Gizmodo: Natural Gas Is Now More Deadly Than Coal in 19 States. Unhealthy air pollution generally brings to mind coal-fired plants spewing black soot from a smokestack. But that image may quickly be becoming outdated. A study published on Wednesday in Environmental Research Letters found that using natural gas and biomass in sources like buildings and industrial boilers actually caused more deaths in 19 states as a result of air pollution than burning coal.
Tag: natural gas
Groups ask Virginia environmental officials to reopen Chickahominy Power permit
Virginia Mercury: Groups ask Virginia environmental officials to reopen Chickahominy Power permit.
Three groups are asking Virginia to reopen an air permit issued to Chickahominy Power in 2019 for a proposed natural gas plant in Charles City County, contending that the state’s analysis of the facility’s environmental justice impacts “contains many of the same defects” of a state air permit struck down by a federal court in January 2020.
“The similarities are just so shocking,” said Taylor Lilley, an attorney with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, which penned the letter along with the Southern Environmental Law Center and Concerned Citizens of Charles City County. “It seems the process was just repeated. And that process was found to be faulty.”
The Daily Climate, April 21, 2021
Articles include: cannabis; melting ice and bowhead whales; emissions increasing as pandemic wanes; economic effects of climate change; scripture to mobilize faithful; cities moving from gas to electricity; more renewable energy; investment firms and climate change; demand for coal rising; microbes that eat methane; food systems produce 1/3rd of GHGs; flood protection policy.
Renewables plus batteries offer Australia the same energy security as coal, research finds
The Guardian: Renewables plus batteries offer Australia the same energy security as coal, research finds. Australia Institute calls for rule change to allow renewables to replace fossil fuels in underpinning grid reliability. [No link provided.]
Renewable energy and batteries can secure Australia’s electricity grid as effectively as coal and gas, new research suggests.
The research, commissioned by the Australia Institute thinktank and released on Monday, found clean technologies provided the fast frequency response service and voltage control needed to secure the energy grid and reduce cost. But the report says regulatory barriers currently limit the ability of renewable energy and batteries to provide system security.
The electricity grid requires controls to keep frequency and voltage within safe limits – a service historically provided by coal, gas and hydro power stations.
The Daily Climate, April 2,2021
Articles include: climate change stunting farm production; activists doubt transportation plan; Arctic sea ice loss and major snowstorms; coal mining in Canada; EV sales; cheaper and cheaper solar power; California drought and wildfires; Australia fire and flood; reversing efficiency rules; Texas activists fighting natural gas project overseas.
The Daily Climate, March 30,2021
Articles include: Eastern Kentucky and flooding; Biden offshore wind farms; Massachusetts law and gas ban; Japan’s cherry blossoms peak; Electric vehicles; investigating trump attacks on science; Russian oil leaks; DOE & carbon capture; Study: China and coal-based electricity (published by Ember, the London-based energy and climate research group – no link provided); Biden reducing methane emissions.
Drillers Burned Off Gas at a Staggering Rate as Winter Storm Hit Texas
New York Times: Drillers Burned Off Gas at a Staggering Rate as Winter Storm Hit Texas. Frigid temperatures last month froze pipelines and forced companies to flare vast amounts of planet-warming gases that they suddenly had nowhere to send.
As Texas was crippled last month by frigid temperatures that killed more than 100 people and triggered widespread blackouts, drilling companies in the state’s largest oil field were forced to burn off an extraordinary amount of natural gas — on the worst day, an amount that could have powered tens of thousands of homes for at least a year.
The need to intentionally burn off, or flare, an estimated 1.6 billion cubic feet of gas in a single day — a fivefold increase from rates seen before the crisis, according to satellite analysis — came as the state’s power plants went offline and pipelines froze, so the wells simply had no place to send the natural gas still streaming out of the ground. As a result, the
gas had to be set ablaze, fueling towering flames, the highest of which can reach hundreds of feet into the air.
“This is clearly one of the highest spikes” in flaring ever observed in the Permian Basin, said Mark Omara, a senior researcher at the Environmental Defense Fund who led the analysis, which was based on satellite data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “And it could be an underestimate,” he said.
DeSmogBlog, February 27, 2021
Articles include: Racial Equity & Louisiana’s Cancer Alley Community; Exxon & Its Bad Fossil Fuel Investments; Texas Catastrophe Shows How Natural Gas Systems Can Fail; Aquaculture in the US; Texas Refineries’ Release Pollutants During Storm; Rejoining the Paris Climate Accord Matters; Climate Disinformation Database: Mark Steyn.
DeSmogBlog, February 13, 2021
Articles include: Report: Appalachian Fracking Boom – a Jobs Bust; Report: $1 Trillion in O&G Pipelines – Stranded Assets; Shell’s ‘Delusional’ Net Zero Strategy; Study: Fossil Fuel Air Pollution Linked to 1 in 5 Deaths Globally; £335: The Price of Tullow Oil’s Environmental Failings — and a Boy’s Funeral; Living With Natural Gas Pipelines; Climate Disinformation Database: Judith Curry
Study: The Era of Fossil Fuel Power Plants Is Rapidly Receding. Here Is Their Life Expectancy
Inside Climate News discusses Inside Clean Energy: The Era of Fossil Fuel Power Plants Is Rapidly Receding. Here Is Their Life Expectancy. New research shows that most fossil fuel plants will have reached the end of their expected lives by 2035, making it easier to envision Joe Biden’s climate plan.
What if President-elect Joe Biden’s plan to get to 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2035 turns out to involve not radical disruption but a smooth transition?
A new paper in the journal Science shows that most of the country’s existing coal, natural gas and oil power plants would be past the end of their expected lives by 2035, leaving only a small share that would need to close early under the Biden policy.
Considering this, implementing the Biden plan “is probably easier than people expected,” said the author, Emily Grubert, an environmental engineering professor at Georgia Tech.