MILLIONS AND MILLIONS HAVE BEEN SAYING THIS IS
JUST A NATO SCAM BECAUSE - WITH AFGHANISTAN WINDING DOWN- NATO WAS 2 B
DISBANDED- and look at the horror caused
in beautiful Ukraine were 67% of the people are ethnic Russian.... tears and
prayers....
JUNE 26 2014
74% of Germans oppose permanent NATO bases in
Poland and Baltics
Nearly three-quarters of Germans oppose having
permanent NATO military bases in Poland and the Baltic states as a buffer
against Russia, a new poll reveals. The opinion reflects a growing trend within
Europe opposing further NATO eastern expansion.
Earlier this month, Russian Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov said the “artificial attempt” to continue NATO’s eastward
expansion would be “counterproductive.”
Germany is not the only country which feels
uncomfortable about an increased NATO presence in Eastern Europe.
Earlier this month, two eastern European states –
Slovakia and the Czech Republic – both refused to host foreign troops and
military bases on their territories.
The announcements came just days after US
President Barack Obama announced a plan to invest $1 billion dollars in ramping
up its military presence in Eastern Europe.
----------------------
Iraq, Libya, Syria: Three Reasons African
Americans Should Oppose US intervention in Africa
By Ajamu Baraka
By Ajamu Baraka
Mass slaughter, rape, torture, pillage, perpetual
war, cultural degradation, creating social divisions, psychological
manipulation – the essential tools employed by Western powers to establish
their 522-year domination over many of the peoples of the world – are still
being used with frightening efficiency and effect to maintain that dominance.
Just over the last decade and a half the orgy of
violence unleashed by the U.S. and the gangster states of NATO in the name of
promoting democracy and the racist absurdity of a “responsibility to protect”
has been incalculable. Masked by the oxymoronic language that connects the
White West with humanitarianism, the U.S. and its NATO allies have been on a
killing spree in more than a dozen countries. President Obama has conducted
imperialism’s version of a drive-by shooting with his drone warfare where wedding
parties, funerals and even family gatherings are subject to being blown to bits
just because the U.S. has the technology to do so and the power to get away
with mass murder.
In “normal” times the racist megalomania of the
U.S. that produced and is producing the carnage in Iraq, Libya, Syria and
throughout the world would have been enough to caution African Americans
against any pleas to the U.S. to militarily intervene to “bring back our girls”
in Nigeria. But of course these are not normal times.
A brief historical recap of US policy in Africa
There have been two factors that help to explain
the relative success of white supremacist capitalist power to construct and
impose an historical narrative in which they have been absolved of their
criminal activities in Africa – the post
9/11 focus on counter-terrorism, and the election of the first black president
of the U.S.
Puerto Rican activist and writer Aurora Levins
Morales reminds us that as the oppressed gain agency in their fight against
dominance, memory is a site of struggle: “One of the first things a colonizing
power or repressive regime does is attack the sense of history of those they
wish to dominate by attempting to take over and control their relationship to
their own past.”
African American internationalism has always been
a central component of the African American radical tradition. That approach to
politics always linked the struggle for African American liberation with that
of the anti-colonial struggle in Africa and throughout the colonial world. A
critical read of U.S. policy on Africa from that perspective, one that is alien
to the pro-imperialist perspective of Barack Obama, suggests that throughout
the post-World War II anti-colonial struggles that took place in Africa there
is not one instance of the U.S. being on the side of African independence, not
one.
In fact, in every struggle on the part of
Africans to free themselves from the oppressive yoke of European colonialism,
the U.S. aligned with the colonial powers across the continent to undermine
African independence. U.S. policy in Africa was consistently pro-white power,
from its continued support for the white settler regimes in Algeria, Kenya,
Rhodesia, and South Africa to its direct logistical and military support to the
Portuguese through NATO to fight against African freedom fighters in Angola and
Mozambique.
This support for colonial white supremacy in
Africa was consistently executed by both corporate parties in the U.S.
The assault on historical memory continued and
intensified with the election of Barack Obama. Obama’s election not only
blurred a critical perspective on U.S. policy in Africa and globally on the
part of many in the black communities, but did so at a historical moment when
the U.S. state was undergoing a severe crisis of legitimacy and strategic
confusion. That confusion was marked by vacillation between the use of
aggressive, hard power that characterized the large-scale use of the military
under the Bush administration, and more nuanced, soft power, i.e. the
ideological, symbolic and diplomatic manifestations of state power.
The institutional developments and key
decision-making over the last six years has reflected the inchoate character of
that ongoing strategic confusion. But even with that confusion, Obama’s
deployment as the smiling face of imperial power has had a devastating impact.
His deployment has made it exceptionally difficult to demystify the elite
interests embedded in his policies. The confusion is such that, for the first
time in U.S. history, it has become possible to win majority black support for
the retrograde policies of U.S. imperialism.
The Strategic Plan for Africa under Obama
By the fall of 2008, many among the capitalist
elite and within the agencies of the U.S. government had concluded that the
U.S. would have its first (and hopefully only) black president. It was also in
the fall that the U.S. Strategic Command (AFRICOM) was created.
The clear objective of U.S. policy in Africa, as
spelled out by U.S. State Department advisor to AFRICOM Dr. J. Peter Pham in 2007, was “protecting
access to hydrocarbons and other strategic resources which Africa has in
abundance, a task which includes ensuring against the vulnerability of those
natural riches and ensuring that no other interested third parties, such as
China, India, Japan, or Russia, obtain monopolies or preferential treatment.”
Therefore, while the Chinese were involved in
economic activities that resulted in direct investments in infrastructural and
technological development as well as access to low interest loans, the
objective of U.S. policy was to encourage what the U.S. does best – introduce
death and destruction through destabilization and militarization.
In line with the historic role of capitalist
development in Africa, a capitalist relationship that at its core has always
been dependent on violence and plunder, is it an incredulous position to
conclude that the real interest of the U.S. policy in Nigeria is less a concern
with the lives of Nigerian girls and more with bringing key strategic areas in
Africa under their control in order to block the Chinese?
And while all of us mourn for the more than 200
girls who have been kidnapped and can only imagine what their families must be
going though, we also have to make sure that we don’t allow the very real
emotion of the issue to cloud our analysis – something that is probably easier
for us who are not directly impacted. We have to do this because it is precisely
at these moments that we have to be clear-eyed and not allow ourselves to be
manipulated.
Militarization in the name of fighting terrorism
– the terror phenomenon seems to develop in whatever country the U.S. has a
strategic interest – is the cornerstone of the “new” strategy of
counter-terrorism partnerships that President Obama revealed in his famous (or
infamous, depending on one’s view)
speech at West Point on May 28.
Even though the speech was attacked by the
Washington Post, New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, the strategy of
reducing the U.S. footprint by relying on small numbers of special forces –
Delta force, Seals, Green Berets etc. – and not committing massive ground
forces, thus reducing the possibility of U.S. casualties and the attention of
the public, reflects a serious strategic threat to the cause of peace and
anti-interventionism. It is not only a strategy that commits the U.S. to a
permanent war posture, especially since the connection of covert U.S. support
to these terrorist operations is now well established, it also means that the
plan for Africa is being written in the blood of the people in Iraq, Syria and
Libya.
Similar to its policies in those countries, the
U.S. has embarked on a strategy of destabilization in Africa, operating through
non-state terrorist operations like their al Qaeda proxy’s directly, or al
Qaeda linked organizations like Boko Haram in Nigeria. The objective is to
create security emergencies that weaken the state and creates a situation where
the U.S. then comes to the aid of the embattled states and is able to entrench itself within the life of various
nations on the African continent.
The educational and organizational imperative:
The aggressive posture of U.S. imperialism over
the last few years has proceeded with very little organized opposition from the
capitalist center in the U.S. Not just because of the institutional weakness of
left and progressive forces but, even more ominously, because of the
ideological collaboration and alignment by left forces with the imperial
project. This latter phenomenon is more characteristic of positions taken by
some of the more chauvinistic elements of the white left than our ranks, but
even within our ranks the confusion seems to be increasing when, for example,
you look at the positions taken by some on Nigeria, Zimbabwe and the U.S. NATO
assault on Libya.
As a consequence of this theoretical and
ideological confusion, we are not able to meet the challenges posed by the new
strategic innovations introduced in Obama’s speech at West Point, innovations
that not only have a military component but powerful cultural and ideological
elements. The confusion generated by the
“bring our girls back” campaign where we have African Americans calling on the
U.S. to intervene in Nigeria is understandable. But what it dramatically
demonstrates is that it is absolutely imperative that we embark on a massive
educational campaign with our folks that will expose the real intentions of the
U.S. on the continent and worldwide.
Black Left forces must engage in respectful
ideological discussions with our people at every level, from community
organizations and youth groups to church groups where we once again attempt to
determine “who is a friend and who is an enemy” related to U.S. policies. Global militarism and the growing domestic
police state are fundamentally linked: Both are expressions of the desperate
moves by capital to maintain its hegemony. But its growing dependence on
military options, as dangerous as that is, still provides revolutionary forces
some strategic educational and organizing opportunities.
That is why in my humble offerings I have been
attempting to make the links between all of these various global maneuvers so
that we can connect them theoretically and devise the correct response
politically and organizationally as we struggle to rebuild and unite the black
left. The imperialist machinations in Iraq, Syria, Libya and even the Ukraine
are not exotic issues disconnected from our concerns but part of the global
right-wing collaboration the U.S. is leading to undermine national
anti-colonial projects in the global South and the militarization of working
class and nationally oppressed communities and peoples’ in the U.S. Making these connections and grounding
ourselves in the global struggle against white supremacist, colonial/capitalist
patriarchy is a central element of the Black radical tradition.
The explosion of death and destruction that we
see from Kenya and Somalia across the Sahel to Nigeria and down to the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and now developing in Mozambique,
reflects the emergency situation that we face today. We can no longer dance
around the need to level direct and devastating criticism of the oligarchical
and imperialistic interests being championed by Barack Obama. Critical
revolutionary consciousness does not emerged spontaneously from de-politicized
“practice.”
