France has become the first country to ban fracking.  The drilling technique has come under increased scrutiny due to a rapid increase in its use for the production of shale gas.  Bloomberg reports:

Energy companies that plan to use fracking to produce oil and gas in France will have their permits revoked and its use could lead to fines and prison, according to the law passed by a vote of 176 in favor, 151 against by the senators in Paris.

Under the bill approved yesterday, companies with exploration permits will have two months to declare whether they intend to use hydraulic fracturing. If they do, their permits will be revoked.

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, pumps water, sand and chemicals underneath shale formations to force out trapped gas or oil. The discovery of massive reservoirs around the U.S. has caused a shale gas boom, driving down prices and encouraging additional investment in natural gas infrastructure. While the U.S. and Canada lead the market, Australia, China India and various European countries have also started using the fracking technique for shale gas.

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A massive dust storm has swept into the Phoenix area and drastically reduced visibility across the valley.

The wall of dust moved across the desert from the south on Tuesday and descended on the valley by nightfall. KSAZ-TV reported the storm appeared to be roughly 50 miles wide.

A 2-mile high, 50-mile wide Dust Storm enveloped Phoenix yesterday.  Tonight, on NBC (video here), Brian Williams called it “The Dust Storm that Swallowed Up an American City.”

Back in April, the USGS released a report on Dust-Bowlification that concluded drier conditions were projected to accelerate dust storms in the U.S. Southwest.  In large parts of Texas and Oklahoma now,  the drought is more intense than it was during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

In 2007, Science (subs. req’d) published research that “predicted a permanent drought by 2050 throughout the Southwest” — levels of aridity comparable to the 1930s Dust Bowl would stretch from Kansas to California.  Last year, a comprehensive literature review, “Drought under global warming: a review,” by NCAR found that we risk multiple, devastating global droughts worse than the Dust Bowl even on moderate emissions path.  Another study found the U.S. southwest could see a 60-year drought this century.

So the monster dust storm — a haboob — that hit Phoenix is just the shape of things to come for the entire Southwest.

Here are more videos, via the Atlantic Wire:

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An Exxon Mobil pipeline buried under the Yellowstone River in Montana burst with terrible effect last week, poisoning the river that Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) has called “a cornerstone of Montana’s economy and our outdoor heritage.” The hour-long spill — which lasted twice as long as Exxon initially admitted — released about 42,000 gallons of toxic oil, to current knowledge.

The Obama administration is now considering whether to approve the construction of a vastly larger pipeline, the Keystone XL project, which would deliver tar sands crude from Canada to Texas refineries, crossing the Yellowstone River, 1,903 other key waterways, and major aquifers along the way. The Keystone pipeline would deliver 830,000 barrels per day, over 20 times the 40,000-barrel Silvertip pipeline that failed last week.

As NRDC’S Anthony Swift relates, the government’s approach to pipeline safety does not lead to confidence regarding Keystone XL:

Several days after the Yellowstone spill, pipeline safety regulators at the Department of Transportation reacted by issuing Exxon-Mobil’s Silvertip pipeline a Corrective Action Order (CAO) which requires the company to make safety improvements to the pipeline before it can restart. In issuing the order, Secretary LaHood said “when companies are not living up to our safety standards, we will take action.”

Here’s the problem — Exxon was living up to the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) safety standards. True, Exxon’s decision to build an unprotected crude pipeline only 5 to 8 feet below a flood prone river appears to have been imprudent. Exxon’s decision to restart the pipeline in May despite heavy flooding was foolish. However, the real story is that this string of reckless decisions was permitted by both our pipeline safety regulations and the regulators who enforce them.

This reactive approach to pipeline safety regulation is evidenced by the Department of Transportation’s approach to Keystone XL and other pipelines carrying raw tar sands crude. In her recent testimony to Congress on pipeline safety, Cynthia Quarterman, the Administrator of DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), conceded that her agency did not have a handle on the safety risks that raw tar sands pipelines pose. Specifically, she said that the U.S. pipeline system was not designed with the risks of raw tar sands crude in mind, her agency had not evaluated those risks, and she did not know whether current safety regulations were sufficient to address them. Despite these serious unknowns, her agency has not actively engaged in the consideration of the Keystone XL.

Transcanada’s “first tar sands pipeline, Keystone I, has had thirty three leaks in the U.S. and Canada in less than one year of operation,” Swift writes, “and is the youngest pipelines in the U.S. to be deemed by regulators a threat to life, property and the environment. ”

Activists are mobilizing against the Keystone XL project with the StopTar.org and Tar Sands Action projects.

Inevitably, I’m sure most of you think Roy Spencer’s ‘job’ is to spread disinformation on climate science with the aim of stopping or delaying efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (see “The Great Global Warming Blunder“).

Technically, Roy Spencer is Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Tragically, Spencer himself thinks his job is something a little different.

