Fossil Fuels

Methane in well water from gas fracking

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Many of you may have seen this kind of video, showing the effects of methane in drinking water near some shale gas extraction wells: Before now, I’ve never known what to make of this kind of thing. Is this a very rare, if spectacular occurence, or is it common where shale gas drilling goes on? Now, there is a paper in this weeks PNAS, Methane contamination of drinking water accompanying gas-well drilling and hydraulic fracturing by Osborn et al, researchers at Duke University. It appears to answer the question, and the answer is not good.

Midday with Dan Rodricks Power Ahead: Oil

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Day two of Midday’s special series Power Ahead focuses on fossil fuels. During the first hour we look at coal with Robert Bryce, author of Power Hungry: The Myths of Green Energy and The Real Fuels of the Future, Bill McKibben, leading environmentalist and award-winning author of The End of Nature and Richard Heinberg, peak-oil expert, author and senior fellow, Post Carbon Institute.

Brussels vs. Barbastro: two peak oil conferences

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Barbastro seemed to be willing to tackle wider questions and to ask unmentionable questions; for instance, do we really own everything in this planet? If we are justified in poisoning people in order to produce combustible liquids and gas, why don’t we jump to the ultimate consequence and turn human corpses into oil? Some talks in Brussels were frankly scary, but in Barbastro some presentations made you feel like running away screaming.

Peaking – May 6

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– Alaska’s Peak Oil Realities
– Iraq halves oil output (target) as reality replaces ambition
– Peak oil appears in NPR blog
– EU Plans Measures to Tackle Resource Crunch
– Neue DERA-Kurzstudie zu schweren Seltenen Erden: Entwicklung “Grüner Technologien” durch kritische Versorgungslage gefährdet