The Global Warming Edge
|Hannah Hickey||February 18th 2014|
University of Washington
Spraying reflective particles into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight and then stopping it could exacerbate the problem of climate change, according to new research by atmospheric scientists at the University of Washington.
Carrying out geoengineering for several decades and then stopping would cause warming at a rate that will greatly exceed that expected due to global warming, according to a study published Feb. 18 in Environmental Research Letters.
“The absolute temperature ends up being roughly the same as what it would have been, but the rate of change is so drastic, that ecosystems and organisms would have very little time to adapt to the changes,” said lead author Kelly McCusker, who did the work for her UW doctoral thesis.
The study looks at solar radiation management, a proposed method of geoengineering by spraying tiny sulfur-based particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect sunlight. This is similar to what happens after a major volcanic eruption, and many experts believe the technique is economically and technically feasible. But continuous implementation over years depends on technical functioning, continuous funding, bureaucratic agreement and lack of negative side effects. Read more ..
|Justin Sink and Laura Barron-Lopez||February 17th 2014|
When President Obama heads down to sunny Toluca, Mexico next week, he might feel an unusual chill in the air.
The president is slated to hold economic and trade discussions with Mexican President Pena Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper — the latter of whom is expected to give President Obama an earful over approval of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.
The Canadian government has vocally advocated for the $5.4 billion construction project, with Harper recently calling the extension "inevitable.” That effort has only intensified since the release less than a month ago of the long-awaited State Department's final environmental analysis, which said the pipeline wouldn't significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions. Read more ..
The Race for Nuclear
|R. Jeffrey Smith and Douglas Birch||February 16th 2014|
Center for Public Integrity
A confidential study by the Energy Department has concluded that completing a controversial nuclear fuel factory in South Carolina may cost billions of dollars more than the department has previously promised, according to government officials and industry sources briefed on its results.
The study, conducted for Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, also found that finishing and then operating the factory to help get rid of Cold War-era plutonium as part of a nonproliferation arrangement with Russia would likely cost a total of $25 billion to $30 billion on top of the $4 billion spent on its construction so far, the sources said.
That amount is so high, the officials said, that the Obama administration is leaning towards embracing what one described as “some other option” for dealing with the 34 tons of weapons plutonium that the so-called Mixed Oxide (MOX) nuclear fuel plant at Savannah River was supposed to help eliminate. Read more ..
|Jeff Seldin||February 14th 2014|
Iraq is planning to triple its oil-producing capacity by 2020, hoping to leverage its natural resources in a power arrangement with Iran that could challenge Saudi Arabia’s domination of the world oil market.
So far, most of the talk has come from Iraqi officials who have been expressing confidence the country can again become a major regional player despite an upsurge in violence that killed 1,000 people last month, and nearly 9,000 last year.
In London last week, Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Hussain al-Shahristani announced that Iraq plans to triple its oil output to nine million barrels per day by the end of the decade. And he hinted that is just part of Iraq’s plans. "Iran has been in touch with us," al-Shahristani told the London Telegraph. "They want to share our contracts model and experience." Read more ..
|Alexandra Jaffe and Laura Barron-Lopez||February 13th 2014|
Sen. Mary Landrieu’s (D-La.) new powers as chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee could end up being a double-edged sword for her already-difficult reelection chances.
The Bayou Democrat took over the plum post on Wednesday evening, which could allow her to push legislation popular back home that boosts the oil industry, all while distancing herself from an unpopular President Obama.
But it also raises the pressure on her to deliver for home-state constituents. If she falters, her pitch risks ringing hollow as voters questions her ability to deliver. Republicans like Louisiana GOP Chairman Roger Villere are already pledging to make her chairmanship a liability.
“For years she has donated to anti-energy Senators and helped keep Harry Reid and his anti-energy team in control of the Senate,” Villere said in a release to be issued Thursday. “She has consistently put special interests above what’s best for Louisiana’s energy economy,” added Villere, who called Landrieu’s chairmanship “the epitome of hypocrisy.” Read more ..
