Salon.com > Brad Jacobson

Fracking’s coming boom

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 18:27:00 +0000

Unlimited export of U.S. natural gas would have enormous implications on the future of the nation's economy, environment and domestic energy choices. Yet a burgeoning chorus in Congress, on both sides of the aisle, is calling for the swift approval of 19 liquid natural gas (LNG) export permits.

The acceptance of these permits would unleash an unprecedented frenzy of domestic high-volume hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, just to meet daily production rates under decades-long contractual obligations. If accepted, the total of the permits currently under review by the Department of Energy for LNG export would be equal to 28.54 billion cubic feet (Bcf) per day, approximately 45 percent of what the U.S. is projected to consume daily in 2013, according to the U.S. Energy Administration.

Fracking: The next bubble?

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 15:29:00 +0000

This article was published in partnership with GlobalPossibilities.org.

Coal and nuclear power industries in the United States have seen better days. The main culprit, energy industry analysts say, is the low cost of domestic natural gas, coupled with carbon-reducing regulations imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency and the efforts of environmental groups.

Instead of paying the high costs to upgrade coal-fired plants and repair aged nuclear facilities to meet environmental regulations, power companies across the country have been making the switch to natural gas.

The nuclear waste in that tuna roll

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 18:00:00 +0000

If you’re like me, you prefer your sushi slathered with just enough spicy wasabi to inflict a painfully pleasurable jolt of heat. But even if you’re not a fan of the bright green, searingly hot sushi-bar condiment, I’m guessing you’d still probably opt for it over a far less appetizing source of heat: radiation. Specifically, radioactive metals that were deposited into the sea near the coastal city of Fukushima, Japan, after the nuclear accident that took place there two years ago this week.

In two separate instances in 2011 and 2012, quantities of ionizing radiation were found in samples of bluefin tuna that had migrated from waters near the site of the Fukushima disaster, where the large fish spawn, to the southern California coastline, where they were eventually caught. In the first of these instances, Daniel Madigan, a marine biology graduate student at Stanford, bought 15 tuna steaks from dockside fishermen in San Diego and sent them off to a lab for testing. Madigan knew the migration patterns of the bluefin; at the time, which was less than six months after the accident, he was acting on little more than a hunch.

The right’s war on renewable energy could doom red states

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 19:34:00 +0000

This article was published in partnership with GlobalPossibilities.org.

Despite impressive green economic growth during this country's job-challenged recovery, particularly in the wind energy sector, the conservative right is systematically seeking to reverse this trend by repealing state-mandated renewable energy targets, even if many of the states that stand to lose jobs and economic opportunity lean red.

Right-wing groups funded by the fossil-fuel industry and the billionaire Koch brothers are rolling out a nationwide assault to repeal state Renewable Electricity Standards (RES), a key component, along with such federal tax incentives as the wind production tax credit (PTC), in driving renewable energy growth in the United States.

Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia currently have a state-mandated RES (also known as a Renewable Portfolio Standard). Traditionally, the renewable electricity standard has received bipartisan support. Efforts in recent years to repeal or weaken state renewable standards have largely failed.