GEOLOGY WITH JEFF SIMPSON
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Frackalachia and the Great Fracking Jobs Myth (Podcast - 37 Minutes)

4/16/2021

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When a report makes oil and gas companies—and the politicians they help elect—this mad, you know the author is on to something. Researcher Sean O'Leary, with the Ohio River Valley Institute, joins us to talk about his new report, which found that the local economic benefit of fracking to communities in the Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia gas corridor was slim to none. - Drilled
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What If Everyone Ate Beans Instead of Beef? (Video)

4/16/2021

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In America, beef accounts for 37 percent of all human-induced methane released into the air. Methane is 23 times as warming to the climate as carbon dioxide.  Editor James Hamblin highlighted research that found one dietary change—replacing beef with beans—could get the U.S. as much as 74 percent of the way to meeting 2020 greenhouse-gas emission goals. As Hamblin notes, it’s worth being reminded that individual choices matter. - Atlantic
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Meet Arizona's Water One-Percenters

4/8/2021

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In Phoenix, two cities are emerging: one is water-rich, the other water-poor  Every two weeks, Dawn Upton floods her lawn. She treks into her back yard, twists open two valves big as dinner plates, and within minutes is ankle-deep in water.  “You have to have irrigation boots, girl,” she says during a video tour of her property in Mesa, a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona. She flips her camera to reveal green grass, then tilts her phone skyward at four towering palm trees. As she walks, she pans across pecan, pomegranate, and citrus trees – lemon, orange, a grapefruit sapling. A tortoise, between 80 and 100lb, lumbers toward her, chewing. “There’s Simba,” Upton says. “Hey buddy! What is that, Simba? You can’t eat it.” She pats him affectionately on the head. - Guardian
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The Coal Plant Next Door

3/22/2021

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Near America’s largest coal-fired power plant, toxins are showing up in drinking water and people have fallen ill. Thousands of pages of internal documents show how one giant energy company plans to avoid the cleanup costs. - ProPublica
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Navajo Nation - A Ton of Power & Thousands of Homes Without Electricity

3/22/2021

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In a year characterized by extreme weather, avid handwashing, and increasingly remote interactions, access to electricity is more important than ever. But 12 months into the U.S. COVID-19 pandemic, it’s a basic right on which thousands of Navajo Nation members are still waiting.  “What it’s like to be without electricity? I don’t know how to describe it because we never had it before,” said Navajo elder and Black Mesa, Arizona, resident Percy Deal. “It’s always been this way, so we’re used to it. Until last year when this pandemic came in; that’s when we began to realize that these utilities are very important.”  Electricity has long been a contentious issue for Navajo Nation residents. Of the roughly 55,000 Indigenous households located on Navajo lands, which stretch across large parts of Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico, ~15,000 do not have electricity. And yet the reservation is an energy-exporting hotspot, having until recently been home to the Navajo Generating Station, the largest coal-fired power plant in the western U.S, as well as many coal, uranium, oil, and fracking operations. - Grist
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Known For Its Floods, Louisiana Is Running Dangerously Short Of Groundwater

3/19/2021

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Louisiana is known for its losing battle against rising seas and increasingly frequent floods. It can sometimes seem like the state has too much water. But the aquifers deep beneath its swampy landscape face a critical shortage.  Groundwater levels in and around Louisiana are falling faster than almost anywhere else in the country, according to U.S. Geological Survey data. An analysis traced the problem to decades of overuse, unregulated pumping by industries and agriculture, and scant oversight or action from legislative committees rife with conflicts of interest. Experts warn that all of these factors threaten the groundwater that nearly two-thirds of Louisianans rely on for drinking and bathing. Combined with the expected effects of climate-fueled heat and drought, it puts Louisiana on the brink of a groundwater crisis more common in Western states. - NPR
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Energy Companies Leave Colorado with Billions of Dollars in Oil and Gas Cleanup

3/11/2021

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When an oil or gas well reaches the end of its lifespan, it must be plugged. If it isn’t, the well might leak toxic chemicals into groundwater and spew methane, carbon dioxide and other pollutants into the atmosphere for years on end.  But plugging a well is no simple task. Cement must be pumped down into it to block the opening, and the tubes connecting it to tanks or pipelines must be removed, along with all the other onsite equipment. Then the top of the well has to be chopped off near the surface and plugged again, and the area around the rig must be cleaned up.  There are nearly 60,000 unplugged wells in Colorado in need of this treatment — each costing >$100,000. Plugging this many wells will cost more billions. - HCN
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How Rooftop Solar Could Save Americans $473 Billion