The Coal Problem
|Laura Barron-Lopez||February 12th 2014|
West Virginia is facing another chemical spill, but this time it's coal slurry.
On Tuesday, coal slurry from a line in the Patriot Coal facilities spilled into Fields Creek -- a tributary of the Kanawha River near Charleston.
The slurry blackened six miles of the creek and inspectors are testing water to determine how much leaked, CNN reports. They believe roughly 100,000 gallons spilled.
Patriot Coal began cleanup and containment immediately, said Janine Orf, a vice president at Patriot Coal.
State Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Tom Aluise said the water in eastern Kanawha County is safe to drink. Still, West Virginia American Water released a "do not use" alert for the area for pregnant women for the separate Jan. 9 spill into Elk River from a Freedom Industries' site. Read more ..
|Laura Barron-Lopez||February 11th 2014|
Sen. Mary Landrieu starts her chairmanship on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday.
Hours after being notified that she would take the helm, the Louisiana Democrat shared the news with a room full of utility regulators Tuesday morning.
"I was just told I will be head of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee at 1 p.m. today," Landrieu said on Tuesday. And the oil-and-gas industry, along with coal advocates, let its excitement be known.
“She has been an outspoken critic of EPA’s misguided carbon regulations, often breaking with party lines in order to voice her concerns about the rules’ devastating economic consequences," the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity said in a statement. Read more ..
The Auto Age
|Bernie DeGroat||February 10th 2014|
Gas mileage of new vehicles sold in the U.S. improved in January 2014, while emissions are now at their best mark ever, say researchers at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.
Average fuel economy (window-sticker values) of cars, light trucks, vans and SUVs purchased last month was 24.9 mpg, up 0.1 mpg from December and up 4.8 mpg since October 2007, the first month of monitoring, according to UMTRI's Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle.
In addition to average fuel economy, Sivak and Schoettle issued a monthly update of their national Eco-Driving Index, which estimates the average monthly emissions generated by an individual U.S. driver. The EDI takes into account both the fuel used per distance driven and the amount of driving—the latter relying on data that are published with a two-month lag. Read more ..
The Grid on Edge
|Mark Snowiss||February 9th 2014|
An unsolved sniper attack last year on an electrical power substation in California that knocked out 17 giant transformers has mobilized industry leaders to beef up physical security at these vital installations. The incident also has some experts worried that parts of the U.S. power grid are similarly vulnerable.
On April 16, 2013, attackers cut fiber optic cables in an underground vault and then fired more than 100 rounds from at least two high-powered rifles on Pacific Gas and Electric's Metcalf power transmission station near San Jose, California.
The attack did not cause major power disruptions because officials were able to reroute electricity remotely during the 27 days it took to repair the installation and get it back on line, according to PG&E spokesman Brian Swanson. Read more ..
The Race for Batteries
|Paul Buckley||February 6th 2014|
Researchers at Washington State University have developed a chewing gum-like battery material that is claimed could reduce the fire hazard potential of lithium ion batteries. The development is timely following UK's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) recent declaration that the huge growth in people carrying lithium batteries on aircraft is posing a growing fire risk. Led by Katie Zhong, Westinghouse Distinguished Professor in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, the researchers reported on their work in the journal, Advanced Energy Materials.
The biggest potential risk for high performance lithium batteries comes from the electrolyte in the battery, which is made of either a liquid or gel in all commercially available rechargeable lithium batteries. The liquid acid solutions can leak and pose a fire or chemical burn hazard. Read more ..
|Dorian Jones||February 4th 2014|
With oil now flowing from Iraqi Kurdistan to Turkey after the two sides signed a groundbreaking agreement late last year, Baghdad is mounting an international legal challenge to the deal.
In a deepening row over control of Iraq’s energy, Baghdad has announced it is employing an international law firm to block the sale of oil piped from semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan to Turkey. Last year, Ankara signed a wide-ranging energy agreement with the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government, or KRG, and last December, oil from the region started flowing through a newly-constructed pipeline to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.
