Colorado Democrats’ High-Stakes Oil and Gas Bill to Elevate Health and Safety is Finally Here

By CHASE WOODRUFF | FEBRUARY 28, 2019 | Westword For more than a decade, Coloradans impacted by oil and gas development near their homes have clashed with the state’s powerful fossil-fuel industry inside courtrooms, agency hearings, town halls and city council meetings. The hotly anticipated package of oil and gas reforms introduced by Democrats this week is unlikely to bring an end to …

Are Investors Finally Waking Up to North America’s Fracked Gas Crisis

By Justin Mikulka, DeSmog Blog February 10, 2019 The fracked gas industry’s long borrowing binge may finally be hitting a hard reality: paying back investors. Enabled by rising debt, shale companies have been achieving record fracked oil and gas production, while promising investors a big future payoff. But over a decade into the “fracking miracle,” investors are showing signs they’re worried that payoff will never come …

Fracking Moratorium Demand Letter with Concerns of 1 Million Coloradans Delivered to Governor Polis Prior to Inauguration

January 4, 2019 Dear Governor-elect Polis, Congratulations on your impending inauguration as Governor of Colorado. We look forward to your governorship and a new chapter in the history of Colorado. We hope this chapter will be more progressive, inclusive, and diverse than ever before. As Executive Director of Colorado Rising, it is my responsibility to express the very serious concerns …

In all clean electric California generation would only take 39% of the land area fossil fuels do today

Mark Jacobson on Clean Technica, 26 Aug 2018 SB 100, a bill now pending in the California legislature, would transition California to 100% zero-carbon, effectively all renewable, electricity by 2045. Our studies provide a way to do this for all energy sectors (electricity, transportation, heating/cooling, and industry). Robert Bryce, a Senior Fellow of the Manhattan Institute, a think tank that …

A simple fix with a big benefit: California lawmakers consider closing loophole to curb gas leaks

On Breaking Energy, August 16, 2016  After passing the State Assembly Appropriations committee on Wednesday, a little known bill – SB 1441 – is headed for the assembly floor, which is slated to deliver big benefits for consumers and the environment. Not only will the bill create a strong market driver for utilities to operate tighter infrastructure and save California consumers tens …

Methane hotspots turn out to be from gas infrastructure leaks

From the Deseret News, Aug 2016 DENVER — A puzzling concentration of the greenhouse gas methane over the southwestern United States appears to come mostly from leaks in natural gas production, scientists said Monday. Researchers identified more than 250 sources of a methane hot spot over the Four Corners region of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. They include gas …

Nation leaking methane in massive quantities, according to geophysical research

“An explosive paper” published last month in Geophysical Research Letters,”concluded that the nation as a whole is leaking methane in massive quantities.”  Bill McKibben comments, below: Global warming is, in the end, not about the noisy political battles here on the planet’s surface. It actually happens in constant, silent interactions in the atmosphere, where the molecular structure of certain gases traps …

Satellite data tells that methane emissions have been rising in the US

Global methane emissions have risen and fallen several times since the 1980s, Turner said, but they’ve been rising continuously since 2007. “The causes for this renewed growth are currently unknown,” he said, In the US, the government tally of the country’s annual human-caused methane emissions between 2002 and 2012 shows that emissions have been about 29 million metric tons annually, without …