Blue Hydrogen — Bad Idea to Prop Up Fossil Fuels

From the Opinion Editorial in the Morgantown Dominion Post, October 2, 2021

If we have any complaints about the still-pending (as of this writing) bipartisan infrastructure package, it would be the $8 billion Sen. Joe Manchin slipped in there for blue hydrogen energy. Hydrogen can and should be part of our energy future, but when we talk about hydrogen-based energy, we need to distinguish between blue hydrogen and green hydrogen.

Blue hydrogen is made from natural gas, but it’s touted as producing fewer emissions than regular hydrogen energy production. Blue hydrogen uses an energy-intensive process that uses steam, high heat and pressure to break down methane into hydrogen and carbon monoxide, paired with carbon capture (catching carbon before it can enter the atmosphere and storing it underground). The energy needed to fuel this process is provided by more fossil fuels.

According to the peer-reviewed study “How green is blue hydrogen?”: “Far from being low carbon, greenhouse gas emissions from the production of blue hydrogen are quite high, particularly due to the release of fugitive methane. … [T]he greenhouse gas footprint of blue hydrogen is more than 20% greater than burning natural gas or coal for heat” based on the study’s default parameters. Green hydrogen, on the other hand, is made from water and powered by renewable energy. Using electricity, water is broken down into hydrogen and oxygen.

Green hydrogen is obviously the better option. The problem? At the moment, green hydrogen isn’t a feasible large-scale solution.

The first stumbling block: As reported by The New York Times, “In most places, there simply isn’t enough renewable energy to produce vast amounts of green hydrogen.” As America finally starts investing in widespread renewable energy systems, we will hopefully see that change.

The second stumbling block: The device used to create green hydrogen doesn’t last very long. And this is where Manchin could have — and should have — thrown West Virginia a bone. Researchers at WVU are working on solving that problem right now.

The device in question is a solid oxide electrolysis cell. The cathode materials connected to the cell are susceptible to chromium poisoning, which can negatively affect the cell’s output or even block the pathways through which the oxygen diffuses, according to a study from the University of Birmingham.

As we reported this past Monday, WVU’s Wenyuan Li, Xingbo Liu and Edward Sabolsky are working on making solid oxide electrolysis cells a commercially viable option — which in turn makes green hydrogen a viable large-scale solution to reduce carbon emissions.

Instead of throwing yet more money at the fossil fuel industry (which Manchin still profits from), Manchin and his colleagues should be providing funding for research and development like that taking place at WVU on green hydrogen. If he had done that, rather than slating $8 billion for high-carbon blue hydrogen, Manchin could have supported West Virginia and the fight against climate change.

URL: https://www.dominionpost.com/2021/10/02/hydrogen-is-not-always-clean-energy/

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See also: Touted as clean, ‘blue’ hydrogen may be worse than gas or coal, Cornell Chronicle, Blaine Friedlander | August 12, 2021

The carbon footprint to create blue hydrogen is more than 20% greater than using either natural gas or coal directly for heat, or about 60% greater than using diesel oil for heat, according to new research published August 12, 2021 in Energy Science & Engineering.

Bird's Eye View: Frac Sand Mine in Wisconsin

COURAGEOUS CITIZENS RAISE ISSUES AND QUESTIONS

EXPANDED FRAC SAND MINING IN THE TOWN OF BRIDGE CREEK IN EAU CLAIRE COUNTY IN WISCONSIN

READ THEIR COMMENTARIES!

KUDOS TO THESE PEOPLE FOR ALLOWING THEIR MESSAGES TO BE PRINTED IN THE FRAC SAND SENTINEL, ISSUE 132, APRIL 5, 2017.

>>> On April 6, 2017, Frac Sand Sentinel wrote:

Address to Hi-Crush at Bridge Creek Town Public Hearing, March 18, 2017

EVERY LIVING THING IS DEPENDENT UPON FRESH AIR, CLEAN WATER AND FOOD SOURCE.  THE SAND MINING PROCESS IMPERILS ALL THREE.  For the past  five years every living thing in Bridge Creek has been affected by the mining process and now Hi-Crush is asking our local government to expand and to continue consuming the basic necessities of life.   I SAY NO.

I say no because Hi-Crush Mine:

>> depletes our ground water faster than nature can replenish it;

>> cannot and does not control nor ensure the air quality around the mine;

>> sand particulates are not captured and over time impact health;

>> blasting the hill sides impacts the stability of homes, wells and peace of mind;

>> destroys the ecosystem;

>> reclamation of the land to return to productive crop land has not been demonstrated;

Hi-Crush has not been forth coming to local government regarding its business plan for expansion on contiguous land; I SAY NO TO EXPANSION BECAUSE:

I AM CONCERNED THAT THIS SAND MINING:

>> will  drive people and other living things away from the land due to its nuisances;

>> perils of blasting, trains night and day, loud conveyors, fugitive sand particulates;

>> that private wells will collapse and property values will continue to devalue as the mine expands due to blasting, noise and transport methods;

>> that the history of Hi-Crush’s disregard for following the rules will continue with no regard to the impact on every living thing (ie: hi-capacity well violation, fugitive sand for one year when not in operation, etc).

>> that nothing will grow of any value on this land for decades.