But Iraq's central government insisted only it had the right to sign agreements on exporting energy. Dr. Emre Iseri, an energy politics expert at Izmir’s Yasar University, said the legal challenge posed a threat to the agreement. "It’s a problem. You are talking about international law, it's about legitimacy. If you act against international law, that means your maneuvering space is limited," he said. Read more ..
The Race for Biofuels
|Andy Fell||February 3rd 2014|
Gasoline-like fuels can be made from cellulosic materials such as farm and forestry waste using a new process invented by chemists at the University of California, Davis. The process could open up new markets for plant-based fuels, beyond existing diesel substitutes.
"What's exciting is that there are lots of processes to make linear hydrocarbons, but until now nobody has been able to make branched hydrocarbons with volatility in the gasoline range," said Mark Mascal, professor of chemistry at UC Davis and lead author.
Traditional diesel fuel is made up of long, straight chains of carbon atoms, while the molecules that make up gasoline are shorter and branched. That means gasoline and diesel evaporate at different temperatures and pressures, reflected in the different design of diesel and gasoline engines.
Biodiesel, refined from plant-based oils, is already commercially available to run modified diesel engines. A plant-based gasoline replacement would open up a much bigger market for renewable fuels. Read more ..
Nature and Energy
|George Putic||February 2nd 2014|
Scientists at the Royal Veterinary College in London have solved a centuries-old puzzle: why do some birds fly in a formation resembling the Latin letter V. Using modern technology, they confirmed that it's all about conserving energy.
Most drivers know that following a large truck saves gas because the truck is pushing a lot of air around it, creating a partial vacuum behind it, so the car encounters less resistance.
According to Steven Portugal, a researcher at London’s Royal Veterinary College, birds knew that long before humans did.
Using a flock of Northern Bald Ibises, Portugal and his team attached small devices to the back of each bird - a GPS navigation device and an accelerometer, to track wing movements. The recordings showed that the birds were able to use the upward airstream created by the wingtip of the bird just in front of it. Read more ..
The Coal Problem
|Kristen Lombardi||January 31st 2014|
Center for Public Integrity
For the first time, the Environmental Protection Agency is agreeing to regulate the disposal of coal ash as part of a settlement in a lawsuit filed against the agency by environmental groups.
In a consent decree Wednesday, the agency sets December 19 as its deadline for “taking final action regarding EPA’s proposed . . . regulations pertaining to coal combustion residuals.” The settlement follows an earlier judicial order, issued last fall, partly ruling in favor of Earthjustice and 10 other groups in a lawsuit challenging the slow pace of EPA’s regulatory action.
The agency is now weighing how to regulate coal ash, waste from the production of electricity. One of the nation’s largest refuse streams at 136 million tons a year, coal ash has fouled water supplies and threatened communities across the country. In a series of stories, the Center for Public Integrity highlighted the consequences of coal ash. Read more ..
The Race for Batteries
|Sam Orez||January 29th 2014|
A Kansas State University engineer has made a breakthrough in rechargeable battery applications.
Gurpreet Singh, assistant professor of mechanical and nuclear engineering, and his student researchers are the first to demonstrate that a composite paper -- made of interleaved molybdenum disulfide and graphene nanosheets -- can be both an active material to efficiently store sodium atoms and a flexible current collector. The newly developed composite paper can be used as a negative electrode in sodium-ion batteries.
"Most negative electrodes for sodium-ion batteries use materials that undergo an 'alloying' reaction with sodium," Singh said. "These materials can swell as much as 400 to 500 percent as the battery is charged and discharged, which may result in mechanical damage and loss of electrical contact with the current collector." Read more ..
The Race for Wind
|Dan Levin||January 28th 2014|
The Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), along with partners from the Electric Power Research Institute and the University of Colorado have completed a comprehensive study to understand how wind power technology can assist the power grid by controlling the active power output being placed onto the system. The rest of the power system’s resources have traditionally been adjusted around wind to support a reliable and efficient system. The research that led to this report challenges that concept.
