Category: Climate & Energy

Carbon Control News reports:

A proposed oil refinery in South Dakota, the nation’s first new refiner in several decades, is emerging as the next battleground over whether tar sands from Canada would undermine U.S. goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Environmentalists are vowing to challenge in court South Dakota’s recently announced decision upholding a key air permit for what would be the first new refinery built in the United States in 30 years, a project designed to process crude oil from Canadian tar sands…

Click here for Hyperion Refining’s media release.

Michael Lynch opines in the New York Times today on so-called “peak oil”:

A careful examination of the facts shows that most arguments about peak oil are based on anecdotal information, vague references and ignorance of how the oil industry goes about finding fields and extracting petroleum.

Click here to read it.

Florida Power & Light is seeking permission from the state Public Service Commission to raise electricity rates by 30% starting on Jan. 1, reports Greenwire. FPL says that the existing system is maxed out and demand is growing.

So why is the system maxed out? It may have something to do with green activist groups who are blocking electricity production in Florida.

The Everglades chapter of Earth First! issued a media release on February 19, 2008, that stated in part:

Early Monday morning dozens of concerned community members from Palm Beach County and all over the nation put their bodies on the line to halt construction of FPL’s West County Energy Center (WCEC), demanding energy efficiency, truly clean, renewable energy and a moratorium on development in south Florida. Everglades Earth First! blocked the main entrance to the WCEC site, a proposed massive 3800 MW gas-fired power plant that would emit 12 million tons of CO2, a leading greenhouse gas, every year. The plant is currently under construction despite ongoing legal challenges to the plant’s needed permits and certification, which have been spearheaded by the local Palm Beach County Environmental Coalition.

A dozen activists locked themselves together through metal pipes as 200 supporters rallied around them. The blockade stopped work on the construction site for six hours before a total of 27 people were arrested.

This confrontational action was taken to protect the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge which sits 1000 ft from the power plant site and to protect the larger Everglades system. Restoration would be undermined by new development that the power plant is expected to encourage in the area. The civil disobedience action also aims to protect the entire planet from the destructive effects of climate change caused by power plant emissions.

“We just don’t need this plant,” said Lynne Purvis, an activist with Everglades Earth First! who was born and raised in the Loxahatchee area. “I’m not willing to threaten the integrity of the Loxahatchee, one of the last large, intact pieces of northern Everglades, so that people can fuel their greedy energy desires.”

Purvis says that the Everglades Earth First! group intends to continue a sustained campaign of direct action against this power plant and its adjacent gas pipeline.

The green/energy issue will take on heightened importance now that Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is launching a campaign to replace retiring Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL). Crist has supported climate change legislation in the past. But the greens are now concerned that Crist may move to the right in order to gain the Senate seat. Our guess is that if Crist is shifting positions, it is just an expediency to win Martinez’s seat.

Florida voters should demand that Crist explain himself on green issues. Otherwise they face even greater energy price hikes in the future.

Florida Power & Light is seeking permission from the state Public Service Commission to raise electricity rates by 30% starting on Jan. 1, reports Greenwire. FPL says that the existing system is maxed out and demand is growing.

So why is the system maxed out? It may have something to do with green activist groups who are blocking electricity production in Florida.

The Everglades chapter of Earth First! issued a media release on February 19, 2008, that stated in part:

Early Monday morning dozens of concerned community members from Palm Beach County and all over the nation put their bodies on the line to halt construction of FPL’s West County Energy Center (WCEC), demanding energy efficiency, truly clean, renewable energy and a moratorium on development in south Florida. Everglades Earth First! blocked the main entrance to the WCEC site, a proposed massive 3800 MW gas-fired power plant that would emit 12 million tons of CO2, a leading greenhouse gas, every year. The plant is currently under construction despite ongoing legal challenges to the plant’s needed permits and certification, which have been spearheaded by the local Palm Beach County Environmental Coalition.

A dozen activists locked themselves together through metal pipes as 200 supporters rallied around them. The blockade stopped work on the construction site for six hours before a total of 27 people were arrested.

This confrontational action was taken to protect the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge which sits 1000 ft from the power plant site and to protect the larger Everglades system. Restoration would be undermined by new development that the power plant is expected to encourage in the area. The civil disobedience action also aims to protect the entire planet from the destructive effects of climate change caused by power plant emissions.

“We just don’t need this plant,” said Lynne Purvis, an activist with Everglades Earth First! who was born and raised in the Loxahatchee area. “I’m not willing to threaten the integrity of the Loxahatchee, one of the last large, intact pieces of northern Everglades, so that people can fuel their greedy energy desires.”

Purvis says that the Everglades Earth First! group intends to continue a sustained campaign of direct action against this power plant and its adjacent gas pipeline.

The green/energy issue will take on heightened importance now that Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is launching a campaign to replace retiring Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL). Crist has supported climate change legislation in the past. But the greens are now concerned that Crist may move to the right in order to gain the Senate seat. Our guess is that if Crist is shifting positions, it is just an expediency to win Martinez’s seat.

Florida voters should demand that Crist explain himself on green issues. Otherwise they face even greater energy price hikes in the future.

From Bloomberg:

President Barack Obama’s push for wind and solar energy to wean the U.S. from foreign oil carries a hidden cost: overburdening the nation’s electrical grid and increasing the threat of blackouts… “As we add more and more wind power, the grid will get more stressed, and there’s going to be a point where the grid can’t handle any more,” [said Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chairman Jon Wellinghoff].

There’s nothing quite like central planning.

Germans say “not under our backyard” to carbon capture and storage, reports The Guardian.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s legislative proposal to revive offshore oil drilling went down to ignominious defeat as the California Assembly stripped the provision from a budget bill drafted to close the state’s $26 billion budget, reports Greenwire.

And to think that last year at this time, some were crowing about how an agreement with the greens had been reached to revive California drilling.

North Carolina legislators are split over a bill banning wind turbines that ruin the beauty of the mountains, reports the Winston-Salem Journal.

Maryland’s bright green Gov. Martin O’Malley banned wind turbines from state park lands for aesthetic reasons in 2008.

Does this mean that the planetary emergency is over?

“Two independent studies have found direct emissions from producing, transporting and refining oil sands crude are in the same range as those of the other crudes refined in the United States,” reports the Alberta Energy Research Institute.

These are important studies as the greens are moving to block the import of oil produced from Canadian tar sands. The 2007 energy bill, for example, prohibited the U.S. government from purchasing oil from sources (read “Canadian tar sands”) where the greenhouse gas emissions are greater on a lifecycle basis.

Check out these new policy briefs from Carnegie-Mellon University that discuss the legal and regulatory hurdles ahead for carbon capture and storage.