggest need was an energy policy to deal with carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas.
That was then. In lockstep with other Senate Republicans, he helped kill last year’s energy and climate bill. Now he has introduced a bill that would bar the Environmental Protection Agency and any other part of the federal government from regulating carbon pollution.
Congress’s failure to enact a climate bill means that the E.P.A.’s authority to regulate these gases — an authority conferred by a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2007 — is, for now, the only tool available to the federal government to combat global warming.
The modest regulations the agency has already proposed, plus stronger ones it will issue later this year, should lead to the retirement of many of the nation’s older, dirtier coal-fired power plants and a dramatic reduction in carbon emissions.
Mr. Barrasso’s bill is not an isolated challenge. Senator James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who called global warming the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” has unveiled a somewhat narrower bill to undercut the E.P.A.’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide. Fred Upton, the Michigan Republican and new chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, simultaneously introduced a companion bill.
There are a half-dozen other such measures in circulation, at least one of which would weaken the agency’s long-held powers to regulate conventional ground-level pollutants like soot and mercury.
One or another of these bills has a real shot in the Republican-controlled House. Their chances are slimmer in the Senate, where the bigger danger is a proposal by Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, that would block any new regulations on power plants and other industrial sources for two years.
That is just obstruction by another name. It would delay modernization and ensure that more carbon is dumped into the atmosphere. History shows that regulatory delays have a way of becoming permanent.
It is tempting to blame the entire energy industry for these attacks on the E.P.A.’s authority. The oil companies are pushing hard against any new rules. The utilities are split. Some companies like General Electric — whose chief executive, Jeffrey Immelt, is now advising President Obama — signed on to the energy bill that passed the House last year, when it was still under Democratic control.
Mr. Inhofe, an outlier before the midterm elections, has a lot more company now. Even among lawmakers who accept the facts of global warming, he is getting considerable mileage with baseless charges that the E.P.A. is running amok.
The agency does have a heavy regulatory agenda. It will issue proposals not only on greenhouse gases but also ozone, sulfur dioxide, and mercury, which poisons lakes and fish. These regulations are fully consistent with the Clean Air Act. Some of them should have been completed during the Bush years; all are essential to protect the environment. The agency’s administrator, Lisa Jackson, has moved cautiously, making clear that she will target only the largest polluters and not, as the Republicans claim, mom-and-pop businesses.
In his State of the Union address, President Obama promised to protect “common-sense safeguards” to the nation’s environment. The rules under siege in Congress will help clean the air, reduce toxic pollution in fish and slow emissions of greenhouse gases. It is hard to imagine anything more sensible than that.
Dr. Mark Jacobson–Lecture on Wind, Water and Solar
February 4, 2011 1 Comment
Dr. Mark Jacobson–Lecture on Wind, Water and Solar. Cornell U. Feb 4, 2011.
Webcast of Ezra Lecture
Gas Leaks on the Path to a Post-Fossil Future
February 4, 2011
Opinion
By By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: January 25, 2011
More evidence that leaks from wells and pipes blunt the climate value of natural gas and that industry needs to tighten up its act.
//
Groups File Federal Gas Drilling Lawsuit against Delaware River Basin Commission
February 2, 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 2, 2011
http://www.damascuscitizens.org/DRBC-lawsuit.html <blocked::http://www.damascuscitizens.org/DRBC-lawsuit.html>
CONTACT:
Damascus Citizens for Sustainability – Jeff Zimmerman (240) 912-6685
Delaware Riverkeeper Network – Tracy Carluccio (215) 692-2329
Groups File Federal Gas Drilling Lawsuit against Delaware River Basin Commission
Trenton, New Jersey —The Delaware Riverkeeper Network and Damascus Citizens for Sustainability have joined forces in filing a federal lawsuit against the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) in federal district court in Trenton, NJ. Complaints were served on the DRBC today. The conservation groups are challenging the actions the DRBC took to allow certain exploratory natural gas wells to be drilled without DRBC review and approval and despite a Basin-wide moratorium on gas wells.
In May, 2009, Carol Collier, Executive Director of DRBC, issued a determination requiring individual review by the Commission of each shale gas production well. A year later the Commission decided to defer action on all gas production wells until regulations are adopted by the Commission to protect the Basin’s water resources. But the Commission left open a loophole for exploratory wells created by the 2009 Executive Director Determination. In June, 2010, the Executive Director issued a supplemental determination that closed the exploratory well loophole. However, in this exploratory well determination, the Executive Director exempted wells that had obtained state drilling permits while the loophole was in effect. These wells are referred to as “grandfathered” wells.