I SAY NO TO EXPANSION BECAUSE: EVERY LIVING THING IS IN RELATIONSHIP TO EACH OTHER AND THE EARTH.  IF BASIC NEEDS FOR LIFE ARE CONTINUOUSLY IMPERILED FROM OVER USE, OUR LIVES, THAT OF OUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN ARE IMPERILED TOO.  CORPORATIONS ARE NOT PEOPLE.  THEY HAVE NO VALUES NOR ETHICS AND CONTINUE TO SEEK OUR RIGHTS AS CITIZENS UNDER THE CONSTITUTION.  LOGIC DOES NOT ALLOW CITIZENS TO TRUST THE JUDGEMENT OF CORPORATIONS THAT WILL NEVER BE HUMAN.  MONEY IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR THE BASIC NEEDS OF EVERY LIVING THING.

>>> Christine Yellowthunder, resident, tax payer, land owner in the Town of Bridge Creek, WI

Source: Save The Hills Alliance, Inc. | S6650 County Road G, Augusta, WI 54722

Web Site: www.ccc-wis.com

Climate Change is the Big Issue

Fossil fuel prospects are promoted by narrow-minded and irresponsible developers

Essay by S. Tom Bond, Retired Chemist & Resident Farmer, Lewis County, WV

 What are the prospects for oil and gas?  We are subject to an overload of happy talk about the subject with little reality to counter it.  It is jobs, jobs, jobs to a hungry working class, in spite of the fact hydrocarbons are the most capital intensive and low labor route to energy.  There are three times as many workers in the solar industry in the US as there are working in coal mines.  Better work, too. 

Natural gas for electrical generation is said to reduce pollution, in spite of the fact it continues to use the atmosphere as a dump. Nearly 5.4 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide are emitted by the U.S. presently each year.  

Very little money has been made by the development of fracking, as horizontal drilling and high pressure crushing of shale formations is called.  Over $74 billion has been lost in bankruptcy of oil fracking companies, according to Haynes and Boon a law firm that specializes in bankruptcy, and many other companies and support companies are in precarious condition. The method is an expensive way to get hydrocarbons with a breakeven of about  $50 a barrel for oil, and a similar high cost for natural gas.  Vaunted “improvements in technology” mean more from each well, which covers more ground, not decreased cost per unit of production.

The U. S. prohibited exporting oil forty years ago, due to exhausting original reserves, but began to export again in the summer of  2014. Nevertheless,  9.45 million barrels a day is imported and 4.74 million is exported, much of it having passed through refineries to make end products leaving a net import of 4.71 billion, mostly crude oil.  The fact is the “good stuff,” the easily obtainable oil in sandstone and cracked limestone, is waning rapidly.  That kind of deposit is still available in other parts of the world, which the U. S. either controls with difficulty, such as Saudi Arabia, or actively seeks to prevent production, such as Venezuela or Russia.  Look up “world oil reserves” and “world natural gas reserves.”  The truth is shocking. 

U. S. production is about 9.4 million barrels a day.  So we import roughly the same amount of oil, then export roughly half of that, much of it in refined form.  “Energy independence” is not likely as a result of fracking.  This is what Anthony Ingraffea, Ph.D., P.E. and Dwight C. Baum Professor of Engineering Emeritus and Weiss Presidential Teaching Fellow at Cornell University, had to say about the recent announcement of a new field in Texas, “OK, here we go again: another “BIG” find. Read the fine print under those HUGE numbers.  20 billion barrels of oil = a 3 year supply for the US at current consumption rate.  16 trillion cubic feet of gas = 9 month supply for the US at current consumption rate.  A few more finds like this and we could be fossil-fuel set for life, or at least a decade or so…”

The greatest issue now faced by civilization is dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in almost unbelievable quantities.  Other drawbacks are also connected with the same processes.

There are powerful incursions against the earth’s living systems, in the form of surface damage such as result from stripping coal, fracking for oil and gas, with it’s attendant roads, pipelines and water diversion onto areas where the vegetation is not able to resist additional fast flows.  A well pad with approach roads requires 10 to as much as 20 acres rocked with several inches of stone. The attendant pipeline requires eight to ten acres and stays cleared for the life time of the well pad and takes 70 years to regrow to forest under ideal conditions beyond that.

Another issue is the virtual theft of property from the stewards of the earth by archaic laws made in a time when it was not possible to foresee the demand for land services rising to meet the needs of so many billions of people as we can now see on earth a few decades down the road.   When the wealth is accumulated to few people it goes for yachts, million dollar weddings, multiple mansions, and other non-productive life style accouterments.

Renewables sometimes get a bad rap.  They don’t account for a large part of the energy yet.  However they are on an exponential increase, more and more rapidly as the base increases.  And they did account for half the new electrical generation capacity, worldwide, last year.

There are complaints about subsidies for hydrocarbon companies. One of these is the depletion allowance, worth perhaps $1 billion a year.  In U. S. tax law this is an allowance claimable by anyone with an economic interest in a mineral deposit.   One of the two methods of claiming the allowance makes it possible to write off more than the whole capital cost of the asset.  Without getting into the details, others include: Master Limited Partnerships, a kind of business arrangement; royalty reduction payment on federal lands; intangible drilling costs worth $3.5 billion and the domestic manufacturing production subsidy.

In addition they are allowed to keep money in tax havens offshore, deduct “transportation costs” and other expenses from royalty owners, and various other subterfuges to avoid payment of the 12.5% royalty minimum allowed by law in West Virginia.  In Pennsylvania, they pay no extraction tax and leave the public to pay for road damage and landowners to pay for water loss, sickness and property value reduction.  In short, oil and gas are hugely subsidized.  And coal is not far behind.

