Author: postMigrator

Dec 31, 5:00 AM EST

Feds approve drilling plan for Montana’s Powder River Basin; more than 18,000 wells possible

By MATTHEW BROWN
Associated Press Writer

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP)–The Bush administration has approved a plan that could allow more than 18,000 natural gas wells to be drilled in southeastern Montana over the next two decades.

The decision by C. Stephen Allred, assistant secretary for land and minerals management at the Department of Interior, would allow companies to proceed with plans to drill on more than 1.5 million acres of federal land in Montana’s remote Powder River Basin.

Drilling in the basin has boomed over the past decade across the border in neighboring Wyoming. The heady pace of development pumped tens of millions of dollars into local communities-but also depleted water supplies and battered populations of game animals including sage grouse.
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“Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily
due to its potentially larger land footprint based on recent
data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

….cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality….”
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American Geophysical Union 2008 Fall Meeting

Evaluation of Proposed Solutions to Global Warming, Air Pollution, and Energy Security.

Jacobson, M Z       jacobson@stanford.edu
Stanford University, Yang and Yamazaki 397, Stanford, CA 94305,
United States.

Abstract: This study reviews and ranks major proposed solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition. Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-E85 and cellulosic E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85. Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge. Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs. Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs. Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs. Tier 4 includes corn-and cellulosic-E85. Wind-BEVs ranked first in six out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs ranked second among all combinations. Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended. Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus strongly recommended. The Tier-4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on recent data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85. Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality. The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2-6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss. The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs. In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to power electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and for general use in the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit, and the biofuel options provide little or no benefit and greater negative impacts.

http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/revsolglobwarmairpol.htm

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American Geophysical Union 2008 Fall Meeting

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“… motivations for advancing corn-based ethanol production
in the USA, such as reduced reliance on foreign oil and increased
prosperity for farming communities, must be considered separately,
but the greenhouse-gas-mitigation rationale is clearly unsupportable.”
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Greenhouse-Gas Consequences of US Corn-based Ethanol in a Flat
World.

Davidson, E A., et al     edavidson@whrc.org
The Woods Hole Research Center, 149 Woods Hole Road, Falmouth,
MA 02540- 1644, United States.

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