Health links hyped to drive fear of fracking despite studies that fail to back up claims

DENVER — Environmentalists are still waiting for proof that hydraulic fracturing makes people sick, but that’s not stopping them from whipping up anxiety over public health.

Two high-profile research papers seeking connections between hydraulic fracturing and health issues in Garfield County, Colo., are being trumpeted as evidence that fracking is harmful, even though the studies don’t show that.

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/feb/25/health-links-hyped-to-drive-fear-of-fracking-despi/#.Uw31-P9Uelc.facebook#ixzz2ud3SSaR3

Supreme Court to look at EPA's carbon rules

WASHINGTON Industry groups and Republican-led states are heading an attack at the Supreme Court against the Obama administration's sole means of trying to limit power-plant and factory emissions of gases blamed for global warming.

As President Barack Obama pledges to act on environmental and other matters when Congress doesn't, or won't, opponents of regulating carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases cast the rule as a power grab of historic proportions.

The court is hearing arguments Monday about a small but important piece of the Environmental Protection Agency's plans to cut the emissions - a requirement that companies expanding industrial facilities or building new ones that would increase overall pollution must also evaluate ways to reduce the carbon they release.
Environmental groups and even some of their opponents say that whatever the court decides, EPA still will be able to move forward with broader plans to set emission standards for greenhouse gases for new and existing power plants.

 READ MORE:  http://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-to-look-at-epas-carbon-rules/

Fisker claims total nearly $1 billion

There have been $985.4 million in claims made against Fisker Automotive, according to a filing with the bankruptcy court on Friday.

The list, filed by the claims agent appointed by the court to the case, lists 618 claims by parties who say the plug-in hybrid manufacturer owes them money, Fisker declared bankruptcy in November.

The company had purchased the former General Motors plant near Newport, and had been planning to manufacture cars there. Wanxiang America, Inc. was approved by the court on Tuesday to purchase Fisker's assets, including the factory, for $149.2 million.

READ MORE:  http://www.delawareonline.com/story/delawareinc/2014/02/21/fisker-claims/5708451/

Fasten Seat Belts: Climate Change Could Mean More Turbulence

Sudden turbulence injured crew and passengers on two flights an ocean apart this week, and the back-to-back bumpy rides are more than a coincidence — winter weather and changing climate patterns may have played a role. Technology to precisely anticipate the "clear air turbulence" likely to blame for both flights just doesn't exist, experts say.

The first incident occurred on Monday, when United Airlines flight about to land at Billings, Montana, was rattled by sudden turbulence, which left two passengers and three flight attendants injured. The jolt also tossed a baby from its mother’s arms and into a nearby seat, where it landed unharmed. The second occurred aboard a Cathay Pacific flight out of San Francisco hit a patch of rough air above Japan, and a high-altitude “roller-coaster” ride left eight crew and passengers in hospital.

READ MORE:  http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/fasten-seat-belts-climate-change-could-mean-more-turbulence-n33956

E. Donald Elliott: Obama's Shale Gas Trojan Horse

An offer to help local governments develop the booming energy source may cost the industry plenty

 

President Obama has floated a curious but potentially far-reaching proposal that has not attracted the attention it deserves.

On Jan. 28, the White House website posted a fact sheet accompanying the State of the Union address, "Opportunity for All: Key Executive Actions the President Will Take in 2014." Mr. Obama called for Congress to join with him and with state and local governments to create "Sustainable Shale Gas Growth Zones." The goal is to "make sure shale gas is developed in a safe,...

READ MORE:  http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303650204579375430883375684?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303650204579375430883375684.html

How 185 Million Barrels of Oil Can Simply Vanish

Source: L.C. Nøttaasen on Flickr.

Pioneer Natural Resources  looks to be sitting on an unbelievable amount of oil and gas. The company now controls about 845 million barrels of oil equivalent, or BOE, proved reserves and thinks that number is only the beginning. However, on paper, its reserves are actually slowly shrinking.

Recently, the company reported its latest reserve numbers, which showed a curious negative revision to its proved reserves. The company actually axed nearly 185 million barrels of oil from its books along with another 115 billion BOE of natural gas and natural gas liquids. With oil currently selling for about $100 per barrel, that's a lot of potential future revenue that just got wiped out. It also makes one wonder how over a hundred million barrels of oil can simply vanish?

READ MORE:  http://www.dailyfinance.com/2014/02/17/how-185-million-barrels-of-oil-can-simply-vanish/

An Unintended Effect of Energy-Efficient Buildings: Toxic Mold

Energy-efficient buildings can be wonderful at keeping out drafts and keeping down heating bills. But the same air-tightness, unfortunately, is also perfect for trapping humid air where toxic mold can go to party. 

 

The Alberta Court of Appeal in Canada has been a mold-filled ghost building since 2001, after renovations to the handsome, 87-year-old sandstone building went awry. When the renovated and newly energy-efficient building reopened, according to ClimateWire, judges and attorneys complained of fatigue, irritated lungs, and watery eyes.