Competition in the form of renewables is coming on in an ever rising curve.  The efficiency of solar is increasing.  Big chains like Walmart, FedEx, IKEA, and General Motors are using it.  In fact this use has increased by 183% in the last year.  In a few years Kansas will be generating more electricity by wind power than it uses.  Some 38 states have commercial installations.  Technology is in the developing stage, and if you read general scientific literature, you find improvement of solar continues constantly.  Originally, only one wavelength could be changed by solar to energy conversion, now three can be.

We must stop the increasing incursions against the natural world, which are caused by pursuit of energy requiring vast tracts of land and dumping carbon dioxide and methane as always, which affects the atmosphere.

The greatest thing the oil & gas companies have in their favor is political inertia.  They have custom, a favorable body of established law, and surplus cash to push their interest against what is known by science and in the interest of society.  Exxon determined the road for the whole industry, when they acted against the public interest, when they were in the forefront of discovery.  So what will it be?   Disaster or needed change?  The next several decades will be very interesting indeed!

Norfolk Naval Station (Virginia Beach)

Dozens of military and defense experts advised the president-elect that global warming should transcend politics

From an Article by Erika Bolstad, ClimateWire, November 15, 2016

PHOTO: Rising sea levels are a theat to naval bases such as the Norfolk Naval Station in Virginia.

It may well end up in the paper shredder, but a bipartisan group of defense experts and former military leaders sent Donald Trump’s transition team a briefing book urging the president-elect to consider climate change as a grave threat to national security.

The Center for Climate & Security in its briefing book argues that climate change presents a risk to U.S. national security and international security, and that the United States should advance a comprehensive policy for addressing the risk. The recommendations, released earlier this year, were developed by the Climate and Security Advisory Group, a voluntary, nonpartisan group of 43 U.S.-based senior military, national security, homeland security and intelligence experts, including the former commanders of the U.S. Pacific and Central commands.

The briefing book argues that climate change presents a significant and direct risk to U.S. military readiness, operations and strategy, and military leaders say it should transcend politics. It goes beyond protecting military bases from sea-level rise, the military advisers say. They urge Trump to order the Pentagon to game out catastrophic climate scenarios, track trends in climate impacts and collaborate with civilian communities. Stresses from climate change can increase the likelihood of international or civil conflict, state failure, mass migration and instability in strategically significant areas around the world, the defense experts argue.

Trump hasn’t weighed in on climate change as a national security threat, although he has called climate change a “hoax” perpetrated by the Chinese.

Many military leaders say that considering climate change and renewable energy has made their branches more resilient fighting forces and bureaucracies, starting with reducing emissions and creating a nimble fighting culture that is less dependent on fossil fuels. By reducing their carbon footprint, they become a combatant in the war on rising global temperatures, military leaders say.

But considering climate change a national security problem remains controversial, especially among Republicans.

An executive directive issued in January within the Department of Defense required Pentagon agencies to take climate change into account and to consider its effects when developing plans and implementing procedures.

And President Obama in September ordered federal defense and intelligence agencies to consider the effects of a warming planet in the national security policies, plans and doctrines they develop (ClimateWire, Sept. 22).

The memo requires 20 federal agencies to collaborate to make sure decisionmakers have the best available information on climate change impacts and their potential threats to national security. The agencies are as varied as NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which gather scientific observations on climate, and the CIA, the National Security Agency and the Department of Defense, which analyze intelligence and develop national security policy.

Republicans have been skeptical of tying climate change to national security. House Republicans this summer passed defense appropriations and authorization bills that bar the Defense Department from spending money on efforts to combat climate change, including green fuel projects.

And after the White House memo issued in September, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, wrote to national security adviser Susan Rice requesting that the Obama administration offer proof of its assertion that climate change is a national security threat.

(Scientific American reprinted this article from ClimateWire with permission from E&E News, www.eenews.net.)

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Dependence on Negative Emission Technologies Could Undermine Efforts to Phase Out Fossil Fuels

NOTE: Kevin Anderson is a Professor of Energy and Climate Change at the Universities of Uppsala (Sweden) and Manchester (UK). He is also the Deputy Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. For over 25 years Dr. Anderson has worked on issues of climate change – such as translating climate science and carbon budgets into what these imply for mitigation, most recently in relation to the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 and 2 degrees C commitments. Dr. Anderson was originally a mechanical engineer, with over a decade of industrial experience in the petrochemical industry

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Donald Trump presidency a ‘disaster for the planet’, warn climate scientists

From an Article by Oliver Milman in New York, The Guardian, November 11, 2016

Trump say climate change is 'bullshit'

Leading scientists say the climate denier’s victory could mean ‘game over for the climate’ and any hope of warding off dangerous global warming. Trump has called global warming a ‘bullshit’ Chinese-invented hoax and wants the US to exit the Paris climate agreements.

The ripples from a new American president are far-reaching, but never before has the arrival of a White House administration placed the livability of Earth at stake. Beyond his bluster and crude taunts, Donald Trump’s climate denialism could prove to be the lasting imprint of his unexpected presidency.

“A Trump presidency might be game over for the climate,” said Michael Mann, a prominent climate researcher. “It might make it impossible to stabilize planetary warming below dangerous levels.”

Kevin Trenberth, senior scientist at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, added: “This is an unmitigated disaster for the planet.”

Trump has vowed to sweep away the climate framework painstakingly built over Barack Obama’s two terms. At risk is the Paris climate accord, which only came into force last week, and Obama’s linchpin emissions reduction policy, the Clean Power Plan.

At a pivotal moment when the planet’s nations have belatedly banded together to confront an existential threat, a political novice who calls global warming a “bullshit” Chinese-invented hoax is taking the helm at the world’s foremost superpower.

