Draft on climate change adaptation plans up for public review

Image Source: news.thomasnet.com

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has started distributing the draft of its climate change implementation plans for review of the public, according to an article at ogj.com. The agency has set a schedule of two months or until January 14, 2014 for the review.

This policy review is in line with the requirement for all federal agencies to develop their own climate adaptation plans as ordered by the interagency Federal Climate Change Adaptation Task Force. The task force was convened under the power of Executive Order 13514 of 2009. Its mandate is to take into consideration all of the plans and develop recommendations for the US President on how the country can better endure this global phenomenon.

Image Source: treehugger.com

The draft details the processes by which the agency intends to implement in order to help communities at the grassroots level adapt to the realities of climate change.

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said that the agency must work to incorporate its climate plans towards its “programs, policies, rules, and operations to ensure that the agency’s work continues to be effective even as the climate changes.” The said plans in turn have the potential to create an impact on the oil and gas governing policies across the entire US.

Image Source: examiner.com

Dr. Ali Ghalambor is a co-author of the Frac Packing Handbook. Read more views on the oil and gas industry on this Facebook page.

REPOST: Obama wants limits on coal plants, says Keystone can't boost pollution

President Barack Obama outlines second-term environmental priorities in an address on climate change. This CNN article has the details. 



Video Source: edition.cnn.com

Washington (CNN) -- President Barack Obama unveiled an aggressive new climate change strategy on Tuesday that would limit pollution from existing coal-fired power plants, and he made clear that approval of the Keystone XL pipeline depended on the project not increasing overall greenhouse gas emissions.

Obama raised the two politically charged issues during a sweeping address on second-term environmental priorities that included his plan of executive actions that don't require congressional approval in an era of partisan gridlock in Washington. He also pledged global leadership on climate change and to redouble U.S. efforts to fight it. The Georgetown University speech came as environmental constituents and climate change advocates press him to take more aggressive action and to push harder for clean energy alternatives.

Obama said he was taking action for the "sake of our children and the health and safety of all Americans," saying new initiatives on his environmental agenda built around clean-energy industry and policy will spur the economy and leave a cleaner planet for future generations. "We can do all of that as long as we don't fear the future and instead we seize it," Obama said, adding that his plan was a signal to the world that America would take bold action to reduce carbon pollution.

Obama pledged in 2009 the United States would cut greenhouse gas emissions by 17% of 2005 levels by 2020.

Environmentalists have said decisive action was necessary to make that goal possible with a major legislative effort in Congress failing in Obama's first term.

The president again said that U.S. energy strategy must be more than producing more petroleum, reviving his call for eliminating tax breaks for "big oil."

"We can't drill our way out of the energy and climate challenges that we face," he said, a familiar Democratic sentiment on energy policy.

Obama cautioned that the impact of his plan would be felt over time, but now is the moment to further prepare the nation to reduce carbon pollution and protect Americans from climate change. "The world still looks for the United States to lead," he said, noting that the United States is the world's largest economy and the second-largest carbon emitter. "We have a vital role to play," he said.

Obama said the United States must use less "dirty energy," waste less, and transition to cleaner sources, and redouble efforts to reach a new global agreement to reduce carbon emissions with "concrete action" that is ambitious, inclusive and flexible.

He said the United States must "strengthen our position" as a natural gas producer, which he said is producing jobs, lowering power bills, and over time would help the country transition to cleaner energy overall, including wind and solar power applications. And Obama said he doesn't have much patience for those who say there's no proof of man-made climate change.

"We don't have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society," he said. Americans having their say on divisive Keystone pipeline plan

Keystone pipeline

On the sensitive prospect of the Canada-to-Texas Keystone pipeline, Obama said it would only come about if its development would be in the nation's best interest. And that, he said, would be served if the project does not significantly worsen carbon pollution.

"The net effect on our climate will be absolutely critical in determining whether this project will be allowed to go forward," he said.

The State Department is in the final stages of reviewing the proposal that has contributed to the political stalemate in Washington.

Proponents of the pipeline, many of them Republicans that Obama is looking to compromise with on key issues, say Keystone will enable U.S. energy independence, create jobs and develop important industrial infrastructure.