We must arm our people with the critical
theoretical tools needed to wage the life-and-death struggle that we and the
people of the world are waging against a rapacious enemy willing to destroy the
planet in order to maintain their unearned privilege. As brother George Jackson
reminded us “International capitalism cannot be destroyed without the extremes
of struggle. The entire colonial world is watching the blacks inside the U.S.,
wondering and waiting for us to come to our senses.” It is time that we let the
world know that we are back and that massa’s days are numbered.
Ajamu Baraka is a human rights activist, organizer
and geo-political analyst. Baraka is an
Associate Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) in Washington, D.C.
and editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report. His latest
publications include contributions to two recently published books “Imagine:
Living in a Socialist USA” and “Claim No Easy Victories: The Legacy of Amilcar
Cabral.” He can be reached at info.abaraka@gmail.com and www.AjamuBaraka.com
--------------------------
IDLE NO MORE CANADA- EUROPE'S
FACISM- is not because of Russia and ya all know it -OIL AND ENERGY GREEDY
NATIONS... United Nations what happend 2 u... what happened 2 Humanity First
-No Fracking Canada/NATO ur whites only is showing/Over 1 Million innocent
Muslims murdered by Heretic Muslims-no one cares BUT little Israel of 8 Million
people amongst 2 billion Muslims is a monster? What happened 2 Humanity?
and Afghanistan honours the incredible men and women of our nations - boots 2 the ground and the incredible Afghan Army, Policing and Military... with millions and millions of women bringing their children... all ages of Afghans stomping over the Heretic Muslim taliban whatever- 2 take part in Elections April 5, 2014- proving that it's the troops that honour our nations... with their innate decency, loyalty 2 the actual innocents of this world... free at last..imho
The Nelson Mandela of Afghanistan- Youth, women and children adore Dr. Abdullah Abdullah and
----------------
IN THE REAL WORLD- billions of everyday people look at anger at these spoilt political disaster that has overrun our world- United Nations u were formed 2 be the saviours of humanity... what happened...
.jpg)
BUT... REALITY...
.jpg)
Global Power Struggle- IT'S ALL ABOUT OIL AND ENGERGY... and everyday people know it
-----------------------
Ukraine
and the Rebirth of Fascism in Europe
.jpg)
Eric
Draitser
“Buoyed
by the continued support from the US and Europe, these fanatics represent a
more serious threat to democracy than Yanukovich and the pro-Russian government
ever could.”
The
violence on the streets of Ukraine is far more than an expression of popular
anger against a government. Instead, it
is merely the latest example of the rise of the most insidious form of fascism
that Europe has seen since the fall of the Third Reich.
Recent
months have seen regular protests by the Ukrainian political opposition and its
supporters – protests ostensibly in
response to Ukrainian President Yanukovich’s refusal to sign a trade agreement
with the European Union that was seen by many political observers as the first
step towards European integration. The
protests remained largely peaceful until January 17th when protesters armed
with clubs, helmets, and improvised bombs unleashed brutal violence on the
police, storming government buildings, beating anyone suspected of
pro-government sympathies, and generally wreaking havoc on the streets of
Kiev. But who are these violent
extremists and what is their ideology?
The
political formation is known as “Pravy Sektor” (Right Sector), which is
essentially an umbrella organization for a number of ultra-nationalist (read
fascist) right wing groups including supporters of the “Svoboda” (Freedom)
Party, “Patriots of Ukraine”, “Ukrainian National Assembly – Ukrainian National
Self Defense” (UNA-UNSO), and “Trizub”.
All of these organizations share a common ideology that is vehemently
anti-Russian, anti-immigrant, and anti-Jewish among other things. In addition they share a common reverence for
the so called “Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists” led by Stepan Bandera,
the infamous Nazi collaborators who actively fought against the Soviet Union
and engaged in some of the worst atrocities committed by any side in World War
II.
While
Ukrainian political forces, opposition and government, continue to negotiate, a
very different battle is being waged in the streets. Using intimidation and brute force more
typical of Hitler’s “Brownshirts” or Mussolini’s “Blackshirts” than a
contemporary political movement, these groups have managed to turn a conflict
over economic policy and the political allegiances of the country into an
existential struggle for the very survival of the nation that these so called
“nationalists” claim to love so dearly.
The images of Kiev burning, Lviv streets filled with thugs, and other
chilling examples of the chaos in the country, illustrate beyond a shadow of a
doubt that the political negotiation with the Maidan (Kiev’s central square and
center of the protests) opposition is now no longer the central issue. Rather, it is the question of Ukrainian
fascism and whether it is to be supported or rejected.
For
its part, the United States has strongly come down on the side of the
opposition, regardless of its political character. In early December, members of the US ruling
establishment such as John McCain and Victoria Nuland were seen at Maidan
lending their support to the protesters.
However, as the character of the opposition has become apparent in
recent days, the US and Western ruling class and its media machine have done
little to condemn the fascist upsurge.
Instead, their representatives have met with representatives of Right
Sector and deemed them to be “no threat.”
In other words, the US and its allies have given their tacit approval
for the continuation and proliferation of the violence in the name of their ultimate
goal: regime change.
In
an attempt to pry Ukraine out of the Russian sphere of influence, the
US-EU-NATO alliance has, not for the first time, allied itself with
fascists. Of course, for decades,
millions in Latin America were disappeared or murdered by fascist paramilitary
forces armed and supported by the United States. The mujahideen of Afghanistan, which later
transmogrified into Al Qaeda, also extreme ideological reactionaries, were
created and financed by the United States for the purposes of destabilizing
Russia. And of course, there is the
painful reality of Libya and, most recently Syria, where the United States and
its allies finance and support extremist jihadis against a government that has
refused to align with the US and Israel.
There is a disturbing pattern here that has never been lost on keen
political observers: the United States always makes common cause with right
wing extremists and fascists for geopolitical gain.
The
situation in Ukraine is deeply troubling because it represents a political
conflagration that could very easily tear the country apart less than 25 years
after it gained independence from the Soviet Union. However, there is another equally disturbing
aspect to the rise of fascism in that country – it is not alone.
The
Fascist Menace Across the Continent
Ukraine
and the rise of right wing extremism there cannot be seen, let alone
understood, in isolation. Rather, it
must be examined as part of a growing trend throughout Europe (and indeed the
world) – a trend which threatens the very foundations of democracy.
In
Greece, savage austerity imposed by the troika (IMF, ECB, and European
Commission) has crippled the country’s economy, leading to a depression as bad,
if not worse, than the Great Depression in the United States. It is against this backdrop of economic
collapse that the Golden Dawn party has grown to become the third most popular
political party in the country.
Espousing an ideology of hate, the Golden Dawn – in effect a Nazi party
that promotes anti-Jewish, anti-immigrant, anti-women chauvinism – is a
political force that the government in Athens has understood to be a serious
threat to the very fabric of society. It
is this threat which led the government to arrest the party’s leadership after
a Golden Dawn Nazi fatally stabbed an anti-fascist rapper. Athens has launched an investigation into the
party, though the results of this investigation and trial remain somewhat
unclear.
What
makes Golden Dawn such an insidious threat is the fact that, despite their
central ideology of Nazism, their anti-EU, anti-austerity rhetoric appeals to
many in the economically devastated Greece.
As with many fascist movements in the 20th Century, Golden Dawn
scapegoats immigrants, Muslim and African primarily, for many of the problems
facing Greeks. In dire economic
circumstances, such irrational hate becomes appealing; an answer to the
question of how to solve society’s problems.
Indeed, despite Golden Dawn’s leaders being jailed, other party members
are still in parliament, still running for major offices including mayor of
Athens. Though an electoral victory is
unlikely, another strong showing at the polls will make the eradication of
fascism in Greece that much harder.
Were
this phenomenon confined to Greece and Ukraine, it would not constitute a
continental trend. Sadly however, we see
the rise of similar, albeit slightly less overtly fascist, political parties
all over Europe. In Spain, the ruling
pro-austerity People’s Party has moved to establish draconian laws restricting
protest and free speech, and empowering and sanctioning repressive police
tactics. In France, the National Front
Party of Marine Le Pen, which vehemently scapegoats Muslim and African
immigrants, won nearly twenty percent of the vote in the first round of
presidential elections. Similarly, the
Party for Freedom in the Netherlands – which promotes anti-Muslim,
anti-immigrant policies – has grown to be the third largest in parliament. Throughout Scandinavia, ultra nationalist
parties which once toiled in complete irrelevance and obscurity are now
significant players in elections. These
trends are worrying to say the least.
It
should be noted too that, beyond Europe, there are a number of quasi-fascist
political formations which are, in one way or another, supported by the United
States. The right wing coups that
overthrew the governments of Paraguay and Honduras were tacitly and/or overtly
supported by Washington in their seemingly endless quest to suppress the Left
in Latin America. Of course, one should
also remember that the protest movement in Russia was spearheaded by Alexei
Navalny and his nationalist followers who espouse a virulently anti-Muslim,
racist ideology that views immigrants from the Russian Caucasus and former
Soviet republics as beneath “European Russians”. These and other examples begin to paint a
very ugly portrait of a US foreign policy that attempts to use economic
hardship and political upheaval to extend US hegemony around the world.
In
Ukraine, the “Right Sector” has taken the fight from the negotiating table to
the streets in an attempt to fulfill the dream of Stepan Bandera – a Ukraine
free of Russia, Jews, and all other “undesirables” as they see it. Buoyed by the continued support from the US
and Europe, these fanatics represent a more serious threat to democracy than
Yanukovich and the pro-Russian government ever could. If Europe and the United States don’t
recognize this threat in its infancy, by the time they finally do, it might
just be too late.
Eric
Draitser- Boiling Frogs Post Contributing Author & Analyst
Eric
Draitser is an independent geopolitical analyst based in New York City. He is
the editor and host of StopImperialism.com and the Stop Imperialism podcast.
-------------
...
it didn’t take long for Europe’s anti-immigrant right to
claim fresh momentum ... Anti-immigration politicians, ...
Despite winning their ...
...
CNN's Piers Morgan takes final parting shot at NRA and 'cowardly' politicians
... France as anti-immigration ... in France
against immigration?
... 2014
by Editorial Team. Italy ... Right-wing politicians in Italy plumbed to
new depths in ... The Northern League appears to be ramping up its anti-immigration
...