Air quality samples pointed the finger at mold growing inside the walls. The cracks and leaks of the pre-renovation building had been a crude form of air-quality control—albeit not very energy efficient. The new airtight building, however, trapped moisture to breed toxic mold. 

READ MORE:  http://gizmodo.com/an-unintended-effect-of-energy-efficient-buildings-tox-1522961068

The petrostate of America

RISE early, work hard, strike oil.” The late oil baron J. Paul Getty’s formula for success is working rather well for America, which may already have surpassed Russia as the world’s largest producer of oil and gas (see article). By 2020 it should have overtaken Saudi Arabia as the largest pumper of oil, the more valuable fuel. By then the “fracking” revolution—a clever way of extracting oil and gas from shale deposits—should have added 2-4% to American GDP and created twice as many jobs than carmaking provides today.

All this is a credit to American ingenuity. Commodities have been a mixed blessing for other countries (see our leader on Argentina). But this oil boom is earned: it owes less to geological luck than enterprise, ready finance and dazzling technology. America’s energy firms have invested in new ways of pumping out hydrocarbons that everyone knew were there but could not extract economically. The new oilfields in Texas and North Dakota resemble high-tech factories. “Directional” drills guided by satellite technology bore miles down, turn, bore miles to the side and hit a target no bigger than a truck wheel. Thousands of gallons of water are then injected to open hairline cracks in the rock, and the oil and gas are sucked out.

READ MORE:  http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21596521-energy-boom-good-america-and-world-it-would-be-nice-if-barack-obama-helped

Report: 95 percent of global warming models are wrong

Environmentalists and Democrats often cite a “97 percent” consensus among climate scientists about global warming. But they never cite estimates that 95 percent of climate models predicting global temperature rises have been wrong.

Former NASA scientist Dr. Roy Spencer says that climate models used by government agencies to create policies “have failed miserably.” Spencer analyzed 90 climate models against surface temperature and satellite temperature data, and found that more than 95 percent of the models “have over-forecast the warming trend since 1979, whether we use their own surface temperature dataset (HadCRUT4), or our satellite dataset of lower tropospheric temperatures (UAH).”

“I am growing weary of the variety of emotional, misleading, and policy-useless statements like ‘most warming since the 1950s is human caused’ or ‘97% of climate scientists agree humans are contributing to warming’, neither of which leads to the conclusion we need to substantially increase energy prices and freeze and starve more poor people to death for the greater good. Yet, that is the direction we are heading,”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/02/11/report-95-percent-of-global-warming-models-are-wrong/#ixzz2tJ1nP0Hw

Snow, ice leaves 400,000 still without power. Can the grid handle winter?

Hundreds of thousands remained in the dark Thursday after a winter storm brought a mix of snow, ice, and freezing rain to the Northeast United States. The recent spate of cold weather and winter storms has weighed heavily on the nation's energy infrastructure.

Officials were working to restore power to more than 400,000 customers in southeastern Pennsylvania early Thursday after one of the region's most damaging winter storms. A mix of snow, ice, and freezing rain downed power lines and could continue to interrupt service into the weekend.

It has been a rough winter for the nation's power infrastructure. Unrelenting cold and a swath of winter storms have taken their toll on wind turbines, propane tanks, natural gas pipelines, electricity transmission lines and just about everything else up and down the power supply chain.

READ MORE:  http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2014/0206/Snow-ice-leaves-400-000-still-without-power.-Can-the-grid-handle-winter-video

Australia’s carbon tax costs $7 billion, only yields 0.3 percent CO2 reduction

U.S. policymakers often tout a carbon tax, but a quick look at the land down under shows that it can be burdensome and do little to fight global warming.

Australia’s carbon tax cost $7 billion (in Aussie dollars) over 15 months, but only reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 0.3 percent. The cost of the country’s carbon tax comes out to about $300 per person.

The Australian newspaper obtained government figures that show the carbon tax has done little to fight global warming, while burdening the Aussie economy. The country’s conservative government derided the figures.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/02/06/australias-carbon-tax-costs-7-billion-only-yields-0-3-percent-co2-reduction/#ixzz2t1Y2R65U

EPA's Wood-Burning Stove Ban Has Chilling Consequences For Many Rural People

It seems that even wood isn’t green or renewable enough anymore.  The EPA has recently banned the production and sale of 80 percent of America’s current wood-burning stoves, the oldest heating method known to mankind and mainstay of rural homes and many of our nation’s poorest residents. The agency’s stringent one-size-fits-all rules apply equally to heavily air-polluted cities and far cleaner plus typically colder off-grid wilderness areas such as large regions of Alaska and the American West.

While EPA’s most recent regulations aren’t altogether new, their impacts will nonetheless be severe.  Whereas restrictions had previously banned wood-burning stoves that didn’t limit fine airborne particulate emissions to 15 micrograms per cubic meter of air, the change will impose a maximum 12 microgram limit. To put this amount in context, EPA estimates that secondhand tobacco smoke in a closed car can expose a person to 3,000-4,000 micrograms of particulates per cubic meter.

