My computer was attacked by a Trojan Horse dialer on Friday and life has sucked ever since. I am posting from the Riverton Library as we speak. This meant that I did not get to give my tribute to Martin Luther King as the founder of the environemental justice movement. So here are some sites to see:
But we shall move on. We are going over the 17 greatest climate killers in the US as an example of whose behavior we have to change. This post is from 2 very important articles in of all places the Rolling Stone Magazine:
Meet the 17 polluters and deniers who are derailing efforts to curb global warming in Tim Dickinson’s “The Climate Killers.”
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It is sad but true…I worked in Mary’s first campaign for the Senate. The sole reason I did was to make her the first woman elected to the Senate from Louisiana. This is how I am repaid. Just think her Brother Mitch Landrieu is probably the next Mayor of New Orleans. Wonder what they can do together?
The Dirty Democrat
Sen. Mary Landrieu
Democrat, Louisiana
Landrieu — who boasts of being “the most fervent pro-drilling Democrat in the Senate” — has assured oil interests that she’ll be “putting the brakes” on current efforts to cap carbon pollution. Even though her home state will be savaged by climate change, Katrina-style, Landrieu routinely sides with her energy funders. In 2008, after providing the pivotal vote to preserve $12 billion in tax breaks for Big Oil, she received $272,000 from oil and gas interests — third among Democrats. Joined by other Democrats from key energy states — including Jim Webb of Virginia, Max Baucus of Montana, Evan Bayh of Indiana and Robert Byrd of West Virginia — Landrieu tried to kill climate legislation in the Senate by requiring that it be passed by a 60-vote supermajority. “Landrieu acts more to protect Big Oil than the future for the people of Louisiana,” says Tony Massaro of the League of Conservation Voters, which added Landrieu to its “Dirty Dozen” roster of pro-pollution politicians.
If you discount Airplanes, the single biggest cause of Global Warming, and the world’s Militaries, the second largest cause of Global warming then there are 500, yes just 500 point of source polluters that are causing Global Warming. These sources make very real people wealthy. It is these people and there proxies who are causing the problem. Here are my 17 most favorite Americans.
Meet the 17 polluters and deniers who are derailing efforts to curb global warming in Tim Dickinson’s “The Climate Killers.”
The Profiteer
Warren Buffett
CEO, Berkshire Hathaway
Despite being a key adviser to Obama during the financial crisis, America’s best-known investor has been blasting the president’s push to curb global warming — using the same lying points promoted by far-right Republicans. The climate bill passed by the House, Buffett insists, is a “huge tax — and there’s no sense calling it anything else.” What’s more, he says, the measure would mean “very poor people are going to pay a lot more money for their electricity.” Never mind that the climate bill, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, would actually save Americans with the lowest incomes about $40 a year.
But Buffett, whose investments have the power to move entire markets, is doing far more than bad-mouthing climate legislation — he’s literally banking on its failure. In recent months, the Oracle of Omaha has invested billions in carbon-polluting industries, seeking to cash in as the world burns. His conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway, has added 1.28 million shares of America’s biggest climate polluter, ExxonMobil, to its balance sheet. And in November, Berkshire placed a huge wager on the future of coal pollution, purchasing the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad for $26 billion — the largest acquisition of Buffett’s storied career. BNSF is the nation’s top hauler of coal, shipping some 300 million tons a year. That’s enough to light up 10 percent of the nation’s homes — many of which are powered by another Berkshire subsidiary, MidAmerican Energy. Although Berkshire is the largest U.S. firm not to disclose its carbon pollution — and second globally only to the Bank of China — its utilities have the worst emissions intensity in America, belching more than 65 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere in 2008 alone.
Global Warming has turned the midwest into a group of handicapped old ladies. I mean I can remember when we would get at least 2 or 3 inches before Thanksgiving, go through a warm period and then get 6-8 inches right before Christmas. It would be considered a light year if we got a couple of feet for the whole season. Now we get 4 inches and the WHOLE WORLD shuts down. But first I gotta say:
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Community Energy Systems is a nonprofit 501c3 organization chartered in Illinois in Sangamon County. As such we are dependent on public donations for our continued existence. We also use Adsense as a fundraiser. Please click on the ads that you see on this page, on our main page and on our Bulletin Board (Refrigerator Magnets) and you will be raising money for CES. We say a heartfelt THANK YOU to all who do.
