Industry

The Fukushima disaster and other irreproducible experiments

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The situation at the Fukushima nuclear reactors has evolved to one of chronic catastrophe or, more optimistically, feed and bleed followed by dialysis. While we keep getting reassured that the Fukushima crisis is not as severe as Chernobyl, I will instead look a few years further back in an effort to learn something about the present dilemma. Fukushima should be more comparable to the Three Mile Island meltdown in 1979 than Chernobyl, but it has apparently left the former eating its radioactive dust. Why? Can anything be learned from this?

Energy dysfunction – April 21

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– Oil sands investments by state-owned bank ‘not sound’, say UK greens
– Multinational fossil fuel firms use ‘biased’ study in massive lobbying push for gas
– Really Unpopular Complicated Expensive Technological Solutions For A Nonexistent Problem
– The Big Grab: 9-part series on the economic threats to Canadians posed by the Alberta oil sands

One year later: Assessing the lasting impact of the Gulf spill

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The worst environmental disaster in history isn’t the oil that gets away. It’s the oil we burn, the coal we burn, the gas we burn. The real catastrophic spill is the carbon dioxide billowing from our tailpipes and smokestacks every second, year upon decade. That spill is destabilizing the planet’s life-supporting systems, killing polar wildlife, shrinking tropical reefs, dissolving shellfish, raising the sea level along densely populated coasts, jeopardizing agriculture, and threatening food security for hundreds of millions of people.

Energy – April 19

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– Secret UK memos expose link between oil firms and invasion of Iraq
– NYT on Hyrdrofracking: Chemicals Were Injected Into Wells, Report Says
– Decision looms on Mekong River dam opposed by conservation groups
– Sasol’s Plan For North American Shale Gas: Turn It Into Diesel
– Big Coal’s Dirty Secret: Breakthrough New Study on Longwall Mining Regulatory Failure and Ruin in Pennsylvania

United States – April 16

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– Gore to Young Advocates: Battle Industry Lobbyists to Turn the Tide on Climate
– Emails expose BP’s attempts to control research into impact of Gulf oil spill
– How Climate Science Was Saved in the U.S. — For Now
– Lobbying Report: Drones Fly Through Congress to Enter US Skies

A new Pickens plan: Good for the U.S. or just for T. Boone?

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Three years ago, with a flurry of national publicity, billionaire Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens outlined his vision of how to help wean the U.S. off imported oil. The crux of the plan was to build a massive, $1 trillion network of wind farms stretching from Texas to North Dakota, which would replace domestic natural gas used to generate electricity. The excess natural gas would then be used to power millions of American trucks and cars, thus freeing the U.S. from the shackles of OPEC oil.

The planet strikes back

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It’s not enough to think of Eaarth as an impotent casualty of humanity’s predations. It is also a complex organic system with many potent defenses against alien intervention — defenses it is already wielding to devastating effect when it comes to human societies. And keep this in mind: we are only at the beginning of this process.