Right-wing mogul and reality-show star Donald Trump is opposing the construction of an offshore wind farm in Scotland because it will “interfere” with his planned golf course. The Aberdeen Bay wind farm would be 1.5 miles away from the golf course Trump is constructing — by destroying the natural landscape. The Guardian reports that Trump will use “any legal means” in his attempt to block the windfarm, supported by the European commission and the Scottish government:

Donald Trump has pledged to use “any legal means” to block the building of an offshore windfarm near his championship golf course in Aberdeenshire, claiming the development would spoil his view.

Trump, of course, has no problems violating the law to ruin other people’s views. In 2006, Trump built an illegal 70-foot flagpole at his Rancho Palos Verdes golf course. In all likelihood, this is just an attempt by Trump to lash out at wind, the source of much mockery.

This fabulous piece of analysis was originally published at the Oil Drum.

Arthur E. Berman and Lynn F. Pittinger

Shale gas has become an important and permanent feature of U.S. energy supply. Daily production has increased from less than 1 billion cubic feet of gas per day (bcfd) in 2003, when the first modern horizontal drilling and fracture stimulation was used, to almost 20 bcfd by mid-2011.

There are, however, two major concerns at the center of the shale gas revolution:

• Despite impressive production growth, it is not yet clear that these plays are commercial at current prices because of the high capital costs of land and drilling and completion.

• Reserves and economics depend on estimated ultimate recoveries based on hyperbolic, or increasingly flattening, decline profiles that predict decades of commercial production. With only a few years of production history in most of these plays, this model has not been shown to be correct, and may be overly optimistic.

These are not purely technical topics for debate among petroleum professionals. The marketing of the shale gas phenomenon has been so effective that important policy and strategic decisions are being made based on as yet unproven assumptions about the abundance and low cost of these plays. The “Pickens Plan” seeks to get congressional approval for natural gas subsidies that might eventually lead to conversion of large parts of our vehicle fleet to run on natural gas. This might commit the U.S. to decades of natural gas exports at fixed prices in the face of scarcity and increasing prices in the domestic market. Similarly, companies have gotten permits from the government to transform liquefied natural gas import terminals into export facilities that would commit the U.S. to decades of large, fixed export volumes. If reserves are less and cost is more than many assume, these could be disastrous decisions.

Our analysis indicates that industry reserves are over-stated by at least 100 percent based on detailed review of both individual well and group decline profiles for the Barnett, Fayetteville and Haynesville shale plays. The contraction of extensive geographic play regions into relatively small core areas greatly reduces the commercially recoverable reserves of the plays that we have studied. Read more

by Bill McKibben and L.D. Gussin

A lot of people in our country earn their living in the clean economy — 2.7 million, according to a recent Brookings Institution study. They are working in wind, solar and bio-fuel; in smart power grids; in green materials, buildings and products; in green residential, commercial and industrial services; in electric vehicles; and in other promising areas. Others are providing related legal and financial services and scientific research. A great many of you work in manufacturing.

We want to tell you about a political action that we are planning for the end of the summer. It is against a proposed pipeline that would bring oil from the Alberta, Canada tar sands into the country for processing.

What we are planning is civil disobedience, the broadest in the history of climate activism. We believe you in the clean economy will be motivated professionally and morally to support and even join us.

Before talking about the tar sands, or about the civil disobedience itself (at the White House, daily from August 20th through September 3rd), we want to touch on the opponent common to the clean economy and those of us focused specifically on the fight to contain and reverse climate change. We also want to touch on our common purpose.

Our common opponent is, of course, fossil energy interests. Led by the likes of the Koch brothers, and oil and coal companies, it fights the clean economy in every theater: on efficiency (think of the stonewalled “Cash for Caulkers” bill, proposed by John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins), on renewables, on offshore wind, on empowering the EPA, on… well, look, or have your policy people look, and there they’ll be.

In 2010, their big win was the annihilation of President Obama’s energy legislation. This bill, The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, if you recall, had been a sign of hope to the clean economy for two reasons.

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A little more than a year after its negligence led to the despoilment of the Gulf of Mexico, oil giant BP is funding a right-wing lobbying group that opposes regulation of offshore drilling. This week, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is holding its annual meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana. ALEC is a political corruption group funded by Koch Industries and other corporations to write legislation for state-level Republican legislators. ThinkProgress has obtained a list of the conference’s sponsors, and BP is at the head of the list as a “President” level funder. According to sources, that is likely a $100,000 contribution:

ALEC has pushed hard to fight any limits on offshore drilling, claiming “more energy-efficient drilling and production methods practically eliminate spills from offshore platforms.” ALEC also promotes global warming denial, even claiming that the carbon dioxide pollution produced from burning petroleum is good for you.