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This is what I woke up to:
So I got out the old metal snow shovel and proceeded to clear the sidewalk, my car and the back porch. Snow shovels however have gotten a whole lot better over the years:
Clears Away Snow 3 Times Faster Than Shoveling…
with Half the Effort and Less Risk of Injury
The new Folding Frame Sno Wovel™ and Sno Wolf™ are the only snow removal devices, performing equal to or better than a snow blower, that are recognized by Co-op America and National Green Pages™ for its positive, pollution-free environmental standards and zero carbon footprint in usage. Univ. of Mass. indpendent study confirms the wheeled snow shovel clears snow with a fraction of the effort and safer on the back: “comparable to simply walking.”
When George Bailey first appears in the Christmas classic, It's a Wonderful Life, he and a bunch of other boys are sliding down a snowy hill on their snow shovels (I guess their parents couldn't afford sleds or toboggans). That's about the only fun use to which snow shovels have ever been put, as far as I know.
For with that one exception, snow shovels signify nothing but drudgery. Worse yet, to those who suffer from bad backs, snow shovels are nothing less than instruments of torture. The human frame simply isn't designed for extended periods of snow shoveling. It was with these thoughts in mind that I recently tested three different Ames True Temper snow shovels:
An Avalanche Ergo Plus ergonomic snow shovel
A Snow Blazer wide-grip snow shovel
A Penguin VersaGrip snow pusher
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Make sure you take a break and drink a hot drink...
Why are there four million fewer vehicles on the roads in 2009? Think gas prices, transit, tweeting teens and a car-to-driver ‘saturation point’
Martin Mittelstaedt
From Tuesday’s Globe and Mail Published on Monday, Jan. 04, 2010 9:18PM ESTLast updated on Tuesday, Jan. 05, 2010 2:45AM EST
Americans’ infatuation with their cars has endured through booms and busts, but last year something rare happened in the United States: The number of automobiles actually fell.
The size of the U.S. car fleet dropped by a hefty four million vehicles to 246 million, the only large decline since the U.S. Department of Transportation began modern recordkeeping in 1960. Americans bought only 10 million cars – and sent 14 million to the scrapyard.
The decline in sales from previous years came despite 2009’s cash-for-clunkers program, in which the U.S. government gave Americans up to $4,500 (U.S.) to trade in their gas guzzlers for new, more fuel-efficient cars – a program that saw nearly 700,000 vehicles scrapped.
And the overall drop in car ownership has prompted speculation that the long American love affair with the car is fading. Analysts cite such diverse factors as high gas prices, the expansion of many municipal transit systems, and the popularity of networking websites among teenagers replacing cars as a way of socializing.
“We’ve reached a sort of saturation point in this country” when it comes to cars, said Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, an environmental think tank based in Washington.
The institute is issuing an analysis Wednesday that contends the drop in 2009 isn’t a one-time fluke caused by the recession, and that U.S. car ownership is likely to be entering a longer-term decline that will see the fleet drop by another 25 million by 2020.
Big Oil never wanted to be here, in 4,300 feet of water far out in the Gulf of Mexico, drilling through nearly five miles of rock.
It is an expensive way to look for oil. Chevron Corp. is paying nearly $500,000 a day to the owner of the Clear Leader, one of the world’s newest and most powerful drilling rigs. The new well off the coast of Louisiana will connect to a huge platform floating nearby, which cost Chevron $650 million to build. The first phase of this oil-exploration project took more than 10 years and cost $2.7 billion —
It’s true. Through laziness and a lack of preparation, we have ice on the driveway. As I was getting out of the car and walking to the house, I slipped on the ice and dumped coffee on my down coat. I did not fall to the ground, but it was close. So why didn’t I just go out and toss salt around to melt it off. Well for one thing it is bad for the plants around the area that you salt. But first I must say:
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Community Energy Systems is a nonprofit 501c3 organization chartered in Illinois in Sangamon County. As such we are dependent on public donations for our continued existence. We also use Adsense as a fundraiser. Please click on the ads that you see on this page, on our main page and on our Bulletin Board (Refrigerator Magnets) and you will be raising money for CES. We say a heartfelt THANK YOU to all who do.
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Here are some of the problems with “salting” and some alternatives.