Swiss
anti-immigration vote stirs fears in Europe. ... freedom
of movement and politicians anxiously trying to ... immigration,
Swiss roil Europe.
------------------
Keep football fascist free!
JUNE 4, 2012 BY MIKAELRYDELLANDSTUARTB LEAVE A COMMENT
One of the biggest events in the sporting calendar looks set to be overshadowed by evidence of racist and fascist hooliganism and attacks. Anticipation is building for Euro 2012, an international football competition organised by UEFA every year. It will see teams from all over the world descend upon Poland and Ukraine to play. Rather than the usual triumphant flag-waving and punditry on who will turn up trumps when it comes to game itself, the report at the forefront of the news focuses on the disturbingly common on and off-terrace racism of sections of fans in both Poland and Ukraine.
Both countries have a history of neo-Nazi groupings and violence, especially surrounding football. A recent BBC Panorama report documented incidences of Nazi salutes by legions of fans in Ukrainian stadiums and anti-Semitic chants. There is also the all-too-common ‘monkey noises’ made towards black players, something which is still seen on British pitches today. Tellingly, the families of England players Theo Walcott and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain have stated they will not be attending the competition in fear of racist attack. This evidence has led England international legend Sol Campbell to call on black and Asian fans to avoid the tournament due to the threat of, not just racist abuse, but violent attack. He stated “don’t even risk it, because you could end up coming back in a coffin”. But this is not scaremongering, but an opinion based on fact. On April 14, at the Metalist stadium in Kharkiv, Ukraine, an organised mass of more than 2,000 fans from both sides of the stands gave a Nazi salute. At a match two weeks later, amid scuffles between rival fans, a group of Metalist supporters proceeded to attack several of their own fans; fans who happened to be Asian. The Asian students had to withstand punches and kicks as they escaped almost unaided by stewards, and completely ignored by cops.
A Ukrainian police chief interviewed by the BBC laughably claimed the fans were “pointing in the direction of opponents as it were, the fans, so it looked like they were pointing with the right hand to the fans, kind of attracting attention to themselves.”
The BBC documentary also showed abundant evidence of a real fascist presence on the streets of many of the Euro 2012 host cities, with white power symbols, swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans adorning the walls around football grounds and in local communities. It also unearthed the involvement of organised fascists such as Patriot of Ukraine, who use football hooligan ‘firms’ and supporters’ clubs as a recruiting ground for their organisations. This is similar to way the English Defence League (EDL) has been organising around football in Britain.
What is clear here is that the threat of fascist violence will be very real during Euro 2012, as police and official bodies do little or nothing to stamp out this cancer at the heart of football. UEFA pays lip service to its policy of ‘zero tolerance’ for racism while allowing anti-Semitic and racist chanting to go ahead in its stadiums. Players such as England’s John Terry, who is due to face a criminal trial for the racial abuse of another player, also go with next to no punishment for their actions by the bodies that exist to regulate footballing standards. The defence of our communities and a great sporting event such as Euro 2012 from fascists is clearly not something that can be left to the state or official authorities. We need to defend our matches from these racist thugs and ensure they do not tarnish ‘the beautiful game’ with their divisive politics and bonehead violence. Football, a sport with so much power to bring people of different backgrounds together should be fascist free. The task is for antifascists and football fans to stand together and organise against this threat before it’s too late.
http://www.socialistrevolution.org/6818/euro-2012-fascism-racism-football/
---------------
Keep football fascist free!
JUNE 4, 2012 BY MIKAELRYDELLANDSTUARTB LEAVE A COMMENT
One of the biggest events in the sporting calendar looks set to be overshadowed by evidence of racist and fascist hooliganism and attacks. Anticipation is building for Euro 2012, an international football competition organised by UEFA every year. It will see teams from all over the world descend upon Poland and Ukraine to play. Rather than the usual triumphant flag-waving and punditry on who will turn up trumps when it comes to game itself, the report at the forefront of the news focuses on the disturbingly common on and off-terrace racism of sections of fans in both Poland and Ukraine.
Both countries have a history of neo-Nazi groupings and violence, especially surrounding football. A recent BBC Panorama report documented incidences of Nazi salutes by legions of fans in Ukrainian stadiums and anti-Semitic chants. There is also the all-too-common ‘monkey noises’ made towards black players, something which is still seen on British pitches today. Tellingly, the families of England players Theo Walcott and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain have stated they will not be attending the competition in fear of racist attack. This evidence has led England international legend Sol Campbell to call on black and Asian fans to avoid the tournament due to the threat of, not just racist abuse, but violent attack. He stated “don’t even risk it, because you could end up coming back in a coffin”. But this is not scaremongering, but an opinion based on fact. On April 14, at the Metalist stadium in Kharkiv, Ukraine, an organised mass of more than 2,000 fans from both sides of the stands gave a Nazi salute. At a match two weeks later, amid scuffles between rival fans, a group of Metalist supporters proceeded to attack several of their own fans; fans who happened to be Asian. The Asian students had to withstand punches and kicks as they escaped almost unaided by stewards, and completely ignored by cops.
A Ukrainian police chief interviewed by the BBC laughably claimed the fans were “pointing in the direction of opponents as it were, the fans, so it looked like they were pointing with the right hand to the fans, kind of attracting attention to themselves.”
The BBC documentary also showed abundant evidence of a real fascist presence on the streets of many of the Euro 2012 host cities, with white power symbols, swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans adorning the walls around football grounds and in local communities. It also unearthed the involvement of organised fascists such as Patriot of Ukraine, who use football hooligan ‘firms’ and supporters’ clubs as a recruiting ground for their organisations. This is similar to way the English Defence League (EDL) has been organising around football in Britain.
What is clear here is that the threat of fascist violence will be very real during Euro 2012, as police and official bodies do little or nothing to stamp out this cancer at the heart of football. UEFA pays lip service to its policy of ‘zero tolerance’ for racism while allowing anti-Semitic and racist chanting to go ahead in its stadiums. Players such as England’s John Terry, who is due to face a criminal trial for the racial abuse of another player, also go with next to no punishment for their actions by the bodies that exist to regulate footballing standards. The defence of our communities and a great sporting event such as Euro 2012 from fascists is clearly not something that can be left to the state or official authorities. We need to defend our matches from these racist thugs and ensure they do not tarnish ‘the beautiful game’ with their divisive politics and bonehead violence. Football, a sport with so much power to bring people of different backgrounds together should be fascist free. The task is for antifascists and football fans to stand together and organise against this threat before it’s too late.
Keep football fascist free!
JUNE 4, 2012 BY LEAVE A COMMENT
One 
of the biggest events in the sporting calendar looks set to be overshadowed by evidence of racist and fascist hooliganism and attacks. Anticipation is building for Euro 2012, an international football competition organised by UEFA every year. It will see teams from all over the world descend upon Poland and Ukraine to play. Rather than the usual triumphant flag-waving and punditry on who will turn up trumps when it comes to game itself, the report at the forefront of the news focuses on the disturbingly common on and off-terrace racism of sections of fans in both Poland and Ukraine.
of the biggest events in the sporting calendar looks set to be overshadowed by evidence of racist and fascist hooliganism and attacks. Anticipation is building for Euro 2012, an international football competition organised by UEFA every year. It will see teams from all over the world descend upon Poland and Ukraine to play. Rather than the usual triumphant flag-waving and punditry on who will turn up trumps when it comes to game itself, the report at the forefront of the news focuses on the disturbingly common on and off-terrace racism of sections of fans in both Poland and Ukraine.
Both countries have a history of neo-Nazi groupings and violence, especially surrounding football. A recent BBC Panorama report documented incidences of Nazi salutes by legions of fans in Ukrainian stadiums and anti-Semitic chants. There is also the all-too-common ‘monkey noises’ made towards black players, something which is still seen on British pitches today. Tellingly, the families of England players Theo Walcott and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain have stated they will not be attending the competition in fear of racist attack. This evidence has led England international legend Sol Campbell to call on black and Asian fans to avoid the tournament due to the threat of, not just racist abuse, but violent attack. He stated “don’t even risk it, because you could end up coming back in a coffin”. But this is not scaremongering, but an opinion based on fact. On April 14, at the Metalist stadium in Kharkiv, Ukraine, an organised mass of more than 2,000 fans from both sides of the stands gave a Nazi salute. At a match two weeks later, amid scuffles between rival fans, a group of Metalist supporters proceeded to attack several of their own fans; fans who happened to be Asian. The Asian students had to withstand punches and kicks as they escaped almost unaided by stewards, and completely ignored by cops.
A Ukrainian police chief interviewed by the BBC laughably claimed the fans were “pointing in the direction of opponents as it were, the fans, so it looked like they were pointing with the right hand to the fans, kind of attracting attention to themselves.”
The BBC documentary also showed abundant evidence of a real fascist presence on the streets of many of the Euro 2012 host cities, with white power symbols, swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans adorning the walls around football grounds and in local communities. It also unearthed the involvement of organised fascists such as Patriot of Ukraine, who use football hooligan ‘firms’ and supporters’ clubs as a recruiting ground for their organisations. This is similar to way the English Defence League (EDL) has been organising around football in Britain.
What is clear here is that the threat of fascist violence will be very real during Euro 2012, as police and official bodies do little or nothing to stamp out this cancer at the heart of football. UEFA pays lip service to its policy of ‘zero tolerance’ for racism while allowing anti-Semitic and racist chanting to go ahead in its stadiums. Players such as England’s John Terry, who is due to face a criminal trial for the racial abuse of another player, also go with next to no punishment for their actions by the bodies that exist to regulate footballing standards. The defence of our communities and a great sporting event such as Euro 2012 from fascists is clearly not something that can be left to the state or official authorities. We need to defend our matches from these racist thugs and ensure they do not tarnish ‘the beautiful game’ with their divisive politics and bonehead violence. Football, a sport with so much power to bring people of different backgrounds together should be fascist free. The task is for antifascists and football fans to stand together and organise against this threat before it’s too late.
http://www.socialistrevolution.org/6818/euro-2012-fascism-racism-football/
---------------
THE INSIDIOUS GROWTH OF OIL AND
ENERGY OVER HUMANITY IN UNITED NATIONS AND EU/USA/CANADA etc.