Other oil and natural gas companies funding the ALEC conference:

Chevron
ExxonMobil
Shell
Koch Industries
McMoran Exploration
Atmos Energy
Chesapeake Energy
ConocoPhillips
Encana
Energy Transfer
QEP Resources
Spectra Energy

On the anniversary of the Gulf disaster, BP celebrated by giving major contributions to Republican politicians. Last month, BP announced “disappointing” profits of $5.6 billion in the last quarter, as it claimed that the Gulf of Mexico has fully recovered from its malfeasance. Oil continues to wash ashore.

As tropical storm Emily — the fifth named storm this year — finally dissipates in the Carribean, many more may be waiting to take her place.

According to new projections from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, this year’s hurricane season could be even more intense than previously projected. NOAA says there’s an 85 percent chance this year’s activity in the Atlantic will be above average — up from a 65% probability in May.

A major hurricane hasn’t hit the U.S. coast since 2008. But NOAA’s outlook for “high hurricane activity” has communities preparing for a season in which 19 major storms could form — ten of them hurricanes and five “major” hurricanes. A number of forces are driving this year’s potentially-active season, including temperatures in the Atlantic that are the third-warmest on record.

Meanwhile in Washington, NOAA could be undergoing some major changes that could impact the agency’s ability to monitor hurricanes and help coastal communities protect themselves. America’s satellites are in need of some serious upgrades — about $700 million worth. NOAA officials say that without an overhaul of the satellite system, hurricane and severe weather predictions would “spell disaster.”

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A worker helps clean the crude-polluted beach in Dalian in northeast China's Liaoning province on July 21. (Ai Liao / EPA)

by Melanie Hart

Last week, in a serious blow to China’s national high-speed rail program, two bullet trains collided near Wenzhou, derailing six rail cars and sending four plunging off the elevated line.  The devastating crash killed 40 rail passengers and injured 191, and local rail officials infuriated the Chinese public by destroying and burying one of the rail cars in an apparent attempt to cover up the cause of the crash.

The Wenzhou incident is already raising new questions about the sustainability of China’s new megaprojects.  For the global community, this incident should serve as a stark reminder that China’s rapid technology deployments can sometimes lead to disaster, and targeted international assistance is still needed to help China catch up on regulatory safeguards and operational best practices.

This is particularly true in the energy sector, where China’s nuclear power, shale gas and deep-sea drilling projects could have wide-ranging environmental repercussions if personnel training and safety standards fall behind their rapid technology deployments.  China is now the world’s biggest renewable energy investor, and those impressive statistics can give the impression that China is leaving the U.S. behind and that we should keep our expertise at home to better compete with the rising dragon.

The House clearly thinks so – U.S. legislators recently passed a 2012 Department of Energy (DOE) appropriations bill that eliminates DOE funding for energy efficiency and renewable energy cooperation with China.

In reality, the China story is much more nuanced.  China definitely has great strengths, and the United States will have to do some policy innovating at home to make sure we don’t get left behind in the long-term.  However, the Chinese also have major weaknesses, and we ignore those weaknesses at our peril.

The Chinese are very good at indigenizing and rapidly deploying new technology infrastructure, but they often lag behind in the skills and regulatory structures needed to actually run those new projects in a safe and sustainable manner.

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MOSCOW — Russia’s vast permafrost areas may shrink by a third by the middle of the century due to global warming, endangering infrastructure in the Arctic zone, an emergencies ministry official said Friday.

This AFP story snuck across my desk on little cat feet.  It didn’t get much attention,  in part because they buried the lede in the very last sentence:

Scientists have said that permafrost thawing will set off another problem because the process will release massive amounts of greenhouse gas methane currently trapped in the frozen soil.

Ya think?

The permafrost permamelt contains a staggering “1.5 trillion tons of frozen carbon, about twice as much carbon as contained in the atmosphere, much of which would be released as methane.  Methane is 25 times as potent a heat-trapping gas as CO2 over a 100 year time horizon, but 72 (to 100) times as potent over 20 years!

The carbon is locked in a freezer in the part of the planet warming up the fastest (see “Tundra 4: Permafrost loss linked to Arctic sea ice loss“).  Countless studies make clear that global warming will release vast quantities of GHGs into the atmosphere this decade.  Yet, no climate model currently incorporates the amplifying feedback from methane released by a defrosting tundra.

Here’s more from the AFP story:

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