natural gas
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Umbra on home heating
Hi Umbra, My fiancée and I bought a house in October. We plan to green the house up as best we can, and one of our first projects will be how we heat the house. Since we didn’t have any money after buying, we had to limp through this winter with an oil-powered steam boiler […]
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Besieged by natural-gas exploration, a Wyoming town draws the line
On a summer weekend in the high country, I talked my grandmother into taking a drive into the Wyoming Range, where she’d worked with my grandfather as a hunting guide more than 20 years earlier. We wanted to have a look at a certain 44,600 acres of forest that had been leased by companies in […]
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Natural gas
I missed this when it came out, but Michael T. Klare has a great piece in The Nation about "The Geopolitics of Natural Gas." It's short -- I recommend reading the whole thing. A few tidbits:
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Bush admin hawks liquefied natural gas as energy answer
The Bush administration is championing natural gas as the answer to America’s domestic energy needs, despite reservations from the usual batch of freedom-haters about its cost, reliability, and safety. Proponents point out that natural gas is cheaper, less polluting, and more abundant than oil — and, oh yeah, a huge business opportunity. Major energy companies […]
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Activists fight new round of proposed LNG terminals
While President Bush extols the virtues of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in speeches, energy companies have been at work, planning some 50 new LNG import terminals across North America, most slated for U.S. ports. Meanwhile, citizens and officials in Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Rhode Island, where new terminals are proposed, are fighting […]
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Liquefied Natural Gas Boom Sparks Safety Worries
The surging popularity of liquefied natural gas (LNG) has local communities where LNG terminals are planned worried about safety. Ships carrying five LNG tanks contain as much energy as a nuclear weapon. If even one of the tanks spilled and the gas ignited, it could cause a fire up to half a mile wide, and […]
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Umbra on home heating
Dear Umbra, Can you shed some light (or some warmth) on the most environmentally sound ways to heat one’s home this winter? Natural gas over coal and oil for its lower carbon (and particulate) content? What about fireplaces: good or bad? Would burning gas logs be a good alternative to burning real wood? Thanks for […]
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Should enviros embrace liquefied natural gas?
It’s clear from the name alone that liquefied natural gas (LNG) is an oxymoronic commodity — but its chemical state is just one of the many paradoxes of this increasingly popular energy source. On the one hand, natural gas is the cleanest-burning fossil fuel and among the most viable near-term alternatives to coal, which currently […]
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Advice on eco-friendly grilling
Dear Umbra, What sort of grill (charcoal or gas) is the fairest of them all — speaking from an environmentalist’s viewpoint, of course! R. Widiss Dearest R., Gas. I gather that lively debate exists in the barbecue set over which yields better flavor: the briquettes, with their flavorful smoke and irregular heat, or boring old […]
