Please enjoy today’s energy debate watch, a collection of news stories and perspectives about energy, environment and climate related issues. These articles are provided to keep Terra Rossa readers informed about the current public energy debate but are not intended to express the views of the blog. Let us know your thoughts on these articles or tell us about other current items of interest in the comment thread below.
On the precipice of Virginia’s nuclear future
Washington Post 06.03.07
There’s an empty pit about a hundred miles southwest of Washington where two nuclear power plants were planned but never built. The pit became a symbol of the success of the antinuclear movement, the activists who a quarter-century ago forced utilities to scrap plans for dozens of reactors across the country.
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Mr. Bush warms up
Washington Post 06.02.07
SHOULD WE be grateful that President Bush has acknowledged the impact of greenhouse gases on the Earth’s climate and environment? After six years of questioning the science behind the warnings about global warming and vigorously resisting efforts to do anything about the problem, he claimed Thursday that the United States is ready to take the lead on global climate policy. Mr. Bush wants to convene a series of meetings with the Greenhouse Gas 15, the largest emitters in the world, to “set a long-term global goal for reducing greenhouse gases” that would be effective after 2012. That’s when the Kyoto Protocol, which mandates global emissions reductions and which the United States never ratified, expires.
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Idiot wind
New York Times 06.03.07
Henry S. F. Cooper Jr., the author of several books about space exploration, is the president of Otsego 2000, a local environmental group.MUCH of upstate New York, from north of Albany to Buffalo, from the Catskills to the Adirondacks, is in danger of being transformed beyond recognition by industrial wind parks. Some 50 of these wind parks are being planned and even built.
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God goes green
USA Today 06.03.07
Oliver “Buzz” Thomas is a minister, lawyer and author of 10 Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You (But Can’t Because He Needs the Job).I used to marvel at how foolish an organism is cancer. It can’t seem to pace itself. Left to its own devices, it will greedily consume its host until the host dies, thereby causing the cancer’s own premature death.
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China’s first energy plan lacks specific cuts
USA Today 06.04.07
BEIJING — China, the world’s second-largest producer of greenhouse gases, unveiled its first national climate change program Monday, but a government official said other industrialized nations also bore the responsibility to combat global warming.
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Europe warms to nuclear energy
USA Today 06.03.07
LONDON — Europe is poised to begin a new nuclear age, reversing two decades of policies aimed at abandoning nuclear power as an energy source following the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.
This entry was posted on Monday, June 4th, 2007 at 4:57 pm and is filed under Uncategorized . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
June 5th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Has anyone noticed the vast oil reserves in the U.S. oil shale, located in the Rocky Mountains? I’ve heard estimates of between 2 trillion and 10 trillion barrels of oil in the shale, more oil than the entire Middle East combined, and enough to supply 20 million barrels/day for almost 274 years at the low end. Why hasn’t that been counted as oil reserves? Only because they weren’t economically recoverable reserves as long as oil stayed below $30/barrel. You want to talk about what will end our dependence on foreign oil, our oil shale will not only do that, but turn the U.S. into an EXPORTER. Shell even already has a plant on the shale in which they put heaters in the ground, heat the shale to 700 degrees, and the earth acts as the refinery. Not only do they pull out some of the lightest, sweetest crude in the world, the kind refiners love to use for gasoline, but they also get refined products, too - heating oil, naptha (one molecule away from gasoline), and jet fuel - all for a cost of $10/barrel. Buh bye, Ahab the Arab, once that operation gets scaled up to millions of barrels a day.
June 6th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Great news, Robert. Now we need the other oil companies to start similar projects. Oil shales cover vast stretches in the west of both the US and Canada.
June 7th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
Shell even already has a plant on the shale in which they put heaters in the ground, heat the shale to 700 degrees, and the earth acts as the refinery
.
There is a concept called EROEI - Energy Returned on Energy Invested.
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How much energy does it take to heat the earth to 700 degrees for 4 years (and freeze the perimeter to keep it from escaping) ?
.
Best Guess (Shell secret so far) is 1 BTU in for 2 out.
NOT VERY GOOD
NOT WORTH DOING !
That $30/barrel was with natural gas under $2 per thousand cubic feet. NG is above $8 today and heading much higher in a couple of years.
OTOH, transferring freight from trucks to electrified railroads trades 20 BTUs of diesel for 1 BTU of electricity. So does Urban Rail (8-10 to 1 directly, 20 to one with changes in living patterns)
OTOH, I just checked out France’s new electric tram building program. Just FOUR French cities over 100,000 do not have a new tram line or plans for one in process. Mulhouse (pop 110,000) got their first tram line in 2006 and will have 3 by 2012. Just one of many. They build them in 3 to 4 years, the US averages 7 years.
The French have a non-oil transportation alternative if oil becomes a problem, the USA does not.
France the Home of Can Do, Get it Done, Plan for the Future
How Ironic,
Alan
June 11th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Planning has never been America’s strong suit; a problem inherited with vast open spaces, and the politics of profit and greed.