ENERGY PROJECTS PUSHED WITHOUT DUE DILIGENCE
http://www.recordonline.com/article/20160216/OBITUARIES/160219547/2014/OPINION
WHY EVERYONE SHOULD BE WORRIED ABOUT THE CALIFORNIA GAS LEAK DISASTER
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/porter-ranch-gas-leak-worry_us_569fdcdae4b0fca5ba76528f
From Paris to NY: Cap Global Warming at 1.5 degrees centigrade, not 2
by Mark Dunlea, Green Education and Legal Fund
One of the three major fights that will take place at the “final” Paris global treaty climate change summit is whether to cap global warming at 2 degrees centigrade or 1.5% degrees. The rather disastrous Copenhagen meeting in 2010 included 2 degrees as the target but the failure to resolve the issue was a major factor why the meeting flopped. There was sufficient pushback by 130-plus countries at the Lima gathering to formally reopen this issue.
(Other major fights will be over financial commitments from the rich to developing countries to assist with climate, and on how the pledges to reduce emission will be enforced. The pledges come no where close to keeping emissions at even 2 degrees)
The 2 degree limit means reducing global emissions by about 3.5% annually. The 1.5 degree limit requires reductions of about 7.1%,
This has major implications as to what goals should be set in NY for how quickly one transitions away from fossil fuels. NYS has been one of the world leaders in emitting excess greenhouse gases driving global warming and thus have a moral (and hopefully legal) responsibility to provide real leadership in trying to curb it – not just be at the same reduction targets as others. Scientists point out the technologically advanced societies like NY have the technological ability to move to 100% clean energy much faster than other states or nations. So we should do so.
NYS should evaluate how its climate change policies should be modified to reflect a target of no more than 1.5 degree. It should fund a scientific study of what steps NY should take to meet this new target, with input and direction from impacted communities. A goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2030 for instance seems more in line with the goal of 1.5 degrees
The 1.5°C marker pathway is defined as the most challenging mitigation pathway that can still be defended as being techno-economically achievable. http://www.sei-international.org/publications?pid=2424 Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that either pathway actually achieves the projected limits.
When Cuomo and Gore recently announced their support for the cap of 2 degrees (and a 80% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050, based on 1990 levels), they sided with the industrial countries led by the US versus more than two-thirds of the others countries and thousands of civil society groups. (Note: Japan and the US this week pushed through a proposal banning civil groups from the pre-meeting in Bonn, and perhaps in Paris)
The 80 by 50 goal was adopted by NY in 2009 by Governor Patterson through an Executive Order, including the development and adoption of a Climate Action Plan. This Executive Order was renewed by Cuomo. A draft plan was developed but Cuomo has failed to finish it.
Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, recently told an audience of carbon traders: “Two degrees is not enough – we should be thinking of 1.5C. If we are not headed to 1.5 we are in big, big trouble.” (The Guardian)
Some prominent figures did sign a letter earlier this year by Lester Brown and others (Mark Ruffalo, Josh Fox) calling on Paris treaty to set a goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2025.
The Jacobson study in 2013 showed that it was technologically feasible for NY to get to 100% clean energy by 2030 – though subsequent versions have pushed the timeline back to 2050 to reflect political and economic barriers and opposition. But even that slower timeline still has NY getting to 85 to 90% renewable energy by 2030 – since it is the last few percentage points that are most difficult.
Limiting the average global surface temperature increase of 2°C (3.6°F) over the pre-industrial average has, since the 1990s, been commonly regarded as an adequate means of avoiding dangerous climate change, in science and policy making. However, recent science has shown that the weather, environmental and social impacts of 2°C rise are much greater than the earlier science indicated, and that impacts for a 1°C rise are now expected to be as great as those previously assumed for a 2°C rise
(From the New Republic) The difference in projected risks between 1.5 degrees Celsius and 2 degrees Celsius of warming is particularly important for highly temperature-sensitive systems, such as the polar regions, high mountains and the tropics, and low-lying coastal regions. At 2 degrees Celsius the very existence of some atoll nations is threatened by rising sea-levels. Limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius may restrict sea level rise below one meter.
Yet even at 1.5 degrees Celsius warming, regional food security risks are significant. Africa is particularly vulnerable, with significant reduction in staple crop yields in some countries. Current levels of warming are already causing impacts that many people will not be able to adapt to—more scope for adaptation would exist at 1.5 degrees Celsius, especially in the agricultural sector.
Ten years ago prominent climate scientist James Hansen said the 2 degrees Celsius threshold “cannot be considered a responsible target” and subsequently called for a 1 degrees Celsius limit, with a carbon budget of just 500 Gt. Hansen told ABC breakfast radio that it was crazy to think of 2 degrees Celsius as a safe limit.
Hanson has called to commit to a 1°C danger limitor, with a 350 ppm CO2 target, which is lower than today’s 400 ppm. ‘[T]he oft-stated goal to keep global warming less than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) is a recipe for global disaster, not salvation.’ Others consider the 2°C target scientifically unfounded, due to insufficient data and reasoning. (350.org takes its name from Hanson’s target).
(From Science Daily) Limiting temperature rise by 2100 to less than 1.5°C is feasible, at least from a purely technological standpoint, according to the study published in the journal Nature Climate Change by researchers at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), and others. This level is supported by more than 100 countries worldwide, including those most vulnerable to climate change, as a safer goal than the currently agreed international aim of 2 degrees Celsius.
Some do argue that setting a limit based on temperatures is not the correct approach. Instead, one should look at a carbon or greenhouse gas emission bubble. It will take just six years of current global emissions to exhaust a carbon budget that would give a good chance of keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees.