“Millions of Americans voted for a coal-loving climate denier willing to condemn people around the globe to poverty, famine and death from climate change,” said Benjamin Schreiber, climate director at Friends of the Earth US. “It seems undeniable that the United States will become a rogue state on climate change.”

US conservatives are already rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of a bonfire of regulation. Trump wants the US to exit the Paris deal, which commits nations to keeping the global temperature rise below a 2C threshold, potentially setting off a cataclysmic domino effect where other countries also drop out or ease off efforts to decarbonize. The 2C limit, which was already a stern challenge, now appears perilous.

Why America elected Trump

The Clean Power Plan, the main tool to cut American emissions, is also targeted for elimination, along with billions of dollars in clean energy funding. Republicans will also turn off the tap of aid flowing to developing nations already struggling with climate change-driven sea level rise, heatwaves and drought.

Bitterly contested fossil fuel projects such as the Keystone development and the Dakota Access pipeline, which has caused unprecedented uproar among native American tribes, would likely be waved through, with Trump promising to “lift the Obama-Clinton roadblocks to allow these vital energy infrastructure projects to go ahead”.

Environmentalists are already aghast at Trump’s presidential preparations. He has appointed Myron Ebell, director at a conservative thinktank, to oversee transition plans for the Environmental Protection Agency, which Trump has casually earmarked for abolition. Ebell has said global warming is “nothing to worry about” and that the Clean Power Plan is “illegal”.

Shortlists drawn up for key Trump administration posts have also raised alarm. Oil billionaire Harold Hamm is being touted as energy secretary, while former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin could make a stunning comeback as interior secretary, putting her in charge of US public lands, including treasures such as Yellowstone and Yosemite national parks. Palin is an enthusiastic proponent of oil and gas drilling, describing the fossil fuels as “things that God has dumped on this part of the Earth for mankind’s use”.

Republicans have already used Congressional committees to hound climate scientists and green groups and this badgering may escalate once climate denial is official White House doctrine. It’s understood that scientists at Nasa are already bracing themselves for cuts to climate research programs.

Predicting Trump’s plans, however, largely relies upon reading the runes from his discursive policy speeches, which regularly dissolved into vituperative diatribes while on the campaign trail.

At the heart of his energy and climate thinking is an “America first” policy where “draconian climate rules” are repealed and the US escalates its production of coal, oil and natural gas. In May, Trump sported a coal miner’s helmet at a rally in West Virginia, a state with a long history of mining, to underscore his message that the “war on coal” is over and that jobs will flow back to the stricken industry.

Trump want to repeal ‘draconian climate rules’ and increase US production of coal, oil and natural gas.

“Under my administration,” Trump said, “we’ll accomplish complete American energy independence. Complete. Imagine a world in which our foes, and the oil cartels, can no longer use energy as a weapon. It will happen. We’re going to win.”

These bromides to American industrial strength helped propel Trump to the White House but aren’t tethered to reality. US coal production slumped 10% last year, with mining jobs shrinking by 12%. Over the same 12-month period, the US oil industry lost $67bn. These woes have been caused by market forces, rather than onerous regulation, and even Trump’s authoritarianism doesn’t extend far enough to change that.

“As president, Donald Trump will pretend climate change does not exist,” said Prof Tom Lyon of the University of Michigan’s business school. “This is an increasingly untenable position, even for committed climate skeptics.

“His energy policy will encourage investment in high-carbon energy sources that will look foolish in retrospect. And he will anger much of the rest of the world by reneging on policies designed to address global challenges.”

US greenhouse gas emissions have started to taper off in recent years but a Trump presidency would see a resurgence, with an analysis by Lux Research finding that carbon dioxide output would be 16% higher than the current trajectory should the real estate magnate complete a second term.

This would give the world a hefty shove towards climate disaster and fatally wound the US’s reputation as a global leader. Should other major emitters such as China, India and the European Union fail to make compensatory emissions cuts the planet will likely spiral into runaway climate change where tens of millions of people are displaced by rising seas, food insecurity and conflict, leading to an unprecedented international humanitarian disaster.

Major US cities including New York, Miami and Boston would face inundation. California, already suffering its worst dry spell in 1,200 years, may stage ‘megadroughts’ that last 20 or even 30 years. The Pentagon has warned climate change poses a “threat multiplier” to US national security, to hoots of derision from Republicans.

The shift to a low-carbon economy already has its own momentum, however, with the cost of solar and wind power tumbling in recent years. Nearly 100 coal power plants were retired in 2015, with renewables accounting for two-thirds of all new electricity generation.

New York and California both have their own ambitious emission reduction plans, conservative states such as Iowa are embracing wind energy, and innovations from companies such as Tesla, in solar panels and battery storage, are being snapped up by homeowners.

Trumpian interference can only do so much to slow this trend, although plodding progress isn’t enough to stave off climate catastrophe. The UN has warned that global emissions must peak by 2020 and then be sharply reduced in order to avoid the worst. This shrinking window risks being clouded entirely if the US is to choke itself, and the rest of the world, on its fumes.

[[Artificial turf is rolled out after digging up a lawn due to California suffering its worst dry spell in 1,200 years. If climate action fails under Trump, the US state may experience ‘megadroughts’ that last 20 or 30 years.]]

Stunned environment groups, faced with triumphant climate denialism in all branches of government, are trying to muster defiance. “This could be devastating for our climate and our future,” admitted Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club. “But Trump must choose wisely or we guarantee him the hardest fight of his political life. We won’t be in a defensive crouch for the next four years, licking our wounds.