Good morning! It’s Monday January 4, 2010 at 10:20 AM CT
Articles, Publications and Other Resources
Ice: A Winter Hazard for You
Salt: A Winter Hazard for Your Plants
Slick sidewalks and roads are hazardous. Common de-icing compounds like calcium chloride, sodium chloride (rock salt), potassium chloride (muriate of potash) and urea fertilizer can make ice removal easier but they can also damage your landscape when present in large amounts. Salt and fertilizers in de-icing compounds can cause stunting, leaf burn, ‘witch’s broom’ and root damage in turf, ornamental shrubs and trees. Although salt is applied throughout the winter, most salt damage occurs in late winter and early spring when plants are beginning active growth and excess salts are pulled into the plant.High salt levels also change the structure of soil in runoff areas, causing it to become compacted, restricting nutrients, water and oxygen availability to the plants. Accumulation of salt in the soil over several years may cause progressive decline and eventual death of plants. If you suspect an area in your yard to have high salt levels, a soil analysis should be done to determine the actual salt levels present.Alternatives to tradition de-icing compounds include a new salt-free melting agent called calcium magnesium acetate (CMA). CMA is made from dolomitic limestone and acetic acid (the principal component of vinegar). Studies have shown the material has little impact on plants. Sand or sawdust are also good alternatives to salt for improving traction in slippery surfaces.To protect plants from direct exposure to the spray of salty slush during snow removal, cover them with burlap cloth. Salt tolerant plants should also be planted near the street to block exposure for more sensitive plantings. In runoff areas affected by high salt levels, flushing the soil with 2″ of water over a 2-3 hour period in early spring will help leach much of the salt from the soil. Repeat this procedure 3 days later.
Plants that are particularly sensitive to salt damage include Redbud, Hackberry, Hawthorn, Crab apple, Pin Oak, Red Oak, Littleleaf Linden, Barberry, Boxwood, Dogwood, Spirea, Viburnum, Balsam Fir, White Spruce, Red Pine, White Pine, Scotch Pine, Yew, Arborvitae and Hemlock.Salt tolerant plants should be planted near the street to block exposure for more sensitive plants.A partial list of salt tolerant plants includes Amur maple, Artemesia, common lilac, Japanese tree lilac, Forsythia, ‘Van Houtte’ & ‘Froebel’ spirea, Shadblow serviceberry, and snowberry.
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Here is a video that shows how to properly sand your drive…
I included that last video to make a point. Notice all that hammering he is doing to the ice. Well that does damage to the surface below it. We have an old three car asphalt and concrete drive way that has seen better days. Last year we let a local guy clear it with a small tractor and a blade. Man, you talk about damage. It took a couple hundred $$$ of asphalt products to stabilize the situation. So part of what I am trying to do is to see if not scooping out the drive will cut down on that damage. Unfortunately the other source of damage is freezing water in cracks on the surface of the driveway. So we are probably going to see as much damage to the driveway from the freezing. Still it will be interesting in the spring to see what it looks like.
As Salt Prices Rise, Frozen Towns Reach for Molasses
DOT dot DOT
Many towns are testing new methods to make their ice-fighting more efficient. Officials in Indiana and other states are equipping salt trucks with computers that, based on current air and ground temperatures and other metrics, tell drivers how much salt to drop and for how long.
This past summer, engineers in Ohio’s Hamilton County sought bids to supply about 15,000 tons of salt. The county rejected the first set of bids, which were about 50% higher than the $40 a ton the county paid last year. Two more rounds resulted in quotes of as much as $157 a ton, which would have exceeded the county’s entire $1.5 million budget for snow and ice removal, said Ted Hubbard, the chief deputy county engineer.
The county decided to try to make the 11,000 tons of salt it had on hand last for a winter of de-icing 1,500 miles of road lanes. To stretch it, Mr. Hubbard’s department has been mixing its salt with gritty, non-toxic ash left over from coal-fired power plants.
“When the sun shines on it, it helps attract radiation, therefore it helps melt the snow,” Mr. Hubbard said. “We’re sort of experimenting.” Mr. Hubbard said the ash mixture doesn’t melt the snow as fast, but it does add traction to the roads.
Ankeny, Iowa, a Des Moines suburb, sprinkled garlic salt mixed with road salt on its streets last month after a local spice maker gave the town nine tons destined for a landfill. Public Works Director Paul Moritz said some residents complained the fragrant topping would sicken their cats and dogs. He says he checked with a veterinarian, who told him the pets would have to swallow huge quantities to become ill.
“I don’t mean to be too flippant about it,” said Mr. Moritz, “but I don’t think any dog went out and licked up three blocks of streets.” He says the garlic salt has been effective in clearing roadways.
Paul Simonsen, a maintenance superintendent for the Washington state department of transportation, has been mixing de-sugared molasses into saltwater, creating a gooey mixture that can keep roadways clear for three or four wintry days, he said.
