Energy
-
Critics: Canada’s oil boom an environmental bust. Extracting oil from Canada’s open-pit mines poses unacceptable risks to the region’s rivers and forests, critics of the projects say. By Rob Gillies. AP. They might strip mine an area as large as New York state. While oil sands does yield a lot of net energy, the ratio…
-
Joan McCarter looks at some of Wyoming’s recent strategies to protect sage grouse, avoid ESA listing of Sage grouse to keep Oil & Gas happy. Grousing Around Is the sage grouse the 21st century’s spotted owl? – NewWest
-
Southeast Idaho officials approve a big wind energy farm. AP “Construction of a 150-turbine wind farm on 20,000 acres along Wolverine Canyon [Blackfoot Mountains] has been approved by Bingham County commissioners.” The turbines would be 490 feet tall!! I wonder if there are any taller ones anywhere? This project is remaking some traditional political alliances…
-
Big Oil’s biggest quarter ever: $51.5B in all. By John Porretto. AP Business Writer. So far Speaker Pelsosi has kept nervous Democrats in line on big oil’s plan’s to use the high price of gasoline to gain leases in fragile off and on-shore public lands. The counterattack should be easy. The headline above shows the…
-
Utah BLM isn’t responding to the needs of sportsmen. By Dan Potts, Chris Thomas and Joel Webster. Salt Lake Tribune. That’s because the BLM has been directed to focus on energy more than ever (it’s not they did much for wildlife or recreation in the past).
-
There has been some discussion about the rise in recent gas prices and its effect on public support to drill on public lands. Polls are being tossed around and their results are as diverse as the questions – mostly we’ve seen Oil Industry sponsored polls suggesting widespread support for more drilling. Ralph has suggested that…
-
“The industrial takeover of the West is not about oil or the price of gasoline at the pump. Domestic oil production, in fact, has suffered from a shell game. Nearly all the drilling on public lands is, in fact, about methane: natural gas. The booty at the wellhead is methane and stockholder cash.” Natural gas…
-
We’ve seen this heedless rush to oil shale before, just ahead of the inevitable bust. By Senator Ken Salazar. Salt Lake Tribune (reprinted from the Washington Post). Salazar is a U.S. Senator from Colorado, the state where much of the oil shale lies.