IDLE NO MORE
CANADA
THE OIL
SPILL THAT BROKE A BILLION CHILDRENS HEARTS...
Spirit - "Nature's Way" (1970)
BP
revises report on seismic project off N.S.
BRUCE
ERSKINE BUSINESS REPORTER
Last
Updated March 31, 2014 - 5:14pm
BP
Exploration (Canada) Ltd. has submitted an amended environmental assessment
report for its planned Tangier 3D seismic survey off the coast to the
Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board.
The
revised report includes responses to questions the board raised after a review
of a draft environmental assessment report for seismic work related to four
offshore exploration licences.
The
draft assessment said BP’s seismic program would have no significant residual
environmental effects.
But
the board asked BP, among other things, for more information on visual and
acoustic monitoring systems, the use and shutdown of air guns, and the
potential impact of seismic work on aboriginal fisheries, military operations
and other oil and gas projects.
Board
spokeswoman Kathleen Funke said Monday a decision on the amended environmental
assessment report should be made this week, likely on Thursday.
BP
Canada spokeswoman Anita Perry declined comment Monday.
BP
plans to begin seismic work on the deepwater blocks 300 kilometres southeast of
Halifax this spring.
The
Calgary company has committed to spend about $1 billion over the next six years
to explore the offshore parcels, which cover over 14,000 square kilometres.
---------------------
THIS
IS ALL ABOUT F**KING OIL... AGAIN.... DAMM IT... shame on Canada.... PM
Harper.... millions of Liberals and NDP crossed the floor and voted 4 u in the
last election because of our troops and Peter MacKay, Rick Hillier and Walt....
and the absolute disgrace... that was 'The Michael'....and we gave u a
majority.... with NDP legal Opposition and Liberals...a mere 34 bloody
seats.... BUT...U...MUST...DUMP UR REFORM VALUES AND STICK 2 THE CONSERVATIVE
VALUES WE VOTED U IN ON... please...
Canadians
are angry... and watching... Ukraine is a disaster (the same thugs are running
4 office????) with facists ruining any form of freedom.... Russia is merely
protecting itself from the EU invasion (and $$$$enormous $$$trillions in debt
and 40% of their brilliant youth without jobs... and USA...u have 37%
Unemployment... AND NATO HIERARCHY... u disgrace ur troops on the ground...
they did NOT sign up 2 die because of your inemptness.... troops on the ground
love Peter MacKay... because he chose the troops on the ground every damm time
over u... and ya all know it... and don 't even get started on Rick Hillier and
Walt- Canada troops first baby!..
this
is about OIL... AND BUSINESS... shame on the lot of ya... PM Harper... am so
saddened... Ukraine is eating itself... thank God Crimea has common sense....
and will rise way above the lot of ya.imho
West
and Russia play dangerous game in Ukraine
By
Matthew Fisher, Postmedia NewsApril 1, 2014 9:01 AM
Rotterdam,
March 23, 2014 -- Prime Minister Stephen Harper called Rotterdam "the
gateway to the world" and billions of dollars of Canadian trade when he
met with Bas Verhoef, managing director of Uniport Terminals and other
officials at one the largest container ports in the world. Harper is in the
Netherlands for meetings on Monday and Tuesday on nuclear security and an
emergency G-7 summit on how to respond Russian President Vladimir Putin's
military backed seizure of Crimea from Ukraine.
Photograph
by: Matthew Fisher (Postmedia News), Postmedia News
Talks
are better than no talks but the stalemate over Russian President Vladimir
Putin’s territorial ambitions in Ukraine could still erupt into a full-blown
international crisis at any moment.
Russia,
figuring it still has the much stronger hand because it is willing to fight
over Ukraine and the West isn’t, laid bare its intention to control its
neighbour in one way or another when its foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, met
with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Paris on Sunday.
By
seizing Crimea, Russia has given itself an expanded military presence on the
Black Sea while demanding, hardly for the first time, that Ukraine be weakened
forever by having nothing to do with NATO or the European Union. Although
Russia rejects the characterization, it seeks to impose a Finnish-style
neutrality on Ukraine with a Russian veto over Ukrainian foreign policy and
domestic decisions pertaining to the large ethnic Russian minority next door.
Among
the Russian proposals not welcomed in Kyiv, because it would be tantamount to
partitioning the country, is for Ukraine to devolve into a loose federation,
with meaningful autonomous powers for the regions not only in matters of
language and culture, but in taxation and economic policy, too.
After
moving troops into Crimea, the Russian government engaged in a second classic
act of sabre-rattling, sending thousands of its troops on manoeuvres just to
the northeast, east and southeast of the Ukrainian mainland. The U.S. has since
claimed that as many as 40,000 Russian troops were poised near the Ukrainian
frontier, where they have presumably been awaiting orders to step up or stand
down.
Western
and Russian journalists have found scant evidence of these troops. Nor did I
when I recently visited the Ukrainian side of the border. Confirmation of these
firsthand observations came on Monday, when the Ukrainian government announced
that Russian troops levels were decreasing in the area.
However,
the precise whereabouts or number of these forces is not actually that
relevant. Russia has already proven its willingness to send troops to Ukraine
to achieve political goals. Moreover, eastern Ukraine is virtually undefended
except for a measly 160-kilometre-long trench that tanks could circumvent or
breach in a few minutes. Because the geography presents no significant
impediments, it would take only one morning for hundreds of tanks and armoured
personnel carriers to reach Donetsk, Lugansk or Kharkiv. Airborne troops could,
of course, arrive even sooner.
As
the Nazis learned 70 years ago on the Eastern Front and as the Russians and
Americans discovered in Afghanistan — with a second harsh lesson for the
Americans in Iraq — grabbing territory is a snap compared with holding on to it
when a fair chunk of the population is hostile to their presence. It was easy
in Crimea where, at a guess, more than 80 per cent of Crimeans supported the
Russian intervention.
An
operation on the eastern or southeastern Ukrainian mainland would be much more
difficult because the percentage of the population supporting Russian military
action may be 50 per cent at best and could be as low as 35 per cent.
Thanks
in part to Canada’s Stephen Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama, and a substantial
change in tone from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Group of Seven
developed a bit of a backbone at an emergency session in the Netherlands last
week. Russia was put on notice that any further adventures in Ukraine would be
met with draconian economic sanctions and political isolation.
On
the other side of what has quickly developed into a dangerous game of bluff,
Russians close to Putin have continued to claim that the West has misread the
president and his inner circle. Putin, they say, is fully prepared to accept
financial penalties and isolation to protect and project his country’s national
interests.
Such
talk plays well in Russia right now, with Putin basking in the glory of his
walkover victory in Crimea. But “no man is an island.” Putin must still pay
some attention to his citizens’ welfare or they may turn against him. Russia’s
heavily energy-dependent export economy is already wobbly with zero growth
forecast for this year.
Moscow
has only begun to digest the staggering costs of the Sochi Olympics and its
Crimean adventure. Adding eastern and southeastern Ukraine to this list while
containing the almost certain collapse of most oil and gas sales to the West
would add billions and billions of dollars to that rising tab.
At
some point soon, Moscow must accept the inevitability of a new government in
Kyiv as the West must accept that the Crimea is now part of Russia. This
complex dilemma can only be solved when the Kremlin begins to speak directly to
Ukrainians, rather than making its demands through an American interlocutor.
-----------------
------------
IDLE
NO MORE CANADA- stop
UN/USA/CANADA/US/EU- selling out
humanity 4 ur f**king oil....... billions of us just won't take it... and we
elected u... Nova Scotia - we dumped the
tories.... we dumped the NDP... and we will damm well dump the liberals.....
Crimean
crisis may spark LNG projects, says N.S. energy minister
BILL
POWER BUSINESS REPORTER
Published
March 31, 2014 - 4:10pm
Last
Updated March 31, 2014 - 4:22pm
Energy Minister Andrew Younger, speaking at a
breakfast hosted by The Maritimes Energy Association Monday. (RYAN TAPLIN /
Staff)
The
Russian military intervention in Crimea has raised the profile of a couple of
proposed Nova Scotia liquefied natural gas projects, Energy Minister Andrew
Younger said Monday.
Younger
said the political turmoil in Crimea also has some people in the industry
talking about a couple of major offshore exploration projects underway off the
Nova Scotia coast which may one day be an energy source for European customers.
“There
is increased concern in Europe about secure energy supplies following the
Russian occupation of Crimea, as Russia is a major supplier of natural gas for
much of Europe,” Younger said.
However,
he told about 150 participants at a breakfast briefing hosted by The Maritimes
Energy Association that Nova Scotia’s gas and oil prospects are still a long
way from development, even if they look encouraging.
“Oil
and gas are currently the biggest current opportunities we have for economic
growth in the province,” Younger said.
“But
even if we find gas this year extraction would still be a long-term
undertaking.”
The
proposed $8.3-billion Pieridae Energy Canada Ltd. development received
environment clearance — with a few conditions — from the province for its
natural gas project at Goldboro just last week.
Pieridae
already has a 20-year deal to provide gas to E.On Global Commodities SE, a
German electrical utility that wants half the output from the Nova Scotia
plant.
Germany
gets about 35 per cent of its gas from Russia, according to a recent Canadian
Press report.
Younger
said developments in Crimea might also generate increased interest in the
H-Energy proposal for a $3-billion liquefied natural gas terminal at the Strait
of Canso.
That
project would not be completed until 2020, according to projections by the
company.
He
said developments like those proposed by Pieridae and H-Energy are accompanied
by major financing undertakings which add to Nova Scotia’s appeal among
potential investors interested in secure alternatives to Russian natural gas.
COMMENT:
Also
there will be a new tune destined to be a hit on the European pop chart.
It's
called: Let's Frack, It Will Be Allright!
-------------------
--------------
IDLE
NO MORE CANADA- FRACKING DESTROYING OUR WORLD- STOP IT CANADA
One
arrested at Maritimes Energy protest in Halifax
BILL
POWER BUSINESS REPORTER
Published
March 31, 2014 - 10:50am
Last
Updated March 31, 2014 - 4:12pm
One
person was arrested after a crowd of protesters descended on a Halifax hotel
and disrupted an energy industry event early Monday.