The mix consists of molasses from a local supplier, calcium chloride and brine donated by a local dairy company. Mr. Simonsen had been experimenting with the right proportions and ingredients for several years, blending them in a 1,000-gallon vat and dispersing the liquid with the same salt trucks. He first used it last year on a busy mountain pass in southwest Washington.
dot dot dot
It also for the first time paid $3.50 a gallon for 4,200 gallons of Magic Minus Zero, a de-icing compound made by Sears Ecological Applications Co., of Rome, N.Y.
The liquid, which is formulated from the leftovers of rum-making, is such an effective additive that Pat Doherty, Pingree’s director of public works, said the town has used less than half as much salt as it would have under similar weather conditions.
They are starting to build steam – oh what a mixed metaphor. But first I must say…
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Community Energy Systems is a nonprofit 501c3 organization chartered in Illinois in Sangamon County. As such we are dependent on public donations for our continued existence. We also use Adsense as a fundraiser. Please click on the ads that you see on this page, on our main page and on our Bulletin Board (Refrigerator Magnets) and you will be raising money for CES. We say a heartfelt THANK YOU to all who do.
Panoche Valley is known mostly for cattle and barbed wire, a treeless landscape in eastern San Benito County that turns green every spring but for much of the year looks like rural Nevada.
A posse of lawmen gunned down the famous Gold Rush bandit Joaquin Murrieta, an inspiration for the fictional character Zorro, near here in 1853. Nothing that exciting has happened since.
But now the remote valley 25 miles south of Hollister is finding itself at the center of a new showdown. A Silicon Valley company is proposing to build here what would be the world’s largest solar farm — 1.2 million solar panels spread across an area roughly the size of 3,500 football fields.
“This is renewable energy. It doesn’t
cause pollution, it doesn’t use coal or foreign oil, and it emits no greenhouse gases,” said Mike Peterson, CEO of Solargen Energy, the Cupertino company behind the $1.8 billion project.But critics — including some environmentalists — say green energy isn’t always green. In a refrain being heard increasingly across California, they contend the plan to cover this ranch land with a huge solar project would harm a unique landscape and its wildlife.
From the Bay Area to the Mojave Desert, green energy supporters are frustrated that a state that wants to lead the green revolution is facing roadblocks.
Peterson, a former vice president of Goldman Sachs, looked across the Panoche Valley last week and noted its attributes.
t sits 20 miles from the nearest town. It has 90 percent of the solar intensity of the Mojave Desert. Five willing sellers, mostly longtime ranching families, have signed options to sell his company 18,000 acres. And huge transmission lines run through the site, negating the need to build the kind of costly and controversial new power lines that have stalled similar projects.”From our standpoint, this is a perfect place,” he said. “If not here, where?”
Opposition mounts
The project would produce 420 megawatts of electricity, roughly the same as a medium-sized natural gas power plant, and enough to power 315,000 homes.
Reflecting on a year that opened with high expectations for renewable energy from the new Obama Administration and was buffeted by economic storms, AWEA identified the wind industry’s top accomplishments in 2009.
“Wind power is a symbol of hope in our economy and supports thousands of jobs, but U.S. wind turbine manufacturing is lagging at the very time that the global clean energy race is heating up,” said AWEA CEO Denise Bode. “One of the most urgent measures that our government can enact is a national Renewable Electricity Standard, which will unleash in the U.S. a wave of manufacturing investment that will otherwise go overseas. Many companies are eager to enter or ramp up their activities in this sector, as this year’s highlights show, but all need to see a long-term commitment with hard targets to renewable energy in order to be able to invest.”
The top accomplishments and developments include:
* American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 Funds a Lifeline: The ARRA included several provisions to spur development of wind and other renewable energy industries along with the Treasury Grant Program, which by year end had supplied over $1.5 billion in crucial capital. Since the early July announcement to implement the stimulus bill, at least 37 different wind projects, using large and small turbines, have been recipients of the grant program, powering the equivalent of 800,000 homes and providing a lifeline for the industry and sustaining wind power as a bright spot in the economy.
* … But Manufacturing Still Lags: Wind turbine manufacturing, however, has fallen behind 2008 levels in both announcements and in production activity. While this is bad news, the good news is that a solution is readily available: A strong national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) will create the market certainty that manufacturers need in order to invest, enabling the U.S. to become a wind turbine manufacturing powerhouse creating hundreds of thousands of jobs.
