In the Pipeline: 8/9/13

Congress should take this as a teachable moment and mandate that the plant generate all its electricity from wind or solar and that Congress will rely on no other powerplants.  I suspect the Republic would be a lot safer if staffers and Members had to get by on a few hours of electricity a day.

The New York Times (8/8/13) reports: “As part of the climate change agenda he unveiled this year, President Obama made a commitment to significantly reduce the federal government’s dependence on fossil fuels. The government, he said in a speech in June at Georgetown University, ‘must lead by example.’ Some critics say officials at the plant are choosing to burn dirtier fuel as a political statement. But just two miles from the White House stands the Capitol Power Plant, the largest single source of carbon emissions in the nation’s capital and a concrete example of the government’s inability to green its own turf. The plant, which provides heating and cooling to the sprawling Capitol campus — 23 buildings that include the Library of Congress, the Supreme Court and Congressional office buildings, in addition to the Capitol building itself — is operated by Congress, and its transition to cleaner energy sources has been mired in national politics for years.”

Do you ever get the feeling the NOAA crew is rooting for destruction?

My Fox New York (8/8/13) reports: “This Atlantic hurricane season may not be quite as busy as federal forecasters once thought, but they still warn of an unusually active and potentially dangerous few months to come. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration updated its hurricane season forecast Thursday, trimming back the number of hurricanes they expect this year to between six and nine. That’s a couple less than they predicted back in May. The forecast calls for three to five of those hurricanes to be major, with winds greater than 110 mph. The updated forecast also predicts 13 to 19 named storms this year. Both of those predictions are just one less forecast three months ago.”

Let’s talk about that jobs “blip.”

The Energy and Commerce Committee (8/8/13) reports: “If the president is indeed committed to reducing unemployment, he should swiftly pivot toward American energy production. Data from the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics illustrate that the U.S. oil and gas industry continues to be a bright spot in America’s economy. The Energy Information Administration reported today, ‘From the start of 2007 through the end of 2012, total U.S. private sector employment increased by more than one million jobs, about one percent. Over the same period, the oil and natural gas industry increased by more than 162,000 jobs, a 40 percent increase.A recent study commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute found the oil and gas industry supported a total of 9.8 million American jobs in 2011, including over 600,000 jobs created in just two years. While the country still struggles with high unemployment, energy producing states like North Dakota and Texas are experiencing job growth.”

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For you Alaskaphiles out there…

Energy Intelligence (7/29/13) reports: “Doyon, one of the largest private landowners in the US, has spent the last three years conducting additional seismic surveys and analyzing test results from a well targeting natural gas that was drilled in the summer of 2009. That well, Nunivak #1, located 50 miles west of the city of Fairbanks, showed signs of oil generation below 7,000 feet, and Doyon believes that the basin may hold more than 1 billion barrels of oil. ‘The initial look was really for gas, but it clearly has turned to oil as a result of the well we drilled in 2009,’ Jim Mery, Doyon’s senior vice president of lands and natural resources told Oil Daily in an interview. ‘We see an opportunity to change the paradigm about oil development in this state.’ The basin has the advantage of accessibility in a state where the road system and electrical grid only reach 40% of the land area. The drilling site for the second well, Nunivak #2, is near Alaska’s main north-south railroad and highway corridor and roughly 65 miles from both the state’s largest refinery and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System.”