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Boulder and other Colorado cities try to fight fracking

by Eliza Kurth Posted on June 10, 2013

Boulder and other Colorado cities try to fight fracking

By John Upton

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Boulder tells frackers to piss off — for the next year, at least.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) loves fracking — he once even drank fracking fluid to prove it — but other elected officials in the state are not so gung ho. A handful of Colorado cities are trying to limit or ban the practice — and are finding that it’s not so easy to do.

Boulder is the latest Colorado municipality to take on the frackers. Last week, its city council unanimously passed a one-year moratorium on fracking within city limits and on city-owned open space, and council members are considering options for a more long-term policy. From the Boulder Daily Camera:

Several council members … said they are warm to the idea of bringing forward a ballot measure in November to approve a longer-term ban — a process that would involve study sessions and public hearings in coming months. …

Several residents asked the City Council to go further by approving a longer fracking moratorium, an all-out ban or turning the issue over to voters. …

[But a]n analysis by Boulder City Attorney Tom Carr determined a one-year moratorium was the safest option because it addresses public health and safety concerns while protecting the city against potential lawsuits.

Boulder is right to be worried about lawsuits. The city of Longmont, Colo., where voters passed a fracking ban in November, has been sued by both the state government and the Colorado Oil and Gas Association. The industry argues that the fracking ban constitutes an illegal “taking” of mineral property and that only the state has the authority to regulate such practices.

Fear of lawsuits prompted the Fort Collins City Council last month to ease its recent ban on fracking. Prospect Energy, which had been fracking within city limits before the council passed the ban in March, will be allowed to resume its operations. From a May 22 article in the Fort Collins Coloradoan:

Mayor pro tem Gerry Horak said the council had little choice on the matter.

To continue the ban on Prospect Energy would invite a lawsuit the city would have little chance of winning, he said.

The Colorado Oil and Gas Association is taking the lead in fighting frack-averse cities. You might recall that this association tried to convince Fort Collins to shy away from a fracking ban by providing the city council with a petition full of fake signatures. The Coloradoan now brings us the news that the city’s police department is investigating whether any crimes were committed in producing that seemingly bogus petition.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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California grocery chain turns food waste into electricity

by pedzacastrzala87 Posted on May 17, 2013

California grocery chain turns food waste into electricity

By John Upton

Kroger Co.Wasted food is digested here.

One California food company has a novel plan for dealing with food waste and cutting down the power bill: Feed it to bacteria. The Kroger Co. plans to chuck all food gone past its sell-by date into an industrial silo, where microbes will break it down to release methane. That methane will in turn be burned to generate electricity.

Kroger’s new food-to-energy plant is designed to make the most of the vast amount of food that spoils before it can be sold to customers, while reducing the company’s electricity bills. Sludge left over from the new energy plant will be used as agricultural compost. The L.A. Times describes the operation, which was built in a Compton, Calif., distribution center that serves hundreds of Ralphs and Food-4-Less stores:

Several chest-high trash bins containing a feast of limp waffles, wilting flowers, bruised mangoes and plastic-wrapped steak sat in an airy space laced with piping. Stores send food unable to be donated or sold to the facility, where it is dumped into a massive grinder — cardboard and plastic packaging included.

After being pulverized, the mass is sent to a pulping machine, which filters out inorganic materials such as glass and metal and mixes in hot wastewater from a nearby dairy creamery to create a sludgy substance.

Mike Vriens, Ralphs vice president of industrial engineering, describes the goop as a “juicy milkshake” of trash.

From there, the mulch is piped into a 250,000-gallon staging tank before being steadily fed into a 2-million-gallon silo. The contraption essentially functions as a multi-story stomach.

Inside, devoid of oxygen, bacteria munch away on the liquid refuse, naturally converting it into methane gas. The gas, which floats to the top of the tank, is siphoned out to power three on-site turbine engines.

The amount of food that we waste is enough to cause indigestion. With this system in place, the anaerobic digestion of some of the rotting waste will happen in a controlled facility, instead of moldering in a landfill somewhere, where released gases will warm up the globe even more.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who

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California grocery chain turns food waste into electricity

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Gas prices are spiking, and it’s not clear why

by Obeey99 Posted on February 21, 2013

Gas prices are spiking, and it’s not clear why

By Philip Bump

Here’s what gas prices have done over the last month:

GasBuddy

This isn’t an unprecedented rise; prices went up last February, too.