If there is anything close to consensus is that we should eliminate fossil fuels and transition to 100% renewables as fast as possible. And the sooner ones begins to sprint, the sooner one can get to the finish line. And to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change we need to a technological, political and economic mobilization comparable to what the US did after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
A Healthy Planet for my Granddaughter to Grow up On
Power plant proposal needs staunch
opposition
Projects Must be Stopped
CPV project’s aims not clean and healthy
Wake up and learn about power plant
Letter To Chris Hogan at DEC re CPV Air Permit Application 6-13-13 Randy Hurst impacted resident
Health Risks Force Move
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130610/OPINION/306100312/-1/OPINION03
A Future Dependent on Hydrofracked “Natural” Gas and Its Pipeline Infrastructure
Maybe some see it differently and maybe some of you are not part of the opposition to the Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) Valley Energy Center project planned for construction in the Town of Wawayanda and City of Middletown, Orange County. Maybe you don’t know or care about the Millennium Pipeline or Minisink Compressor Station. You may perhaps prefer not to know. But this is shared in the hope that you just might care enough about yourselves, our children and our country to be informed about what is presented here.
Knowledgeable people came together recently to discuss not only CPV’s proposed hydrofracked “natural” gas power plant planned to be built in the Slate Hill, Orange County, that will pollute the air we all breath, jeopardize our water resources and adversely impact the land and food supply, but to share how this project fits into a much larger PLAN by the Venture Capital, Gas and Energy Industry to ensure OUR Dependence on hydrofracked “natural” gas for at least our lifetime and maybe that of our children’s lifetime, and about “Money” to be made by a few!
The window of Fracked Gas production is at best 92 years depending on whom you talk to and how much is exported to other parts of the world, which is the primary objective of the industry. Why, because exporting the gas will allow the “industry” to control supply and the pricing and, perhaps, make hydrofracked gas, regardless of the health and environmental hazards, a “little” less expensive than fuel oil so it is “competitive” and “justifiable”; but it will never be “competitive” relative to Wind, Water or Solar energy generation, in terms of emissions or otherwise! And, the “footprint” for zero emission energy production is FAR LESS destructive, costly and intrusive.
That said; CPV’s proposed plant is only a small part of a much larger picture. There are several Gas Pipelines, which will transport Hydrofracked Gas from the Marcellus Shale region and other states, despite the fact that many of the wells especially in PA are already showing signs of being exhausted, and that is why there is much attention on the Southern Tier and Lower Western portion of NYS; the Delaware Valley and Catskill region south to New Jersey, where the “Industry” is slated to construct 100,000 new wells; an estimated 8.9% of which will leak and contaminate our water resources according to the “Solutions Project” led by Dr. Mark Jacobson of Stanford University and other noted scholars from other institutions, (Cornell University and Pepacton Institute). That is also why the Gas Industry Conglomerates are buying up “Water Resources” in many parts of the country so they will have a monopoly on potable water as well – T. Boone Pickens comes to mind.
Nevertheless, the reason, it is believed that it was so important that the Millennium Pipeline construct their COMPRESSOR STATION in the Town of MINISINK, instead of locating this facility in a less dense residentially populated location, which they could easily have done; the Minisink location has over two hundred rural residential homes, is because the location of the Minisink Compressor Station will become the HUB for the $430-450 Million NYMarc Pipeline, which will be constructed to follow the “Maybrook Line” across the black dirt agricultural region of Orange County up through Orange/Ulster Counties along an abandoned railway line easement and under the Hudson River not far from the Poughkeepsie Bridge, to Dutchess County. NYMarc will also come southward from the north of Athens, NY, where there will be another hydrofracked fueled Power Plant, to Pleasant Valley in Dutchess County. From there it will continue on to Dover Plaines where (probably) the CPV corporation will construct the “Cricket Valley” Hydrofracked Gas Fueled 1,000 MW Power Plant. From there the pipeline will head southward to Brookfield, on to the Bridgeport Energy plant and Milford Power Plant, then junction across Long Island Sound on to Hunts Point and an Astoria energy generating plant in the west and to Northport onward to South Commack. Long Island will be a point of export. NYMarc will interconnect with the 416-mile (30″ and 24″) Iroquois Gas Transmission System Pipeline from the Canadian border at Waddington, NY through Maine, on down through New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut on to Long Island and New York City, NY. There may be other hydrofracked “natural” gas fueled power plants along the way. But all of the infrastructure, subsidized by tax payers and investor dollars secured by Federal Loan Guarantees or other tax payer financing will inevitably become archaic and/or superfluous within our children’s lifetime. That is, the infrastructure will become obsolete and/or it will contribute to extreme weather and environmental catastrophes to such an extent that it will ultimately be abandoned. Still our children and theirs will carry the burden of the cost of the gas infrastructure and its legacy, while the few who profit will be well insulated from loss or long gone; a pretty sad and bleak scenario.
And, it should be noted, that there are other pipelines as well that figure into this picture; the Tennessee and the Spectra pipelines, which traverse Pennsylvania, New Jersey and the Spectra now under construction from New Jersey under the Hudson River to Manhattan.
It is and will continue to be a big fight; local residents against Goliath; the Gas, Oil, and Energy Corporate power block! The question is: where will we, you and I stand? Given corporate money to flood the media with misinformation and domination of our electoral system, in the absence of Election Reform, is there a prayer for the minority of “informed” people to succeed against the forces of ‘Money” and the power of “Greed”? Something to think about as we head into another electoral season; something, perhaps, that should be shared and debated.
Randolph J. Hurst
Slate Hill, NY
May 31, 2013
CPV Opinion Project should be halted
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080820/OPINION/808200321&cid=sitesearch
CPV opinion not all back project
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130402/OPINION/304020334&cid=sitesearch
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130501/OPINION/305010311/-1/OPINION03