Among detractors are some of Obama's traditional allies, who were instrumental in getting him elected twice. They say the massive pipeline effort is dangerous, inherently filthy and must be stopped. In a lengthy study, the State Department has weighed in on the side of proponents. But the Environmental Protection Agency has blasted environmental impact assessments. The Canadian crude that would flow through the Keystone pipeline is mixed with sand in its raw form. Environmental experts say extracting oil and transporting it requires more energy than pumping crude out of a well. Pushing it through pipes increases the energy consumption as well. That higher energy use leads to greater greenhouse gas emissions, an increase of "18.7 million metric tons (20 million tons) C02 ... per year when compared to an equal amount of U.S. average crudes," the EPA said.

Coal plants

The Obama administration created regulations for newly built coal plants during the president's first term. On Tuesday, he issued directives requiring the EPA to establish carbon pollution standards for plants that are already active.

The administration is not laying out new standards on its own. Instead, it plans to work with industry, states, labor and other interest groups to develop them. Obama directed the EPA to come up with a detailed draft proposal by June 2014 and a finalized version one year later. Environmental groups have been calling on Obama to issue such regulations on coal plants, the largest source of carbon emissions in the United States.

Obama argued that the benefits of reduced carbon emissions will far outweigh the costs of implementing new rules. Critics have said new regulations could damage the economy. Construction of new coal plants has slowed in part due to EPA regulations.

"The impact could be economic havoc," Luke Popovich, a spokesman for the National Mining Association, which represents the coal industry, told CNNMoney earlier this year. Coal is used to produce about 40% of the nation's electricity. Hal Quinn, president and chief executive of the National Mining Association, told Congress last week that U.S. exports of coal are becoming an increasingly large share of the economy. Last year, he said, exports added $16.6 billion to the economy and supported 168,430 jobs. While the administration has not given a cost-benefit analysis of its new plan, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a large environmental action group, estimates it would cost $4 billion to comply with new regulations on coal power plants, but the economy would see anywhere from $25 to $60 billion in benefits.

A large part of the benefit comes from reduced health care costs. Carbon pollution is known for contributing to higher rates of asthma, as well as other possible illnesses. Republican reaction was swift with the GOP's political arm in Virginia rolling out its claim of Obama's "war on coal." As part of the gubernatorial campaign, it quickly released a "robo call" initiative in the southwestern part of the state describing Democratic support for "job-killing policies."

Obama's second term could look like his first

Frustration with Obama

Many environmentalists will likely embrace the president's proposals on climate change even though he pushed through sharp cuts in car and truck emissions during his first term. Activists have expressed frustration with the administration in the past, saying Obama hasn't worked with a strong sense of urgency on the issue since taking office even though he pushed forward a sweeping plan to reduce car emissions and fuel use.

While the idea of long-term climate change is a controversial notion politically, it's accepted as fact by most researchers and Obama.

A March poll from Gallup indicated nearly half -- 47% -- of Americans think the U.S. government is doing too little to protect the environment, while 35% said the government was doing the right amount and 16% said it was doing too much.

The president offered renewed hope to the environmental community -- but fears among the coal mining industry and concerns among climate change skeptics -- in his inauguration speech and State of the Union address this year.

He robustly signaled he would do more to combat climate change during his second term. And again last week, during a speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Obama urged countries to work together to fight the "global threat of our time."

For more updates on policies affecting the energy industry, visit this Dr. Ali Ghalambor Facebook page.

REPOST: RPT-INSIGHT-The road to a greener America is littered with road-kill

Nichola Groom of Reuters.com reports the status of "California Hydrogen Highway," spearheaded by then California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the other  dilemmas faced by the American government in making green energy projects.

May 20 (Reuters) - In October 2004, then California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger rolled up to a pioneering fueling station at Los Angeles International Airport in a hydrogen-powered metallic blue Hummer loaned to him by General Motors Corp.

The "California Hydrogen Highway," Schwarzenegger's vision to ensure that every Californian would have access to a hydrogen fueling station by the end of 2010, called for the state to spend more than $50 million to help deploy up to 100 hydrogen fuel stations that would serve 2,000 fuel cell vehicles. "We got 200 stakeholders around a table, literally, and mapped out who could get stations where," said Terry Tamminen, a top adviser to Schwarzenegger.

But nearly nine years later, California has just nine hydrogen stations open for the public, and only about 200 fuel cell cars that can use them.

