U.S. Needs Strong Greenhouse Gas Standards (GHG Tailoring Rule)

April 17, 2012

The US EPA is proposing Step 3 of the Greenhouse Gas Tailoring Rule, originally designed to cut industrial emissions that harm public health and cause climate change by gradually tightening pollutant standards over time. This most recent step may be in the wrong direction. It allows the same greenhouse gas standards as before rather than [...]

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Shell Considers Building Natural Gas to Diesel Fuel Plant in Louisiana

April 11, 2012

Shell GTL Plant in Qatar Royal Dutch Shell PLC has under study a $10 billion gas-to-diesel processing plant in Louisiana, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal on April 4th. That newspaper cites “several people familiar with the company’s plans” as saying that the company is considering building a plant in the U.S. that [...]

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Centralized Pits to Store Oil and Gas Wastewater are Unnecessary

April 10, 2012

WV DEP’s Office of Oil and Gas is proposing a set of “Design and Construction Standards for Centralized Pits” that natural gas production operations can use to store wastewater (e.g. drilling or hydraulic fracturing fluids, sometimes referred to as flowback water). The following summary was prepared by the West Virginia Environmental Council.  Many other comments [...]

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Deep Well Injections Cause Increased Earthquake Activity

April 10, 2012

Earthquake Activity Has Increased A new study suggests manmade causes, specifically underground waste injection from fuel extraction industries, are “almost certainly” the cause of a significant increase in seismic activity, as reported in the State Journal. An abstract of the study, conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey, became available last week. The full study will [...]

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Global Warming is a Scientific Fact

April 8, 2012

Global Warming is a Fact A recent editorial in the Charleston Gazette points out that there are still many decision makers that doubt the relationship between greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the warming of the earth. “What’s next?  No science of any sort allowed in public schools?” Shawn Lawrence Otto, author of Fool Me Twice: [...]

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Green Legislative Update from WV Environmental Council

April 7, 2012

WV Capitol on Kanawha River WVEC Green Legislative Update  Since 1989 the West Virginia Environmental Council has been your voice for the environment at the Legislature. We not only speak for your interests at important Legislative Interim sessions, but we are also able to keep you apprised of what’s going on, alert you to meetings [...]

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USGS Stream Flow and Water Quality Data Available OnLine

April 6, 2012

Introduction The U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) National Water Information System (NWIS) is a comprehensive and distributed application that supports the acquisition, processing, and long-term storage of water data. USGS Water Data for the Nation Site serves as the publicly available portal to a geographically seamless set of much of the water data maintained within NWIS (additional [...]

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Five Rules for “Getting It Right” on Shale Gas Development

April 5, 2012

WVU College of Law INFORMATION REPORT – Did you know that the College of Law at WVU has a Center for Energy and Sustainable Development.  Further, this Center has an “Energy Forward Blog” on the Internet.  Let’s look at an example blog from this Center: “Let’s Do This Right” Hal Harvey, the founder of the [...]

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Prof. Brian Fagan Speaks on Water and Humanity at WVU

April 4, 2012

WVU Distinguished Visitors Lecture: Prof. Brian Fagan, April 4, 2012, Morgantown, WV Brian Fagan is emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he has been on faculty since 1967.  He is author or editor of 46 books and over 100 articles in scientific journals. Three of his books are [...]

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The Future of Ethane Cracker Chemical Plants in the U. S.

April 3, 2012

New ethane cracker chemical plants are in the process design phase Today, the US shale gas boom is spurring an unprecedented wave of expansions in the petrochemical sector with four new world-scale crackers rapidly moving  towards completion by 2017,  according to ICIS.com. US producer Formosa Plastics is the latest company planting its flag in the ground. [...]

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