America’s Natural Gas Alliance, a brand new lobbying group, is headed for our Senate and our airways with $80 million to spend watering down the climate bill and greenwashing natural gas as an alternative fuel instead of what it really is: another dirty fossil fuel called Methane.
“We were not prepared for the pace at which the House legislation
proceeded,” says Jim Hackett, chairman and chief executive of gas producer
Anadarko Petroleum Corp.But Mr. Hackett says the industry won’t repeat its mistake with the Senate.
He and other CEOs have formed a new lobbying group, America’s Natural Gas
Alliance, and pledged about $80 million to the effort, which will include a
national media campaign in the fall.The alliance’s members include more than two dozen of the top natural-gas
producers in the U.S., including Chesapeake Energy Corp., XTO Energy Inc.
and Devon Energy Corp.David Trice, who is chairman of both the Alliance and gas producer Newfield
Exploration Co., stepped down as Newfield’s CEO in May in part to focus on
the lobbying effort. He says he has met with 20 senators since the group was
formed in March.The Wall Street Journal
Gas Industry Girds to Fight in the Senate Over Climate
August 20, 2009
By BEN CASSELMAN
The Alliance plans to offer incentives for switching everything in America over to natural gas methane. Then natural gas methane prices are sure to go up and we’ll be stuck paying high prices for the same old dirty fossil fuel while global warming accelerates on us.
Could we at least have a little regulation?
Legislation is pending that will close the Halliburton Loophole, but we need more support for these bills. Please ask your member of Congress or Senator to co-sponsor these bills.
S. 1215 – Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals (FRAC) Act
A bill to amend the Safe Drinking Water Act to repeal a certain exemption for hydraulic fracturing, and for other purposes.
H.R. 2766 – Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act of 2009
To repeal the exemption for hydraulic fracturing in the Safe Drinking Water Act, and for other purposes.
About Sharon Wilson
Sharon Wilson is considered a leading citizen expert on the impacts of shale oil and gas extraction. She is the go-to person whether it’s top EPA officials from D.C., national and international news networks, or residents facing the shock of eminent domain and the devastating environmental effects of natural gas development in their backyards.
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How do you expect for the United States to meet its electric generation needs with just wind and solar? When the wind doesn't blow, wind turbines do not generate electricity. Therefor, backup generation is required. Would you rather have natural gas or coal burning generation? If it is polution you are worried about, natural gas is a much cleaner burning fuel than coal.
Natural gas is 20% cleaner burning BUT the production processing is devastating. Look at the pictures on this blog. Watch the videos. See any problem?
We need much better regulation and a plan for the MASSIVE amounts of toxic waste produced or we will be in big trouble with no clean water, air or soil.
How do you expect us to stay alive long enough to use that energy with no safe water or clean air?
It does not matter how much wind blows or how much sunshine we have- wind and solar will never meet the masses needs. America can produce 4.5kwhr/person/24/7/365. Compare that with China at almost .5kwhr…, India @ .25kwhr… That's per person, 24/7/365. I'm trying (on this iPhone) to provide you with some rational scale. Mexico, .25kwhr, Germany 3.0, Japan 4.0kwhr… Almost 2 billion people on this planet without any electricity. The point is, we have SO FAR TO FALL!!! Compared to a modern 1gbw (giggabite) nuclear power plant the average wind turbine produces less then 1.5meggawatt – that's a 670 turbine wind farm with a footprint thousands times that of a nuclear plant. And solar for major markets, don't get me started. All you have to do is refer to some of the YouTube lectures from MIT to help you get your head around a huge problem headed in our direction. I agree with the points made here in this web site although most people don't understand the inferred technology it does work. I work at a chemical plant and we use them proactively to find leaks. Their kind of expensive so our plants have to share. You need to work on strengthening State systems and stay away from the federal parts of government. Use county sources and argue that it's countys and towns that are damaged by reckless polution (methane is a greenhouse gas just like water vapor). Inform the locals starting with school boards, that's how you get attention at the least cost. I'm here to say industry and tree huggers can find common ground if efforts are applied with reason. Otherwise, we have very far to fall. Do some math and you will come to understand, these times we're living in are some if the best ever. Enjoy them while you can.