The global financial crisis helped slam the brakes on dreams of a Hydrogen Highway, but the roots of green energy's mid-life crisis - marked by a rash of recent corporate collapses in everything from electric cars to solar panels - run far deeper.

Other factors have contributed to the shakeout, which has happened as climate change has dropped down the list of Americans' top concerns. Many new companies were far too optimistic about their prospects and were selling products that could not compete on price against traditional transport and energy sources, not to mention increasingly cheap imports from China. Many were - and are - very reliant on fickle government support, and some were simply mismanaged.

Whether it's survival of the fittest or survival of the subsidized, there have been success stories, and there's even a little froth in the stock market. But as the sector moves beyond its youthful phase, it faces many of the same problems and nobody will be surprised by more failures.

"The general economic thesis of the renewable energy sector hasn't changed," said Karl Miller, chairman of Newco Energy Acquisition Holdings, LLC, which acquires energy-related assets. "It's still a heavily subsidized industry. It requires a major federal tax credit to make it work." It still doesn't appeal as "a capital market investment," he said.

ELECTRIC DREAMS

Apart from the relative success of Tesla Motors Inc in putting nearly 10,000 of its pricey luxury electric cars on the road, the electric vehicle sector has been among the biggest duds in clean tech.

Major automakers like Nissan Motor Ltd, with its all-electric Leaf, and GM, with the Chevrolet Volt, bet heavily on electric vehicles (EVs). But they are struggling to get over the high cost and lack of charging infrastructure, as well as questions about the short driving range of some models. Both Leaf and Volt sales have lagged well behind company expectations, and vehicles from startups like Fisker Automotive and Coda Holdings Inc barely made it off the assembly line before the companies ran out of cash.

Nissan Chief Carlos Ghosn, who plowed $5 billion into battery-electric technology, has backed down from an earlier forecast of 10 percent market share for electric cars by 2020. Ghosn's company sold 9,819 Leafs last year in the United States, well under its target of 20,000.

The Obama administration has pulled back from its aggressive goal of putting 1 million electric cars on U.S. roads by 2015. Total plug-in car sales last year were only around 50,000 in the United States.

"EVs are a really difficult sell today," the CEO of Toyota's North American business, Jim Lentz, said in an interview. "Until we see substantial change in battery technology it's going to be difficult to see EVs really take off."

Even as electric car technology has proved disappointing, the clean-tech movement has helped make traditional combustion engines less polluting, with new models showing fuel efficiency gains that are popular with consumers both for environmental and economic reasons. A push to run more vehicles, especially trucks, on cleaner-burning natural gas is also gaining momentum.

Automakers are also heading back toward Schwarzenegger's old friend: hydrogen fuel cells.

Daimler AG, Ford and Nissan plan to launch affordable fuel-cell cars within five years, while Toyota and BMW aim to do so by 2020. Cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells, which emit only water vapor, can cover much longer distances and refuel more quickly than electric cars.

Toyota's Lentz even used Schwarzenegger's term "hydrogen highway" to describe a network of fueling stations he expected to see between Los Angeles and San Francisco in the next few years. The Golden State last year unveiled a revamped goal that envisions 68 hydrogen stations by 2016 that will serve 10,000 to 30,000 vehicles. The stations, some of which are already in the works, are expected to cost about $160 million. California has awarded nearly $28 million for stations under development and allocated an additional $29.9 million for future stations.

BOOM, BOOM

Development of renewable energy technology has been undermined by an explosion in fossil fuel production in the United States, particularly cleaner-burning natural gas - a development that wasn't expected when many green energy projects were being dreamt up.

Cheap natural gas "clearly has an impact on how much renewables we'll do," said Alex Urquhart, CEO of GE Energy Financial Services, the unit of General Electric Co that invests in energy projects.

The shale oil and gas boom in the United States has also provided opportunities for companies that had been more focused on pure green tech.

Take OriginOil, a U.S. startup that developed a process to convert algae into renewable crude oil. It now markets technology to oil and gas producers for the cleanup of water that is contaminated in the fracking process used to extract shale oil and gas.

Other water-focused startups, too - like Houston-based 212 Resources Corp and Everett, Washington-based WaterTectonics - are counting on the oil and gas industry's need to clean and recycle the millions of gallons of water that is mixed with chemicals and sand and injected into the ground to "frack" wells.