GasBuddy

What’s odd, though, is that the recent rise isn’t tied to rising crude oil prices, the traditional reason prices fluctuate.

GasBuddy

So what’s happening? The Washington Post dug into it, noting concerns over Middle East stability, lower production by OPEC, and the continuing high price of oil — though crude prices dropped significantly yesterday.

One key factor is limited refinery capacity.

[S]ome analysts … pointed to refinery issues. Several refineries have been shut down for routine maintenance, and in the eastern United States, several refineries simply went out of business in the past year.

“Atlantic Basin capacity closures have improved refining fundamentals,” the nation’s biggest refiner, Valero, said in a slide presentation at a Credit Suisse conference this month. It estimated that refineries have closed nearly 1 million barrels a day of capacity on the East Coast or in the U.S. Virgin Islands in the past two years, which Valero said allowed it to increase profit margins.

Refinery constraints were a key factor in California’s huge gas price spike last summer. Let’s go back to the law of supply and demand. Less supply means increased demand, which means more profits. Valero’s suggestion that reducing refinery capacity increased profit margins falls squarely in line with that: Less crude oil refined into gasoline means less gasoline, which means a higher price per gallon. Granted, these refineries didn’t all close this month, but combined with other factors, the closures appear to be playing a role — and may help explain why the price of gas is going up independent of the price of crude oil.

Let that be consolation to you next time you go to fill up. It’s just basic supply and demand, manipulated by oil companies. As it always has and always will, the system works.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Courting White House arrest over Keystone XL: Rancher, financier, Kennedy, Sierra Club head

by RubinkJoseph Posted on February 13, 2013

Courting White House arrest over Keystone XL: Rancher, financier, Kennedy, Sierra Club head

By Philip Bump

For the first time in the Sierra Club’s 121-year history — and only 164 years after Henry David Thoreau’s famed treatise on the topic — the executive director of the organization will be arrested in an act of civil disobedience.

The event (which entices members of the press with a promise of “great visuals”) will happen shortly before noon today outside of the White House. The issue spurring such drastic action by Sierra Club director Michael Brune is the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, meaning that Brune will be something like the 1,200th person arrested at the White House protesting that issue.

Brune will be joined by about 50 others, including Bill McKibben of 350.org (and Grist’s board), civil rights leader Julian Bond, Robert Kennedy, Jr., and actress Daryl Hannah (who has been arrested at a White House Keystone protest before). Also included at the event: Randy Thompson, a Nebraska rancher who has emerged as a leader in that state’s fight against the pipeline. According to Fortune magazine, fund manager Jeremy Grantham also plans to participate. “I have told scientists to be persuasive, be brave and be arrested, if necessary, so it only seems proper to do this,” Grantham told the magazine. (Full disclosure: Grantham’s foundation is a funder of Grist.)

tarsandsaction

From a November 2011 protest against Keystone XL.

In a tweet this morning, McKibben suggested that the goal isn’t protest.

A letter from event organizers reinforces that message.

The president can’t work miracles by himself. An obstructionist Congress stands in the way of progress and innovation. But President Obama has the executive authority and the mandate from the American people to stand up to the fossil fuel industry, and to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline right now. …

Today we risk arrest because a global crisis unfolds before our eyes. We have the solutions to this climate crisis. We have a moral obligation to stand stand for immediate, bold action to solve climate disruption. We can do it, and we will.

Several years ago, NASA climate scientist James Hansen suggested that building the Keystone XL pipeline would be “game over” for the climate, helping to inspire robust opposition to it from environmentalists. Last January, the president declined to approve the permit needed to build the pipeline across the U.S.-Canada border, following the initial campaign of protests from 350.org and other activists.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Courting White House arrest over Keystone XL: Rancher, financier, Kennedy, Sierra Club head

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Cleantech investment fell off a cliff in 2012

by RubinkJoseph Posted on January 8, 2013

Cleantech investment fell off a cliff in 2012

By Lisa Hymas

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“You could call it the cleantech cliff,” writes the San Jose Mercury News:

Global clean-technology venture investment plunged to $6.46 billion in 2012, down 33 percent from the $9.61 billion invested a year ago, according to San Francisco-based research and consulting firm Cleantech Group.

