Brian D. Lutz, Emily S. Bernhardt, William H. Schlesinger (2013). The Environmental Price Tag on a Ton of Mountaintop Removal Coal PLOS ONE DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0073203 “While several thousand square kilometers of land area have been subject to surface mining in the Central Appalachians, no reliable estimate exists for how much coal is produced per unit… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Energy
The G20 Leaders’ Declaration has been published
G20: “In Washington, London and Pittsburgh, we took decisive steps to stimulate the world economy, restore growth, recapitalise financial institutions, launch an ambitious program to reform the financial sector, maintain open markets and clamp-down on tax havens. Significantly, we established the Financial Stability Board (FSB), tripled the resources available to the IMF, and put in… Continue Reading
1 Billion Live Without Electric Light
Nearly one-fifth of the globe can’t turn on the lights: “While some 1.7 billion people have acquired access to electricity globally since 1990, the rate of electrification has been slower than the rate of population growth in the most energy-poor countries. Just to get all of sub-Saharan Africa–a region that generates about as much electricity… Continue Reading
Health Impact Assessment of Shale Gas Extraction
“Natural gas extraction from shale formations, which includes hydraulic fracturing, is increasingly in the news as the use of extraction technologies has expanded, rural communities have been transformed seemingly overnight, public awareness has increased, and regulations have been developed. The governmental public health system, which retains primary responsibility for health, was not an early participant… Continue Reading
EIA releases state fact sheets on household energy use
“The Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) gathers information through personal interviews with a nationwide sample of homes and energy suppliers. The 2009 survey was the largest RECS to date and the larger sample size allowed for the release of data for 16 individual states, in addition to national, regional, and division-level estimates. See a closer… Continue Reading
The Real Value of Big Data is Difficult to Measure
Is Big Data an Economic Big Dud? by James Glanz, August 17, 2013 – See related graphic here. “If pencil marks on some colossal doorjamb could measure the growth of the Internet, they would probably be tracking the amount of data sloshing through the public network that spans the planet. Christened by the World Economic Forum as… Continue Reading
Proved reserves of crude oil and natural gas in U.S. up sharply in 2011
EIA: “In 2011, oil and gas exploration and production companies operating in the United States added almost 3.8 billion barrels of crude oil and lease condensate proved reserves, an increase of 15 percent, and the greatest volume increase since the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) began publishing proved reserves estimates in 1977. Proved reserves of… Continue Reading
U.S. biodiesel production reached a record level in May 2013
“U.S. biodiesel production in May 2013 reached a record level of 111 million gallons, according to data released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on July 30. Production came from 116 active biodiesel plants with operable capacity of 2.2 billion gallons per year. Production for the first five months of 2013 was 449 million… Continue Reading
North American Bird and bat fatality-rate estimates from wind-energy projects
Comparing bird and bat fatality-rate estimates among North American wind-energy projects – K. Shawn Smallwood, Wildlife Society Bulletin Volume 37, Issue 1, pages 19–33, March 2013: “Estimates of bird and bat fatalities are often made at wind-energy projects to assess impacts by comparing them with other fatality estimates. Many fatality estimates have been made across… Continue Reading
Climate science: Vast costs of Arctic change
Climate science: Vast costs of Arctic change. Gail Whiteman, Chris Hop & Peter Wadhams. Nature 499, 401–403 (25 July 2013) doi:10.1038/499401a “Unlike the loss of sea ice, the vulnerability of polar bears and the rising human population, the economic impacts of a warming Arctic are being ignored. Most economic discussion so far assumes that opening… Continue Reading
New Energy Technologies and Avoiding an Electric Service Gap
“The electricity industry is now entering a similar period of rapid change as that faced by the telecom industry a decade ago. New technologies from smart grids and solar panels to superefficient homes and electricity storage are all coming on-line rapidly at the same time that our legacy infrastructure faces the unanswered challenges of an… Continue Reading