GE is one of the world's top two makers of wind turbines, but it isn't just banking on renewables. It is making significant bets on shale, scooping up oilfield pump maker Lufkin Industries Inc for $2.98 billion to add to the well services business it bought from John Wood Group Plc in 2011.

WALKING ON SUNSHINE

Some of the biggest failures in the green-tech sector have been in the solar energy sector - notably Solyndra, the maker of next-generation solar panels that collapsed in 2011 after receiving a $535 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy. Its failure sparked an 18-month investigation by Republicans who faulted President Barack Obama's administration for failing to cut the government's losses, and suggested the loan was made in part as a favor to a Democratic donor. The White House said the decision to make the loan was "merit-based."

More than 18 months after Solyndra's fall, there's a lot more road-kill in the green energy sector. China's Suntech Power Holdings, once the world's largest solar company, filed for insolvency in the last few weeks, following the path of battery maker A123. And tiny SoloPower, which was awarded a $197 million DOE loan guarantee and opened a factory in Portland in September to much fanfare, has said it will suspend operations.

Clean-tech initial public offerings in the last year have either been canceled, as in the case of BrightSource Energy Inc, or priced below targets, like SolarCity and Enphase Energy. With investment "exits" a challenge, venture capital funding for clean-tech startups slid 29 percent last year to $3.33 billion after peaking at $4.6 billion in 2011, according to the National Venture Capital Association.

The U.S. solar market has suffered because top market Europe pared back its price guarantees to generators of solar power just as China built hundreds of panel factories that flooded the market with cheap products. In 2012 alone, the price of solar panels slid 50 percent, hammering industry profits and scaring investors away from clean-tech stocks.

But in the bigger picture, solar energy is still making strides.

Cheaper solar panels have made the clean energy source more affordable to many. Worldwide, photovoltaic solar installations are expected to increase 12 percent this year to 35 GW as growth in the Middle East, Africa, the U.S. and Asia will offset declines in Europe.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc, which began installing solar on its big box stores in 2007, plans to put panels on at least 1,000 of its buildings by 2020, up from about 200 currently.

"We really feel comfortable with where the prices and the technology are going," said Wal-Mart's vice president of energy, Kim Saylors-Laster.

The retailer initially focused its solar program on California and Hawaii, where high power prices make solar more competitive with electricity from the grid, but cheaper solar has helped it expand to new markets. Wal-Mart has saved $2 million since 2007 by using the renewable power generated on its rooftops.

Companies that install those panels are growing rapidly. SolarCity Corp, which put up many of Wal-Mart's solar systems, has seen its share price soar to $45 since December, when it struggled to get its IPO done at $8 a share. The company, which is backed by Tesla's Elon Musk, offers homeowners the chance to pay a monthly fee for solar, eliminating the large upfront investment.

Further signs of life in the sector: Swiss industrial group ABB made a $1 billion bet on solar with plans to buy U.S. solar inverter maker Power-One Inc at a premium of 57 percent; and First Solar Inc's shares rallied by 45 percent on April 9 after forecasting better-than-expected results for the next three years.

MONEY, MONEY, MONEY

That kind of outsize stock move is a trademark of green tech. Tesla stock has soared 64 percent since May 8, when it reported its first ever quarterly profit after selling more battery-powered luxury cars than expected, and SolarCity stock jumped 40 percent in two days after announcing on Thursday it had secured $500 million in financing from Goldman Sachs.

The overall direction of the market, however, has been down. You can get a sense of the amount of money that has been lost by investors from the WilderHill Clean Energy Index, which tracks the performance of publicly traded green energy stocks ranging from solar and wind to rare earth minerals and water companies. The market value of the companies in the index has fallen from a peak level of $231 billion in late December 2007 to about $108 billion today, a decline of 53 percent, according to Reuters data. The S&P 500 over that period is up around 9 percent to an all-time high. And while the number of components in the WilderHill index has risen to 51 from 42 since 2007, the average market value of those companies has tumbled to $2.1 billion from $5.5 billion.

Moreover, the index only reflects publicly traded companies. More has been lost by venture capital firms and other early investors in companies that never got much past the start-up phase. Fisker and Solyndra, for instance, each raised close to $1 billion in venture capital money.

Some advocates for green investing say that thanks to a more realistic assessment of risk, a period of relative stability is setting in for green companies and their investors. The WilderHill Clean Energy index may be much lower than it was in 2004, but it is up 31 percent this year.

"The industry has become much more efficient, much more purposeful. There's not this sort of green hype," said Vinod Khosla, the co-founder of Sun Microsystems who later joined Kleiner Perkins. In 2004, he launched Khosla Ventures, which is known for investing in next-generation energy companies such as biofuels maker KiOR. "What has changed is we make fewer bets and we plan on investing more in them and take more time."

But investors like Shawn Kravetz, who manages several funds for Boston-based Esplanade Capital, including one focused on the solar industry, compares investing in the sector to "a long and bumpy flight."

"It will remain turbulent because policies change, companies will have issues," Kravetz said. "It's wise to keep your seatbelt fastened."

WIND BENEATH MY WINGS

Government support has been a double-edged sword. It's hard for businesses and investors alike to make plans for the future in an environment of tight budgets and opposition from conservative lawmakers to taxpayer money being spent to favor one sector over another.

In the solar sector, for example, a 30 percent tax credit for solar system owners is set to fall to 10 percent at the end of 2016. Solar proponents want a more gradual decline and point to the experience of the U.S. wind industry, which is struggling with a dependency on a tax credit that keeps being extended by Congress in one-year increments.

GE has seen the impact of that directly. Wind turbine sales slowed in 2012 because a key tax credit had been expected to expire. It was renewed at the eleventh hour shortly after the new year, and that has helped GE sell 1 GW of wind turbines since January.

"The economics associated with the tax credits are how these projects get done," said GE's Urquhart. "Without those credits, investments would be far less attractive."

U.S. President Barack Obama's 2009 economic stimulus program allotted $90 billion to various clean energy programs, but those funds have been tapped. Big European players like Germany have slashed their generous green subsidies. And U.S. states that are requiring utilities to buy more renewable energy are close to fulfilling their goals.

U.S. green energy companies face a somewhat chaotic environment at the state level, with efforts underway in 16 states to weaken renewable energy mandates that have been key support mechanisms for solar and wind power. At the same time, 18 states have moved to strengthen those mandates.

That patchwork of policies in countries like the United States and India - which also has policies that vary from state to state - is a major concern.

"There is no way any reasonable management team of a company can do meaningful corporate planning without an understanding of what the rules of the road are," said Jonathan Silver, who oversaw the Department of Energy loan guarantee program from 2009 to 2011. "We've made it incredibly difficult for people in the energy industry."

This  Dr. Ali Ghalambor Twitter page shares updates on the events happening in and around the energy industry.

REPOST: 'Wake-up call' sounded on stalled renewable energy initiatives

This article published in Los Angeles Times reports the need for a rapid expansion in low-carbon energy technologies to avoid producing green house gases that drives climate change. 

Image Source: latimes.com

WASHINGTON -- The push to produce more energy from renewable sources has stalled, and “the average unit of energy produced today is basically as dirty as it was 20 years ago,” according to Maria van der Hoeven, executive director of the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based intergovernmental organization that researches the energy sector and holds reserves of oil in case of supply disruptions.

Van der Hoeven’s statement pointed to the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the world’s power plants, the greatest source of the greenhouse gases driving climate change. To track greenhouse gas output over time, the IEA has developed a new gauge, the Energy Sector Carbon Intensity Index (ESCII), to show how much carbon dioxide is emitted, on average, to provide a particular unit of energy. The index measured 2.37 metric tons of carbon dioxide per metric ton of oil-equivalent in 2010, compared with a ratio of 2.39 metric tons of carbon dioxide per metric ton of oil-equivalent in 1990.

Countries are installing ever-greater amounts of solar and wind energy, the IEA noted, even during tough economic times. But “growth of coal-fired power is actually outpacing the increase in generation from non-fossil energy sources,” van der Hoeven wrote in an op-ed in the Huffington Post.

The United States, for instance, is burning less coal but is exporting more of it to fuel power plants in Asia. Overall, the world consumes about 50% more energy than it did in 1990, mainly due to the growth of emerging economies, van der Hoeven said. And with carbon dioxide emissions the same from each unit of energy over the last 20 years, record amounts of greenhouse gases are pumped into the atmosphere annually, she said.

The vast majority of climate scientists say that the world needs to keep global average temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above average temperatures in the mid- to late 19th century. At this rate of burning coal and installing renweables, “the world is on track to have global temperatures rise by 6 degrees Celsius,” or 10.8 degrees Fahrenheit, by the end of this century.

“The overall lack of progress should serve as a wake-up call. We cannot afford another 20 years of listlessness,” van der Hoeven wrots. “We need a rapid expansion in low-carbon energy technologies if we are to avoid a potentially catastrophic warming of the planet but we must also accelerate the shift away from dirtier fossil fuels.”

Van der Hoeven made the comments in the run-up to a meeting this week in New Delhi at the Clean Energy Ministerial, a group of ministers representing countries responsible for 80% of global greenhouse-gas emissions.

Be more updated on the shale gas industry by visiting this Ali Ghalambor Twitter page.

Repost: China Must Exploit Its Shale Gas

Elizabeth Muller from New York Times reports on the importance of recognizing hydraulic fracturing to the broader effort to contain climate change as shown in the situation faced by China:




IF the Senate confirms the nomination of the M.I.T. scientist Ernest J. Moniz as the next energy secretary, as expected, he must use his new position to consider the energy situation not only in the United States, but in China as well.

Mr. Moniz, a professor of physics and engineering systems and the director of M.I.T.’s Energy Initiative, sailed through a confirmation hearing Tuesday before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

But some environmentalists are skeptical of Mr. Moniz. He is known for advocating natural gas and nuclear power as cleaner sources of energy than coal and for his support of hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas from shale deposits. The environmental group Food and Water Watch has warned that as energy secretary, he “could set renewable energy development back years.”

The criticism is misplaced. Instead of fighting hydraulic fracturing, environmental activists should recognize that the technique is vital to the broader effort to contain climate change and should be pushing for stronger standards and controls over the process.

Nowhere is this challenge and opportunity more pressing than in China. Exploiting its vast resources of shale gas is the only short-term way for China, the world’s second-largest economy, to avoid huge increases in greenhouse gas emissions from burning coal.

China’s greenhouse gas emissions are twice those of the United States and growing at 8 percent to 10 percent per year. Last year, China increased its coal-fired generating capacity by 50 gigawatts, enough to power a city that uses seven times the energy of New York City. By 2020, an analysis by Berkeley Earth shows, China will emit greenhouse gases at four times the rate of the United States, and even if American emissions were to suddenly disappear tomorrow, world emissions would be back at the same level within four years as a result of China’s growth alone.

The only way to offset such an enormous increase in energy use is to help China switch from coal to natural gas. A modern natural gas plant emits between one-third and one-half of the carbon dioxide released by coal for the same amount of electric energy produced. China has the potential to unearth large amounts of shale gas through hydraulic fracturing. In 2011, the United States Energy Information Administration estimated that China had “technically recoverable” reserves of 1.3 quadrillion cubic feet, nearly 50 percent more than the United States.

The risk is that what is now a nascent Chinese shale gas industry may take off in a way that leads to ecological disaster. Many of the purchasers of drilling rights in recent Chinese auctions are inexperienced.

Opponents of this drilling method point to cases in which gas wells have polluted groundwater or released “fugitive” methane gas emissions. The groundwater issue is worrisome, of course, and weight for weight, methane has a global warming potential 25 to 70 times higher than carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas that results from the burning of coal.

Moving away from fossil fuels entirely may make sense in the United States, where we can potentially afford to pay for more expensive renewable sources of energy. But developing countries have other priorities, like improving the education and health of their people. Given the dangers that hydraulic fracturing poses for groundwater pollution and gas leaks, we must help China develop an approach that is environmentally sound.

Mr. Moniz has warned of the need to curb environmental damage from the process. But he has also stressed the value of natural gas as a “bridging” source of energy as we strive to move from largely dirty energy to clean energy. Extracting shale gas in an environmentally responsible way is technically achievable, according to engineering experts. Accomplishing that goal is primarily a matter of engineering and regulation.

That is where we need the engagement of environmental activists. At home, they can push the United States to set verifiable standards for clean hydraulic fracturing and enforce those standards through careful monitoring. Internationally, American industry can lead by showing that clean production can be profitable.

We need a solution for energy production that can displace the rapid growth of coal use today. Switching from coal to natural gas could reduce the growth of China’s emissions by more than 50 percent and give the world more time to bring down the cost of solar and wind energy to levels that are affordable for poorer countries.


For more news on the developments of the shale gas industry, follow this Twitter account on Dr. Ali Ghalambor.