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Keystone XL Decision Will Define Barack Obama’s Climate Legacy
First published on ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, which was recently named one of Time magazine’s Top 25 blogs of 2010.
The Guardian Environment Blog is giving two new bloggers a chance. They both deserve a shout out.
John Abraham, a University of St. Thomas scientist with the Clmate Science Rapid Response Team, has a column whose headline I borrowed. Here’s an excerpt:
But do the tar sands really matter that much? The answer is clearly yes. Alberta has 1.8tn barrels of oil contained within the tar sands. Extracting and burning all of that tar will cause a global temperature increase of about 0.4oC (0.7oF). That is about half of the warming that humans have already caused. For perspective, according to a recent study, the amount of oil-in-place in the Alberta tar sands is approximately seven times that of Saudi Arabia’s proven reserves.
But wait, it gets worse. One of the byproducts of tar-sand extraction is a substance that is like coal … only dirtier. That byproduct, petroleum coke (affectionately called Petcoke), emits more carbon dioxide than even coal.
Click here to read the rest.
And Dana Nuccitelli, one of our favorite Skeptical Science bloggers, has a column on Kansas and renewables:
Is the ‘Saudi Arabia of wind’ willing to sacrifice the economic benefits of clean energy for the sake of the coal industry?
To date, 29 states in the US have set standards requiring a certain percentage of electricity production to be met by renewable sources. Soon that number may fall to 28.
In 2009, Kansas passed legislation establishing a renewable energy standard requiring 10% of the state’s electricity production to come from renewable sources by 2010, and 20% by 2020. The state, the “Saudi Arabia of wind”, met the 2010 requirements by exploiting its wind powerpotential, which is second only to Texas in the US.
Republican congressman Dennis Hedke, the chairman of the Kansas Congressional joint committee on energy and environmental policy –who has ties to the oil and gas industry – arranged for his committee to hear arguments to delay or eliminate these requirements. This Thursday, the commitee has its final hearing on the subject.
Click here to read the rest.
Here’s hoping they both become regulars.
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2013-02-25 14:07:13
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