About
150 participants at the gathering hosted by The Maritimes Energy Association
heard a 15-minute version of the Mi’kmaq Honour Song, before Energy Minister
Andrew Younger had a chance to present his scheduled overview of government
energy resource development plans.
“We
want everyone to stand up and listen to the Mi’Kmaq Honour Song,” protester
Star Child, who said she represented the Wabanati First Nation, announced as
some of the assembled protesters started banging drums in accompaniment.
The
Wabanati contingent was part of a larger group of about 60 protesters involved
with the PowerShift Atlantic event underway in the city. The protesters were
waiting outside the hotel as Younger arrived.
Some
surged into the event room just as Younger was about to speak.
“We’re
here to voice our concerns about fracking and the Energy East pipeline,”
Halifax resident Catherine Hart said as protesters made their way inside the
hotel to disrupt the breakfast briefing.
Halifax
police arrived after about 15 minutes to help association officials persuade
most of the protesters to clear the conference room. However, a few apparently
had tickets and remained.
Protesters
said two members of their group were arrested, but police said later there was
just the one arrest and the individual was ticketed and released.
Younger
said he would have met with the protesters after he finally had an opportunity
to make his presentation, but they left.
“It
would have been interesting had they listened to what I had to say first,
because some of the things they were complaining about, I was actually
addressing,” he said in an interview after the event.
Younger
said the Nova Scotia government meets regularly with First Nations to discuss
energy issues.
CORRECTION:
An earlier version of this story reported that two people were arrested. The
police say that only one person was arrested.
----------------
Working Man
sung by Rita MacNeil - for all global miners and the ugly hard hard work 4
little money
Tribute page for Coal Miners in Nova Scotia Canada ~ Working Man sung
by Rita MacNeil
U.S. activists rap Keystone but leave dirty coal alone
Lee-Anne Goodman is Washington cor respondent for The Canadian Press.
America’s hobbled coal industry has come up with a plan to save its elf. With
domestic consumption in serious decline, coal producers in Wyoming and Montana
have been loading up freight trains a mile long and shipping the coal to the
Pacific Northwest for export to Asian countries.
Why Asia? Air quality concerns aren’t exactly top of mind in many
Asian countries, and those booming, energy-hungry nations are keen to use
coal-fired power. China, in fact, is building the equivalent of two
500-megawatt coal-fired plants each week.
So even though an abundance of cheaper, cleaner
natural gas and increasingly stringent federal regulations in the U.S. are
putting the boots to many coal plants, Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private-sector coal
producer, has boldly proclaimed that "coal’s best days are ahead," thanks to the Asian
market . The industry hopes to increase U.S. coal exports to Asia by as much as
190 million tonnes a year.
That means strip mining will have to be vastly
expanded in a pristine region of the United States — the Powder River Basin in northeastern Wyoming
and southeastern Montana. The impact on wildlife, farmers and ranchers could be
enormous.
And yet it’s the Keystone XL pipeline, not this attempt by coal producers to snatch
victory out of the jaws of defeat, that overwhelmingly dominates environmental
debate in the United States. This despite the fact that Greenpeace has ranked
the coal industry’s determination to dramatically boost exports to Asia as the third most
harmful project in the world in terms of carbon emissions.
Alberta’s oilsands ranked fifth.
So why isn’t coal being held up as the true "climate bomb" instead of
Keystone XL by the U.S. environmental movement? It’s a question many Canadian officials have openly
questioned themselves in the seemingly unending battle to win Keystone XL
approval.
The immediate damage to local environments by
drastically increasing coal production, after all, would likely be far greater
than any imposed by Keystone XL, which would exceed U.S. federal pipeline
safety requirements in its bid for approval. The global carbon impact of hiking
coal exports to countries with no qualms ab out burning it would also pack a
bigger punch.
Some academics have compared the coal industry’s tactics to those of the
tobacco industry 25 years ago. In Yale Environment 360, an online magazine,
environmental journalist Jonathan Thomps on called coal "the cigarette of
our new age."
Indeed, in the dying days of the tobacco industry,
Asia was its saviour. A Philip Morris vicepresident even enthused publicly that
the Asian market was s o lucrative that it "confounds the
imagination." Tobacco companies now sponsor as many as 100 elementary
schools in China, where 16 million children under the age of 15 are smokers.
The Clear Air Task Force has determined that coal
kills more than 13,000 Americans a year, and causes heart attacks and asthma
attacks. A United Nations official, meantime, recently made an urgent call for
countries across the Asia-Pacific region to tackle air quality and human health
.
Environmentalists are hesitant to say that coal
exports should be a bigger target in the U.S. than Keystone XL. I spoke to a
climate activist this week who said she hopes to see both issues share the
national spotlight.
But two climate change experts recently urged
environmentalists to rethink its Keystone-centric strategy in a column for the
Bloomberg news outlet.
"While Keystone is a single project, U.S.
coal is an entire energy system," wrote Matthew Stepp and Alex Trembath,
urging the environmental movement to "shift back" its focus to coal.
It seems to me the American environmental movement
has a bigger, and more dangerous, enemy than the Keystone XL pipeline — one that's right in its
backyard, posing not just domestic but global threats on a disturbing array of
fronts.
----------------------
USA AND COAL MESS..
This gallery exists 2 raise concerns about potential threats 2 the Salish
Sea from the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal at Cherry Point, Washington.
This area, including the San Juan and Gulf Island, would see over 450
additional bulk cargo carriers each yer exporting 48 million tons of American
Coal 2 China
The
Salish Sea is the Archilles Heel of the GPT project, since threats 2 water
quality and rare, diverse sildlife are nearly impossible 2 mitigate.
The San Juan Islands are in the crosshairs of this issue due to a proposed
coal export terminal north of Bellingham, WA (one of four proposed terminals
for the northwest.) This gallery includes photo illustrations that I made to
highlight the threat:
---------------------------
Posted by Patrick J. Kiger on March 19, 2014
In Colorado, where this natural gas drilling
rig is located, new regulations require controls on methane leaks. (Photograph
courtesy EnergyTomorrow, Flickr)
Almost all of the climate-affecting methane
leaks from the oil and gas infrastructure could be reduced at relatively little
expense, often by simply tightening bolts or replacing worn seals, suggests a
new study by the Boston-based Clean Air Task Force released today. (See related
story: “Green Fracking? 5 Technologies for Cleaner Shale Energy.”)
The report noted that unintentional leaks
account for 30 percent of the methane emitted by the oil and gas industry,
which after agriculture is the second biggest source of the potent greenhouse
gas. (The bulk of the emissions is intentionally vented into the atmosphere, to
regulate the extraction, processing and transmission of the fuels.)
Energy companies could recoup the cost of
plugging 90 percent of those leaks in as little as a year’s time, by selling
natural gas that otherwise would have escaped into the atmosphere, according to
the report. (The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has
estimated that the typical natural gas processing plant loses natural gas
emissions worth about $230,000 each year.)
But beyond immediate repairs, an ongoing effort
to monitor and actively curb methane would end up costing the companies money,
because they would have to conduct monthly or quarterly inspections of well
sites, using infrared cameras to scrutinize equipment for methane missions. As
a result, most oil and gas facilities would end up spending slightly more than
they saved, with companies shelling out as much as $2,500 per well and up to
$8,000 per gas plant annually.
Even so, the cost of doing such inspections
would amount to a tiny fraction of the revenue that natural gas producing
companies generate, said David McCabe, an atmospheric scientist for the task
force. In Colorado, which in February became the first state to require methane inspections new
regulations , McCabe said that the tests will cost about $18 million
annually—three-tenths of a percent of the $6 billion in income generated by
natural gas in the state.
“Regularly inspecting oil and gas facilities is
an inexpensive and logical way to reduce methane emissions,” McCabe said.
The study is based on data gathered by
inspectors who used infrared cameras to scrutinize 4,000 well sites, gas
compressor stations and processing plants, about 90 percent of them in Canada
with the remainder located in the U.S. The inspectors found more than 58,400
individual pieces of equipment—an average of 13.6 per facility—that were
emitting methane. Nearly 40,000 of those pieces of equipment had unintentional
leaks, most of which could be fixed with simple repairs. The median cost of the
fixes was just $50.
Although there’s widespread concern about the
environmental risks of fracking, the study found that most of the total methane
emissions actually come from plants and compressor stations rather than wells.
And only 17 percent of the emissions from well sites are accidental leaks, with
the rest being vented intentionally. (See related, “Methane Emissions Far Worse Than U.S. Estimates.“)
While detecting and fixing leaks would make a
significant dent in methane emissions, curbing intentional venting clearly
would have much more dramatic impact. According to Ben Ratner, an policy expert
in methane control for the Environmental Defense Fund, that would require
upgrading equipment. The conventional pumps used to inject fracking chemicals
into wells, for example, utilize the pressure of natural gas in the well as a
power source, and vent it to regulate themselves. Switching to another power
source, such as solar-generated electricity, would eliminate nearly 6 billion
cubic feet of methane emissions annually.
EDF recently released its own report analyzing potential opportunities for
reducing methane emissions in the oil and gas industry, emissions that EDF
estimates will amount to 404 billion cubic feet for onshore production in 2018.
Ratner said that while many companies are
voluntarily moving to curb their methane output, stricter government regulation
akin to Colorado’s new rules was needed. “The good news is that some companies
are leading the way, but we need strong policy to level the playing field. We
have thousands of gas producers, which means that we need protective rules that
are strongly enforced.” (See related, “Air Pollution From Fracked Wells Will Be Regulated Under New
U.S. Rules.”)
-------------
Clean Coal Test: Power
Plants Prepare to Capture Carbon
Can coal be cleaned up? Power plants in
Mississippi and Canada will soon find out.
A 210-foot-tall carbon dioxide absorber is moved to Southern Company's
Kemper, Mississippi, power plant site.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MISSISSIPPI POWER
Robert Kunzig in Meridian, Mississippi
National Geographic
PUBLISHED MARCH 31, 2014
In Juliette, Georgia, Southern Company operates a coal-fired power plant
that is the single largest source of planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions in
the United States.
In Kemper County, Mississippi, the same company is pioneering a technology
that many experts believe will be crucial to preventing a climate disaster:
It's building the world's first new power plant designed to capture and store
most of its carbon.
