Energy News
Pipeline leaks 138,600 gallons of diesel in northern Iowa
Des Moines Register | Posted on January 27, 2017An investigation is ongoing on how a pipeline leaked 138,600 gallons of diesel fuel in Worth County early Wednesday morning, according to Magellan Midstream Partners L.P., the pipeline company. "It’s a big one — it’s significant," said Jeff Vansteenburg, a field office supervisor for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. "The responsible party is Magellan, so they’ll have to bear the cost of clean up." The pipeline leaked on private agricultural land, said Karen Grimes, spokeswoman for the Iowa DNR. There is a small stream near the leak, but Grimes said no surface water has been contaminated. The Iowa DNR has not uncovered any underground water contamination.
Appeals court to decide future of California carbon auctions
Washington Post | Posted on January 27, 2017Businesses looking to invalidate California’s fee for carbon pollution took their arguments to a state appeals court Tuesday in a case that could determine the future of one of California’s signature efforts to combat climate change. With a central piece of Gov. Jerry Brown’s legacy on the line, lawyers for the state and for environmental advocacy groups defended a program that has been closely watched around the world as a potential model for controlling carbon emissions.
US solar power employs more people than oil, coal and gas combined
Independent | Posted on January 27, 2017The latest report from the US Department of Energy (DOE) reveals solar energy accounts for the largest proportion of employers in the Electric Power Generation sector, with wind energy the third largest, while the coal industries have declined in the past 10 years. Solar energy employed 374,000 people over the year 2015-2016, making up 43 per cent of the sector’s workforce, while the traditional fossil fuels combined employed 187,117, making up just 22 per cent of the workforce, according to the report.
California proposes ambitious new climate goals
The Hill | Posted on January 26, 2017California formally proposed a 40 percent slash in the state’s greenhouse gas emissions, minutes after President Trump was inaugurated. The state’s Air Resources Board said that 40 percent cut by 2030, compared with 1990 levels, would be the most ambitious climate goal in North America. “Climate change is impacting California now, and we need to continue to take bold and effective action to address it head on to protect and improve the quality of life in California,” Mary Nichols, the board’s chairwoman, said in a statement. Scott Pruitt, the nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, said at a confirmation hearing that he would consider ending California’s decades-old authority to enforce its own limits on emissions from cars and trucks. The California plan would extend its cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gases through 2030, cut the carbon intensity of fuels used for transportation and put more than 4 million zero-emission vehicles on the roads.
Why coal jobs aren't coming back, despite Trump's actions
CNN | Posted on January 26, 2017President Trump's "America First" energy plan makes clear that the White House is committed to "reviving" the country's long-suffering coal industry.It's part of Trump's effort to live up to his campaign pledge to coal miners, whom he has told: "Get ready, because you're going to be working your asses off."As soon as this week, Trump could back up that campaign talk with real action. His energy plan, which appeared on WhiteHouse.gov just minutes after President Obama stepped down, promises to eliminate regulations that have been "harmful" for coal and other energy industries.For instance, observers believe Trump could swiftly issue an executive order lifting the Obama administration's moratorium on coal leasing of federal lands.Despite Trump's best intentions and regulation-busting actions, experts don't believe they will be enough to save coal.That's because coal has a fierce competitor in the form of natural gas. It's cheap, it's clean and there's a ton of it in the U.S. Plus, Trump himself supports expanded drilling of U.S. shale, the chief source of the boom in natural gas."The coal jobs aren't coming back," said James Van Nostrand, director of the Center for Energy and Sustainable Development at West Virginia University College of Law.
Wyoming proposal would require utilities to use fossil fuels
The Washington Post | Posted on January 26, 2017A group of Wyoming lawmakers is bucking the U.S. trend of supporting renewable energy with a plan to do the opposite: Fine utilities if they provide energy produced by wind or the sun. Blustery Wyoming ranks among the top states for wind-energy potential, but the coal, oil and natural gas industries are the backbone of the state’s economy. With a $360 million budget shortfall in public education caused by downturns in those industries and corresponding state revenue declines, legislators are hard-pressed for solutions. Renewable energy, some say, has been overly promoted and subsidized by government at the expense of the fossil fuel industry. “I want the electricity at my house generated by coal, because that’s the cheapest way to go,” said Rep. David Miller, a Republican, of the fossil-fuel requirement he’s co-sponsoring with eight others. The measure makes for an increasingly complicated relationship between Wyoming and renewable energy, even as roads are built for the biggest land-based wind project in the U.S. The Chokecherry and Sierra Madre project in south-central Wyoming will have 1,000 turbines and be able to generate electricity for close to 1 million homes in a state with just 584,000 people.