Why such a big drop-off?

The low price of natural gas has made it harder for renewable energy to compete on cost. Venture capitalists are shying away from capital-intensive deals after seeing companies like Santa Clara-based Misasolé sold at fire sale prices. And global economic uncertainty took a toll: Several privately backed cleantech companies, including Oakland’s BrightSource Energy, were forced to shelve their IPO plans and raise additional funds from existing investors.

Political uncertainty contributed too, according to Sheeraz Haji, CEO of Cleantech Group. “That said, the entire venture capital industry contracted in 2012, so cleantech is not alone in experiencing this pullback,” he added.

The Mercury News reports that the “one bright spot belonged to SolarCity, a San Mateo-based solar financier and installer that had a successful IPO Dec. 13. SolarCity slashed its share price but ultimately raised $92 million.”

The cleantech sector is already looking brighter in 2013. Last week, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway spent as much as $2.5 billion on a huge solar project, sending solar stocks soaring.

But why leave cleantech investing to the big boys? If you live in California or New York, you can get into the game yourself via just-launched Solar Mosaic, a crowdfunding service for rooftop solar projects. Don’t let Warren Buffett have all the fun.

Lisa Hymas is senior editor at Grist. You can follow her on

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Soot pollution may cause as many as 3.2 million premature deaths a year

by biglermyrta910 Posted on December 17, 2012

Soot pollution may cause as many as 3.2 million premature deaths a year

By Philip Bump

Morgan Burke

There are several factors that probably contribute to what the Atlantic Cities refers to as St. Louis’ “asthma epidemic.” High rates of smoking, for example. And: air pollution.

The number of children suffering from asthma in the St. Louis metropolitan area is nearly three times the national average, according to Asthma Friendly St. Louis, a community program designed to help school-age kids and teens manage respiratory illness. Despite the efforts of several community initiatives, the disease is often poorly managed because of a lack of access to care and educational resources. …

In East St. Louis, which sits across the Mississippi River from St. Louis in Illinois, asthma rates are among the highest in the nation, and experts suspect that this is linked to the high rates of pollution and poverty in the city. 44 percent of East St. Louis residents live on incomes below the federal poverty line.

CDC

Missouri asthma hospitalization rates.

The link between pollution and asthma — a terrifying, occasionally deadly inflammation in the lungs — is well-established. But the effects of pollution, particulate soot pollution, may be much broader than previously understood. From the NRDC’s Switchboard blog:

A new study in The Lancet, developed by an international group of experts, finds that outdoor air pollution, especially fine particulate matter (soot) contributes to more than 3.2 million premature deaths around the world each year. …

This new, more refined study also finds that:

Air pollution ranks among the top ten global health risks associated with mortality and disease.
Most of the premature deaths due to air pollution are in China and other countries in Asia. In fact, air pollution is the 4th highest risk factor right behind smoking in East Asia.

But outside of Asia, the risks are still high. Globally, outdoor air pollution ranks as the 8th highest risk factor for premature death, posing a greater danger than high cholesterol.

The study was timed, coincidentally or not, to go public as the EPA announced new restrictions on soot pollution, dropping the allowable standard of small particles by 20 percent — a step that could save 15,000 lives a year.

The group Abt Associates also unveiled Air Counts, an online map that allows visitors to assess the effects of soot reductions in various cities around the country. Dropping the amount of particulate matter in New York City by 250 metric tons a year could save 67 lives — and more than half a billion dollars in costs. (In heavily polluted Beijing, a similar drop would have less of an effect, saving only 29 lives.)

St. Louis is not included on Abt’s map, so it’s hard to say the extent to which lives might be saved by the EPA’s new standard. But in a state that sees a higher rate-of-death from asthma than the rest of the country, particularly among African-Americans …

CDC

… even one life saved makes the calculus worth it.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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The EPA tightens limits on soot, predicting huge health benefits

by Myrna Posted on December 14, 2012

The EPA tightens limits on soot, predicting huge health benefits

By Philip Bump

At least there’s a bit of good news today: implementation of hard-fought public policy that will have a hugely beneficial effect on public health.

The EPA’s tightened standard on soot pollution — announced in June and sent for final sign-off to the White House earlier this week — has been approved.

