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By David Bentley Hart
$11.56
By Lynne Joiner
$27.32
$13
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eggrole (CC BY 2.0)
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By Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica —
A study into the safety of gas drilling in New York state’s Marcellus Shale concludes that natural faults and fractures, exacerbated by the effects of fracking, could allow chemicals to reach the surface and contaminate drinking water supplies much sooner than experts previously predicted.
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Azzazello (CC-BY)
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By Michael T. Klare, TomDispatch —
The world still harbors large reserves of petroleum, but they are of the hard-to-reach, hard-to-refine, “tough oil” variety that will be more costly to extract, refine and buy at the pump.
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Thierry Ehrmann (CC-BY)
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By Amy Goodman — Democrats and Republicans agree on one thing: They’re going to force nuclear power on the public, despite the astronomically high risks, both financial and environmental.
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Lars Christopher Nøttaasen (CC-BY)
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Truthdig contributor and former “60 Minutes” producer Barry Lando argues that China has cleverly exploited poor relations between Tehran and Washington, to the point that the Middle Kingdom now imports more oil and gas from Iran than the U.S. does from Saudi Arabia.
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The German conglomerate is getting out of the nuclear power business. Siemens built every one of Germany’s existing nuclear power plants, all of which were scheduled to be shuttered by 2022 following Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi meltdown. (more)
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Richard Bitting (CC-BY)
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Correction: Back in 2007, a Russian official announced a scheme to build an underwater rail system linking Siberia to Alaska. Such a railway would require the longest tunnel ever built and expenditures of about $94 billion (by one estimate). More than four years later, the transcontinental railway was in the news again. (more)
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AP / David J. Phillip
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By Robert Scheer — It is unfathomable that yet another Texas blowhard governor has emerged as a front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination.
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This week on Truthdig Radio in collaboration with KPFK: Why a battery breakthrough is the key to clean energy; how boosting the minimum wage could lift the economy; we check in with immigration; and Robert Scheer talks about the sinful love between the tea party and Goldman Sachs. Also: On the ground in Gaza. Update: Full transcript.
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Photo illustration from an image by Colin Grey
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This week on Truthdig Radio in collaboration with KPFK: Why a battery breakthrough is the key to our clean energy future; how boosting the minimum wage could lift the economy; we check in with immigration; and Robert Scheer talks about the sinful love between the tea party and Goldman Sachs. Also: On the ground in Gaza.
Posted on Jul 6, 2011
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By Amy Goodman — New details are emerging that indicate the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan is far worse than previously known, with three of the four affected reactors experiencing full meltdowns. Meanwhile, in the U.S., massive flooding along the Missouri River has put Nebraska’s two nuclear plants, both near Omaha, on alert.
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By David Sirota — I thought we would witness the recent Fukushima reactor meltdown or footage of Americans setting their tap water on fire and at least agree to stop pursuing energy policies that we know endanger our health and safety—if not out of altruism, then out of self-interest.
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The Last Mountain / Vivian Stockman
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. beamed from the big screen this weekend, featured prominently in documentary filmmaker Bill Haney’s latest film, “The Last Mountain,” which opened Friday to positive reviews in New York and Washington, D.C.
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Bjoern Schwarz (CC-BY)
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Just two and a half months after Japan’s nuclear disaster kicked off a global rethink, Germany’s governing coalition has committed to closing down all of the country’s nuclear power plants by 2022. Chancellor Angela Merkel says Germany will replace nuclear, which ... (more)
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — While the United States remains utterly frozen in a debate about budget deficits and all the things that government shouldn’t do, other countries are marrying public and private resources to make themselves stronger and more competitive.
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By William Pfaff — Revolutions are known for devouring their children, but the people making the current revolution in the Middle East may prove indigestible.
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AP / Shawn Poynter
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By Chris Hedges — The writer and philosopher Wendell Berry, armed with little more than a copy of William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” and his conscience, has been camped out for three days with a handful of other activists in the governor’s outer office in Frankfort, Ky.