Incomprehensibly, in the comments section of his post on his new book Fundanomics: The Free Market, Simplified, he admits:

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by John Griffith

America is falling behind in the clean energy race. We must invest now in these critical new technologies to restore our economic competitiveness and create new jobs. And we can do so while reducing the federal deficit by ending wasteful tax breaks and imposing new fees on carbon and fossil fuels.

We can save $46 billion over the next decade by ending wasteful tax subsidies to oil, gas, and coal companies

• The federal government hands out more than $4 billion a year in tax earmarks to oil, natural gas, and coal companies—with no observable benefit to taxpayers
• At a time of $90-plus barrels of crude oil, companies admit they don’t need taxpayer-funded incentives to produce oil.
• The G-20 countries have agreed to phase out fossil fuel subsidies.

We can protect our planet from global climate change and reduce the deficit by $300 billion by putting a price on carbon emissions and levying an oil-import fee

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Another power station was shut down by jellyfish today amid claims that climate change is causing a population surge among the species.

Swarm: Hundreds of jellyfish blocked the water-supply grills at the Hadera plant

I could not resist the headline and lede above — especially when I saw it was from the UK’s Daily Mail, normally a hotbed [cold bed?] of climate denial.  This story, however, takes a much different turn:

A huge swarm clogged up the Orot Rabin plant in Hadera, Israel, a day after the Torness nuclear facility in Scotland was closed in a similar incident.

Hadera ran into trouble when jellyfish blocked its seawater supply, which it uses for cooling purposes, forcing officials to use diggers to remove them.

A digger drops jellyfish cleared from the power station.

What’s truly fascinating about this is the link to climate change, specifically ocean acidification, which the infamous, anonymous “Daily Mail Reporter,” actually gets mostly right:

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By Jessica Goad, manager of research and outreach, Public Lands Project, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Republicans on the House Interior and Environment Appropriations subcommittee just released a spending bill they will debate tomorrow and next Tuesday. Along with a handful of nasty riders that ThinkProgress has explained in more detail, the GOP included a new provision (Sec. 445) that would prevent the Secretary of the Interior from withdrawing 1 million acres from mineral development around the canyon. This policy proposal does not address spending in any way:

SEC. 445. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, none of the approximately 1,010,776 acres of public lands and National Forest System lands described in Public Land Order No. 7773; Emergency Withdrawal of Public and National Forest System Lands, Coconino and Mohave Counties; AZ (76 Fed. Reg. 37826) may be withdrawn from location and entry under the General Mining Law of 1872 (30 U.S.C. 22 et seq.) except as expressly authorized by a law enacted after the date of enactment of this Act that refers to this section.

Instead, this action is in response to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar’s announcement three weeks ago that the Interior Department would withdraw lands around the canyon from uranium and other mineral mining for six months while an environmental study is finalized. The announcement came after 300,000 comments were submitted by the public, many of which requested that the government protect the Grand Canyon from the recent mining boom. The rush to develop minerals under the outdated 1872 Mining Law has intensified over the last few years, and the New York Times reported that between 2005 and 2008, more than 1,000 uranium claims were staked in just one national forest adjacent to the national park.

The Grand Canyon provides an incredible place for recreation, and the Colorado River that runs through the national park provides drinking water to 25 million Americans. It is estimated by Headwaters Economics that in 2009, Grand Canyon National Park created $411 million and over 6,000 jobs in the region.

Immediately after Salazar’s decision, Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) threatened to use the appropriations process to stymie the withdrawal. As a member of the subcommittee that wrote this bill, it seems obvious that he was successful. This is just the latest attempt by conservative lawmakers to trade our parks for corporate profits. Flake received contributions from a multi-national mining company in the last election cycle. Additionally, he has been endorsed by the pro-industry, right-wing Club for Growth and FreedomWorks in his campaign for U.S. Senate in 2012.

Clean energy professionals often complain that solar PV receives too much attention compared to other sectors like solar hot water, geothermal and biomass. I’m sympathetic to that sentiment. But I also think the attention is deserved.

Solar PV is unique. Because manufacturing can scale so quickly and the technology can be deployed so rapidly on existing infrastructure, the rate of innovation in PV is arguably faster than in any other energy sector. The digital age has made us accustomed to constant change, which is probably one reason people get so impatient with the seemingly slow pace of change in the energy sector. The rate of change in PV most closely resembles what we see in the IT sector, which makes it a very compelling story.

And it’s not just journalists who are giving PV so much attention – it’s playing out in the business world as well. In 2011 alone, four major U.S. projects totaling 1,850 MW of capacity have switched from CSP to PV because the economics of PV have changed so drastically while the economics of CSP have changed more slowly. A recent Reuters story on the trend had some very telling quotes:

“The pace is quickening,” GTM Research analyst Brett Prior said of the numbers of projects making the switch to PV. “You can build a PV project all-in and it will cost less upfront and cost less ongoing. You will make more money on that project, and so it just makes sense to switch it.”