“If he tries to go backwards on climate change he’ll run headlong into an organized mass of people who will fight him in the courts, in Congress and on the streets.”

Others are more conciliatory, with former vice president Al Gore proffering an olive branch along with an enormous dollop of optimism. “Last night President-elect Trump said he wanted to be a president for all Americans,” Gore said on Wednesday. “In that spirit, I hope that he will work with the overwhelming majority of us who believe that the climate crisis is the greatest threat we face as a nation.”

Whether or not Trump becomes a belated convert to the reality of climate change, the physics of global warming remain unchanged.

2016 will be the warmest year on record, beating a mark set only last year. These extremes, where India experiences a temperature of 51C (123F) and the Arctic is robbed of almost all of its winter snowfall, are set to become the norm within a decade. American citizens, from Alaska to Louisiana, are already being uprooted due to the rising seas, a situation that will become commonplace.

Trump knows enough of the gargantuan shifts underway to build a seawall for his golf course in County Clare, Ireland. His Mar-a-Lago club in Florida may have to be next. Whether he extends his concern from beyond his own business interests to the rest of the world remains to be seen.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

More Solar Panels in WV: www.MTVSolar.com

The Coal State of WV in Transition to Solar Energy

Evell Meade of Kermit, WV, Greg Dotson of Parkersburg, WV and Mark Hunt of Charleston, WV, from left to right, carry a solar panel into a doctor’s office in Williamson, WV.  A group devoted to creating alternative energy jobs in Central Appalachia is building a first for West Virginia’s southern coalfields region this week: a rooftop solar array, assembled by unemployed and underemployed coal miners and contractors.

West Virginia may be best known as the source of the coal that built America and keeps its lights on, yet communities throughout the state are taking back their energy independence and going solar.

At just 9.70 cents per kilowatt hour, West Virginians pay the third-lowest electricity rates in the nation. Yet they don’t enjoy the nation’s lowest electricity bills, and they’re not likely to in the future, either.

Indeed, from 2007 to 2011, electricity rates jumped an average of 50 percent across the state. And on Feb. 3, the state’s Public Service Commission approved another rate increase for Mon Power and Potomac Edison, subsidiaries operating under the Ohio-based FirstEnergy Corp. Together, these subsidiaries serve over 520,500 customers in 34 counties and the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia.

This latest hike is “just 7.4 percent more reason to go solar,” according to Joey James’ reading of the document from the commission.

James is a staff scientist with the Energy Program of Downstream Strategies, a Morgantown, West Virginia-based environmental consulting firm. Originally from Columbus, Ohio, James decided to stay in the Mountain State after graduating from West Virginia University. Considering the state’s history as a coal producer and its more recent rise as a natural gas hub, it would be easy to assume that James decided to build a career around tapping into those energy resources — but he’s not.

“There’s a community of young West Virginians who all have the same vision: What’s happened historically isn’t working. And we’re all looking ahead to something new,” James told MintPress News.

That “something new” is slowly, but surely, coming in the form of solar power. Over the past couple of years, community solar co-ops have been popping up on the hills and in the hollers of West Virginia, and more are in the works.

Despite a lack of state incentives and the high up-front costs, communities and individuals are pulling together to take back their energy independence and free themselves from the monopolies held by energy companies which largely rely on coal to generate electricity.

“West Virginia’s coal built America”

West Virginia’s identity and economy has long been tied to the coal-based energy it produces not just for itself — the state generated at least 96 percent of its own electricity from coal last year — but also the nation.

“West Virginia’s coal built America. It fired its steel mills, lit its homes, and provided the cheap energy to create the wealthiest nation in the world,” Patrick Reis wrote for the National Journal in 2013.

Yet, as that article goes on to note, this hasn’t improved the lives of West Virginians. The state consistently ranks among the nation’s poorest, its residents scoring the lowest in well-being indices and with nearly the lowest life expectancy.

Central Appalachian coal production dropped 20 percent from 1997 to 2008 alone, and the state lost 17,000 mining jobs from 1983 to 2012 (though an EPA crackdown on mountaintop removal in 2009 provided a boost to coal employment).

When hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, took off in the state, it seemed like an obvious new economic lifeline. But as Measure of America, a project under the Social Science Research Council, reported in its American Human Development Report, Measure of America 2013-2014, part of a series measuring well-being in health, education and earnings, “Resources like natural gas enabled states such as New Mexico, Montana, and West Virginia to avoid the earnings losses most other states faced between 2000 and 2010. But their HD [Human Development] Index rankings remained low; valuable natural resources do not automatically fuel improvements in people’s well-being.”

While noting that those working in the extractives industry earn an average of $22 per hour — compared to $16 across all industries and the state’s $7.25 an hour minimum wage — and that these earnings trickle back into local businesses as workers, especially those without college degrees, flock toward employment opportunities, Measure of America reports:

“But the higher pay that workers earn is offset by dangerous working conditions, lack of job security (market changes can have big and sudden impacts), and relatively short careers (these jobs are often physically arduous and thus best suited to the young) without much room for advancement. Fracking boom towns have seen skyrocketing rents; poor, overcrowded living conditions and housing shortages; traffic, sanitation, and other environmental impacts; increased violence among workers and against women; and problems with substance abuse.”

At best, the natural gas industry is a mixed bag. And like the coal industry, it isn’t necessarily bankable in a long-term sense. Coal and natural gas aren’t hidden below the surface in unlimited amounts, and aside from environmental and socio-cultural concerns surrounding their extraction and use, they’re inherently non-renewable resources that are going to run out eventually.

