Saturday, Nov 01st
Last update08:10:46 AM GMT
Energy Glance
Natural gas companies have been placing enormous bets on the wells they are drilling, saying they will deliver big profits and provide a vast new source of energy for the United States.
But the gas may not be as easy and cheap to extract from shale formations deep underground as the companies are saying, according to hundreds of industry e-mails and internal documents and an analysis of data from thousands of wells.
When the energy industry publishes a coloring book, there is no crayon needed to see the shades of gray. Exhibit A: "Talisman Terry's Energy Adventure," a handout for children published by Talisman Energy that explains the natural gas industry with the help of a "friendly Fracosaurus" dinosaur named Terry.
Everyone smiles in Terry's world. Mom smiles, Dad smiles, the worker smiles, the dog smiles, the cat smiles, the deer smiles, the fish smiles, the sun smiles, the moon smiles, the flower smiles, the rock smiles. Even the helium balloon -- used to demonstrate how "natural gas is lighter than air" -- smiles.
According to estimates, Israel has sent back at least dozens of kilograms, probably more, of 93-percent enriched uranium.
The operation took place after Israel's Nuclear Energy Commission and the US Department of Energy signed an agreement for the return of the nuclear waste over a year and a half ago.
Following the agreement, an American ship collected nuclear waste from both Israel and Turkey.
Governor Rick Perry has signed a bill requiring gas drillers to publically disclosed the chemicals used in hydraulic facturing, or fracking. That's when water and chemicals are injected into the ground to crack the shale and extract the natural gas.
Ed Ireland with the Barnett Shale Energy Education Council says the industry supports the bill.
Ireland: Once people can go to the database and see exactly what chemicals are used and in what quantity that it will help clear up the debate.
The natural gas industry says fracking is safe and does not contaminate groundwater.
Biofuels have buzz in the military because the Air Force and the Navy are taking a lead role in creating a U.S. market for them. They've spent the past few years testing and certifying aircraft to run on them. Now they need hundreds of millions of gallons of biofuels to meet the goals they've set for using alternative energy by the end of this decade.
The challenge for the new industry is to find money to ramp up from nearly zero today. The Department of Defense has called for biofuels that don't displace food, don't use up fresh water, yield less greenhouse-gas pollution than conventional fuels and cost the same. About a dozen companies that want to make this jet fuel for the global market have exhibits for the first time this year at the Paris Air Show, which began Monday.
Safety has taken a back seat to cost-cutting at most of the nation's nuclear power plants, sparking fears that America could be facing its own Fukushima disaster.
An investigation by the Associated Press has revealed federal regulators are repeatedly weakening - or simply failing to impose - strict rules.
Officials at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission have frequently decided that original regulations were too strict, arguing that safety margins could be eased without peril.
Federal regulators have been working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nation's aging reactors operating within safety standards by repeatedly weakening those standards, or simply failing to enforce them, an investigation by The Associated Press has found.
Time after time, officials at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission have decided that original regulations were too strict, arguing that safety margins could be eased without peril, according to records and interviews.
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