The study, “Active Power Controls from Wind Power: Bridging the GapsPDF”, finds that wind power can support the power system by adjusting its power output to enhance system reliability. Additionally, the study finds that it often could be economically beneficial to provide active power control , and potentially damaging loads on turbines from providing this control is negligible. Active power control helps balance load with generation at various times, avoiding erroneous power flows, involuntary load shedding, machine damage, and the risk of potential blackouts. Read more ..
|Keith aing and Laura Barron-Lopez||January 26th 2014|
Lawmakers are calling for a comprehensive review of the nation’s rules that govern freight rail shipments of crude oil cargo following a string of rail accidents in recent months, and after receiving a warning from safety regulators that inaction could lead to a "major loss of life."
Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) and John Hoeven (R-N.D.) are pushing the Department of Transportation (DOT) to enact more stringent rules for oil-by-rail shipments, in the wake of a December derailment in their home state that spilled 400,000 tons of crude oil.
The accident near Casselton, N.D., which caused no casualties, was followed in January by a derailment in New Brunswick, Canada, which caused evacuations but also no casualties. Six months earlier, the oil train derailment in Lac-Megantic in Quebec province, Canada, on July 6, 2013, killed 42 people and incinerated 30 buildings, There have been several other oil train accidents in North America since. Read more ..
The Coal Problem
|Laura Barron-Lopez||January 24th 2014|
The League of Conservation Voters is asking Rep. William Enyart (D-Ill.) to return a campaign contribution for backing a coal-friendly bill.
The green group's action fund donated $5,000 to Enyart's campaign in 2012 after he promised in a candidate questionnaire sent out by the group to defend the Clean Air Act if elected to Congress.
Enyart's offense: co-sponsoring the bill H.R. 3826, which seeks to reign in what the GOP claims is the Environmental Protection Agency's overreach on greenhouse gas emission standards for coal-fired power plants.
The bill ensures that "regulations are based on technology that is proven and commercially available for use," said Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), co-author of the legislation with Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.). In a letter to Enyart on Thursday, the League of Conservation Voters calls the bill "one of the broadest attacks on the environment we've seen yet from the Republican leadership." Read more ..
The Race for Solar
|David L. Chandler||January 23rd 2014|
A new approach to harvesting solar energy, developed by MIT researchers, could improve efficiency by using sunlight to heat a high-temperature material whose infrared radiation would then be collected by a conventional photovoltaic cell. This technique could also make it easier to store the energy for later use, the researchers say.
In this case, adding the extra step improves performance, because it makes it possible to take advantage of wavelengths of light that ordinarily go to waste. The process is described in a paper published in Nature Nanotechnology, written by graduate student Andrej Lenert, associate professor of mechanical engineering Evelyn Wang, physics professor Marin Soljačić, principal research scientist Ivan Celanović, and three others.
A conventional silicon-based solar cell “doesn’t take advantage of all the photons,” Wang explains. That’s because converting the energy of a photon into electricity requires that the photon’s energy level match that of a characteristic of the photovoltaic (PV) material called a bandgap. Silicon’s bandgap responds to many wavelengths of light, but misses many others. Read more ..
The Race for BioFuel
|Layne Cameron||January 23rd 2014|
When it comes to biofuels, corn leads the all-important category of biomass yield. However, focusing solely on yield comes at a high price. In the current issue of the Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences, Michigan State University researchers show that looking at the big picture allows other biofuel crops, such as native perennial grasses, to score higher as viable alternatives.
“We believe our findings have major implications for bioenergy research and policy,” said Doug Landis, MSU entomologist and one of the paper’s lead authors. “Biomass yield is obviously a key goal, but it appears to come at the expense of many other environmental benefits that society may desire from rural landscapes.”
Read more ..
|Laura Barron-Lopez||January 22nd 2014|
Oil shipments on Wednesday began to flow through Keystone XL's southern leg.
TransCanada announced the start of oil deliveries to Gulf Coast refineries on Wednesday morning. The shipments run from Cushing, Okla. to Nederland, Texas.
While not as controversial as its northern leg, which is still under review by the State Department, the decision by the Obama administration to allow the flow of oil through the southern Keystone leg is stirring controversy. Green groups like the Sierra Club blasted the administration for failing to adequately review the pipeline.
