Energy Glance
Rules proposed recently by New York State for regulating a controversial form of natural gas drilling are drawing expressions of guarded optimism from the natural gas industry but objections from some environmentalists, who say they do not go far enough in protecting water supplies.
Environmental groups say that the state has moved toward a safer plan in its latest draft rules, especially by banning the drilling, known as horizontal hydrofracking, in state parks, wildlife preserves, and watersheds and aquifers that supply drinking water to New York residents. But it is still coming up short, some say, on issues like mapping buffer zones where drilling would be banned.
The New York State Legislature's passage of the Power NY Act was a bright moment in a session marred by budget cuts and layoffs. The new law allows the Green Jobs-Green NY program to advance toward goals of generating 1 million energy efficiency retrofits on homes and businesses and creating over 14,000 full-time permanent jobs.
The Forward, the leading national Jewish weekly, has just reported that four Jewish summer camps in Pennsylvania have signed leases with gas exploration companies to allow “fracking” –- the hydro-fracturing method of pouring tons of highly chemicalized water to smash shale rocks into releasing natural gas.
French senators voted to outlaw hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, making France the first country to pass a law banning the technique for extracting natural gas and oil.
Experts are warning about the U.S. plans to build a massive plutonium bomb factory in the Los Alamos nuclear plant in New Mexico.
When commercial nuclear power was getting its start in the 1960s and 1970s, industry and regulators stated unequivocally that reactors were designed only to operate for 40 years. Now they tell another story - insisting that the units were built with no inherent life span, and can run for up to a century, an Associated Press investigation shows.
A new coalition of outdoors groups is emerging as a potent force in the debate over natural gas drilling. The Sportsmen Alliance for Marcellus Conservation isn't against the process of fracking for gas, but its members want to make sure the rush to cash in on the valuable resource doesn't damage streams, forests, and the various creatures that call those places home.
