Climate scientist James Hansen has said that it is “game over” for the climate if the Keystone XL pipeline is allowed to be built as it would lock us into unsustainable use of the dirty tar sands crude for the foreseeable future. And climate activist and author Bill McKibben has written about Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math which states that we must leave the oil industries massive oil reserves in the ground if we are to have a chance at mitigating climate change.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/…
Then why don’t these worthies do something about it? Are they on Exxon’s or the Koch Brothers’ payroll? [ A small bit of snark. I am sure they are not paid by the dirties but they surely work in their interests though they would deny it.]
Today mountains of solid waste are disposed of, at best, in landfills while they could be used to convert coal and natural gas plants to biomass burning plants with little modification. Natural gas may be dirtier than even coal for reasons that have been elucidated many times.
Years ago a car burning cow manure made a continental run. In that case the manure was converted to methane with anaerobic digestion but it is not necessary for vehicles to make any conversions to liquid or gaseous fuels with today’s technology derived from ancient times. Instead money is being wasted on electric vehicles with limited use and further pollution of the planet.
Biomass, whether from waste, forest slash and kindling for forest fires or even – the worst option – agriculture devoted to growth of biomass only, is fought tooth and nail by purported environmentalists like the above gentlemen.
Then again, the most potent and cheapest of all energy sources put together – Mother Earth herself – has an even harder time with the nitwit “environmentalists.”
Filling a summer news hole with news on earthquakes
The never ending story of scientific studies proving that geothermal activities cause earthquakes continue and it seems the recent wave of articles is simply another run at the same topic in this case likely to fill a news hole over the summer period.
http://thinkgeoenergy.com/arch…
Surely but it’s hard to top word that increased tapping of the vast geothermal potential of California’s Salton Sea area may start the San Andreas fault in motion with ginormous consequences beyond anything ever imagined.
Geothermal plants trigger small quakes near San Andreas fault
Geothermal plants on the Salton Sea cause tremors, study finds, but it isn’t clear if they could touch off a major quake on the San Andreas fault.
http://www.latimes.com/news/lo…
It’s not as if the Dirty Bunch, blasting away underground with abandon and pouring poisonous chemicals into the breech giving a whole new meaning to fire water for people with water wells, was the real threat drilling for water is.
The geothermal folks at the link above speculate the oil and gas drillers may have paid for the harum-scarum.
No need. It is impossible to plumb the depths of human stupidity.
Best, Terry