“Today’s announcement is a painful example of President Obama’s all of the above energy plan at work: polluted air and water, carbon pollution, and the ever present threat of poisoned drinking water for millions of Texas and Oklahoma families," Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said in a statement. Read more ..
The Race for Batteries
|Zeke Barlow||January 21st 2014|
'Sugar is a perfect energy storage compound in nature,' Y.H. Percival Zhang said. 'So it's only logical that we try to harness this natural power in an environmentally friendly way to produce a battery.'
A Virginia Tech research team has developed a battery that runs on sugar and has an unmatched energy density, a development that could replace conventional batteries with ones that are cheaper, refillable, and biodegradable.
While other sugar batteries have been developed, this one has an energy density an order of magnitude higher than others, allowing it to run longer before needing to be refueled, Zhang said.
In as soon as three years, Zhang's new battery could be running some of the cell phones, tablets, video games, and the myriad other electronic gadgets that require power in our energy-hungry world, Zhang said. "Sugar is a perfect energy storage compound in nature," Zhang said. "So it's only logical that we try to harness this natural power in an environmentally friendly way to produce a battery." Read more ..
The Race for Nuclear
|Mark J. Perry||January 20th 2014|
Should America's new growing dependence on natural gas for electricity production be a cause for concern? Despite America's abundance of natural gas from shale production, some parts of the country have already had warnings that over-dependence on gas for electricity generation exposes consumers to soaring prices for electricity.
The problem is the declining use of coal and nuclear power, the two sources of electricity that provide the greatest price stability and serve as a hedge against wide fluctuations in gas prices. For the power industry to become increasingly dependent on a fuel with a history of price volatility could be problematic.
Take PJM, the regional grid operator that covers the mid-Atlantic and parts of the Midwest. When plunging temperatures in the recent cold snap drove up demand for gas, spot prices for electric power in New Jersey, Delaware and large parts of Pennsylvania skyrocketed to $1,500 per megawatt-hour, well above the typical price of $40 or $50. Read more ..
The Coal Problem
|Vicki Needham||January 18th 2014|
he company blamed for a chemical spill that left 300,000 West Virginia residents without clean water filed for federal bankruptcy protection on Friday.
Freedom Industries, which owns the tank that ruptured Jan. 9 and sent 7,500 gallons of chemicals into the Elk River, has been hit by a slew of lawsuits and a federal investigation in the week since the incident, according to news reports.
Residents of nine counties were told by state officials not to use water for any purpose except flushing toilets as they cleaned up the mess, which forced businesses to close. Water restrictions have since been lifted for all residents, but officials suggest that pregnant women avoid drinking the water. The company, whose parent firm is Chemstream Holdings Inc. of Pennsylvania, filed for Chapter 11 protection, which will temporarily halt any lawsuits against Freedom. Read more ..
The Coal Problem
|Brian Padden||January 17th 2014|
There are new calls for increased oversight of the powerful chemical and coal industries in West Virginia following a major chemical spill that cut off water to more than 300,000 people. The state's governor has promised to investigate the accident, but environmentalists say the state has been reluctant to regulate and enforce pollution controls on these industries, which are so crucial to the region's economy.
As residents line up for bottled water, many like Chase Tavaraz want to know why there was no state oversight of the chemical company that contaminated the local drinking water.
“As far as what I understand, if it would have been inspected - I guess 23, 26 years it hasn’t been inspected. So if it had been certified every year like they are supposed to do, they would have avoided this whole situation,” he said. Nearly a week after a storage tank at a Freedom Industries site leaked chemicals into the Elk river, clean tap water is slowly being restored to affected areas. Read more ..
The Race for Biofuels
|Jeremy Luterbacher||January 16th 2014|
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Using a plant-derived chemical, University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have developed a process for creating a concentrated stream of sugars that's ripe with possibility for biofuels.
