A “blockbuster” court case that’s been wending its way through the courts for seven years finally reached the bench of the U.S. Supreme Court this week, who heard initial arguments that greenhouse gas emissions should be regulated because they’re a “public nuisance.”
In their questions, the justices were generally wary of getting courts involved in regulating greenhouse gases. “Asking a court to set standards for emissions sounds like the kind of thing that EPA does,” said one justice, referring to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The EPA is currently authorized to regulate emissions under the Clean Air Act, and they have set out a timeline for slowly phasing in regulations—but their ability to do so may still be undercut by Congress, although several attempts to do so have failed so far.
New data show the global recession accomplished what other measures struggled to do: it made greenhouse gas emissions plummet. In 2009, greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. and the European Union both fell drastically—between 6 and 7 percent compared with the year before—according to new data from their respective environmental protection agencies.
Efforts to boost clean energy and energy efficiency are moving ahead—despite encountering opposition from sometimes unexpected corners. The U.S. government finally approved building the first U.S. offshore wind farm in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, which had long faced opposition from the Kennedy clan.
Gulf Still Faces Oil Threat on Anniversary of Spill
Activists anxious to cut emissions faster broke into the grounds of a coal-fired power plant near Chicago and unfurled a banner calling for the plant’s closure, before being arrested. The protest against all fossil fuel use was part of a Day Against Extraction, pegged to highlight the one-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill Wednesday. Treehugger marked the date with a roundup of some of the past year’s best reporting on the spill. In a bit of unfortunate timing, the day was also marked by a spill of hydraulic fracturing fluid at a Pennsylvania natural gas well.
Although the Deepwater Horizon well has been plugged, the Gulf still faces a big risk from oil leaks, according to an investigation by the Associated Press. Based on federal documents obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request, the AP reports there are 3,200 abandoned and unplugged oil and gas wells in the Gulf classified as active.
Are Smart Meters Vulnerable to Cyber Attack?
Now another battle is heating up, over smart meters, which provide power companies real-time information on their customers’ power consumption, and which could save energy and distribute electricity use more evenly throughout the day.
Residents of northern California, where the utility Pacific Gas & Electric has installed smart meters, were among the first to blame the meters for a variety of maladies. Rollouts of smart meters in Maine, British Columbia, and elsewhere are likewise encountering health scares. But the meters use signals like those from cordless phones, posing no special risk, according to a recent report by the California Council on Science and Technology.
In the U.K., where installation of smart meters is also under way, the security of the data seems to be a bigger concern, as research has shown the meters are vulnerable to attack by computer viruses or could be hacked.
The Donald Wants to Seize Middle East Oil
Real estate mogul Donald Trump, who said he’s considering running for president in 2012, blamed Obama for the high price of oil in the world. Trump proposed several remedies, including demanding the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries sell their oil for cheaper, as well as invading Libya to “take their oil,” and seizing Iraqi oil as reimbursement for the cost of war there.
Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund warned the world is facing increased oil scarcity, while the International Energy Agency echoed similar warnings of another recession triggered by high oil prices. It also urged Saudi Arabia to boost its oil production, since it’s the only country that claims to have substantial spare oil production capacity.
However, Saudi Arabia argued there’s actually an oversupply of oil, and that’s why it cut its production in April by about 800,000 barrels per day—a 9 percent drop—compared to the month before. The Financial Times questioned Saudi claims that the market is oversupplied, pointing out that the country’s oil minister said the same in November, and yet since then prices have risen from $86 to $121 a barrel.
President Obama disagreed, blaming speculators for high oil prices.
War for Oil After All?
Trump isn’t alone in talking about invasions providing better access to oil supplies, according to secret memos obtained by U.K. newspaper The Independent.
Politicians have roundly rebutted any link between oil and the war, with former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair saying in 2003, “the oil conspiracy theory is honestly one of the most absurd when you analyse it.” However, the memos reveal a different story. Months before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the U.K. Foreign Office wrote in one memo: “Iraq is the big oil prospect. BP is desperate to get in there…”
“It has never seemed likely that the US and Britain invaded Iraq primarily for its oil,” wrote political reporter and Iraq expert Patrick Cockburn in The Independent. “But would they have gone to war if Iraq had been producing cabbages? Probably not.”
The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.
