National Academy of Science Says the Science of Climate Change is Clear and It’s Time to Act Now
The National Academy of Science has joined a growing chorus of scientists and policymakers in underscoring the need for strong action to combat climate change. The Academy released three reports today as part of its America's Climate Choices project, a project Congress requested in the last year of the Bush Administration to address what Congress should do domestically to combat climate change. (In the interest of full disclosure I served as a member of one of th...
CONTINUE READINGBP’s Disastrous PR Blowout
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZidQAf8epE] Even Fox News is berating BP for its callous and inapt public response to the oil blowout. And for good reason. As Newsweek says: This hasn't been a good few weeks for Tony Hayward, the chief executive officer of BP. In the weeks since the huge oil spill in the Gulf began, he has struck an occasionally Churchillian tone: "We are going to defend the beaches," he proclaimed. "We will fix this." But the British leade...
CONTINUE READINGCosts and Benefits of Offshore Oil
In thinking about the economics of off-shore oil, the main benefit is increased energy security. According to an RFF study, Netted out, the Brown and Huntington estimates suggest that the effect of increased U.S. oil production is about $1 per barrel (or 2.4 cents per gallon of gasoline); for each barrel of increased U.S. oil production, the risk to the U.S. economy of supply disruptions is reduced by an expected value of about $1. What is being "netted out"? The d...
CONTINUE READINGGoing Nuclear in Finland
A new film explores how Finland is planning to dispose of its nuclear waste. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXif1MThJ6k]...
CONTINUE READINGGulf spill estimates revised up — again
Let's review the bidding. Since the Deepwater Horizon explosion on April 20, estimates of the volume of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico have gone steadily up. They began at zero, then 1000 barrels a day, then 5000 barrels (210,000 gallons), a number that has been repeated over and over in media reports. But that number may be way too low. By May 1, SkyTruth was reporting, based on analysis of aerial pictures of the oil slick, an estimate of more than 26,000 barrels p...
CONTINUE READINGMurkowski Favors Bailout for Big Oil, Not for Failing Banks
I thought one of the most audacious political stances I'd seen in many years was the Republican position -- dreamed up by GOP pollster Frank Luntz -- that a tax on big banks was actually a big bank bailout. Converting a tax to a government bailout was pure political chutzpah, and some sick form of genius. Now it's the Democrats' turn to cry bailout. Several Democratic Senators -- Lautenberg and Menendez from New Jersey, Nelson from Florida -- have proposed rai...
CONTINUE READINGMore Intrigue for India’s Environment Minister
India's current Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh, is not a man to hold his tongue, and has become the most powerful minister in that post since it was founded. Recently, he's been in a lot of hot water for a speech he gave in China, where he castigated other government ministries for being "alarmist" and "paranoid" about "Chinese businessmen entering the industrial sector in India." Already, the Indian press is talking about Ramesh being taken down a peg. But wai...
CONTINUE READINGEPA’s Clean Air Act tailoring rule finalized today
Just a quick post to point you to the fact sheet on the final tailoring rule, the final rule itself, and an early Greenwire piece on its content. Sure enough, as Adminstrator Jackson had been signaling for some time, the final rule significantly increases the GHG emission thresholds that will trigger New Source Review / PSD coverage, as compared with thresholds put forth in the proposed rule issued last fall. Here's the summary: -For the first five months of the pr...
CONTINUE READING100% Failsafe? There’s No Such Thing!
The blowout prevention device, which was touted as providing absolute protection against blowouts, not surprisingly turns out to have some flaws. In a 2001 document, according to the Washington Post, drilling rig operator Transocean said there were 260 "failure modes" that could require removal of the blowout preventer. Nothing is failure-proof unless the laws of physics make failure an impossibility -- and even then, human beings can probably still screw things up....
CONTINUE READINGHell on earth
If you need an argument for aggressive greenhouse gas emissions reduction, geoengineering, or both -- or if you just want to be depressed -- consider this. Steven Sherwood and Matthew Huber report in PNAS (subscription required, see this description and story in New Scientist's Short Sharp Science blog) that by 2300 the earth could be too hot for human life. They calculate that burning all the available fossil fuels could cause global mean warming of as much as 12°C (21...
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