* Strong Support for a National Renewable Electricity Standard (RES): An RES is included in the House version of climate legislation passed this spring and in pending Senate energy legislation. The wind industry, backed by popular support, continues to advocate for swift passage of a strong RES. A poll released by AWEA in May showed that over 75% of Americans, including 71% of independents and 62% of Republicans, support an RES requiring that 25% of the nation’s electricity be generated from renewable energy by 2025.
* COP15: AWEA sent a delegation to the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP15) in Copenhagen this month. AWEA’s participation at the conference is another indication of America’s reengagement in the international climate change process and of the key role that wind power plays today in the transition to a clean energy economy.
Things have gone pretty dismally in Copenhagen. The Developed Countries tried to bully the Developing Countries. The Newly Industrializing Countries sniffed at the DeIndustrializing Countries. The US yelled at China and China yelled back and jingled the coins in its pockets. After all that excitement I must say:
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Community Energy Systems is a nonprofit 501c3 organization chartered in Illinois in Sangamon County. As such we are dependent on public donations for our continued existence. We also use Adsense as a fundraiser. Please click on the ads that you see on this page, on our main page and on our Bulletin Board (Refrigerator Magnets) and you will be raising money for CES. We say a heartfelt THANK YOU to all who do.
Gruel is a food preparation consisting of some type of cereal— oat, wheat or rye flour, or also rice— boiled in water or milk. It is a thinner version of porridge that may be more often drunk than eaten and need not even be cooked. Historically, gruel, often made from millet or barley, or in hard times of chestnut flour and even the less tannic acorns of some oaks, has been the staple of the human diet, especially that of the peasantry. The importance of gruel as a form of sustenance is especially noted for invalids[1] and recently weaned children.
Gruel consumption has traditionally been associated with poverty. Gruel is a colloquial expression of any slop that is of unknown character, e.g. pea soup; soup is derived from sop, the slice of bread which was soaked with broth or thin gruel.[2
Copenhagen climate change summit – final day live blog
World leaders are still trying to thrash out a last minute compromise climate deal. These are the final day’s main developments:
• In a disappointing speech Obama admitted that the talks are in the balance.
• Leaked documents showed a draft agreement is extremely weak.
• Obama held two crucial talks with the Chinese premier Wen Jiabao.
4.43pm:
Greenpeace has expressed its disgust at the draft Copenhagen accord currently doing the rounds.
Its climate campaigner Joss Garman said:
This latest draft is so weak as to be meaningless. It’s more like a G8 communique than the legally binding agreement we need. It doesn’t even include a timeline to give it legal standing or an explicit temperature target. It’s hard to imagine our leaders will try to present this document to the world and keep a straight face.
All this haggling is going to get us right where the top 500 POLLUTERS want us, sucking up their soot and poisons:
4.57pm:
A third draft of the climate is agreement being considered by world leaders, according to AP. But they are some way off the pace, according to our environment editor John Vidal – he’s looking at sixth version.
For what its worth the third version reinstates targets omitted from earlier ones. It says rich countries should reduce their greenhouse emissions by at least 80% by the year 2050.
It adds that developing countries’ emissions should be 15-30% below “business as usual”.
Stay tuned for more details on that later version.
5.28pm:
Tim Jones climate policy officer from World Development Movement, joins the chorus of disgust.
This summit has been in complete disarray from start to finish, and now appears to be culminating in a shameful and monumental failure that will condemn millions of people around the world to untold suffering. The leaders of rich countries have refused to lead and instead sought to bribe and bully developing nations to sign up to the equivalent of a death warrant. The best outcome now is no deal. Leaders of rich countries should go home and adopt new year resolutions to become low carbon economies and pay their climate debt. Then we may have a chance of a properly just and effective agreement in 2010.
WASHINGTON — The White House complex and the federal government are going green — and not just with Christmas trees and holly.
As President Obama meets with world leaders at the United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen today, the government he runs at home is quietly engaged in an unprecedented effort to reduce its carbon footprint, increase energy efficiency, conserve water, cut waste and more.
In the complex that includes the White House, that means more efficient heating and cooling systems as well as organic paint, low-flow toilets and lights that turn off by themselves. Even the 800 Christmas ornaments adorning the 18-foot tree in the White House Blue Room were recycled from previous administrations in a nod to the environment and the bad economy.
In many of the federal government’s other 500,000 buildings, the effort to go green includes cutting the amount of garbage produced in half and installing more efficient lights.
“This is a big leap forward for the federal government,” says Nancy Sutley, chairwoman of Obama’s White House Council on Environmental Quality. And the effort will be “sustainable itself beyond this president.”
