Here are two Congressmen who oppose building this pipeline.
Crony capitalism, indeed.
It seems that fracking, that heinous technology used for getting hard-to-reach natural gas and oil out of the very deep underground, far from polluting our water, saves it, especially where natural gas-based electricity generating plants are concerned. According to a University of Texas study published in Environmental Research Letters,
Even though exploration for natural gas through hydraulic fracturing requires significant water consumption in Texas, the new consumption is easily offset by the overall water efficiencies of shifting electricity generation from coal to natural gas. The researchers estimate that water saved by shifting a power plant from coal to natural gas is 25 to 50 times as great as the amount of water used in hydraulic fracturing to extract the natural gas.
Natural gas-fired power plants use about two-thirds less water than coal-fired plants to cool the generators. The switch to natural gas-based electricity generation, made commercially feasible by fracking, thus reduces water use by the plants significantly. Aside from reducing water consumption in and of itself, and reducing costs for producers and consumers of electricity, this yields another, longer-term outcome. Senior Research Scientist at UT’s Bureau of Economic Geology, said,
The bottom line is that hydraulic fracturing, by boosting natural gas production and moving the state from water-intensive coal technologies, makes our electric power system more drought resilient.
Bad fracking. Bad.
What do you do when you host an auction, and no one bids?
A short time ago, the BLM tried to auction 3,700 acres in three parcels of prime solar farm territory and got no bidders. None.
Maryanne Kurtinaitis, BLM’s Colorado Division Renewable Energy Program Manager, said
We are going to have to regroup and figure out what didn’t work[.]
Well, NSS.
Here’s a clue, offered by Ken Johnson, Vice President of Communications for the Solar Energy Industries Association:
To date, BLM has yet to finalize any regional mitigation plans. Frankly, it’s not smart business to commit to something until you’ve read the fine print.
The whole thing about government involvement is too uncertain.
Hmm….
The Obama administration plans to block the construction of new coal-fired power plants unless they are built with novel and expensive technology to capture greenhouse-gas emissions[.]
There’s a surprise. The EPA’s latest rule version on this subject looks to control CO2 emissions as an urgency exists in the minds of climate deniers (i.e., those who deny that the existing climate change is an ongoing natural phenomenon) to reduce humanity’s output of this “greenhouse” gas.
[T]he revised rule said it would propose an emissions limit of 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour for coal plants and 1,000 pounds per megawatt hour for large gas-fired plants.
…such stringent limits would ban new coal plants….
And
The rule is also a crucial stepping-stone for the Obama administration’s next big environmental project, emissions standards for the fleet of existing power plants. Mr Obama has told the EPA to produce those standards by June 2014.
Never mind that CO2 is a trailing indicator, confirming the health of the planet.
The climate deniers’ minds—and those of their pet policy makers in the EPA—are made up, and they resent being confused by facts.
Maybe we should, at least in one area.
The Strasbourg-based European Parliament passed an amendment to limit the amount of transport fuel, such as gasoline and diesel, that can be obtained from food and energy crops to 6% of total energy consumed for transport by 2020, from 10% previously. … The new limit is meant to ease concerns about the amount of agricultural land that is turned over to growing crops for biofuel use….
There shouldn’t be any requirement, but this is certainly a step in the right direction.
Corinne Lepage, the lawmaker driving the legislation [says] “Taking indirect land-use change into account is important for the integrity of the EU climate-change policy.”
Because, among other concerns, “food prices could rise if crops are diverted from the dinner plate to the fuel tank.” Our…environmentalists…need to understand this. It diverts, here in the US, actual food crops—like corn—from the mouths of our poor to the gas tanks of “environmentalists'” cars. And it jacks up the costs of food crops that substitute for corn. And it jacks up the price of food that eats corn—like cows, pigs, and chickens.
Be like Europe. At least in this.