oil
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What is the price of an environmentalist’s vote?
Photo: Tar Sands ActionThe Obama administration has decided to delay a decision on the Keystone XL tar-sands pipeline until after the 2012 election. This is only a temporary, inadequate victory, but an extraordinary achievement for the thousands of grassroots activists who put ourselves on the line. It’s also clear evidence for the environmental movement that […]
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How delaying Keystone XL could kill the pipeline completely
The Obama administration just announced that the Keystone XL tar-sands pipeline will be delayed as it studies a potential new route for the project, one that does not take it across a critical groundwater aquifer that supplies water to more than 1 million people. This delay, projected to be 12 to 18 months, might very […]
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How’s it feel to already be living in a post-peak oil apocalypse?
The International Energy Agency says peak oil came and went — in 2006. The only reason we're not already paying $10 a gallon for gas and generally Mad Maxing it up is that there was this thing called a recession. Well, that, and cough cough the tar sands saved our asses cough cough. Unconventional sources […]
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State Dept. might reroute Keystone XL
The State Department seems to be seriously weighing a change in the path that the Keystone XL pipeline would take. A change in the route would be a victory for the pipeline's opponents, but only a partial one. There are two main environmental concerns connected to the pipeline project. One is the potential for spills […]
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Oil and gas reps suggest using counterinsurgency tactics on fracking opponents
It's obvious that the natural gas industry has no love for opponents of fracking in places like Pennsylvania. But recordings from an industry meeting reveal that the industry's animosity goes a little deeper than mere irritation — they think of opponents as an "insurgency" that should be handled with techniques developed to fight terrorism in […]
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Keystone XL would be right on top of latest Oklahoma earthquakes
Red: proposed route for Keystone XL Orange star: epicenter of Saturday's magnitude 5.6 earthquake in Oklahoma, which buckled a highway and cracked a building. The state is currently recovering from the quake and bracing for storms. A decade hence, if Keystone XL were running straight through the state, would they also be dealing with a […]
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Each American consumes as much energy as a 40-ton dinosaur
Yesterday, at the annual conference of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas, where retired petroleum geologists talk about how we're all going to end up like Viggo Mortensen's character in The Road, emeritus professor William Catton pointed out that every American uses so much fossil fuel energy that if it were […]
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U.S. carbon emissions down as renewable energy keeps growing
Cross-posted from Earth Policy Institute. Between 2007 and 2011, carbon emissions from coal use in the United States dropped 10 percent. During the same period, emissions from oil use dropped 11 percent. In contrast, carbon emissions from natural gas use increased by 6 percent. The net effect of these trends was that U.S. carbon emissions […]
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Critical List: Keystone company calls route change ‘unconstitutional’; Perry hates Iowa
The Keystone XL company thinks changing the pipeline's route could be unconstitutional. Rick Perry appears to want to piss off Iowa. He's against ethanol and now wind subsidies. Fracking probably caused an earthquake in England. Michael Mann, one of the Climategate scientists, is still fighting off groups that want access to his email. Levi Strauss […]