Carbon capture and storage, or CCS, has been hailed for decades by some as
an essential solution to the climate problem, and pilloried by others as
unworkable and a dangerous distraction. This year, at last, it will be tested
at full commercial scale. (See related, "Can Coal Ever Be Clean?" and
photo gallery, "The Visible Impacts.")
The test ground won't be only a new power plant in Mississippi. It also
will be about 1,600 miles north of here, in Saskatchewan, Canada, where a
public utility is attempting to show that an old coal-fired power plant can be
cleaned up. SaskPower has almost finished retrofitting one 110-megawatt unit of
its Boundary Dam Power Station to capture 90 percent of the CO2 before it flies
out the smokestack. In Saskatchewan as in Mississippi, the CO2 will be pumped
underground into a partially depleted oil field and—after it has helped squeeze
valuable oil to the surface—stored there indefinitely.
The battle to forestall climate change, President Barack Obama said in a
speech last summer, requires us "to put an end to the limitless dumping of
carbon pollution from our power plants." But because coal is one of the
cheapest ways to fuel electricity, with abundant stores all around the world,
global carbon pollution is growing. (See related "Quiz: What You Don't
Know About Electricity.") Over the next two decades, when science says
aggressive steps must be taken to curb greenhouse gas emissions, several
hundred million people in the world will be getting electricity for the first
time—and a lot of it will be fueled by coal. Many believe the world won't be
able to stop drastic climate change without a technology for curbing emissions
from the cheapest, most-carbon intensive fuel. (See related "Quiz: What
You Don't Know About Climate Change Science.")
An aerial photo of the Kemper County energy facility.
In February, construction was nearing completion at Kemper. The facility
expects to go on line by the end of this year.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MISSISSIPPI POWER
In the vanguard of the effort is a company that has always fought mandated
government limits on CO2.
In 2009, Southern Company lobbied hard against the climate bill passed by
the House of Representatives—which died the following year in the Senate—on the
grounds that it would have raised energy prices too much. It is now opposing
regulations, promised by Obama and proposed in January by the Environmental
Protection Agency, that would require new power plants to capture roughly half
their CO2. (See related story: "As U.S. Cleans Its Energy Mix, It Ships
Coal Problems Abroad.")
But in Mississippi, Southern is building a plant designed to capture 65
percent of its CO2—a coal plant that would be as clean as the cleanest
natural-gas-fired one. After delays and cost overruns that have doubled its
price tag to more than $5 billion, the 582-megawatt Kemper plant is scheduled
to go online late this year. That would put it among the larger U.S. coal
plants. When fully operational, it is designed to provide power for 165,000
Mississippi homes and businesses. Ratepayers will shoulder much of the cost,
and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has contributed $270 million. But
Southern's shareholders have already absorbed a loss of more than $1.1 billion
on the project.
"Southern has definitely been one of the more resistant"
companies to federal carbon restrictions, said Sally Benson, a Stanford
University researcher and expert on carbon storage. "Yet look what they're
doing [at Kemper]. They've really gone out on a limb. It's a fantastic
thing."
"A Lot of Pots and Pans"
Twenty miles north of Meridian on highway 493, the thing itself rises like
a fantastic industrial castle from the pinewoods and cow pastures of eastern
Mississippi. "If you were driving here a few years ago, you were either
hunting or lost," said Jeff Shepard, a spokesman for Mississippi Power, a
Southern subsidiary. Now you're almost certainly headed to the Kemper County
Energy Facility. A sea of parked cars separates it from the highway; more than
5,000 construction workers are mostly hidden inside, putting the finishing
touches on a bewildering mass of pipes, silos, tanks, and domes.
"We're taking coal and converting it into gas to burn in a gas
turbine," said Randall Rush, a chemical engineer from Southern's research
facility in Wilsonville, Alabama. "That takes a lot of pots and
pans."
As one tours the site with Rush and his colleagues, the maze of piping
gradually becomes penetrable—as do Southern's reasons for building it in this
corner of Mississippi. Mississippi Power owns 42 square miles (109 square
kilometers) of land around the Kemper plant. Under that land, at a depth of 25
feet to 125 feet (8 to 38 meters), lies a 9-foot (2.7-meter) thick seam of
lignite—part of an enormous formation that arcs out of Mexico through Texas and
Louisiana.
Lignite and other low-rank coals make up half the world's coal reserves, but
not many American power plants use them. Lignite has high ash and water and low
heat content. (See related, "Germany Plans to Raze Towns for Brown Coal
and Cheap Energy.") But at the Wilsonville lab, with support from the DOE,
Southern has spent nearly two decades perfecting a system for gasifying and
burning lignite efficiently. Kemper is its commercial debut.
On the south side of the power plant, at the Liberty Mine, a giant dragline
is already taking 86-cubic-yard (65.7-cubic-meter) bites out of the countryside.
From the edge of the pit, trucks must drive only a few hundred yards to dump
their loads of coal onto a conveyor belt that carries it up and into the power
plant. There the coal will be crushed, dried—the Kemper lignite is 45 percent
water—and pulverized to a consistency "between beach sand and face
powder," Rush said.
The coal grains will be blown at high pressure into the
gasifier—essentially a tall pipe. Swirling in steam and air, the coal is heated
to 1,800°F (982°C), but without enough oxygen to burn it completely. That
converts most of the coal into "syngas," which is mostly hydrogen and
carbon compounds, and the rest into ash.
The hydrogen will get burned in two gas turbines-essentially jet engines
strapped to the ground. "The thrust that would make an airplane fly is
used to turn a shaft and make electricity," Rush explained. "The
gases that come out of that jet engine are hot, and you recover that heat in a
steam generator, and you use it to turn a shaft in a steam turbine. So you're
making electricity in two places."
A photo of a Carbon Dioxide absorber being installed.
A crane lifts one of Kemper's six CO2 absorbers into place.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MISSISSIPPI POWER
Cleaning Up
That system, called an IGCC (for "integrated gasification combined
cycle"), makes burning syngas more efficient than burning coal directly.
But syngas is also easier to clean up. At Kemper, the "gas cleanup unit"
stands between the gasifier and the power block and a little to the north. It
will strip out most of the dust, 90 percent of the toxic mercury, and 99
percent of the hydrogen sulfide—all of which is required by existing Clean Air
Act regulations. It will also remove 65 percent of the CO2, even more than
would be required by regulations proposed by the EPA in January. (See related,
"Poland Hosts Climate Talks, While Boosting Coal Industry.")
CO2 capture was not part of the original plan for Kemper. The plan was to
remedy Mississippi Power's problem—an aging fleet of power plants concentrated
on the Gulf Coast, where one was damaged by Hurricane Katrina—by tapping into
the lignite at Kemper. "The CO2 was added later," said Rush. That was
in 2009, when it seemed likely that Congress might pass a climate bill.
As it turns out, though, CO2 can be removed from syngas with the same
liquid solvent, Selexol, that strips out the sulfur; it just takes more pots
and pans. The basic principle is simple. You fill a tall tank with packing
material, said Rush, to increase the surface area where gas and solvent meet.
You pour Selexol in at the top and pump syngas into the bottom at 600 pounds
per square inch—about 20 times the pressure in car tires. Under high pressure,
the CO2 dissolves in the Selexol as it does in Coke. When you release the
pressure, it's like popping the cap on a Coke bottle—the CO2 comes bubbling out
in pure form.
Carbon capture graphic.
JOHN TOMANIO AND ALEXANDER STEGMAIER, NGM STAFF. ART: ÁLVARO VALIÑO (TOP).
SOURCES: HOWARD HERZOG, MIT; U.S. ENERGY INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION
The Kemper plant will capture 3.5 million metric tons of CO2 a year and
compress it to a liquid-like state. The energy required to do that will use up
the efficiency gained by the IGCC process. But there's a bright side:
Mississippi Power will actually sell the CO2, delivering it by pipeline to
Denbury Onshore and another independent oil company. Those companies already
use CO2 for "enhanced oil recovery" at aging fields along the Gulf
Coast. Right now they mine their CO2 from a natural deposit near Jackson, a
hundred miles west of Kemper.
The Kemper plant will also sell 150,000 tons a year of sulfuric acid to the
Gulf Coast chemical industry, which is flourishing these days because of cheap
natural gas. The fracking boom has transformed the electric power industry too;
coal-fired plants all over the country have been switching to natural gas.
Since 2008, Southern has cut its reliance on coal in half, from 69 percent to
36 percent of its generating capacity. Mississippi Power already generates 75
percent of its power from gas.
The Sierra Club, which strongly opposes the Kemper project—"It's
dirty, it's expensive, and it's unnecessary," said Louie Miller, the
Club's state director—argues that the state as a whole has excess generating
capacity and that Mississippi Power, which serves southern Mississippi, could
have bought an existing natural gas plant at a fraction of the cost of building
Kemper. To help pay for the plant, in the poorest state in the nation, the
utility has already raised rates 18 percent—about $270 a year for its average
customer. It expects to ask for another hike of 4 to 6 percent next year.
Miller predicts more rate hikes will follow.
Southern says it doesn't want to rely too much on natural gas, which has a
history of volatile prices. At Kemper, Southern owns the lignite and has a
long-term contract with North American Coal to extract it. The price is stable
and cheap. In fact, said Southern start-up manager David Hardin, with revenues
of at least $50 million a year expected from the sale of CO2 and other
byproducts, "it's almost like the fuel is free."
There are 600 million tons of lignite at Kemper, more than three times as
much as the plant will burn in its 40-year lifetime. "Maybe somewhere down
the road we'll want to put in another facility that burns lignite," Hardin
said.
A photo of a coal conveyor from the top of gasifier to the dome.
The conveyer belt will carry lignite from the adjacent mine into the Kemper
plant. The dome on the right protects a few days' supply of coal from
Mississippi rains.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MISSISSIPPI POWER
Boundary Dam
The view from southern Saskatchewan is similar. "We sit on top of a
300-year supply of coal," said SaskPower CEO Robert Watson. But the
regulatory outlook is clearer.
Under Canadian regulations that will take effect in July 2015, any new
coal-fired plant, and any existing one that's at least 50 years old, can emit
no more than about 925 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour. (EPA's proposed limit
is 1,100 pounds per megawatt-hour for new plants; Kemper will emit around 800
pounds.) When a Canadian power plant turns 50, it must either be shut down or
start capturing carbon.