“PV is available now and financeable now,” said Sean Gallagher, managing director of government and regulatory affairs for K Road Power. “The production of SunCatcher technology has been delayed for a couple of years. It can’t be deployed as soon as PV can be deployed.”

“Our CSP is a little bit more restrictive,” [Edward Sullivan of Solar Millennium] said. “We have to develop 250MW chunks, so that requires us to develop large continuous swaths, whereas PV is much more flexible.”

What is driving these changes? There is a lot of fascinating research and pre-commercial activity happening around plastic solar cells, inks, fibers and other materials. But the most exciting innovations are coming from businesses finding new ways to manufacture, finance, package, sell and install solar – all with today’s commercially-available technologies.

We covered some of the factors in a post last month on “ferocious cost reductions” in the sector. In this post, we’ll break down a few of the pressure points that companies are addressing to continue driving those reductions.

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A round-up of climate and energy news. Please post other stories below. Photo: Wikipedia Commons

Vietnam Era Weapon Being Used to Clear the Amazon

Agent Orange is one of the most devastating weapons of modern warfare, a chemical which killed or injured an estimated 400,000 people during the Vietnam War — and now it’s being used against the Amazon rainforest. According to officials, ranchers in Brazil have begun spraying the highly toxic herbicide over patches of forest as a covert method to illegally clear foliage, more difficult to detect that chainsaws and tractors. In recent weeks, an aerial survey detected some 440 acres of rainforest that had been sprayed with the compound — poisoning thousands of trees and an untold number of animals, potentially for generations.

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Republicans have officially unveiled a slash-and-burn budget plan for the environment, with drastic cuts to environmental agencies and numerous riders to exempt polluters from science-based regulation. The House Appropriations Committee released the fiscal year 2012 Interior and Environment Appropriations bill, to be considered in subcommittee tomorrow. The legislation includes major cuts in funding for the Department of the Interior, the EPA, the Forest Service, and various independent and related agencies.

This Tea Party budget eviscerates protections for air, water, and land while delivering industry lobbyists a grab-bag of favors. The bill denies not only the threat of global warming pollution, but also that of formaldehyde, coal ash, and pesticides. The bill cuts EPA funding by $1.8 billion, or 20 percent, below President Obama’s request, and caps employment at 1992 levels. The bill restores $55 million in offshore oil and gas subsides. The bill overrules the Department of Interior’s provisional decision to protect the Grand Canyon from uranium mining (Sec. 445).

Some of the many riders in the budget bill include:

OFFSHORE DRILLING POLLUTION

– A provision expanding permitting activities for the Outer Continental Shelf, and restricting EPA rules for air pollution on exploration permits (Sec. 433)

MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL POLLUTION

– A provision prohibiting the Office of Surface Mining from moving forward with proposed updates to the “stream buffer rule” (Sec. 432)

– A provision prohibiting federal agencies from working together on mountaintop removal permitting (Sec. 433)

– A provision prohibiting funds for defining coal ash as hazardous waste (Sec. 434)

GLOBAL WARMING POLLUTION

– A provision instituting a one-year prohibition on the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources (Sec. 431)

– A provision providing exemptions from greenhouse gas reporting for certain agricultural activities (Sec. 429)

– A provision prohibiting greenhouse gas permitting for livestock emissions (Sec. 428)

– A provision requiring the president report on all executive-branch spending related to climate change in 2011 and 2012 (Sec. 426)

WATER AND CHEMICAL POLLUTION

– A provision prohibiting the EPA from changing the definition of “navigable waterways” under the Clean Water Act (Sec. 435)

– A provision prohibiting funds for the EPA from expanding storm water discharge requirements (Sec. 439)

– A provision restricting EPA regulation of formaldehyde (Sec. 444)

On Monday, the Washington Post ran a piece with the print headline, “The climate issue takes a backseat.”   The thrust of the story is that while the White House is  pushing hard for stronger fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks, they are supposedly downplaying the fact that the new rules “would do more to cut global-warming pollution than any other policy in the president’s time in office.”

If true, this isn’t really news (see “Aussie PM Gillard gives climate speech Obama won’t” and links below).

What is news is that one of the giants of the environmental movement, Jonathan Lash, slams Obama in the piece for lack of leadership on climate.  I’ve known Lash for almost as long as he has headed the World Resources Institute.  WRI is in many ways a reflection of Lash’s temperament — rock-solid in substance and soft-spoken in rhetoric.

When Lash speaks out, people should listen.  Here’s what he said:

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My city apartment is pretty small, but not quite this small. Still, through creative design, this net-energy positive “cube house” feels like it has just as much space.

This 10x10x10 foot house features a small lounge, dining area, kitchen, space for a washer and dryer, a closet, full shower, bathroom and full-sized bed. It proves that you can do a heck of a lot with a little. And with the solar panels on top, it’ll earn you $1,600 per year through the UK’s feed-in tariff.

Here’s a 6-minute video tour:

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