Solar is a different story entirely. The solar industry is creating jobs 20 times faster than the overall economy. There are more solar installation sector jobs than coal mining jobs and it created 50 percent more jobs than the oil and gas pipeline construction industries combined. West Virginia, in particular, has favorable solar resources which, according to a 2013 policy white paper from Downstream Strategies and the Mountain Institute, surpass that of Germany, “the largest and most successful solar market in the world.”

“West Virginia needed this more”

After graduating from college in 2007, Dan Conant left West Virginia so he could work in the “solar energy industry, renewable energy, energy efficiency — anything I really wanted to do.” He spent the next few years launching a series of solar projects everywhere from Virginia to Vermont.

“I kept feeling a sense of guilt, and felt like West Virginia needed this more, not just because of energy, but because of brain drain,” Conant told MintPress.

Since 1980, West Virginia has lost a quarter-million residents born in the state. This is particularly true among the young, college-educated set, who have generally sought more gainful employment in other states. Further, the state appears consistently at the bottom of Forbes magazine’s Best States for Business and Careers list — last year, West Virginia was 48th.

Still, Conant saw a glimmer of hope for solar in West Virginia, and in 2013 he returned to found Solar Holler, which uses a crowd-sourcing and financing program to help community groups and nonprofits go solar.

The organization has teamed up with Maryland-based Mosaic Power to install remote controls on volunteers’ water heaters. These remote controls turn the water heaters on and off for 30 seconds to 15 minutes, acting as “virtual power plants” to allow more solar and wind energy into the grid. The fleets of remote controls on the water heaters fill in the gaps for days when it’s cloudy or winds are calm, and the energy savings are sold to the regional utility grid.

Volunteers are paid $100 per tank, per year. Instead of pocketing these funds, they pass them onto Solar Holler, which puts the money toward solar panel installations for nonprofits like churches and libraries.

Solar Holler completed its first crowdsourcing campaign and installed panels on the Shepherdstown Presbyterian Church in August, and its second campaign is underway to equip the Bolivar-Harpers Ferry Public Library in the historic town of Harpers Ferry with solar panels.

“We’re keeping West Virginia an energy state — it’s always been an energy state,” Conant said. Noting that renewables are the future, he added, “Solar is the next step in that.”

“Let’s do this”

While West Virginia ranks toward the bottom in overall solar jobs, the emergence of solar co-ops throughout the Mountain State is a sign that the state could be poised to climb those rankings — slowly, but steadily.

Mary Ellen Cassidy is helping to lead the exploratory stages for a solar co-op in Wheeling in partnership with WV SUN. Already, there’s a group of 15 to 20 people she describes as interested, though many are “very cautious.”

About 15 years ago, she and her husband looked into installing solar panels at both their home and office — a building that served as West Virginia’s first capitol building when it broke away from Virginia and declared its statehood in 1863. Seeing that solar was too expensive then, Cassidy and her husband opted for an energy efficiency upgrade instead, taking advantage of incentives from agencies like the U.S. Department of Agriculture to make it affordable.

Today, prices of solar panels and other related costs have dropped considerably, and going solar as a community, through a co-op, further reduces costs.

Cassidy hopes legislators will come to see solar as an investment that needs to be made and approach it with the same enthusiasm that’s been extended to the coal and natural gas industries. In the end, it’s sustainable economic activity that creates local jobs while also chipping away at people’s dependence on polluting, non-renewable energy sources — all things that West Virginia could certainly use more of.

Wheeling itself is currently going through a major revitalization. More and more young people and families are setting down stakes there, opening businesses and restaurants and breathing new life into the Rust Belt city along the Ohio River in the process.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Humanity may exhaust the Earth’s low-cost mineral resources before the end of this century – but better resource management could avoid the worst risks.

From an Article by Nafeez Ahmed, The Guardian UK, June 10, 2014

A new landmark scientific report drawing on the work of the world’s leading mineral experts forecasts that industrial civilisation’s extraction of critical minerals and fossil fuel resources is reaching the limits of economic feasibility, and could lead to a collapse of key infrastructures unless new ways to manage resources are implemented.

The peer-reviewed study – the 33rd Report to the Club of Rome – is authored by Prof Ugo Bardi of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Florence, where he teaches physical chemistry. It includes specialist contributions from fifteen senior scientists and experts across the fields of geology, agriculture, energy, physics, economics, geography, transport, ecology, industrial ecology, and biology, among others.

The Club of Rome is a Swiss-based global think tank founded in 1968 consisting of current and former heads of state, UN bureaucrats, government officials, diplomats, scientists, economists and business leaders.

Its latest report, to be released on 12th June, conducts a comprehensive overview of the history and evolution of mining, and argues that the increasing costs of mineral extraction due to pollution, waste, and depletion of low-cost sources will eventually make the present structure of industrial civilisation unsustainable.

Much of the report’s focus is on the concept of Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI), which measures the amount of energy needed to extract resources. While making clear that “we are not running out of any mineral,” the report finds that “extraction is becoming more and more difficult as the easy ores are depleted. More energy is needed to maintain past production rates, and even more is needed to increase them.” As a consequence, despite large quantities of remaining mineral reserves:

“The production of many mineral commodities appears to be on the verge of decline… we may be going through a century-long cycle that will lead to the disappearance of mining as we know it.”