The Boundary Dam station consists of six separate units that burn
pulverized lignite. SaskPower shut down the oldest unit last year and plans to
close a second one. Unit 3 will turn 50 in 2017. "We had to do a major
reno or shut it down," Watson said. "We determined it would be the
perfect unit to try out new technology."
Gasifying the coal and capturing the CO2 before combustion was not an
option; that would have required an entirely new plant like Kemper. SaskPower
will do its cleanup after the coal is burned. Because CO2 is less concentrated
and at much lower pressure in smokestack gases than it is in syngas, it won't
spontaneously dissolve into a liquid solvent. SaskPower will use a solvent
called an amine that reacts with CO2 chemically and grabs it out of the air.
That process had been considered more costly, but the technology has been
improving. SaskPower claims it will actually spend less energy capturing CO2
than Kemper will—with a technology that can be applied to existing coal plants,
not just fancy new IGCCs. And SaskPower aims to capture 90 percent of the CO2,
from that one unit at least, to bring its emissions downs to about 330 pounds
per megawatt hour. That's "far better than any other fossil fuel unit
around," Watson said.
An aerial photo of the Kemper County.
Mississippi Power owns 42 square miles of land and 600 million tons of
lignite around the Kemper plant.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MISSISSIPPI POWER
The CO2 will be sold to Canadian oil company Cenovus Energy and injected
into the Weyburn oil field in Saskatchewan. That field has been the site of a
long-running experiment in carbon storage monitored by the Paris-based
International Energy Agency. So far no major leaks or other problems have been
reported.
The renovation of Boundary Dam Unit 3 is costing about $1.2 billion, of
which the Canadian government is paying close to 20 percent. Like Southern,
SaskPower hopes to sell its technology overseas, especially in China. "We
think we will show a model to the world," Watson said, "to allow
companies to keep burning coal, but do it cleaner. Everybody agrees we've got
to clean it up." (See related, "Harbin Smog Crisis Highlights China's
Coal Problem," and "Coal Burning Shortens Lives in China, New Study
Shows.")
Adequately Demonstrated?
The amine process that SaskPower is relying on is not new; it has been
widely used in other industries. It has also been successfully tested at a
Southern Company plant near Mobile, Alabama. As of last fall, Southern had
stored 100,000 metric tons of CO2 underground. Like other companies in the
industry, though, Southern opposes EPA's efforts to require carbon capture and
storage on the grounds that the technology has not been "adequately
demonstrated," as the Clean Air Act requires.
There is much debate about what that term means. "'Adequately
demonstrated' doesn't mean it has to have been run at commercial scale,"
said Howard Herzog, senior research engineer and carbon capture specialist at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "If it's been shown to work at
pilot plants, it's adequately demonstrated. As far as the capture goes, there's
no doubt that the technology is here today. It's demonstrated that it will
work."
What's still uncertain is the long-term cost of CCS—and that's why the two
plants that are coming online this year are so important. The new Boundary Dam
unit will be switched on this summer, Watson said. Mississippi Power expects to
start making syngas at Kemper in June, and to connect to the grid by the end of
the year. A half-million-ton pile of coal is already mined and waiting.
"Psychologically it's very important for Kemper to work," said
Herzog. "But the Boundary Dam is probably a truer test of how carbon
capture can be adapted to the marketplace."
"You've got to give Southern credit though—they really are trying to
push the technology. From an engineering viewpoint, Boundary Dam was a much
simpler project. This is a very ambitious project Southern is doing. I'm hoping
they're going to pull it off." (See related interactive map: "Four
Ways to Look at Global Carbon Footprints.")
---------------
u all need 2 get this month's National Geographic... CANADA IS NOT EVEN
LISTED AS A COUNTRY THAT ABUSES ANYTHING... SERIOUSLY ... we are the 2nd
largest country on the planet with only 36 million people... come on folks...
get real... and everyday Canadians do a hell of a lot 2 protect and keep our
beautiful nation.... and world lights and power off 4 an hour... WELL WHEN UR
IN SEVERE SNOW WEATHER AND FREEZING.. IT'S KIND OF HARD... GET REAL...
As U.S. Cleans Its Energy Mix, It Ships Coal Problems
Abroad
The port of Norfolk, Virginia, seen here in
1970, is the largest U.S. facility for exporting coal. It saw a surge of
activity last year as U.S. coal exports increased 17 percent to set a new
record.
Photograph by Charles Rotkin, Corbis
Thomas K. Grose
Published March 15, 2013
Ready for some good news about the environment?
Emissions of carbon dioxide in the United States are declining. But don't
celebrate just yet. A major side effect of that cleaner air in the U.S. has
been the further darkening of skies over Europe and Asia.
The United States essentially is exporting a
share of its greenhouse gas emissions in the form of coal, data show. If the
trend continues, the dramatic changes in energy use in the United States—in
particular, the switch from coal to newly abundant natural gas for generating
electricity—will have only a modest impact on global warming, observers warn.
The Earth's atmosphere will continue to absorb heat-trapping CO2, with a
similar contribution from U.S. coal. It will simply be burned overseas instead
of at home.
"Switching from coal to gas only saves
carbon if the coal stays in the ground," said John Broderick, lead author
of a study on the issue by the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research at
England's Manchester University. (Related Quiz: "What You Don't Know About Electricity")
The U.S. Energy Information Administration
(EIA) released data this week showing that United States coal exports hit a record 126 million
short tons in 2012, a 17 percent increase over the previous year.
Overseas shipments surpassed the previous high mark set in 1981 by 12 percent.
The United States clearly is using less coal: Domestic consumption fell by
about 114 million tons, or 11 percent, largely due to a decline in the use of
coal for electricity. But U.S. coal production fell just 7 percent. The United
States, with the world's largest coal reserves, continued to churn out the most
carbon-intensive fuel, producing 1 billion tons of coal from its mines in 2012.
Emissions Sink
The EIA estimates that due largely to the drop
in coal-fired electricity, U.S. carbon emissions from burning fossil fuel
declined 3.4 percent in 2012. If the numbers hold up, it will extend the
downward trend that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) outlined
last month in its annual greenhouse gas inventory, which found greenhouse gas emissions in 2011 had fallen 8
percent from their 2007 peak to 6,703 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent (a
number that includes sources other than energy, like methane emissions from
agriculture). In fact, if you don't count the recession year of 2009, U.S.
emissions in 2011 dropped to their lowest level since 1995.
President Barack Obama counted the trend among
his environmental accomplishments in his State of the Union address last month:
"Over the last four years, our emissions of the dangerous carbon pollution
that threatens our planet have actually fallen."
The reason is clear: Coal, which in 2005
generated 50 percent of U.S. electricity, saw its share erode to 37.4 percent
in 2012, according to EIA's new short-term energy outlook. An increase
in U.S. renewable energy certainly played a role; renewables climbed in those
seven years from 8.7 percent to 13 percent of the energy mix, about half of it
hydropower. But the big gain came from natural gas, which climbed from 19
percent to 30.4 percent of U.S. electricity during that time frame, primarily
because of abundant supply and low prices made possible by hydraulic
fracturing, or fracking. (Related: "Natural Gas Stirs Hope and Fear in Pennsylvania"
and interactive, "Breaking Fuel From the Rock")
The trend appears on track to continue, with
U.S. coal-fired plants being retired at a record pace.
But U.S. coal producers haven't been standing
still as their domestic market has evaporated. They've been shipping their fuel
to energy-hungry markets overseas, from the ports of Norfolk, Baltimore, and New Orleans.
Although demand is growing rapidly in Asia—U.S. coal exports to China were on
track to double last year—Europe was the biggest customer, importing more U.S.
coal last year than all other countries combined. The Netherlands, with
Europe's largest port, Rotterdam, accepted the most shipments, on pace for a 24
jump in U.S. coal imports in 2012. The United Kingdom, the second largest
customer, saw its U.S. coal imports jump more than 70 percent. (Related: "Natural Gas A Weak Weapon Against Climate Change, Study Says")
The hike in European coal consumption would
appear to run counter to big government initiatives across the Continent to cut
CO2 emissions. But in the European Union, where fracking has made only its
initial forays and natural gas is still expensive, American coal is, well, dirt
cheap. (Related: "U.K. Dash for Gas a Test for Global Fracking")
European utilities are now finding that
generating power from coal is a profitable gambit. In the power industry, the
profit margin for generating electricity from coal is called the "clean
dark spread"; at the end of December in Great Britain, it was going for
about $39 per megawatt-hour, according to Argus. By contrast, the profit margin for
gas-fired plants—the "clean spark spread"—was about $3. Tomas Wyns,
director of the Center for Clean Air Policy-Europe, a nonprofit organization in
Brussels, Belgium, said those kinds of spreads are typical across Europe right
now.
The EU has a cap-and-trade carbon market, the
$148 billion, eight-year-old Emissions Trading System (ETS). But it's in the
doldrums because of a huge oversupply of permits. That's caused the price of
carbon to fall to about 4 euros ($5.23). A plan called "backloading"
that would temporarily extract allowances from the market to shore up the price
has faltered so far in the European Parliament. "A better carbon price
could make a difference" and even out the coal and gas spreads, Wyns said.
He estimates a price of between 20 and 40 euros would do the trick. "But a
structural change to the Emissions Trading System is not something that will
happen very quickly. A solution is years off."
The Tyndall Center study estimates that the burning
of all that exported coal could erase fully half the gains the United States
has made in reducing carbon emissions. For huge reserves of shale gas to help
cut CO2 emissions, "displaced fuels must be reduced globally and remain
suppressed indefinitely," the report said. (Related Quiz: "What You Don't Know About Natural Gas")
Future Emissions
It is not clear that the surge in U.S. coal
exports will continue. One reason for the uptick in coal-fired generation in
Europe has been the looming deadline for the EU's Large Combustion Plant
Directive, which will require older coal plants to meet lower emission levels
by the end of 2015 or be mothballed. Before that phaseout begins, Wyns says,
"there is a bit of a binge going on."