Natural gas has a reputation as the least environmentally damaging fossil fuel, but a new study from Cornell University paints a slightly different picture. Study leader Robert Howarth told the BBC that, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, gas from shale rocks—undergoing a boom in production in the U.S.—is “quite likely as bad [as] or worse than coal.”
Why? Methane, the main component of natural gas, is a far more powerful—albeit shorter-lived—greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and shale gas production is leaky. For each watt of energy released, the emissions from producing shale gas would cause about 20 percent more warming than the emissions from coal over a 20-year period. This is about the same amount of warming as coal over a 100-year period.
The study received criticism from a variety of groups, including the gas industry and the industry group Energy In Depth. Even The Clean Air Task Force argued it was flawed in several ways.
Meanwhile, shale gas is being hailed as a savior by many, with Time magazine proclaiming on its cover, “This rock could power the world,” and President Obama talking up shale gas production in a recent energy speech, saying “the potential for natural gas is enormous.”
But as the Time magazine article points out, shale gas has also won many detractors. Getting it out of the ground requires a technique known as hydrofracking—fracturing the shale rock by pumping millions of gallons of high-pressure, chemical-laden water into each well. Some fear this fluid is contaminating their drinking water—either underground, or when it is stored in pools on the surface. There is little reason to think fracking is inherently unsafe, argued Michael Levi with the Council on Foreign Relations, but a new study launched by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency could help sort out the evidence.
Regardless of the environmental impact, shale gas production could continue growing, according to a report commissioned by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. EIA estimates that there are “vast” quantities of technically recoverable shale gas in 32 countries (besides the U.S.), which amount to nearly 5,800 trillion cubic feet, or the equivalent of 1 trillion barrels of oil—a volume roughly on par with official estimates of proven oil reserves.
Some news articles put these resources in terms of current consumption—with Obama saying U.S. holds “perhaps a century’s worth” of shale gas.
Move Over Hybrids, Electric Vehicles
Many are talking about big boosts in natural gas consumption, including oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens, who hailed natural gas as “the only resource we have in America that can replace foreign oil.” Plans to replace oil for fueling fleets of trucks may get a boost from the NAT GAS Act, recently introduced in the Senate.
Chrysler this week announced it will start selling natural-gas vehicles in the U.S. by 2017. But Honda may beat them to it.
But is there enough of this resource? In areas with abundant shale gas, power plants are using it as a replacement for coal, reports the Centre Daily Times from the shale gas heartland of Pennsylvania. If these plans for increased natural gas consumption pan out, however, the remaining resources could be used up considerably faster than many estimates suggest.
A Little Competition
Meanwhile, efforts to boost domestic energy production may bring another potentially environmentally damaging practice to the United States, since a mining company has qualified for a permit to open the country’s first tar sands mine in Utah.
As one of the Bush administration’s parting shots in 2008, it loosened the rules on development of oil shales—which have to be heated underground to break them down and yield oil—but the Department of the Interior has now said it is ready to launch a new evaluation of the regulations. Europe, on the other hand, is taking a much dimmer view of these unconventional fossil fuels, with the European Union mulling a ban on importing oil made from tar sands, and France considering banning shale gas wells.
Climate Talks Aim at Impossible Goal
The latest round of UN climate talks wrapped up in Bangkok, with no major breakthroughs. The World Wildlife Fund said there was “little to show for the weeklong session,” although countries did agree to a roadmap for moving forward. Tosi Mpanu Mpanu, chair of the Africa Group, told Reuters: “Thank god we came up with an agenda. It’s a pity it took so long. What does it say for the rest of the year?”
China has earned new clout in climate negotiations, IPS news reports, as a result of its new five-year plan for the country. The plan is still under development, but draft versions set out large boosts for clean energy. But even with such relatively ambitious goals, it is nearly impossible to reach the goal of limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial temperature.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress hashed out deals on spending, with clean energy and efficiency research relatively unscathed. However, a proposal was killed that would have added the Climate Service at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Like a Fish Needs a Llama
In other news, a few headlines made it hard to sort fact from fiction this week. One (apparently true) news story reported that, in the U.K., fish were transported by llama to new locales, to help them cope with climate change. And the Associated Press reported that energy giant General Electric decided to return its $3.2 billion tax refund to the U.S. Treasury. (That was a hoax, it turned out, perpetrated by the activist group The Yes Men.)
The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.