The last decade has seen the world shift to more expensive and difficult to extract fossil fuel resources, in the form of unconventional forms of oil and gas, which have much lower levels of EROEI than conventional oil. Even with technological breakthroughs in fracking and associated drilling techniques, this trend is unlikely to reverse significantly.

A former senior executive in Australia’s oil, gas and coal industry, Ian Dunlop, describes in the report how fracking can rise production “rapidly to a peak, but it then declines rapidly, too, often by 80 to 95 percent over the first three years.” This means that often “several thousand wells” are needed for a single shale play to provide “a return on investment.”

The average EROEI to run “industrial society as we know it” is about 8 to 10. Shale oil and gas, tar sands, and coal seam gas are all “at, or below, that level if their full costs are accounted for… Thus fracking, in energy terms, will not provide a source on which to develop sustainable global society.”

The Club of Rome report also applies the EROEI analysis to extraction of coal and uranium. World coal production will peak by 2050 latest, and could peak as early as 2020. US coal production has already peaked, and future production will be determined largely by China. But rising domestic demand from the latter, and from India, could generate higher prices and shortages in the near future: “Therefore, there is definitely no scope for substituting for oil and gas with coal.”

As for global uranium supplies, the report says that current uranium production from mines is already insufficient to fuel existing nuclear reactors, a gap being filled by recovery of uranium military stockpiles and old nuclear warheads. While the production gap could be closed at current levels of demand, a worldwide expansion of nuclear power would be unsustainable due to “gigantic investments” needed.

US Geological Survey data analysed by the report shows that chromium, molybdenum, tungsten, nickel, platinum-palladium, copper, zinc, cadmium, titanium, and tin will face peak production followed by declines within this century. This is because declared reserves are often “more hypothetical than measured”, meaning the “assumption of mineral bonanzas… are far removed from reality.”

In particular, the report highlights the fate of copper, lithium, nickel and zinc. Physicist Prof Rui Namorado Rosa projects an “imminent slowdown of copper availability” in the report. Although production has grown exponentially, the grade of the minerals mined is steadily declining, lifting mining costs. ‘Peak copper’ is likely to hit by 2040, but could even occur within the next decade.

Production of lithium production, presently used for batteries electric cars, would also be strained under a large-scale electrification of transport infrastructure and vehicles. Sustainable lithium production requires 80-100% recycling – currently this stands at less than 1%.

Perhaps the most alarming trend in mineral depletion concerns phosphorous, which is critical to fertilise soil and sustain agriculture. While phosphorous reserves are not running out, physical, energy and economic factors mean only a small percentage of it can be mined. Crop yield on 40 percent of the world’s arable land is already limited by economical phosphorus availability.

In the Club of Rome study, physicist Patrick Dery says that several major regions of rock phosphate production – such as the island of Nauru and the US, which is the world’s second largest producer – are post-peak and now declining, with global phosphorous supplies potentially becoming insufficient to meet agricultural demand within 30-40 years. The problem can potentially be solved as phosphorous can be recycled.

A parallel trend documented in the report by Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) agronomist Toufic El Asmar is an accelerating decline in land productivity due to industrial agricultural methods, which are degrading the soil by as much as 50% in some areas.

Prof Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said that the report is “an effective piece of work” to assess the planet’s mineral wealth “within the framework of sustainability.” Its findings offer a “valuable basis for discussions on mineral policy.”

But the window for meaningful policy action is closing rapidly. “The main alarm bell is the trend in the prices of mineral commodities,” Prof Bardi told me.

“Prices have gone up by a factor 3-5 and have remained at these level for the past 5-6 years. They are not going to go down again, because they are caused by irreversible increases in production costs. These prices are already causing the decline of the less efficient economies (say, Italy, Greece, Spain, etc.). We are not at the inversion point yet, but close – less than a decade?”

For part 2 of this story see here.

Dr. Nafeez Ahmed is an international security journalist and academic. He is the author of A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It.

For those unable to attend the “Water and Wellness” seminar yesterday, you can watch the entire program of speakers on the video clips referenced below. The program was held in Morgantown, Saturday, September 8th and sponsored by the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, the WV Sierra Club, and WV Highlands Conservancy. Focus was on Marcellus shale gas development (MSD) and mountain-top removal coal mining (MTR).

Dr. Wilma Subra was keynote speaker, with presentations also by Dr. Michael Hendryx, Dr. Jill Kriesky, and Dr. Ben Stout. Additional speakers included residents of WV and PA who have personally been impacted by either shale drilling or mountain top removal coal mining and they shared their personal stories.

Dr. Wilma Subra presented information about the harmful toxins associated with shale gas drilling and their effects on human and animal health and environment. She presented statistical research about the levels of these chemicals that have been measured and documented all around these drill sites, compressor stations and beyond. It should be enough to lead even the most skeptical person into a call for action to demand a closer look by our regulatory agencies and legislators to determine if this “unconventional drilling” is as safe as the industry claims that it is! The industry rushed into the Marcellus drilling frenzy without really knowing all the facts about the short and long term impacts to health and environment. The resulting evidence coming from these communities now is just too serious to ignore!!!

>>> Diane Pitcock, www.wvhostfarms.org (See Part 12 below.)

NOTE: Everyone who lives anywhere in the region of drilling should watch these first two videos, where Dr. Wilma Subra describes the toxins and risks associated with shale gas development. You don’t have to live close to a well site to be affected… Robert Donnan.

