I wanted to note some follow-up discussion to material that I have flagged here recently at the blog. The first was my post On the Denialists from March 2nd. The NY Review of Books has printed a reply to William Nordhaus’s refutation of the claims of the climate denialists, that I discussed at earlier post. […]
Why Not Frack? is the title of an article in a recent issue of the “NY Review of Books.” One of the best environmental journalists we’ve got, Bill McKibben, is the author. McKibben, of course, is more than just a journalist. He’s a ground-breaking thinker and, in recent years, a very serious and effective activist. […]
With the arrival of December, it’s time to check the rear-view mirror to see where we have been in order to have some clue as to where we are going. In the energy realm, 2011 was the Year of the Three Fs: Fukushima, Fracking and Finance. Japan is used to earthquakes, and the odd tsunami […]
(Thanks to ProPublica for this graphic.) Thankfully, we are, slowly but certainly, entering a new ballgame on hydraulic fracturing. Yes, we need the gas trapped in shale – in the medium term. Long term: renewables. But, for now, as we transition to renewables, we’ve got to reduce the carbon footprint of the electric power, transportation […]
In the post below, I wrote about the recent and instantly controversial study from Cornell that calls into question the greenhouse gas advantage that natural gas was assumed to have over coal and oil. This BBC article, for instance, points out what may seem like the obvious: As one very involved British geologist says “By […]
You may be entirely aware by now that the controversy over shale gas resources and their extraction by hydraulic fracturing heated up last week with the publication of an important paper in Climatic Change, a well-respected scientific journal. (Here is a great little video on what exactly the heck hydraulic fracturing is – aka hydrofracking […]
Someone broke the embargo (shame on whomever it was) on a Congressional report detailing the substances used in hydraulic fracking to produce natural gas. So, we get the news a bit early. The press release on the report starts: “Today Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Henry A. Waxman, Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Edward […]
(Here’s a great graphic from DOE’s Energy Information Administration that shows how we deploy energy in the US. Gas is a big factor.) I caught this comprehensive but succinct item at the NYT recently: Time to Tap the Bounty of U.S. Natural Gas. It lays out the fact of the astonishing ballooning of new, proven […]
With abject apologies to the Bard, this is just a note on the potentially enormous question of how much do we want to get at the vast amounts of shale gas available, worldwide, and what price is there to be paid. I’ve written about the implications for greenhouse gas reductions in exploiting the enormous reserves […]
Popular from Press