"With the sugar platform, you have possibilities," says Jeremy Luterbacher, a UW-Madison postdoctoral researcher and the paper's lead author. "You've taken fewer forks down the conversion road, which leaves you with more end destinations, such as cellulosic ethanol and drop-in biofuels."
The research team has published its findings explaining how they use gamma valerolactone, or GVL, to deconstruct plants and produce sugars that can be chemically or biologically upgraded into biofuels. With support from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), the team will begin scaling up the process later this year. Read more ..
|Tom Devaney||January 15th 2014|
A Republican senator expressed disappointment Wednesday in the Department of Transportation's decision to delay stronger regulations for rail cars that are carrying oil.
Sen. John Hoeven (D-N.D.) said he is considering legislation that would speed up the regulations for rail cars. He also plans to meet with Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, Office of Management and Budget Director Sylvia Burwell and industry leaders to determine a more appropriate timeline for new rail car regulations.
“The federal agencies working on this issue need to devote the necessary resources to get it done in a timely way,” he said in a statement. This comes after a train carrying oil derailed last month in North Dakota and spilled more than 400,000 gallons of crude oil in the senator's home state, according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Read more ..
|Laura Barron-Lopez||January 14th 2014|
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) wants President Obama to get on board with her push for lifting the U.S. ban on crude exports and approving the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
In a letter sent to Obama on Tuesday, Murkowski called on the president to take executive action.
"While I believe you retain the executive authority necessary to lift the ban on crude exports, if you need legislative support from the Congress in order to do so, you will always have a willing partner from Alaska," Murkowski wrote in the letter on Tuesday.
Last week, she released a white paper on the benefits associated with expanding the country's energy trade, with a specific look at crude exports. Along with crude exports, Murkowski mentions the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline as a means of expanding the nation's energy infrastructure — reminding Obama that he has broadly promised to champion such issues. Read more ..
The Race for Gas
|Maurice Picow||January 13th 2014|
Israel’s Leviathan Partners natural gas production consortium has signed its first gas export agreement with a Palestinian power company.
The agreement, signed last Sunday in Jerusalem at the American Colony Hotel, involves the Palestine Power Generation Company (PPGC) which will purchase around 4.75 billion cubic meter of natural gas during a 20 year period.
The gas will fuel a to be constructed power plant in the West Bank city Jenin that will have a 200-megawatt capacity. Total estimated cost of the deal is said to be $1.2 billion USD, according to the Jerusalem Post. The agreement was signed between Palestinian Energy Minister Dr. Omar Kittaneh and executives from the gas field’s partners: the Delek Group, Noble Energy and Ratio Oil Exploration. Read more ..
|Laura Barron-Lopez||January 12th 2014|
Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said he thinks President Obama will approve the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
In the wake of multiple crude-by-rail train accidents in North Dakota -- leaving railcars ablaze and nearby residents at risk --Hoeven said on "Platts Energy Week" that the U.S. needs more pipelines.
The U.S. needs pipelines "not only to improve conditions in terms of rail, but trucks," Hoeven said on Sunday. "With the Keystone pipeline, we'd take 500 trucks a day off our roads in western North Dakota."
"So clearly pipelines are a part of the solution. But also we have to do everything we can in terms of safety when we talk about running crude by train or by truck," he added. With U.S. crude oil production reaching near 20-year highs, the country's energy infrastructure -- specifically transportation -- has become a looming concern. Read more ..
Transportation on Edge
|Laura Barron-Lopez||January 11th 2014|
THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT CAN'T: As the number of derailments by trains carrying crude oil escalates, lawmakers are pressing the Obama administration to act.
For one, each time one of the trains transporting crude oil has derailed or collided with another train, it sets off an explosion, leaving railcars ablaze. And those explosions are forcing nearby residents to evacuate their homes.
The accidents are feeding growing concerns over whether crude oil from sites like the Bakken formation should be transported by rail at all. But a group of senators are pushing the Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and other federal departments to act, and act fast.
In a meeting with lawmakers Thursday, Foxx said he would investigate the incidents. Regulators will test the crude oil coming from the Bakken formation and a Texas site to determine whether the oil being produced is more flammable than other, more conventional crude. Read more ..