Water & Wellness: Health Impacts of Fossil Fuel Extraction
Saturday, September 8, 2012 seminar in Morgantown, WV

Part 1 – Opening greetings and a presentation by environmental scientist Dr. Wilma Subra who begins her presentation at the 12-minute mark of the video.
http://youtu.be/znFOo7CloVg (36:32)

Part 2 – End of presentation by environmental scientist Dr. Wilma Subra.
http://youtu.be/LiV1XAWeSac (17:04)

Part 3 – Presentation by Greene County, Pennsylvania resident Pam Judy describing the health effects her family has experienced from a compressor station that was built 780 feet from their new home.
http://youtu.be/-qVGWAZXi7s (7:14)

Part 4 – Presentation by Christina Woods of Doddridge County, West Virginia who describes problems with dust from drilling traffic on the road near their home which were compounded when flowback being was applied to the road for dust control.
http://youtu.be/vjDBCyf8Ypo (5:18)

Part 5 – Presentation by Linda Headley of Fayette County, Pennsylvania who describes how being surrounded by Marcellus Shale drilling sites has adversely affected her family’ health and wellbeing.
http://youtu.be/JPIauYgBNYo (3:16)

Part 6 – Presentation by Nada White of Boone County, West Virginia who describes the health effects of coal mining and mountaintop removal.
http://youtu.be/uM9Mi1LSJDw (4:53)

Part 7 – Presentation by panelists Dr. Michael Hendryx – Professor in the School of Public Health at West Virginia University; Dr. Jill Kriesky – Center for Healthy Environments and Communities (CHEC) at University of Pittsburgh; Dr. Ben Stout – Aquatic Biologist at Wheeling Jesuit University.
http://youtu.be/umfg0PO5xg8 (31:42)

Part 8 – Q&A session with panelists Dr. Michael Hendryx – Professor in the School of Public Health at West Virginia University; Dr. Jill Kriesky – Center for Healthy Environments and Communities (CHEC) at University of Pittsburgh; Dr. Ben Stout – Aquatic Biologist at Wheeling Jesuit University.
http://youtu.be/02Gc5fjzEuM (36:33)

Part 9 – Q&A session with panelists Dr. Michael Hendryx – Professor in the School of Public Health at West Virginia University; Dr. Jill Kriesky – Center for Healthy Environments and Communities (CHEC) at University of Pittsburgh; Dr. Ben Stout – Aquatic Biologist at Wheeling Jesuit University.
http://youtu.be/OkUV8SsYR2Q (4:51)

Part 10 – Lorelei Scarbro of Raleigh County West Virginia describes what happened during and after mountaintop removal mining took place behind her house.
http://youtu.be/LLwEP1QUCX0 (9:15)

Part 11 – Danny Cook of Boone County West Virginia describes what happened during and after mountaintop removal mining took place behind his house.
http://youtu.be/DKMftkX7jgA (6:18)
Magazine story:
http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/201203/coal-mining-appalachia102.aspx

Part 12 – Diane L. Pitcock describes the WV Host Farms Program.
http://youtu.be/5YhCyf-WbCg (6:30)

The rush to drill for unconventional gas, enabled by a process popularly known as “fracking,” or hydraulic fracturing, has brought with it much collateral damage. Close observers know about contaminated water, earthquakes, and climate change impacts of the shale gas boom, but few look at the entire life cycle of fracking from cradle to grave.

Until recently, one of the most underlooked facets of the industry was the “cradle” portion of the shale gas lifecycle: frac sand mining in the hills of northwestern Wisconsin and bordering eastern Minnesota, areas now serving as the epicenter of the frac sand mining world.

The silence on the issue ended after several good investigative stories were produced by outlets in the past year or so, such as Wisconsin Watch, PR Watch, The Wisconsin State Journal, the Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, Orion, EcoWatch, and most recently, Tom Dispatch. These various articles, all well worth reading, explain the land grab currently unfolding in the Midwest and the ecological damage that has accompanied it. 

To put it bluntly, there could be no shale gas extraction without the sand. As Tom Dispatch‘s Ellen Cantarow recently explained,

That sand, which props open fractures in the shale, has to come from somewhere. Without it, the fracking industry would grind to a halt. So big multinational corporations are descending on this bucolic region to cart off its prehistoric sand, which will later be forcefully injected into the earth elsewhere across the country to produce more natural gas. Geology that has taken millions of years to form is now being transformed into part of a system, a machine, helping to drive global climate change.

Frac sand, which consists of fine-grained sillica, can cause the respiratory illness, silicosis. Washing the frac sand in preparation for the fracking process is also a water intensive process, particularly threatening in the age of increasing water scarcity in the United States and around the world.

“The state’s water supplies are also threatened as sand mining destroys sandstone formations which serve as giant filters for local aquifers.” Sara Jerving of PR Watch wrote. “The mining process can use thousands of gallons of water which can also deplete aquifers.”

The “frac sand rush” has been an uphill battle for small towns and municipalities that are trying to fight, or at the very least, attempt to negotiate with large corporations, with compartively little governmental oversight to deal with corporate behemoths such as EOG Resources, mirroring in many important ways the shale gas rush.

Cities and concerned citizens have done their best to keep up with the boom, but have no precedent to look for, no previous legislation to protect themselves, their infrastructure (see: roads and heavy trucks rolling through), their groundwater and their air.

Enter “Sand Land”

To further introduce the world to the impacts of frac sand mining, DeSmogBlog presents “Sand Land,” a short video report filmed and produced by Milwaukee, WI by photo-journalist and film-maker, Spencer Chumbley of 414 Wire, co-reported on with DeSmogBlog Research Fellow, Steve Horn. The film serves as a short audio-visual primer on the issue.

We encourage you to watch and share it with friends, colleagues, and family.