Sutley says the federal government is the country’s single largest energy consumer, using 1.6% of all the power used nationwide, so reducing energy consumption will mean big savings.
The nation is the world’s second-largest producer of greenhouse gases, behind China, and the cuts could help there, as well, environmentalists say.
Erich Pica of Friends of the Earth says, “There are many economies of scale that President Obama can achieve by forcing the federal government to rethink its energy habits.Dot Dot Dot (as they say)
Environmental groups say Obama’s efforts go far beyond what’s been done before. “There’s real substance behind the rhetoric,” says Joel Makower, editor of GreenBiz.com, which reports on the greening of mainstream business.
Under a 15-page executive order Obama signed in October, government agencies must implement a host of changes, Sutley says. Among the requirements:
• Agencies must reduce waste by 50% by 2015.
• Agencies must show a 26% improvement in water efficiency by 2020.
• All new buildings and any major renovations to existing buildings must be eligible for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification given by the U.S. Green Building Council to environmentally responsible buildings. In and around Washington, the Pentagon and the ornate 121-year-old Eisenhower Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House are in the process of becoming LEED-certified.
• The government’s 600,000 vehicles must operate with 30% less petroleum by 2020.
Pentagon officials, Sutley says, are “thinking about how they can power their vehicles in different ways, so they don’t have to transport as much fuel,” a change that would save money and improve safety for servicemembers.
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So Copenhagen was pretty much a bust but it’s Christmas so let’s rock out!
Ever since June, I have struggled with how to write this headline. This concept, Deep Hot Geothermal, has so much potential. It promises limitlessness pollution free energy BUT its execution requires great care. It also probably means more cost in drilling and a closed loop system rather then the current use of open loop rock fracture like for hot swimming pools or basements. The real issue was should I do a fun title like the above or a more serious title? But first I must say:
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Community Energy Systems is a nonprofit 501c3 organization chartered in Illinois in Sangamon County. As such we are dependent on public donations for our continued existence. We also use Adsense as a fundraiser. Please click on the ads that you see on this page, on our main page and on our Bulletin Board (Refrigerator Magnets) and you will be raising money for CES. We say a heartfelt THANK YOU to all who do.
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First there was the shut down of the Swiss project, (I mean really, deep well drilling in a historic district?), because of alleged earthquakes. Then there were Earthquakes off Jamaica caused by another smaller project. Finally there were the Earthquakes attributed to a deep well injection and rock fragmentation project in Texas. So it was only a matter of time. Tick Tick Tick. You know that drilling anywhere in earthquake prone California was going to be fraught with nightmares. Courtney Roby tackled the headline issue like this:
Maybe, possibly, engineered geothermal systems like those being demo-ed by AltaRock bring an increased risk of small earthquakes. It’s not a reason to abandon their promise as an energy resource.
By Courtney Roby
|
June 25, 2009
AltaRock Energy, a California-based company specializing in engineered geothermal systems (EGS), was the subject of a story in today’s New York Times which was certainly alarmist, if not genuinely alarming. AltaRock is currently preparing to put into action a design for a demo geothermal project in California’s NCPA Geysers Geothermal Field area. This area, which has been producing geothermal energy from steam wells since 1983, is located in the seismically shaky San Francisco Bay Area. The same geological factors that make the area a good place for geothermal energy extraction make it a high-risk area for earthquakes, and it is on these fears that the Times article centers.
The article does not have much to say about the particular risks involved with AltaRock’s project. Instead, it recounts the story of a 2006 project run by the Swiss company Geothermal Explorers, which aimed to extract geothermal energy from the bedrock near Basel. Geothermal Explorers used a technique that involved shooting a jet of water into drilled holes, which then produced fractures (a technique known, to the delight of Battlestar Galactical fans everywhere, as “fracking”) in the hot bedrock below, where the water was heated, rose back to the surface, and upon expansion emerged as steam, which powered turbines to produce usable energy. The result was an always-on source of non-polluting, waste-free energy, which seemed like a good bargain until reports of small earthquakes started coming in. In response to these reports, the project was immediately shut down.
by Martin LaMonic A new company pursuing an advanced geothermal energy technology has had to suspend its first attempt to drill a deep well in Northern California.
AltaRock Energy on Wednesday said it ran into problems during drilling for a demonstration project, “resulting from geologic anomalies particular to the formation” at the Geysers Geothermal field.