The Race for Natural Gas
|Joshuna Levitt||January 10th 2014|
The natural gas in Israel’s Tamar field is worth some $52 billion to the Israeli economy, accountants Ernst & Young Israel said in a new report. The CPA firm will present their report at a gas and energy conference in Tel Aviv next week, according to Israel’s Globes business daily.
The initial findings of the study found that Tamar, which began production less than a year ago, boosted Israel’s GDP by almost 0.5 percentage points, and is projected to boost GDP by 1.5 percentage points for 2014.
Ernst & Young found that $42 billion of the total was the result of savings to the economy over the 28-year lifespan of the gas field. The new domestic gas costs Israel Electric Corporation about $6 per million BTU, or a third of the price of diesel, industrial oil, and liquefied natural gas, all of which have to be imported. The direct savings impacts one of the major costs for manufacturers to do business, meaning lower prices, improved competitiveness, and stronger corporate profits. Read more ..
|Martin Barillas||January 7th 2014|
Cutting Edge Contributor
Saudi Arabian Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal expressed fears that the production of shale oil and natural gas in the United States and other countries, especially through the process known as “fracking” is a competitive threat to “any oil-producing country in the world.” For Saudi Arabia, said Alwaleed, this is a “matter of survival.”
Alwaleed, speaking in an interview with The Globe and Mail newspaper, added “It is a pivot moment for any oil-producing country that has not diversified. Ninety-two percent of Saudi Arabia’s annual budget comes from oil. Definitely it is a worry and a concern.”
Alaweed is the nephew of King Abdullah of the oil kingdom. Noting that Saudi leadership may not understand the economic threat posed by American shale oil and natural gas production, he vowed to influence leaders in his country. Speaking in November 2013, he said “I will make them get it, there is no doubt about that."
“I’ll make them get it. It is a matter of survival. There is no choice but to get it. I will keep pushing until they do.” Read more ..
The Race for Wind
|Ramsey Cox||January 6th 2014|
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said Congress should not renew the $60 billion wind energy tax credit. Instead he said the money would be better spent reducing the federal debt.
“The massive taxpayer subsidy to windmill developers expired Jan. 1,” Alexander said. “A good way to celebrate the New Year would be to not renew it and to reduce the federal debt by $60 billion, an amount about equal to the spending in the recent budget agreement.”
Alexander argued that the tax break is outdated since the wind industry is now fully developed. He also said wind turbines are a “scar on the landscape.”
“At least in our part of the country, windmills are a huge scar on the landscape — you can see their flashing lights for 20 miles,” Alexander said. “You would have to stretch wind turbines the entire length of the Appalachian Trail, from Maine to Georgia, to equal the power produced by eight nuclear plants on one square mile each.” Tennessee is home to a nuclear power plant and the state also produces coal. Read more ..
The Race for Solar
|Tracey Peake||January 5th 2014|
NC State University
Researchers from North Carolina State University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences have found an easy way to modify the molecular structure of a polymer commonly used in solar cells. Their modification can increase solar cell efficiency by more than 30 percent.
Polymer-based solar cells have two domains, consisting of an electron acceptor and an electron donor material. Excitons are the energy particles created by solar cells when light is absorbed. In order to be harnessed effectively as an energy source, excitons must be able to travel quickly to the interface of the donor and acceptor domains and retain as much of the light’s energy as possible.
One way to increase solar cell efficiency is to adjust the difference between the highest occupied molecular orbit (HOMO) of the acceptor and lowest unoccupied molecular orbit (LUMO) levels of the polymer so that the exciton can be harvested with minimal loss. One of the most common ways to accomplish this is by adding a fluorine atom to the polymer’s molecular backbone, a difficult, multi-step process that can increase the solar cell’s performance, but has considerable material fabrication costs. Read more ..
|Laura Barron-Lopez||January 4th 2014|
Crude oil coming out of the Bakken formation in North Dakota might be more flammable than previously thought, U.S. officials said.