3/6/2021

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Critics have long dismissed rooftop solar as a niche product for wealthy homeowners who want to feel good about going green or are looking for security against blackouts. And it is conventional wisdom among utilities and regulators that large solar farms have an inherent cost advantage over the rooftop alternative because they benefit from economies of scale.  Chris Clack sees things differently.  In a fascinating report released last month, Clack and his coauthors estimated that eliminating nearly all planet-warming pollution from electricity generation would be $473 billion cheaper with dramatic growth in rooftop solar and batteries.

That calculation is based on Clack’s exhaustively detailed model of the U.S. electric grid, which he says includes 10,000 times more data points than traditional models and allows for a better accounting of rooftop solar’s costs and benefits to the grid. The model is such a complex beast that Clack built his own computers to help run the simulations, which can take five days to complete.

Researchers...looked out to 2050 and projected how electricity costs would change under a national policy requiring emissions to fall by 95%. When they mimicked traditional models that favor large solar and wind farms, they found that consumers would collectively pay $385 billion more for power over the next 30 years. Not an unreasonable price tag for taking a huge bite out of climate change, but still not the preferred direction if we can help it.

When they optimized for smaller-scale solutions...they found the cheapest way to reduce emissions actually involves building 247 gigawatts of rooftop and local solar power (equal to about one-fifth of the country’s entire generating capacity today). In this scenario, consumers would save $473 billion, relative to what electricity would otherwise cost.

The results come down to simple dollars and cents. - LA Times
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Plan to Strip AZ Regulators of Power to make Clean-Energy Rules Moves Closer to Governor's Desk

3/5/2021

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Lawmakers moved Wednesday to strip the Arizona Corporation Commission of its power to make rules about clean energy in the state, following regulators' move to require electric companies to get all of their energy from carbon-free sources by 2050.  The House voted 31-28 on House Bill 2248 on Wednesday, with one member not voting. The bill prohibits the Corporation Commission from enacting any new energy rules after June 2020. Last fall, after years of workshops and hearings on the issue, the Corporation Commission voted 4-1 to require electric companies like Arizona Public Service Co. and Tucson Electric Power Co., to get all of their energy from carbon-free sources by 2050, with intermediate targets before that date. Carbon emissions would need to be halved by 2032. - AZ Central

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Texas Blackouts Fuel False Claims About Renewable Energy

2/17/2021

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With millions of Texas residents still without power amid frigid temperatures, conservative commentators have falsely claimed that wind turbines and solar energy were primarily to blame.  “We should never build another wind turbine in Texas,” read a Tuesday Facebook ost from Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller. “The experiment failed big time.”  “This is a perfect example of the need for reliable energy sources like natural gas & coal,” tweeted U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, a Republican from Montana, on Tuesday. In reality, failures in natural gas, coal and nuclear energy systems were responsible for nearly twice as many outages as frozen wind turbines and solar panels, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the state’s power grid, said in a press conference Tuesday.  Still a variety of misleading claims spread on social media around renewable energy, with wind turbines and the Green New Deal getting much of the attention.  A viral photo of a helicopter de-icing a wind turbine was shared with claims it showed a “chemical” solution being applied to one of the massive wind generators in Texas. The only problem? The photo was taken in Sweden years ago, not in the U.S. in 2021. The helicopter sprayed hot water onto the wind turbine, not chemicals. - ABC News

"Most of the generation lost has been from coal and gas, according to ERCOT, with only 13% attributable to wind. 'By some estimates,' The Texas Tribune reported Tuesday, 'nearly half of the state's natural gas production has screeched to a halt. Gathering lines freeze, and the wells get so cold that they can't produce,' Parker Fawcett, a natural gas analyst at S&P Global Platts, told the Tribune. 'And, pumps use electricity, so they're not even able to lift that gas and liquid, because there's no power to produce.'"

While ice has forced some turbines to shut down just as a brutal cold wave drives record electrify demand, that's been the least significant factor in the blackouts, according to Dan Woodfin, a senior director for ERCOT which operates the Texas grid.  The main factors?  Frozen instruments at natural gas, coal and even nuclear facilities as well as limited supplies of natural gas, he said.  "Natural gas pressure" in particular is one reason power is coming back slower than expected Tuesday, added Woodfin. 
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    Geo News

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