In the Pipeline: 7/9/13

Let us save you three hours of avant garde, pouty whisper-narration: this is Gasland 1 retold with every inaccuracy, hoax, and outright lie. Don’t watch this movie, not because it’s so terribly presented and lacks any kind tie of reality, but because time is precious and there are so many better ways to spend those three long hours. Washington Free Beacon (7/8/13) reports: “Environmentalist filmmaker Josh Fox presents a hoax perpetrated by a Texas activist designed to malign an innovative oil and gas extraction technique as sensational evidence of its catastrophic environmental impact. Fox’s new film, Gasland Part II, features a powerful scene showing a Texas landowner lighting the contents of a garden hose on fire. The incident is presented as evidence of water contamination from a nearby hydraulic fracturing operation. According to a Texas court, the scene was actually a hoax devised by a Texas environmental activist engaged in a prolonged battle with a local gas company to falsely inflate the supposed dangers of the oil and gas extraction technique, also known as fracking.”

I wonder if anyone should sue wind turbines for, you, know, actually killing birds. E&E News (7/8/13) reports: “Owners and operators of a planned California power plant would pay $2 million to mitigate pollution on two low-income communities and an endangered butterfly under a settlement agreement announced today by an environmental group. The Oakley Generating Station will be one of a handful of power plants approved or already operating near the low-income communities of Antioch and Oakley. Also near the station: the Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge, home to the Lange’s metalmark butterfly, which has been on the endangered species list since 1976. Emissions from power plants increase the amount of nitrogen in the refuge’s soil, which has enabled invasive weeds to take over natural vegetation that the butterfly depends on for survival, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. The Center for Biological Diversity partnered with environmental justice groups Wild Equity Institute and Communities for a Better Environment to challenge construction of the power plant. The groups settled with the developers, Contra Costa Generating Station LLC and Radback Energy Inc., which agreed to pay $2 million, split evenly, for mitigation of human health and environmental impacts.”

In case you missed this, Treasury concluded that all the tax credits and grants and what not for wind and solar haven’t really amounted to much. Platts (6/20/13) reports: “Current federal energy-tax provisions are doing almost nothing to reduce US greenhouse-gas emissions, according to a US Treasury Department-sponsored study released Thursday. The study, conducted by the National Research Council, found that roughly $48 billion in energy-sector tax expenditures — including oil and gas depletion allowances, production tax credits for wind and other renewable energy sources and biofuels provisions — have had minimal impact. These tax expenditures and subsidies ‘are a poor tool for reducing greenhouse gases and achieving climate-change objectives,’ the study claims.”

This is a terrible tragedy, and our hearts go out to those who lost loved ones. Let’s hope that Tom Steyer and Bill McKibbon think long and hard about this tragedy before staging their next political stunt. Bloomberg (7/9/13) reports: “A growing number of North American communities are exposed to risks of derailments and spills from trains carrying crude oil as rising production increases rail shipments across the continent and pipelines such as TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s Keystone XL are delayed. More than 70 runaway tank cars filled with thousands of barrels of crude derailed and exploded in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, July 6, killing at least 13 people and incinerating 30 buildings in the town. About 35 additional people remain missing. The disaster intensified the debate over the safety of transporting oil by train compared to pipelines, which have their own record of spills.”

You think the CEO would be able to zip up the man suit enough to do his own caving. But sending Melissa out to do it is probably more corporate. The White House (6/27/13) reports: “The President appears to be taking a balanced approach to addressing the issue. The focus on resilience, clean coal technologies, electric vehicles, energy efficiency and transmission investment demonstrates that the Administration is looking at a full portfolio of actions to address the issue – not just cutting emissions from power plants. We look forward to working with the Administration to support those efforts.” American Electric Power | Melissa McHenry, Spokeswoman

The Department of Interior hates affordable, reliable energy, economic growth, and people. Other than that.. The Federal Register (7/5/13): “This order withdraws 303,900 acres of public lands from location and entry under the United States mining laws, subject to valid existing rights, for a period of 20 years to protect 17 Solar Energy Zones (SEZ) for future solar energy development. The lands have been and will remain open to mineral and geothermal leasing, and mineral material sales.”

Gov. Cuomo and his attorney general have yet to indict Mother Nature. Gizmodo (7/8/13) reports: “This is a light that never goes out: an eternal flame, hidden behind a waterfall in Erie county, New York, which is a result of natural gas seeping out from underground rocks. While gas seeps are extremely common, if the flow concentrates into a “macroseep”—a strong concentrated stream of gas—it can ignite and perhaps never go out. This one burns two pounds of gas, most of which is methane, every day, and the flame reaches eight inches in height. The gas comes from a shale formation about 400 meters below the surface—a result of “natural fracking”, where tectonic events have shifted underlying rocks and caused the gas to escape.”