The project, said to be budgeted at $17 million, was partially funded by a Department of Energy grant given to several companies to explore the viability of enhanced geothermal systems. Sausalito, Calif.-based AltaRock was funded by Google and venture capital company Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
dot dot dot
(Credit: AltaRock Energy)
Although technical difficulties are normal in drilling projects, the progress of AltaRock is significant because it is one of few companies pursuing enhanced, or engineered, geothermal systems. It’s a technology that holds great promise but that has raised safety concerns.
Traditional geothermal power draws on naturally occurring underground hot-water reservoirs to make electricity. With enhanced geothermal systems, wells are dug a few miles underground, and rock formations are fractured. Then water is injected into the wells, heated by the rock, and pulled back up. That hot water is converted to steam to turn an electricity turbine.
A Massachusetts Institute of Technology study two years ago found that using this enhanced method of geothermal power generation could supply 10 percent of the electricity in the United States. It could also be done in a wide variety of locations, rather than just the limited number of locations that have traditional geothermal resources.
In its statement, AltaRock didn’t offer many details on why it suspended drilling but said it is evaluating other locations to build a demonstration facility, including other spots at the site where it had been working.
Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET’s Green Tech blog. He started at CNET News in 2002, covering IT and Web development. Before that, he was executive editor at IT publication InfoWorld. E-mail Martin.
The company in charge of a California project to extract vast amounts of renewable energy from deep, hot bedrock has removed its drill rig and informed federal officials that the government project will be abandoned.The project by the company, AltaRock Energy, was the Obama administration’s first major test of geothermal energy as a significant alternative to fossil fuels and the project was being financed with federal Department of Energy money at a site about 100 miles north of San Francisco called the Geysers.
But on Friday, the Energy Department said that AltaRock had given notice this week that “it will not be continuing work at the Geysers” as part of the agency’s geothermal development program.
The project’s apparent collapse comes a day after Swiss government officials permanently shut down a similar project in Basel, because of the damaging earthquakes it produced in 2006 and 2007. Taken together, the two setbacks could change the direction of the Obama administration’s geothermal program, which had raised hopes that the earth’s bedrock could be quickly tapped as a clean and almost limitless energy source.
I rarely have “guest posters”, mainly because nobody asks but also because I like to run my mouth. I forget how I found Jed’s Column but it makes so much sense in such a short space that I actually ASKED Jed if I could use it. How rare is that? So far that would be 2 people Jed and Dan Piraro soooo without further ado (I always wanted to say that…damn).
Written by Jed Morey on Dec 9th, 2009 and filed under Columns, Off The Reservation. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
Want to take a trip down the environmental rabbit hole? Spark a discussion about climate change and watch human warming reach extremes far greater than any place on the globe.
To the right you have the laughable stance adopted by the conservative movement that humans are having no effect on climate and the atmosphere. At the other extreme are non-scientist policy makers and pundits holding “The End Is Near” signs on every street corner claiming that Iowa and Chad will be beachfront property by the end of next year.
Personally, I’m not qualified to discern which side is closer to representing the truth.
What I do know is that the debate should remain in scientific circles because I have yet to meet anyone qualified to entirely explain the variances in global temperatures. While world leaders are dithering in Copenhagen and arguing over hacked e-mails about tree rings versus thermometers, the public needs to close its ears to the noise produced on both sides of the global warming debate and focus on the tangible aspects of industrial pollution.
You don’t need to be an expert on carbon emissions or reference “parts per billion” to understand that we are seriously screwing up the planet. Public health has been compromised by the rise of industry. While there are several factors that contribute to the decline in public health, much of the discussion centers on energy production and sources because it’s the baseline driver of industry. So let’s look at it.
First of all, there is no such thing as clean coal. True, you can clean coal emissions, but the process of scrubbing coal to burn cleaner is just as much of an environmental disaster. There is no such thing as clean nuclear energy either, for that matter. True, the emissions are carbon neutral, but at some point every nuclear facility must dispose of the spent fuel used in production. The spent fuel must be stored somewhere and wherever that place is, it’s no place you want to be near.
Large wind farms in lakes and oceans are unrealistically expensive and remarkably inefficient. The Danes will tell you differently and espouse the virtues of wind power—just look at the marvel that is Copenhagen—but the fact remains that they are the largest manufacturers of wind turbines and have a vested economic interest in, shall we say, massaging the numbers. However, wind, solar and geothermal energy present viable options on a micro level and should be encouraged in every corner and backyard of the world. Individuals and small businesses need affordable access to clean energy solutions, not just municipalities.