Most wood stoves that warm cabin and home residents from coast-to-coast can’t meet that standard. Older stoves that don’t cannot be traded in for updated types, but instead must be rendered inoperable, destroyed, or recycled as scrap metal.

READ MORE:  http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2014/01/29/epas-wood-burning-stove-ban-has-chilling-consequences-for-many-rural-people/

Cold boosts AEP’s use of coal units set to retire

Washington, 27 January (Argus) — American Electric Power (AEP) during the recent cold weather was running about 89pc of the coal generation it has scheduled to retire in 2015, leading the company today to question the reliability impacts of federal environmental rules.

Across its system, Columbus, Ohio-based AEP has 5,573MW of coal generation due for retirement in 2015 because of the Environmental Protection Agency's mercury and air toxics standard. About 71pc of the company's total generating capacity of 37,600MW is coal-fired or about 26,700MW. Three years ago coal formed 82pc of its generation mix.

“What it should make everyone think about is, what are we going to when that generation is not available?” AEP told Argus today. “We need to be thinking about reliability and resilience in extreme times, not just the status quo.”

During the cold weather, disruptions in natural gas supplies led to a sharp ramp-up of coal generation in the PJM Interconnection's 13-state mid-Atlantic and northeastern territory. PJM confirmed that all of its coal capacity was called upon during the cold weather, which is expected to continue.

READ MORE:  http://www.argusmedia.com/News/Article?id=886197

Energy is the Key to Solving Income Inequality

When exploring solutions to income inequality policy makers pay close attention to the costs. The cost of healthcare. The cost of food. The cost of child care. The cost of housing.

What about the cost of energy?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2012 the average U.S. family spent over $4,600 or about 9 percent of their budget to heat and power their homes and fuel their vehicles. Families in the bottom fifth of income earners spent nearly 33 percent more of their budget on energy costs than average $2,500 a year or 12% of their annual budget.

READ MORE:  http://fuelfix.com/blog/2014/01/29/energy-is-the-key-to-solving-income-inequality/

Solar Provides 0.2% of Electric Supply--Up From 0.02% Before Obama

(CNSNews.com) - Solar power, which President Barack Obama promoted in his State of the Union Address, accounted for 0.2 percent of the U.S. electricity supply in the first nine months of 2013, according to data published by the U.S. government's Energy Information Administration.

That is up from the 0.02 percent of the total electricity supply that solar power sources provided in 2008, the last calendar year before Obama took office.

“Now, one of the biggest factors in bringing more jobs back is our commitment to American energy,” Obama said in the State of the Union. “The all-of-the-above energy strategy I announced a few years ago is working, and today, America is closer to energy independence than we've been in decades.”

READ MORE:   http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/solar-provides-02-electric-supply-002-obama#sthash.AbwcS2Sl.dpuf

Forget global warming, worry about the MAGNETOSPHERE: Earth's magnetic field is collapsing and it could affect the climate and wipe out power grids

• Earth's magnetic field has weakened by 15 per cent over the last 200 years
• Could be a sign that the planet's north and south poles are about to flip
• If this happens, solar winds could punch holes into the Earth's ozone layer
• This could damage power grids, affect weather and increase cancer rates
• Evidence of flip happening in the past has been uncovered in pottery
• As the magnetic shield weakens, the spectacle of an aurora would be visible every night all over the Earth

Deep within the Earth, a fierce molten core is generating a magnetic field capable of defending our planet against devastating solar winds. 

The protective field extends thousands of miles into space and its magnetism affects everything from global communication to animal migration and weather patterns. 

But this magnetic field, so important to life on Earth, has weakened by 15 per cent over the last 200 years. And this, scientists claim, could be a sign that the Earth’s poles are about to flip.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2545465/Forget-global-warming-worry-MAGNETOSPHERE-Earths-magnetic-field-collapsing-affect-climate-wipe-power-grids.html#ixzz2sMkpwUle
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Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2545465/Forget-global-warming-worry-MAGNETOSPHERE-Earths-magnetic-field-collapsing-affect-climate-wipe-power-grids.html#ixzz2sMkmchT5
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'Big chill' expected to stay until 2040

Major cooling cycle would match 'ice age'

As the largest snowfall of the winter hits the eastern U.S., politicians and interest groups will claim the latest weather is proof of their position in the climate debate, but a prominent climatologist says this is nothing more than the latest development in a cooling cycle that started over a decade ago and could continue into 2040.

Climate-change activists regularly assert that volatile weather events are on the rise due to human activity that impacts our climate, while skeptics point to the snow and cold snaps as further proof the earth is not running a fever.

Dr. Tim Ball taught climatology for many years at the University of Winnipeg and is the author of the newly released book, “The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science.” He told WND it’s foolhardy to draw conclusions on overall climate trends based on one weather system or even one winter, but he believes the harsher winter is part of a cooling cycle.

READ MORE:  http://www.wnd.com/2014/01/big-chill-expected-to-stay-until-2040/