“The drilling of a gas well, whether exploratory or production, has serious environmental impacts. Since the DRBC is supposed to protect the River and the clean drinking water for over 15 million people, they shouldn’t have allowed these wells to proceed without DRBC oversight. These wells threaten pollution and may have already caused pollution. We want these wells removed and the land restored,” said Maya van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper.
At its July, 2010, meeting, the Commission granted a number of hearing requests challenging different aspects of the executive director’s exploratory well determination. One of the requests granted was a challenge by the conservation groups to the “grandfathered” wells reservation. The hearing was supposed to examine whether the Executive Director exceeded her authority when she excluded the grandfathered wells from DRBC regulation.
The DRBC also ignored the National Park Service by not reviewing the grandfathered wells. The Park Service had invoked its authority under the DRBC’s rules to refer all exploratory wells to the DRBC for review, and Ms. Collier had no authority to allow any exemptions from this federal referral.
In accordance with pre-hearing procedures directed by the hearing officer, the conservation groups obtained and submitted a series of nine reports from experts on issues related to the pollution risks associated with drilling the grandfathered exploratory wells, which are essentially vertical gas wells that are not yet hydraulically fractured but which inflict all the impacts of well construction and drilling, including the use of drilling chemicals in fragile geology, the clearing of land in ecologically sensitive areas, and the installation of an industrial operation in rural landscapes. Moreover, the wells, in what may be environmentally risky locations, can become long-term production wells. The expert reports showed clearly that state regulations are not adequate to prevent pollution from the grandfathered wells; that groundwater, streams, and the main stem River would pay the price; and that the wells would violate the DRBC’s anti-degradation requirements.
“When the Commission terminated the hearing process, it forced us to go to court to uphold the protection the Compact provides for the critical water resources for New York City, Philadelphia and all the other communities and water supply systems that depend on the Delaware River for water,” said Barbara Arrindell, director of Damascus Citizens for Sustainability. She continued, “The proper process would be to look first, before allowing any wells, at the cumulative impacts that would be produced by this type of industrial development, It certainly is wrong to allow these gas wells without any review whatsoever. The DRBC does not exist to facilitate the aims of the drillers.”
The conservation groups allege that the DRBC Executive Director’s actions on the grandfathered wells were arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of her discretion and in violation of applicable law in the Compact and the Commission’s administrative Rules of Practice and Procedure. The complaint asserts that by terminating the hearing process before the hearing could be held, the Commission violated the conservation groups’ due process rights.
The conservation groups seek relief in the form of a declaratory judgment that the Commission and the Executive Director violated applicable law, that no further exploratory wells should proceed, and that the already drilled wells were wrongly allowed, should be removed, and the sites cleaned up and restored to natural conditions.
FULL COMPLAINT:
http://www.damascuscitizens.org/DRN+DCSvsCollier+DRBC.pdf <blocked::http://www.damascuscitizens.org/DRN+DCSvsCollier+DRBC.pdf>
or
http://www.delawareriverkeeper.org/resources/Comments/DRN%20v%20Collier%20Final%20Complaint.pdf <blocked::http://www.delawareriverkeeper.org/resources/Comments/DRN v Collier Final Complaint.pdf>
Cornell Energy Conference March 31-April 2 – mary.beilby@gmail.com
February 2, 2011
Cornell Energy Conference March 31-April 2 .
Cornell Environmental Law Society 2011 Energy Conference
Gas Drilling, Sustainability & Energy Policy: Searching for Common Ground
Location: Cornell Law School, Myron Taylor & Anabel Taylor Hall, Ithaca, New York
Here are the video streams for all but the opening keynote and first panel in Anabel Taylor Hall. We hope to have those available in the future. Note that the below links are unedited. For example, “Saturday Panels” includes all events for Saturday in one continuous stream. But you can forward to any portion of the day.
Thursday Evening Community Discussion
Friday Afternoon G90 Panel
Saturday Panels
—
Description: The conference will explore the legal, scientific, and business perspectives on Shale Gas Development and hydraulic fracturing (“hydrofracking“). This issue has ignited a fierce battle over energy and the environment in New York State. Eight fast-paced and interactive panels will use natural gas drilling as a lens to explore national energy policy, the global energy market, and the integral role the law must play in creating energy security and ensuring a sustainable future. The conference brings together over 45 distinguished speakers from Cornell University and around the country working in law, science, business, and government from all sides of the energy debate.
Learn more at http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/research/ELS/index.cfm.