Economically, there is no such thing as cheap oil anymore. Whether or not the Saudis or Venezuelans care to admit it, we have hit peak oil in the largest, most accessible oil fields around the world. Period. Are there places on Earth with large reserves of oil and natural gas? Yup. Is it easy to get to? Nope. Expensive to retrieve? Yup. Environmentally secure to extract? Nope.
As far as Cap and Trade is concerned—please. Giving large corporations and polluters the ability to buy their way out of cleaning their emissions is a lousy practice. Lisa Jackson from the EPA is on the right track by simply drawing a line in the sand and taking it out of the hands of Congress. The message from the Obama administration is clear: Clean it up. If Cap and Trade is allowed to continue one can only imagine Goldman Sachs creating a derivatives market that bundles pollution credits in with mortgages on homes with inefficient boilers and selling them to school boards in Greenland. No more government-backed securities bought by large corporations and sold on opaque markets, especially if they contain something as ethereal as carbon credits.
This is it folks. We have reached the tipping point. The only option heretofore is conservation.
Can’t say it any better than that. By the way those who know me know I disagree with Jed about renewables, broadly stated, to replace fossil fuels but as he says “Cheap nope, time consuming Yup”. Thanks Jed.
OK now that I have everybody’s attention. The people who do not accept Man Caused Global Atmospheric Destabilization (some people call it Global Warming I don’t) are insane or delusional. They just don’t want people to notice the obvious. They try to draw the arguement so far back into the clouds because if they admit MANKIND is contributing to the mess then the rest of their rhetorical walls begin to tumble. But to ignore this is pretty hard to do.
SYDNEY (AFP) – Australian authorities Friday issued a shipping alert over a gigantic iceberg that is gradually approaching the country’s southwest coast.
The Bureau of Meteorology said the once-in-a-century cliff of ice, which dislodged from Antarctica about a decade ago before drifting north, was being monitored using satellites.
“Mariners are advised that at 1200 GMT on December 9, an iceberg approximately 1,700 kilometres (1,054 miles) south-southwest of the West Australian coast was observed,” it said, giving the iceberg’s coordinates.
“The iceberg is 140 square kilometres in area — 19 kilometres long by eight kilometres wide.”
Experts believe the iceberg — known as B17B — is likely to break up as it enters warmer waters nearer Australia, creating hundreds of smaller icebergs in a hazard to passing ships.
“It’s still 1,700 kilometres away, so it’s quite a long way away, it’s not really on our doorstep yet but it’s been heading steadily towards us,” glaciologist Neal Young said Thursday.
This satellite image shows several icebergs breaking off the Antarctic ice shelf in 2000. The iceberg B17B on the left has been spotted 1,700 kilometres from Australia. (Australian Antarctic Division/Associated Press)
Scientists say that ice shelf calvings such as the one in 2000 happen about once every 30 years.
Wish they would make up there minds…is this a once every 30 years experience or once every 100 year event…but in a way it is so monumental that it is amazing that there is a Climate Summit going on and the deniers have everyone talking about stolen emails and NOT this. Cover your ears and go lalalalalalala.
Strewth! An iceberg passes under Sydney Harbour Bridge. Photograph: Dennis Degnan/Corbis
A crowd of suntanned Australians stand at Sydney harbour. As is traditional, they are having a barbecue. Someone has set up a cricket wicket in the middle of the road. The mood is a happy one. Then, all of a sudden, the light disappears from the sky. Men and women alike turn round to find a 50bn-tonne iceberg where the sun once was. This is B17B, the superberg, and it’s headed right for them, bringing with it a nightmare microclimate: cyclones filled with swirling tinnies, raining wombats and vicious blizzards (to enable the title).
The latest Guardian/film/films production – working title: The Blizzard of Oz – promises to take the disaster movie where it’s never been before. Australia. Inspired by latest events, we plan to tell a tale of ecological disaster that will keep you on the edge of your seat for pushing three hours and guarantees a flying CGI kangaroo every 15 minutes.
To clarify: the latest news seem to suggest that B17B, a 140 sq km block of ice that has broken free from the Antarctic ice shelf, looks set to miss Australia altogether. What’s more, it was heading for the west coast, not the east, so featuring Sydney would be a stretch, too. But this is the movies; rules get bent. Which is how we came to cast Stefan Dennis in the lead role.
Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET’s Green Tech blog. He started at CNET News in 2002, covering IT and Web development. Before that, he was executive editor at IT publication InfoWorld. 
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