Fracked Earth News: Boston’s Hot Ocean Blizzard

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Every week, Kate Lanier assembles the most important global energy and climate news, including:

New England: Off the coast of New England, sea surface temperatures “are flashing red, showing an extreme warm anomaly.” That’s a direct, immediate link to the recent record snowfall in Boston. Expect more.

California: Stunning state-wide fracking waste water test results: “concentrations of the human carcinogen benzene … [at] levels thousands of times greater than state and federal agencies consider safe.” ‘Significant’ benzene levels were in 98% of the water samples. Not only that, but CA “inadvertently” allowed frackers to inject their “flowback water into protected aquifers containing drinking water.” LA Times says “halt new operations.”

Peru: Oil contamination by Argentina’s Pluspetrol in the Peruvian Amazon so upset indigenous people that they “stormed a military base being used by Pluspetrol as a storage area.” Pluspetrol is packing up and leaving Peru—and the government “is investigating the illegal use of firearms by police during the demonstrations.”

Mining The Earth & Fracking The World: Keystone Showdown

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Kate Lanier’s collects global energy and climate news. This week, she has a special focus on the fight over the Keystone XL Pipeline in Congress including:

Keystone XL Pipeline, US Senate: Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) of the senate’s Energy and Natural resources Committee blasted the Senate’s Keystone XL pipeline bill. Sanders is concerned about the US Senate rejecting science and efficient renewable energy, while Warren concentrated on the pipeline benefitting the Canadian oil industry and not US families. Update: “Democrats plan tough votes for GOP on Keystone pipeline bill.”

Meanwhile, from Vatican City: Pope Francis has added his voice in opposition to mining, fracking, and disregard for the earth in general. He appears in a movie, La Guerra Del Fracking de Pino Solanas (The Fracking War), banned in Argentina (where the government calls fracking “non-conventional gas”), but now on YouTube.” Pope Francis also spoke to the urgency of focusing on youth, the future.

Alabama: Radioactive (tritium) leak at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant near Athens, after which TVA said “the leak was quickly contained and presented no public risk.” Not the only TVA radioactive leak, nor the only one at Browns Ferry.

Mining The Earth & Fracking The World: Hallelujah, Save The Planet!

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Kate Lanier offers selections from global mining, fracking and energy-related news including:

Chile: “Chile is now emerging as the southern hemisphere’s renewable energy giant, particularly in the mining sector.” They’re “building independent solar, solar thermal, wind and geothermal power plants” which are producing power at prices “competitive with or lower” than conventional producers. Chile’s latest renewable power costs are $80/megawatt hour—compared to $95 for coal.

Russia: Rosneft tried to buy “a Morgan Stanley oil-trading firm,” but the deal went poof! thanks to US authorities whose sanctions “have hurt Rosneft’s ability to finance the operations.” Those sanctions also mean ExxonMobil and other Rosneft partners won’t be developing offshore oil in the Arctic.

Texas: Gas flaring at the Eagle Ford Shale “burned off more than 20 billion cubic feet of natural gas,” producing as many tons of pollution in seven months as were produced in all of 2012. Not all the flaring was state permitted, either. The TX Railroad Commission (I know, I know, but they’re in charge of these things) has sent lots and lots of letters to the companies involved, reminding them they shouldn’t flare without permits, but with the price of oil so low, what’s a company to do?

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