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By Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica —
The United States is poised to bet its energy future on natural gas as a clean, plentiful fuel that can supplant coal and oil. But new research by the Environmental Protection Agency is casting doubt on the assumption that gas offers a quick and easy solution to climate change.
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By David Sirota — As “Buy China” policies now economically supercharge the world’s most populous nation, the White House and congressional Republicans have opposed many of the very “Buy America” proposals that might help us keep up—and that obstruction has come at a steep price.
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AP / Mikhail Metzel
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With a little help from its friends, Venezuela is now one step closer to building its first nuclear power plant. After a two-day stint in Moscow, President Hugo Chavez has received the support of Russia for the construction of a nuclear power station aimed at diversifying the country’s energy supply.
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The casting call for Obama’s town hall, dealing with the media’s masturbation shame, and what Stephen Hawking has to say about God.
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Wayne National Forest / Alex Snyder (CC-BY)
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By Amy Goodman — When first lady Michelle Obama started an organic garden at the White House, she sparked a national discussion on food, obesity, health and sustainability. But the green action on the White House lawn hasn’t made it to the White House roof, unfortunately.
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AP / ISNA, Mehdi Ghasemi
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After 40 years and countless international scoldings, Russia has announced it will begin loading uranium-packed fuel rods into Iran’s first nuclear power plant, officially classifying the reactor as a “nuclear installation.”
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AP / Hasan Sarbakhshian
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The Iranian government is apparently of the opinion that sanctions are not “an effective tool,” particularly when those sanctions are imposed against Iran from elsewhere in the world, such as the more stringent ones that the European Union just adopted, for example.
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Flickr / rahim (CC-BY)
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The United States’ century-long reign as the world’s greediest energy nation is over. China has usurped the throne, as expected, though Beijing reportedly disputes the title. The International Energy Agency, which keeps track of these things, also points out that China’s per capita consumption is below the global average and far less than the U.S.’
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By David Sirota — In recent weeks, politicians from the capital to Colorado have provided ample evidence that the fossil fuel industry remains as powerful as ever in the wake of the Gulf Coast apocalypse.
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Sarah Palin was at the ready, all coiffed and skeptical, after President Obama addressed the nation about the oil spill catastrophe Tuesday night. And guess what? She’s not buyin’ what he’s sellin’.
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By David Sirota — While British Petroleum and federal regulators are certainly at fault for their reckless behavior, every American who uses oil—which is to say every American—is incriminated in this ecological holocaust.
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ecopolitiology.org
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You’ve heard of offshore oil drilling, how about offshore wind farming? The first offshore wind project has been approved to be built five miles off the Massachusetts coast over the objections of Cape Cod residents and vacationers who worry it might disturb their view. The $1 billion project could power 400,000 houses.
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AP / Henny Ray Abrams
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Even in the face of an extended recession, devastating double-digit unemployment and a barrage of political charges that President Barack Obama’s health care reform will decimate the economy, the U.S. stock market finished the week at a 19-month high.
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By Amy Goodman — Massey Energy runs the Upper Big Branch mine in Montcoal, W.Va., where 29 miners were killed last week. The loss of life is tragic, but the UBB explosion is more than tragic; it is criminal.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — There is a dispiriting and, yes, heartbreaking sameness about how we respond to mining disasters.
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Wikimedia Commons / Joint Pipeline Office
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If you thought “drill, baby, drill!” was only a right-wing slogan, think again. On Wednesday, President Barack Obama outlined a plan for doing a little drilling for oil and gas off a few sections of our nation’s coastline, including the East Coast, Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.
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A new documentary investigates the “true social and environmental costs of coal power” and debunks the myth of clean coal. America and China both use much of the world’s energy and have much of its coal. This fight is only going to heat up. Check out extensive clips after the jump.