Rail derailments have become a somewhat frequent event in North Dakota. On Monday, the latest accident set off a series of explosions and left 21 railcars ablaze. Residents of Casselton, N.D. were asked to evacuate early Tuesday morning.
The recent derailment is the fourth in North America over a span of six months, prompting the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to issue a safety alert on Thursday. The alert warned the public, emergency responders and carriers that Bakken crude oil might be more likely to set off an explosion than other types of crude. Read more ..
The Coal Problem
|Chris Hamby||January 3rd 2014|
Center for Public Integrity
A federal appeals court ruled Friday that the withholding of evidence by a prominent coal industry law firm in a black lung benefits case, while “hardly admirable,” did not reach the extraordinary level of “fraud on the court.”
In its decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit agreed with an administrative appeals board that the actions of the law firm Jackson Kelly PLLC didn’t amount to a carefully orchestrated scheme that undermined the integrity of the entire judicial process — a standard, the court said, that wouldn’t be met even by perjury or fabricated evidence.
The court, however, did not address whether the conduct constituted basic fraud — a key question to be resolved in an ongoing civil suit in West Virginia state court.
The case involved the claim of miner Gary Fox for federal black lung benefits, which was featured in the Center for Public Integrity series Breathless and Burdened. Fox lost a claim in 2001 after lawyers at Jackson Kelly withheld two reports from pathologists of their own choosing that found a sample of Fox’s lung tissue consistent with the most severe form of black lung, known as complicated coal workers’ pneumoconiosis. The firm instead allowed its consulting physicians to rely on a report from a hospital pathologist who had made a vague diagnosis after a procedure meant to rule out cancer, apparently unaware that Fox was a miner.
Fox was unable to find a lawyer and had no idea the other reports, written by prominent experts whose opinions commonly aided coal companies, existed. He had little choice but to return to work, his health steadily deteriorating until he had to retire in 2006. Read more ..
The Race for Nuclear
|Dave Rice||January 3rd 2014|
San Diego Reader
The long-touted economic benefits of using nuclear energy may turn out to have been a pipe dream for customers of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station and other nuclear plants nationwide, according to newly released findings from economic analyst Mark Cooper of the Vermont Law School Institute for Energy and the Environment.
Missing from calculations regarding the true cost of nuclear energy, Cooper says, are the dollars spent by consumers dealing with the long-term storage of radioactive waste generated by power plant reactors. According to his research, such overlooked expenses increase the cost of nuclear power by at least $10 and by as much as $20 per megawatt hour — the federal Energy Information Administration says that as of 2012, total nuclear costs were $25.48 to produce the equivalent amount of energy. Read more ..
The Race for Biofuels
|William Scanlon||January 2nd 2014|
Researchers at the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have discovered that an enzyme from a microorganism first found in the Valley of Geysers on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia in 1990 can digest cellulose almost twice as fast as the current leading component cellulase enzyme on the market.
If the enzyme continues to perform well in larger tests, it could help drive down the price of making lignocellulosic fuels, from ethanol to other biofuels that can be dropped into existing infrastructure. A paper reporting this finding, "Revealing Nature's Cellulase Diversity: The Digestion Mechanism of Caldicellulosiruptor bescii CelA" appears in the journal Science.
The bacterium first found in heated freshwater pools, Caldicellulosiruptor bescii, secretes the cellulase, CelA, which has the complex arrangement of two catalytic domains separated by linker peptides and cellulose binding modules. Read more ..
The Race for Batteries
|Mary Beckman||January 1st 2014|
Researchers have developed a way to microscopically view battery electrodes while they are bathed in wet electrolytes, mimicking realistic conditions inside actual batteries. While life sciences researchers regularly use transmission electron microscopy to study wet environments, this time scientists have applied it successfully to rechargeable battery research.
The results are good news for scientists studying battery materials under dry conditions. The work showed that many aspects can be studied under dry conditions, which are much easier to use. However, wet conditions are needed to study the hard-to-find solid electrolyte interphase layer, a coating that accumulates on the electrode's surface and dramatically influences battery performance. Read more ..
See Earlier Stories 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32