Belgium horsemeat call after drug found in Brazilian imports
Global Meat News | Posted on January 22, 2017A discovery of Brazilian horsemeat laced with naproxen in Belgium has sparked calls for tough controls over EU imports of horsemeat.
North Dakota Landowners Sue Over Dakota Access Easements
ABC News | Posted on January 22, 2017A group of about two dozen North Dakota landowners is suing the developer of the disputed Dakota Access oil pipeline for alleged deceit and fraud in acquiring land easements. Already, landowners in Iowa await a state judge's ruling in another easement case regarding the $3.8 billion, four-state pipeline. Other court battles are playing out in federal court in North Dakota and Washington, D.C. The Morton County landowners in the lawsuit, filed this month in U.S. District Court, are seeking more than $4 million in damages from Dakota Access LLC, a subsidiary of Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners. ETP contends the allegations "are without merit," company spokeswoman Vicki Granado said. The landowners who are suing represent only about 3 percent of the 800 North Dakota landowners who provided easements to Dakota Access, according to Granado. Those suing say Dakota Access engaged in unfair tactics and fraud while negotiating to lay pipeline on private land, resulting in compensation that was as much as nine times lower than what other landowners got. Landowners also allege they were told if they didn't agree to the offered amount, they faced losing money or getting nothing either because their land would be condemned through eminent domain or the pipeline would be moved elsewhere.
USDA Analysis Reaffirms Ethanol Benefits
25 X 25 Blog | Posted on January 22, 2017Be assured that industry leaders were elated by the report, A Life-Cycle Analysis of the Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Corn-Based Ethanol, showing that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with corn-based ethanol in the United States are about 43 percent lower than gasoline when measured on an energy equivalent basis. This is a big number – and the reduction percentage will get even bigger over the next few years, driven by ongoing improvements in ethanol production and improved land management practices. But the study should – we hope, once and for all – end the frustration long experienced by ethanol advocates who have been bombarded over the years by unfounded or, worse, untrue criticisms of biofuels by legacy fuel stakeholders that seek to hold on to market share. Misguided environmental groups that have an aversion to burning anything to power our transportation system, have also consistently rejected good solutions for desired “perfect” solutions, which are, in fact, unrealistic. The news for the ethanol industry, both here in the United States and across the world, got even better later in the week when the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released its latest food price index showing that world food prices fell for a fifth straight year in 2016. The index, which measures monthly changes for a basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy products, meat and sugar, experienced a 1.5 percent drop last year, with cereals such as corn, driving the decrease in prices.
EPA nominee promises to stick to RFS
The Progressive Farmer | Posted on January 19, 2017A Scott Pruitt-led U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would place an emphasis on following the letter of the law including the Renewable Fuel Standard and providing clarity on a federal definition of navigable waters, in what the nominee told a Senate committee Wednesday would be a return to cooperative federalism with the states. Though agriculture interests were alarmed by the total maximum daily load, or TMDL, implemented in the Chesapeake Bay by basin states and led by the Obama EPA, Pruitt told members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee the nutrients-reduction effort in the region is an example of how cooperative federalism should work. That is, states in the region put together and implemented a nutrients-reduction plan that has, in fact, reduced nutrients flowing into the Chesapeake Bay. At one point during the hearing Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., pressed Pruitt to agree climate change is caused by human activity. When asked by Democratic senators whether he agrees with President-elect Donald Trump's opinion that climate change is a hoax, Pruitt answered no. Pruitt questioned whether there is consensus on climate science, but Pruitt also said EPA has an important role regulating emissions. Pruitt's answer still wasn't enough for Sanders who declared he would not vote for Pruitt's confirmation. In his prepared statement to the committee, Pruitt said he would return the agency back to its core mission established by Congress.