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Flickr user George Lu
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China invested nearly twice as much money—$34.6 billion—in clean energy projects in 2009 as the United States. The ecological impact of China’s economic boom could be a factor, but so could ... (continued)
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aquamarinepower.com
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Hoping to become the “Saudi Arabia of tidal energy,” the Scottish government is offering 10 million pounds to spur innovation in wave power. Some say the incentive is unnecessary, since private companies are already racing to figure out the best way to generate electricity from the ocean.
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Wikimedia Commons / United States Senate
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More legal and political fallout is on the way for Sen. John Ensign as a result of his affair with a former aide’s wife. The New York Times reported Wednesday that new e-mail evidence has emerged suggesting the Nevada senator knew he was trying to help said aide, Douglas Hampton, land lobbying work after Ensign’s relationship with Hampton’s wife, Cynthia, was over.
Posted on Mar 10, 2010
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The impresario behind this newfangled clean-energy box sees one of his mini power plants in every home, but it’s not clear if the little miracles even work.
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By Amy Goodman — President Obama’s publicly financed resuscitation of the nuclear power industry in the U.S. is bound to fail, another taxpayer bailout waiting to happen.
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Flickr / AmyZZZ1
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Nuclear power was a big issue back during the 2008 primaries. Then-candidate Barack Obama always said he favored nuclear power, and now he’s about to put our money where his mouth was. The president is expected to announce $8.3 billion in loan guarantees, with more on the way, to build two new reactors—the first in decades.
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Flickr / azrainman
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A new government report has found that the United States will import almost as much foreign oil 25 years from now as it does today. Pitiful policy initiatives simply haven’t done enough to fulfill the stated ambition of just about every administration since Richard Nixon’s—to liberate the homeland from a dangerous dependency on energy imports. (Continued)
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Flickr / SmackNHawaii
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The Chinese have leapt past Western competitors in the race for alternative energy, becoming the world’s largest makers of wind turbines and solar panels. And they’re not done yet.
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Wikimedia Commons / Ansgar Walk
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The U.S. government is finally jumping on the green bandwagon, announcing it will make efforts to cut energy use and reduce emissions by 28 percent by 2020, a move that could save $8 billion to $11 billion. The reduction figure is based on 2008 levels.
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Statkraft
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A Norwegian company thinks it can squeeze enough electricity out of the natural phenomenon of osmosis to power China. Right now the company’s plant can barely heat a tea kettle, but officials hope to power a village in a few years, and a lot more after that.
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Flickr / langalex
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Renewable energy projects are sprouting up across the country, much to the delight of environmentalists. Or is it? Green power, it turns out, is very thirsty. Developers are requesting billions of gallons of water annually to cool, cleanse and maintain their solar farms and other projects—billions more than we may have.
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Flickr / Nick Perla
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It takes a lot of someone else’s water to keep L.A.’s palm trees growing and its Jacuzzis bubbling, but Angelenos are defying their moochy reputation and conserving like nobody’s business. The city’s mayor thanked his citizens for their double-digit cuts in water and power consumption last month—in the thick of summer no less. Update
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Flickr / Wayne National Forest
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Spain accounted for almost half of the world’s solar power market in 2008, thanks to a Spanish subsidy that is now ending. The subsidy change, combined with an increased supply of solar equipment from China and Taiwan, has crashed international demand. Now solar modules are selling for half what they used to, according to a report on Global Post.
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AP / Timothy Jacobsen
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By T.L. Caswell — With biomass pioneers advancing their technology, the smelly stuff that you throw away today may be providing electricity for your home tomorrow.
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Flickr / DieselDemon
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The Russians are coming ... to Cuba. Moscow has inked a deal with Havana to hunt down and suck out what could be as much as 20 billion barrels of oil from Cuba’s share of the Gulf of Mexico. It’s just like old times.
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Flickr / SmackNHawaii
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Billionaire T. Boone Pickens has dropped his plan to build a huge wind farm in Texas, citing financing problems and challenges posed by the economic recession. The collapse of the project adds weight to the notion that we won’t have practical alternative energy generation until the governments of the world, and the populations they represent, make lasting commitments of money and attention.
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