Earl, I don't know where you live but here in Texas you will never, EVER get the state and county to do ANYTHING. They are OWNED by oil and gas.
Check out algae. It's looking quite promising.
Txsharon, I believe the algie research remains that, as are new forms if electrical storage in the research phase. Solar is a good alternative when people start thinking of it as a local project (I'm talking individual homes as opposed to mega projects).
I've worked in the chemical industry for 30 years. I can only relay my own experiances. Here in Houston we have the presence of the TNRCC, Harris County Polution Control and Houston (city of) Polution Control, all of which have overlapping authority. As the community has moved in on our site our community awareness has taken center stage in our daily efforts to provide needed goods for commerce as well as taking care of our neighbors! We meet with community representatives (public and open forums) once a month to review any chemical industry incidents as well as planning community projects. Our employees are part if our community. They hold us to the highest standards. Unlike walmart, we can't simply shut our doors and leave 10 acers of oil soaked blacktop. But I believe your concern involves small operations that don't share fixed plant community awareness. That's how my industry was even before I came to work. When I started we had 2 industrial hygiene technicians, now we've had for many years fourteen IH people in that department including those responsable for air and ground quality and a contract group who's only job is to look for leaks all day long using hand held GC monitors to the ppm levels. Almost a quarter if our maintenance budget is put toward the effort to repair leaks, and most of these leaks I'm talking about are tiny, ppm levels. Anything above 10,000 ppm have 5 and 15 day limits to make perminent repairs; it's nothing like taking your car to the repair shop, everything must be organized- we use MOWP, maintenance workflow process to track and make sure all issues are properly priortized and repaired in a timely manner. Personally, I'm darn proud of my industry. Now these satalite drilling operations seen in your videos, all I ask is that you not jump the gun and include the chemical manufacturing industry in with them. Best Regards, Earl
I just met Jes Sprouse, President, Algal Farms Inc. yesterday. You should check it out!
Algal Farms
I'm glad your industry is conscientious but still, Houston has horrible air quality and people are exposed to all kinds of harmful chemicals.
TXsharon, I totally agree with you on the air quality here in Houston; the plant I work at is very proactive as are all the 'chemical' plants in CEMA (chemical endustry mutual aid) system which I'm very aware of. I'm not going to speak for the oil refining industry.
I read the algie farm site from front to back. Here is my take on things. Just like large oil companies will abandon wells that only produce 50 bpd since their looking for the major production wells, they intend to hang back and drag out this hydrocarbon issue since their fixed accets are geared that direction. But there's no reason private enterprise can't do small scale projects on their own. Mark my words here, when the time comes these small outfits make a difference, the big boys will buy them up, willing or not.
I see the potential in algie, and I also like biochar.
Channel Industry Group (refiners included) have been actively working with all the local governing boards to priortized and make process changes to help with their part of the Houston polution problem. Unfortunatly the auto and trucking industry which are 50% of the problem have been given a comparitive pass on polution because it's easier to go after a fixed company, and that's ok because we needed to clean up and we have.
I wish this algie industry good luck. As a nation, knowing what I do about electrical production, where we stand in relationship to the rest of the world and what it would take to maintain what we have I don't see the lifestyle Americans enjoy today being here in 20 years, I'll be around to see this. The world cannot sustain the current 12 trillion kWh production rate. I understand the current technologies and we are about to build more powerlines for what??? Wind and solar are not going to be major players, they can't be, it's mathamatically not possable. We are not even using the generating capacity we have. All over electrical plants have been shut down. Look in league city, Texas City and Baytown for three local examples, not to mention the dozens of smaller peak power plants shut down in Houston alone.
Personally, each of us have to take responsability for our individual carbon footprint. Thanks for pointing out the VOC issue with the gas units. That something I can write my representatives about.
I wish the oil and gas industry would take a lesson from the chem. industry. They do their best to suppress any new information and marginalize anyone who wants improvement.
I agree that we all have to change our lifestyle. I've changed my a lot. We survived for a long time without all the modern conveniences we have today. In the summer we would sweat and in the winter we got damn cold =) but we made it.