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Archive for August, 2013
United Kingdom: Fracking may not trigger £100,000 benefits for Balcombe
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 11th, 2013
Telegraph: Fracking by Cuadrilla in Balcombe may not automatically trigger the £100,000 payment that has been promised to residents near most new fracking sites, the Telegraph has learned.
Energy companies including Cuadrilla have signed up to a benefits charter that could be worth £10m over 25 years to communities near fracking sites for shale gas or oil. They have pledged £100,000 up-front and then a 1pc share of the revenues if fracking succeeds.
The West Sussex village of Balcombe has become the focal...
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Comments Off on United Kingdom: Fracking may not trigger £100,000 benefits for BalcombeUnited Kingdom: Q&A: How communities could reap benefits from shale gas fracking
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 11th, 2013
Telegraph: What is fracking?
The term is shorthand for "hydraulic fracturing', a method of extracting oil and gas from the ground.
The process involves drilling a well then pumping water, sand and chemicals down it at high pressure. This fractures the rock, helping to extract the oil and gas within it. Fracking for oil and gas trapped in "shale' rocks is a new process in Britain.
But another, less intensive form of fracking -- involving fewer chemicals -- has been going on for decades to help extract...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United Kingdom: Q&A: How communities could reap benefits from shale gas frackingEuropean eels get a second chance at survival in UK rivers
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 11th, 2013
Guardian: Bristle-bottomed bridges are being fitted to weirs on Cumbrian rivers to enable European eels (Anguilla anguilla) to overcome the final barriers in their mammoth migrations that begin in the Sargasso Sea near Bermuda. Weirs, dams and flood defences on UK rivers are thought to be one of the major reasons for a 95% decline in the number of juvenile eels reaching the UK since the 1980s.
The two specially designed "passes" on weirs on the River Leven will help restore the eels to Windermere, the largest...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on European eels get a second chance at survival in UK riversAla. Oil Sands Hold Lucrative Promise, Environmental Peril
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 11th, 2013
Associated Press: A financial boon could be awaiting Alabama just below the earth's surface in parts of north and west Alabama.
That's what some consider to be the potential of oil sands -- or tar sands as they also are called -- that geologists said are called in some areas, including Colbert, Franklin and Lawrence counties.
According to some estimates, the oil sands hold 7.5 billion barrels of crude oil and a revenue source for the state that has remained untapped to this point.
Environmental groups call...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Ala. Oil Sands Hold Lucrative Promise, Environmental PerilUnited Kingdom: Protesters unite over Cuadrilla fracking plans in South Downs National Park
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 11th, 2013
Independent: Protesters against fracking in one of Britain's national parks were joined yesterday by residents from a village that could become the second flashpoint over the controversial energy strategy. The demonstration against fracking in Balcombe, West Sussex, was joined by residents from Fernhurst, another village in the South Downs National Park. Residents in Balcombe are concerned about plans by the energy firm Cuadrilla, whose chairman is the the former BP chief executive Lord Browne, to explore shale...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United Kingdom: Protesters unite over Cuadrilla fracking plans in South Downs National ParkCalifornia wildfire season: 43 percent more fires, so far
Posted by Associated Press: Amy Taxin and Raquel Maria Dillon on August 10th, 2013
Associated Press: California truly is the Golden State this summer -- golden brown -- and that has fire officials worried heading into the peak of the wildfire season.
It's still weeks before the fire-fanning Santa Ana winds usually arrive and already it's been a brutal fire season, with nearly twice as many acres (hectares) burned statewide from a year ago, including 19,000 acres (7,690 hectares) scorched this week in a blaze still raging in the mountains 90 miles (145 kilometers) east of Los Angeles.
So far...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on California wildfire season: 43 percent more fires, so farSatellite to track climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 10th, 2013
USA Today: The world's first satellite dedicated solely to tracking atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide is being developed at a Gilbert, Ariz., manufacturing facility, as NASA scientists move to make space the next frontier in the study of global climate change. The satellite, estimated to cost about $468 million, promises to paint a more detailed picture of the environmental impact of global warming, including how forests and oceans are reacting to higher levels of CO2, scientists say. "It's obvious that...
California Wildfire Season Likely To Get Worse When Santa Ana Winds Arrive
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 10th, 2013
Huffington Post: California truly is the Golden State this summer -- golden brown -- and that has fire officials worried heading into the peak of the wildfire season.
It's still weeks before the fire-fanning Santa Ana winds usually arrive and already it's been a brutal fire season, with nearly twice as many acres burned statewide from a year ago, including 19,000 scorched this week in a blaze still raging in the mountains 90 miles east of Los Angeles. That fire, burning nearly 30 square miles, was almost half...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on California Wildfire Season Likely To Get Worse When Santa Ana Winds ArriveA sobering new climate report for California
Posted by KQED Science: Craig Miller on August 9th, 2013
KQED Science: “An immediate and growing threat.” That’s how California’s lead environmental agency — and the Governor’s office — describe climate change in the latest in a series of periodic reports on the subject. The report cites “already discernible impacts of climate change” and attempts to pinpoint the main drivers — no pun intended. In California, nearly 40 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from the transportation sector — trains, planes and automobiles, and the last in particular. According to...
Buried in Muck, Clues to Future NYC Drought
Posted by Climate Desk: Tim McDonnell on August 9th, 2013
Climate Desk: Piermont Marsh seems an unlikely place to learn about drought. This warren of narrow streams and muddy, reed-choked embankments clinging to the edge of the Hudson River twenty miles north of Times Square is the domain of crabs, worms, herons, and other water-loving creatures. But as Columbia University climatologist Dorothy Peteet paddles a narrow aluminum canoe deep into the marsh, she insists that buried deep in this black, sulphur-stinking muck are clues that could reveal when, and how badly,...