Read it for yourself
We have to end the mantra that "gas is better" and understand that like everything else, natural gas is only better than coal if done and managed properly. There is not enough monitoring and reporting to suggest it is, and enough anecdotal evidence that much more is needed.
"Then there’s this: Natural gas is made up mostly of methane, and methane, unburned, is around 70 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. There isn’t nearly as much of it, and it’s shorter lived, but it’s not so short-lived that we can allow a great deal to escape into the atmosphere, which it does when anything in the production, transmission or distribution processes leaks. It’s a scarily powerful greenhouse gas for over 20 years, and merely powerful (25 times stronger than carbon dioxide) over a span of 100 years. By which time much of the world’s coastline will be what we now call 'inland.'"
Two things about the measures that mitigate climate impacts: we know enough of them to have an immediate and significant impact, and almost every one of them will have a net positive impact on our economy - both near and long-term.
"This chart shows how recent policies such as the administration’s support for solar and wind power and stricter fuel efficiency standards for automobiles, along with market forces like utilities’ switching from coal to natural gas, have cut the nation’s emissions in recent years. But unless Obama pursues other federal curbs on greenhouse emissions, they will begin rising again."
One of the newest and most ambitious projects is how online, however questionsrain as to how the technology will balance energy and water needs in practice....especially if deployed on a more significant scale.
"Today, Brightsource Energy announced that its huge, DOE-funded solar thermal power plant at Ivanpah, California, delivered power to the grid for the first time. It was part of a test to demonstrate the system, which uses mirrors to focus sunlight on towers to generate steam. The steam is then used to spin turbines and generate electricity. The plant isn’t quite finished yet, but is expected to be done by the end of the year."
With all the industry attacks against GMO labeling, I thought that they were a financial boon for farmers. It is interesting to learn that is not the case, and that it is only a matter of insurance reform to make organic farms financially more viable.
"The organic land makes less money in the off years of the typical one-year-on, one-year-off rotation, when the farmers grow alfalfa and oats, instead of the soy they grow on the GM farms. Soy is clearly more profitable, but not so profitable as to erase the lead from organic corn, Soper said, 'On a two-year average, organic is still way ahead. The bottom line was that our organic farms have 30 percent higher profits.'"
Happy Friday!
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