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Archive for January, 2015
Obama’s Proposed Methane Emissions Cuts Ignore Existing Sources
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on January 15th, 2015
Environment News Service: The Obama Administration today announced a new goal to cut methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by 40 to 45 percent from 2012 levels by 2025, and a set of actions to put the United States on a path to achieve this goal.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will initiate a rulemaking effort to set standards for emissions of methane and volatile organic compounds from new and modified oil and gas production sources, and natural gas processing and transmission sources, but not for existing...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Obama’s Proposed Methane Emissions Cuts Ignore Existing SourcesCompanies Will Be Legally Required to Reveal Chemicals Used for Fracking in U.K
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 15th, 2015
Guardian: Fracking companies will be legally bound to reveal the chemicals used to blast gas out of every well they drill and to better monitor for groundwater pollution, under concessions made by the government in parliament. But the Labour party, which proposed the changes, said many flaws remained and ministers remain “zealously opposed” to the necessary regulation.
The Labour party proposed over a dozen amendments to the infrastructure bill currently passing through parliament, including baseline measurements...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Companies Will Be Legally Required to Reveal Chemicals Used for Fracking in U.KNew Contaminants Emerge From Oil & Gas Wells
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 15th, 2015
Daily Climate: Two hazardous chemicals never before known as oil and gas industry pollutants -- ammonium and iodide -- are being released into Pennsylvania and West Virginia waterways from the booming energy operations of the Marcellus shale, a new study shows.
Treatment plants were never designed to handle these contaminants.
The toxic substances, which can have a devastating impact on fish, ecosystems, and potentially, human health, are extracted from geological formations along with natural gas and oil...
California Fracking Hasn’t Unearthed Oil Boom
Posted by San Francisco Chronicle: David R. Baker on January 15th, 2015
San Francisco Chronicle: About 20 percent of California's oil and natural-gas production uses hydraulic fracturing - with almost all of it happening in one corner of the San Joaquin Valley - according to the most authoritative survey yet released of fracking in the Golden State.
Oil companies frack 125 to 175 of the roughly 300 wells drilled in California each month, according to the survey released Wednesday by the California Council on Science and Technology. Nearly 93 percent of all fracked wells lie in western Kern...
U.S. Senate Proposal May Leave Canada with a Pyrrhic Victory on Keystone XL
Posted by Globe and Mail: Paul Koring on January 15th, 2015
Globe and Mail: Canada’s Natural Resources Minster Greg Rickford was on Capitol Hill again Tuesday pitching Keystone XL, as Senate supporters of the controversial pipeline tried to round up sufficient votes to override U.S. President Barack Obama’s threatened veto of any Congressional attempt to force approval of the project to ship Alberta oil sands crude to the Texas Gulf coast. After meeting Senator Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat and Keystone XL backer, Mr. Rickford said: “I thanked Senator Manchin for...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on U.S. Senate Proposal May Leave Canada with a Pyrrhic Victory on Keystone XLTurns out the U.S. oil boom was just a fairy tale
Posted by Grist: None Given on January 14th, 2015
Grist: With one quick drop in the price of oil, the shale oil boom is officially bust. In less than a week, 61 oil rigs across the United States closed up shop, according to the most recent rig count from Baker Hughes. The U.S. has 1,750 oil rigs still hunting for new oil wells, but that number is expected to fall by another 400 rigs by the time spring rolls around.
The whole episode is a wake-up call about just how much of a fairy tale North America`s oil boom really was. It was a fairy tale with real...
Retail Investors Snap Up World Bank Green Growth Bonds
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on January 14th, 2015
Environment News Service: The first equity index-linked World Bank Green Bond available to retail investors just closed, and it was a big hit, raising more than US$91 million to support environmental solutions, the bank has announced.
The World Bank Green Growth Bond was the first Green Bond linked to an equity index designed for retail investors in Belgium and Luxembourg. It turned out to be the largest public offer subscription for a non-Euro equity index-linked bond in those two countries last year.
A total of 10...
Barack Obama plans to cut US methane emissions by nearly half
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 14th, 2015
Economic Times: The Obama administration has unveiled plans to regulate methane emissions from the country's oil and natural-gas industry by as much as 45 per cent over the next decade.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to propose federal regulations to cut methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by 40 per cent to 45 percent by 2025 from 2012 levels, White House and agency officials said yesterday.
The move to cut methane emissions from the oil and gas sector, is likley to Climate change...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Barack Obama plans to cut US methane emissions by nearly halfAmazon gold rush destroying huge swaths rainforest
Posted by Mongabay: Morgan Erickson-Davis on January 14th, 2015
Mongabay: The rainforests of South America face many threats. The deforestation occurring on the continent is among the highest in the world and results in losses of habitat, biodiversity and massive amounts of sequestered carbon. While the usual culprits such as farming, ranching and logging are well known, gold mining is fast extending its destructive reach into some of the world’s most untouched landscapes, according to research published this week in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
"Although...
Obama Administration Announces Methane Plans
Posted by Clean Technica: None Given on January 14th, 2015
Clean Technica: The announcement this morning by President Obama of a revised target for US methane emissions is not just another gimmick to shackle the American oil and gas industry. Nor is it new.
Back in 1971, the world’s scientists thought that methane directly affected neither the climate nor the biosphere and was relatively unimportant. However, in the 2001 climate report from the UN, the experts were whistling a different tune--based on multiple lines of evidence discovered during the intervening 30 years....