National Archives

From The Washington Post:

The new rule limits soot, or fine particulate matter, which stems from activities ranging from burning wood to vehicle emissions, and which causes disease by entering the lungs and bloodstream. Fine particulate matter measuring less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, or one-thirtieth the width of a human hair, ranks as the country’s most widespread deadly pollutant.

The new rule is a result of a 2009 court ruling that said the EPA standards for the amount of soot permissible in the air on an annual average ignored the advice of scientific advisers by maintaining the standard established in 1997 and must be rewritten. That limit was 15 micrograms per cubic meter of air.

The EPA cut the level to 12 micrograms per cubic meter.

That new level is actually on the lower end of what the EPA was considering — still higher than the 11 micrograms some health advocates sought, but significantly better than it could have been. At 12 micrograms, the EPA expects that America will save between $2.3 and $5.9 billion a year in health costs. By 2020, that figure could rise to $9.1 billion annually. The Sierra Club’s Mary Anne Hitt notes that as many as 15,000 premature deaths will be prevented annually. Other soot-related health problems that the new rules will help prevent, according to the EPA:

nonfatal heart attacks,
irregular heartbeat,
aggravated asthma,
decreased lung function, and
increased respiratory symptoms, such as irritation of the airways, coughing or difficulty breathing.

Another benefit: The new limit will also improve visibility at national parks. And you’ll be alive to enjoy the views.

For states and counties, meeting the new standard may not be that difficult. An EPA compliance map suggests that only seven counties — all in California’s Central Valley and Inland Empire — won’t meet the new standard by the end of the decade.

MAP

EPA

The industries responsible for particulate pollution said what you’d expect, according to The Hill.

Several industry groups, including the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the American Petroleum Institute, opposed the tougher rules and warned they would thwart economic growth. NAM CEO Jay Timmons slammed EPA’s decision on Friday and said the agency should stick with the standards set in 1997.

“This new standard will crush manufacturers’ plans for growth by restricting counties’ ability to issue permits for new facilities, which makes them less attractive for new business. Essentially, existing facilities will have to be shuttered for new facilities to be built in these areas,” Timmons said in a statement.

This is what is always said.

The soot regulation is good news: lives saved, preventable damage prevented, lobbyists defeated. Now if only we could be so rational in other areas of public policy.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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USDA backpedals on healthy school-lunch rules

by Myrna Posted on December 10, 2012

USDA backpedals on healthy school-lunch rules

By Susie Cagle

Whiny kids and Republicans have a lot in common. For example, they both complained enough to weaken still-relatively new USDA rules requiring school lunches to be more healthy. Some kids said they were still hungry after eating the new lunches, and Republican legislators (who often act like they’re cranky due to low blood sugar) said the government was meddling too much in local affairs, so now the USDA is lifting the cap on the amount of meats and grains permitted in school meals.

In a letter to Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), USDA head Tom Vilsack said the meat and grain limits had been “the top operational challenge” for states and schools in implementing the new standards, in part because they had a hard time locating the “right-sized” meats, and apparently cutting the meats into the right sizes is just too much work.

From the Associated Press:

Several lawmakers wrote the department after the new rules went into effect in September saying kids aren’t getting enough to eat.

School administrators also complained, saying set maximums on grains and meats are too limiting as they try to plan daily meals.

“This flexibility is being provided to allow more time for the development of products that fit within the new standards while granting schools additional weekly menu planning options to help ensure that children receive a wholesome, nutritious meal every day of the week,” Vilsack said in a letter to Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D.

The development of products like spinach, right? Or maybe tomato paste infused with spinach for double vegetable points? Schools still only need to offer one fruit or vegetable per meal.

Vilsack wasn’t all about appeasement, though. His letter to Hoeven included this slightly snarky bit:

It is important to point out that the new school meals are designed to meet only a portion of a child’s nutritional needs over the course of the school day. This should come as no surprise — students never have and never will get all of their daily dietary needs from a single meal. School breakfasts and lunches are designed to meet roughly one-fourth and one-third, respectively, of the daily calorie needs of school children.

Despite the rule change, calorie caps for meals will remain the same. This should come as no surprise — the way math works means meals with more meat and grains will have to have less of something else. Let’s hope that something else is chocolate milk, not fruits and veggies.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

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