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Tap water company denies pollution cover-up

The tap water supplier at the center of a scandal after excessive levels of a carcinogenic compound were found in its samples has denied a cover-up of the contamination. Excessive levels of benzene in the water affected more than 2.4 million people in Lanzhou, capital of northwest China’s Gansu Province, provincial authorities said on Friday. The supplier, the Lanzhou Veolia Water Company, collected water samples on April 2 and found abnormal levels of benzene during analysis on Thursday, said Yan Xiaotao, deputy general manager of the Sino-French joint venture. The excess of benzene was confirmed by further tests at 3 p.m. on Thursday and the company reported the situation to the Lanzhou municipal government at 5 a.m. Friday, Yan said. There was no […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Political Rifts Slow U.S. Effort on Climate Laws

The United States needs to enact a major climate change law, such as a tax on carbon pollution, by the end of this decade to stave off the most catastrophic impacts of global warming, according to the authors of a report released this week by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change . But aggressive efforts to tackle climate change have repeatedly collided with political reality in Washington, where some Republicans question the underlying science of global warming and lawmakers’ ties to the fossil fuel industry have made them resistant to change. The rise of the Tea Party in recent years has also made a tax increase unlikely. This week’s report makes clear, however, that the window is rapidly narrowing to forge new policies that will protect the globe from a future of serious food and water shortages, a drastic sea level rise, increased poverty and […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Senate leaders call to review oil export ban

With proven U.S. crude oil reserves increasing, Senate leaders said it was time to lift a 1970s era ban restricting crude oil exports. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported proved crude oil reserves in 2012 reached 33 billion barrels, 15 percent more than the previous year and the fourth consecutive year for an increase. Sens. Mary Landrieu, D-La. and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, called on EIA Administration Adam Sieminski to consider lifting an export ban imposed in response to the Arab oil embargo in the 1970s. Of particular interest were the economic impact of keeping the ban in place, how competitive U.S. crude oil would be on the global market and what logistics were needed to reverse the ban. "You know better than most the true magnitude of the North American energy renaissance," they said in their Friday letter to Sieminski. Murkowski, ranking member of […]

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Climate risks real, U.S. energy secretary says

Without aggressive action now, it will be hard to keep greenhouse gas emissions in check long term, U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said. A report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns international efforts to reduce carbon emissions are short of what’s needed to keep expected temperature increases in check. Greenhouse gas emissions would have to be close to zero by the end of the century to keep changing weather patterns from growing more severe. "The IPCC report notes that it will be substantially more difficult to maintain low greenhouse gas concentrations in the long term if we do not act aggressively now," Moniz said in a statement Sunday. IPCC Co-Chairman Ottmar Edenhofer said the dangers from climate change are clear. "To avoid dangerous interference with the climate system, we need to move away from business as usual," he said in a statement. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Shale reserve area in Louisiana gives up oil, gas

Goodrich Petroleum Corp. said Monday oil and gas were flowing from its operations in the Tuscaloosa shale reserve area in Louisiana. Goodrich said it completed operations at its Blades 33H-1 well in Tangipahoa Parish in southern Louisiana. The company said production of 1,250 barrels of oil and 115 cubic feet of natural gas during a production test was on the low end of its expectations, though the hydraulic fracturing campaign came in under budget. A full-scale hydraulic fracturing campaign, however, is expected to commence at the end of April, Goodrich said. Goodrich said it has access to more than 300,000 net acres spread out over the so-called Tuscaloosa marine shale reserve area. It plans to have five rigs deployed on the site by the end of the year. The Louisiana Department of Natural Resources estimates the shale reserve area contains approximately 7 billion barrels […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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EIA: Railroads expected to take on more LNG

With crude oil prices averaging higher than natural gas, the U.S. Energy Department said Monday it expects freight locomotives to start switching fuel sources. The Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the Energy Department, said the U.S. freight railroad industry spent 23 percent of its operating expense on diesel fuel in 2012, the last full year for which data are available. "EIA projects that liquefied natural gas will play an increasing role in powering freight locomotives in coming years," it said in a Monday briefing . "Continued growth in domestic natural gas production and substantially lower natural gas prices compared to crude oil prices could result in significant cost savings for locomotives that use LNG as a fuel source." The railroad industry consumed 7 percent of all the diesel fuel used in the United States in 2012. From 2017 to 2040, EIA said […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Coal’s Best Hope Rising With Costliest U.S. Power Plant

The facility will be the only U.S. commercial power plant that will capture its own carbon emissions. Close Close Open Photographer: Gary Tramontina/Bloomberg Cranes stand at the construction site for Southern Co.’s Kemper County power plant near Meridian, Mississippi, on Feb. 25, 2014. The facility will be the only U.S. commercial power plant that will capture its own carbon emissions. Rising from the scrub pines of central Mississippi is a $5.2 billion construction project that may determine the future of coal in the age of global warming. It’s here in Kemper County, 90 miles southwest of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, that utility Southern Co. is building the first large-scale power plant in the U.S. designed to transform coal into gas, capture the carbon dioxide and pump it underground. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Dual Turning Point for Biofuels

There is an old joke in the energy business that advanced biofuels are the fuel of the future, and always will be. A Spanish company, Abengoa Bioenergy , has bet $500 million on robbing that joke of its punch line. In the middle of a cornfield here it is building a 38-acre Erector set of electrical cable and pipe that will soon begin producing cellulosic ethanol, which it calls a low-polluting alternative to petroleum products. This is just as the George W. Bush administration and Congress intended seven years ago with legislation promoting energy independence. But even as Abengoa and other companies prepare to produce significant amounts of cellulosic ethanol, using corn stalks and wheat straw as opposed […]

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RWE to Supply Natural Gas to Ukraine

German utility AG said Tuesday it has formally agreed to supply Ukraine with natural gas this year, the first such deal by a European energy company after Ukraine’s continuing political crisis put the country’s traditional supplies from Russia in doubt. RWE said that it would begin gas deliveries to Ukraine’s state-owned energy company Naftogaz via Poland immediately. RWE said it would ship gas from its "pan-European portfolio" to Ukraine, but didn’t provide an estimate of the expected volumes. The deliveries are part of an existing five-year framework deal that allows RWE to ship up 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year to Ukraine, but the gas supplies must be agreed on annually. Last year, RWE supplied around 1 BCM of gas to Ukraine, it said. The gas will be delivered at wholesale price levels, including delivery costs, RWE said. Russian gas-export monopoly Gazprom OAO earlier this month […]

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Obama, Putin Talk as Unrest Roils Eastern Ukraine

The U.S. stepped up efforts to dissuade Russia from intervening in Ukraine’s increasingly unstable east, with President telling President Monday that a diplomatic solution to the crisis is still possible even as he warned against further escalation. Russia requested the call, the first between the presidents since March 28, after Mr. Putin annexed Crimea. The White House also confirmed that Central Intelligence Agency Director was in Kiev over the weekend, at the same time that pro-Russian . The moves come ahead of a high-stakes meeting this week between U.S. Secretary of State and officials from Russia, Ukraine and the European Union, as well as a visit to Kiev next week by Vice President . On Tuesday, U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, the military commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, will issue recommendations on Western military support for Ukraine. The general has privately advocated increased strategic intelligence sharing, […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple