Exxon sued over tar sands pipeline spill

The US Justice Department filed a joint lawsuit with Arkansas against oil producer Exxon Mobil over the pipeline spill in March of thousands of barrels of heavy Canadian tar sands oil in a suburban neighborhood. 

The 95,000 barrels per day Pegasus line has been shut since spilling the oil in Mayflower, Arkansas, where cleanup operations continue and residents are still forced to evacuate their homes. [Reuters]

Mayor Bloomberg thinks it is time that NYC started composting

Mayor Bloomberg calls food waste “New York City’s final recycling frontier.” The Bloomberg administration is rolling out an ambitious plan to begin collecting food scraps across the city, according to Caswell F. Holloway IV, a deputy mayor.

Anticipating sharp growth in food recycling, the administration will seek proposals within the next 12 months for a company to build a plant in the New York region to process residents' food waste into biogas, which would be used to generate electricity.

"This is going to be really transformative," Mr. Holloway said. "You want to get on a trajectory where you're not sending anything to landfills."

The residential program will initially work on a voluntary basis, but officials predict that within a few years, it will be mandatory. 

Amazingly enough, the comments about this program in the NY Times are overwhelmingly positive. [NY Times]

Wind Turbines survive EF-5 Tornado

Here is another reason to like wind power. 

This news report says that 2 wind turbines took a direct hit from 295 mph winds during the most recent EF-5 tornado and survived without any damage. 

Cost of addressing (or not addressing) climate change

The IEA issued a report today "Redrawing the Climate Energy Map" that outlines four policies that can address climate change at no net economic cost. 

Governments have decided collectively that the world needs to limit the average global temperature increase to no more than 2° C and international negotiations are engaged to that end. Amid major international economic preoccupations, there are worrying signs that the issue of climate change has slipped down the policy agenda. This Special Report seeks to bring it right back on top by showing that the dilemma can be tackled at no net economic cost.

The world is not on track to meet the target agreed by governments to limit the long-term rise in the average global temperature to 2° Celsius (°C). 

Despite positive developments in some countries͕ global energy-related CO2 emissions increased by 1.4% to reach 31.6 gigatonnes (Gt) in 2012 - a historic high.

We present our 4-for-2 °C scenario in which we propose the implementation of four policy measures that can help keep the door open to the 2 °C target through to 2020 at no net economic cost.

The four policies are:

• Adopting specific energy efficiency measures (49% of the emissions savings).
• Limiting the construction and use of the least-efficient coal-fired power plants (21%).
• Minimizing methane (CH4) emissions from upstream oil and gas production (18%).
• Accelerating the (partial) phase-out of subsidies to fossil-fuel consumption (12%).

Delaying stronger climate action to 2020 would come at a cost: $1.5 trillion in low-carbon investments are avoided before 2020, but $5 trillion in additional investments would be required thereafter to get back on track.

Wind topples nuclear plans

MidAmerican Energy has scrapped plans for Iowa's second nuclear plant and will refund $8.8 million ratepayers paid for a now-finished feasibility study, utility officials said Monday.

The utility has decided against building any major power plant. That's because there is no approved design for the modular nuclear plant it envisioned, and there are too many questions about limits on carbon emissions from a natural gas plant, the company said.

Mid­American will focus on its plan to build up to 656 wind turbines in a $1.9 billion project across Iowa, which also will trim power bills by saving fuel costs.

LaSalle Nuclear Plant

In other news, Exelon Corp. is scrapping expansion plans at nuclear plants in Illinois and Pennsylvania because of waning demand for electricity and competition with subsidized wind generators.

The country’s largest owner of nuclear reactors announced Wednesday it would sideline plans to add capacity to its LaSalle nuclear plant 75 miles southwest of Chicago and its Limerick plant 20 miles northwest of Philadelphia in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Robert Redford on Tar Sands Spills and Keystone XL

Tar Sands Oil Spill in Mayflower, AK

When I see raw tar sands coursing through people's yards and across wetlands, it makes me sick. My thoughts are with the people in Arkansas who are dealing with this river of toxic mess. And my thoughts instantly move ahead to what could happen to farms, families, homes and wild areas across our country if we support expansion of tar sands with permits for pipelines such as Keystone XL. The answer seems clear, especially when we look at the graphic video footage from Arkansas: tar sands expansion rewards the oil industry while putting us all at risk of oil spills and climate change. That's a raw deal by any calculation. 

Read the rest by clicking here - 

http://ecowatch.com/2013/arkansas-spill-red-flag-keystone-xl-pipeline/

European Union reduces emissions

The European Union reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 2.1 percent from 2011 to 2012. This takes place after a massive 4.1 percent decrease from 2010 to 2011.

As the official press release notes :

Eurostat estimates that from 2011 to 2012 CO2 emissions decreased in nearly all Member States, except Malta (+6.3%), the United Kingdom (+3.9%), Lithuania (+1.7%) and Germany (+0.9%). 

The largest decreases were recorded in Belgium and Finland (both -11.8%), Sweden (-10.1%), Denmark (-9.4%), Cyprus (-8.5%), Bulgaria (-6.9%), Slovakia (-6.5%), the Czech Republic (-5.2%), Italy and Poland (both -5.1%).

Given how in 2010, greenhouse gas emissions were already 15.4 percent lower than in 1990 (source: Eurostat), the goal of slashing emissions by 20 percent from 1990 to 2020 is within reach.