MIT’s Casey Crownhart publishes a newsletter called The Spark. Here is his list of greenhouse gasses and their potency: Carbon dioxide: The leading actor I couldn’t in good conscience put together a list of greenhouse gases and not at least mention the big one. Human activities released 37.4 billion tons…
Ammonia production is essential to agriculture production, used as a fertilizer. Anhydrous ammonia, a gas, is injected into farmland to enhance the soil with nitrogen. As a boy I remember driving a tractor to fertilize with it. Ammonia production also uses huge amounts of energy. It is created by transforming…
What Electricity Sources Power the World? Worldwide only 14.4% of electricity comes from renewables – wind, solar, geothermal; if you add in hydroelectric, the number is 29%.
Maybe you’ve heard of “green hydrogen.” There’s been a lot of press lately about projects to produce hydrogen to use as an alternative fuel, and the Inflation Adjustment Act provides tax credits for production of “green hydrogen.” But did you know that there are other hydrogen “colors”? An excellent article…
Last year KUT produced a podcast, “The Disconnect,” chronicling the February 2021 Texas freeze and blackout. KUT has now produced Part 2: “The Disconnect: Power, Politics and the Texas Blackout,” explaining what has happened since–what has been fixed, the cost in electric bills, and the aftermath–hosted by KUT reporter Mose…
Dr. Scott Tinker will host a 12-episode TV series on energy and climate, on Austin’s PBS station, KLRU, beginning September 4 at 6 pm and streaming on PBS.org. More information can be found here. From the press release: Energy and climate are intertwined, two of the most important topics in…
The Inflation Reduction Act, passed by the Senate yesterday and on its way to passage in the House, contains carrots and sticks for reducing methane emissions in the oil and gas sector. From Inside Climate News: One of the least discussed, but potentially most significant, climate aspects of the proposed…
I just watched a hearing of the House Science and Technology Committee on efforts to reduce methane emissions from the US oil and gas industry. Four experts testified: Dr. David Lyon from Environmental Defense Fund, Riley Duren with Carbon Mapper, Dr. Brian Anderson, director of the National Environmental Technology Laboratory,…
A great article appears in the March Section Report of the Oil, Gas and Energy Resources Law section report, by Jacqueline Weaver, Professor Emeritus, University of Houston Law Center: “The Railroad Commission’s New Duties to Keep Texans Warm: Winter Storm Uri Forces Change.” Here are some excerpts: The throughput of…
We’ve seen much posturing and finger-pointing from politicians on who is to blame for power failures during Winter Storm Uri last February. UT’s Austin Energy Institute has issued a report: The timeline and Events of the February 2021 Texas Electric Grid Blackouts, laying out the facts on what happened. The…