Also, economic factors are at work. Tyndall's
Broderick said American coal companies have been essentially selling surplus
fuel overseas at low profit margins, so there is a likelihood that U.S. coal
production will decrease further. The U.S. government forecasters at EIA expect
that U.S. coal exports will fall back to about 110 million tons per year over
the next two years, due to economic weakness in Europe, falling international
prices, and competition from other coal-exporting countries. The Paris-based
International Energy Agency (IEA) calls Europe's "coal renaissance" a temporary phenomenon; it
forecasts an increasing use of renewables, shuttering of coal plants, and a
better balance between gas and coal prices in the coming years.
But IEA does not expect that the global
appetite for coal will slacken appreciably. The agency projects that, by 2017,
coal will rival oil as the world's primary energy source, mainly because of
skyrocketing demand in Asia. (Related: "Pictures: A Rare Look Inside China's Energy Machine")
U.S. coal producers have made clear that they
aim to tap into that growing market.
Currently, U.S. exports to Asia are somewhat
constrained because there is little port capacity for big coal ships on the
U.S. West Coast, and because metallurgical coal, the high-heat content rock
that is used for steelmaking, is mined exclusively on the U.S. East Coast.
Nevertheless, demand for U.S. "met" coal is so great in Asia that the
shipments make a round-the-world journey from Appalachia. They are sent by train
to the port of Baltimore, where they steam to sea through the Chesapeake Bay,
then south across the Atlantic Ocean and around Africa's Cape of Good Hope to
reach Asian ports.
Whether U.S. exports to Asia expand will depend
largely on the fate of controversial proposals to expand port capacity in
Bellingham and Longview, Washington, and Corpus Christi, Texas. (Related:
"Seeking a Pacific Northwest Gateway for U.S. Coal"
) Those new ports would allow easier transport of the abundant coal of the
Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana, which is especially well suited for
generating electricity. Powder River Basin coal is prized because it is low in
sulfur and can cut acid rain emissions, but as with all coal, carbon dioxide
emissions remain a major problem.
John Eaves, chief executive officer of St.
Louis, Missouri-based Arch Coal, which saw the bulk of its exports last year go
to South Korea, told investors last month that the company would be proactive
in working to gain greater port capacity. Despite the low price currently
fetched for coal overseas, Eaves said the company expects the international
market to improve even as domestic demand for coal recedes. "As we look to
the U.S. over the next three to five years, let's face it, demand's going to be
pretty flat," he said. "We see exports as a long-term development
opportunity." (Related Interactive: "World Electricity Mix")
This story is part of a special series
that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great
Energy Challenge.
comment:
How utterly hypocritical is this.
We're saying coal is too dirty for us (in so many ways) but it's OK for
the rest of the world as long as the price is right. We should be transitioning from fossil fuels
as fast as possible... starting with coal. All exports should be banned or made
prohibitively expensive with a tax/tariff
which would be applied to development of clean energy. The fact is that while our own transition to
clean energy continues we will need dirty fossil fuels to facilitate that transition. We should make sure that during that period
the fossil fuels are used here at home.
comment:
If one were to follow the logic of this headline, the US doesn't have an
emissions problem, only the oil exporting countries. The article isn't all that bad. Of course, some won't understand this, but if
the Chinese didn't get their Met coal from the US, they would get it from
somewhere else.
If NG membership wasn't a gift, I don't believe I would pay for it
anymore. Instead of Geography, NG today
seems to be all about politically correct and progressive
environmentalism. I dare the editors to
run a story that shows man improving the human condition. Or run an article about extreme
environmentalism forcing billions of humans into lower standard of living and
millions dying as a result.
comment:
Back to reality;
1) Our world wide industrial economy was created with inexpensive, energy
rich fossil fuels. This coincided with an unprecedented rise in human living
standards, lifting billions out of subsistence poverty. We will never be able
to sustain that economy with windmills and solar cells. It's not politics pr
public policy, it's simple physics and chemistry.
2) Government meddling in the energy market to try to make fossil fuels
more expensive so that wind and solar are relatively less expensive is idiotic.
Whenever government tries to "help" by ham-handedly rigging markets
it always ends in disaster, as in the housing crash that was fueled largely by
government supported "hot money" creating a market bubble. Also, the
Fed pumping billions of QE dollars into Wall Street to create the stock market
bubble we now have that will soon explode.
Solar and wind will always remain marginal in the energy sector. Stop
wasting taxpayer money and bungling with the markets to prove otherwise.
Nuclear and natural gas are the future of energy, that's the reality of the
situation.
comment:
Explain the physics and chemistry that you speak of please because the
engineers in Germany, India, and around the world will disagree with you. All
of these multi-billion dollar firms with some of the smartest engineers in the
world have this crazy idea that we can generate electricity without greenhouse
emissions. Nations like Iceland that
are 100% renewable are trying to figure out what to do with the excess energy.
The United States is not as small as Iceland so the amount of energy the nation
needs will be greater so converting to a carbon free way of generation will
take us more time than smaller nations like Iceland or Denmark, but it will
happen. Natural gas is a great way to get cheap energy with lower emissions and
will help the United States in the near future. After what happened in Japan,
people will not want nuclear energy and it will lose public support until the
technology for it is safer. Wind accounted for more than half of the new
generating capacity that came online last year. I am going have to disagree
with you and your outdated ideas on generating electricity. Have you ever heard
of distributed generation? You will.
----------------
O CANADA- Akina Shirt – Cree Anthem singer – Calgary Flames Hockey
---------------
WE WILL
VOTE U OUT... NO FRACKING IN NOVA SCOTIA... USA HAS DESTROYED WHOLE COUNTRIES
WITH THEIR GREED 4 OIL AND MINERALS... NOT CANADA- Not Nova Scotia
Poll: N.S. wants
fracking ban kept
by
Sherri Borden Colley staff reporter
Published October 23, 2013 - 7:46pm
Published October 23, 2013 - 7:46pm
Results show 69% would need evidence of
process’s safety before moratorium lifted
Nova Scotians overwhelmingly support a
continued ban on fracking, according to a poll released Wednesday.
The poll, commissioned by the Nova Scotia
Fracking Resource and Action Coalition, the Council of Canadians and Sierra
Club Atlantic, found that 69 per cent of Nova Scotians strongly support or
support a continued moratorium on fracking, unless an independent review finds
there is no risk to drinking water, human health, the climate or communities.
“My impression from the different events … that
I’ve attended and just the feedback from people that I’ve spoken with and
corresponded with mostly by email, and even some of the provincial legislators,
the sense is there’s significant public opposition to fracking,” said the
coalition’s Mark Tipperman in an interview Wednesday.
“I think it just goes to show that as the facts
come out about fracking, people’s concern about fracking is growing.”
Tipperman is hopeful that the newly elected
Liberal government will keep in place a provincial moratorium on fracking,
which is a controversial method of extracting natural gas from shale rock.
“They more or less said that they would do that
in their platform so we certainly would hope that they would live up to their
platform,” he said.
The poll, conducted from Sept. 30 to Oct. 6,
during the last week of the provincial election campaign, found solid support
for a continued ban in all areas of the province — from a high of 72 per cent
in Cape Breton to 70 per cent in Halifax Regional Muncipality and Annapolis
Valley/South Shore, with 61 per cent in the northern part of the province.
Only 16 per cent opposed a continued
moratorium, with eight per cent opposed and eight per cent strongly opposed,
the results showed. Fifteen per cent had no opinion.
The margin of error for the survey is said to
be plus or minus 2.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Thirteen hundred people were polled by Abacus
Data.
The support crossed the political spectrum — 71
per cent of those committed to vote Liberal, 72 per cent NDP and PC, and 82 per
cent Green either strongly supported or supported a continued halt to fracking.
Support was equally strong among men and women, and held steady across all age
groups.
Cape Breton University president David Wheeler
is heading an independent review panel looking into fracking. Its report is
expected next year. Until then, all fracking in the province has been stopped.
In an interview Wednesday, newly minted Energy
Minister Andrew Younger, who previously served as energy critic for the
Liberals, said he is anticipating Wheeler’s review.
“Essentially, the previous government, by the
time we had the dying days before the election, the previous government pretty
much adopted our position and the bill that I had introduced,” Younger said.
“The bill I had introduced very early on was
that there would be an independent arm’s-length review of fracking that would
hear from Nova Scotians, would hear from experts and make recommendations.”
Just weeks before the election, the NDP
government agreed to the review and to put a moratorium in place during the
review period.
“There’s no fracking going on in the province;
there won’t be any in the foreseeable future because the review will be
underway,” Younger said.
“And one of the the reasons we wanted an
independent arm’s-length review is because we want to be open to hear what Nova
Scotians and what the technical panel and what the review says, so we’ll await
those results.”
Full poll results can be found at
nofrac.wordpress.com.
------------
old
soldiers never die...they soldier on
CANADA
I’ve been
called treacherous, stupid, venal, lazy ..and that’s only by the Tories. Peter
McKay
We’re not
the public service of Canada, we’re not just another department. We are the
Canadian Forces, and our job is to be able to kill people. Rick Hillier
When a
soldier steps on foreign soil in a high-risk environment, every single Canadian
should be walking with him or her. Rick Hillier
La terre
n`est pas un don de nos parents; ce sont nos enfants qui nos la prêtent. Land
isn’t a heritage from our parents: it’s a loan we owe to our children. Indian
Proverb
I am
rather inclined to believe that this is the land God gave to Cain. Jacques
Cartier
…when I
have been in Canada, I have never heard a Canadian refer to an American as a
“foreigner.” He is just an “American.” And, in the same way, in the United
States, Canadians are not “foreigners,” they are “Canadians.” That simple
little distinction illustrates to me better than anything else the relationship
between our two countries. ~1936. During a visit to Quebec City Franklin Delano
Roosevelt
Canada is
like your attic, you forget that it’s up there, but when you go, it’s like “Oh
man, look at all this great stuff!” Anonymous
Canada is
like a bird, it likes to soar freely Anonymous
Wherever
you go in the world, you just have to say you’re a Canadian and people laugh.
John Candy
Give me a
good canoe, a pair of Jibway snowshoes, my beaver, my family and ten thousand
square miles of wilderness and I am happy. Archie Belaney (Grey Owl)
Each
little Province is a little nation by itself Charles Tupper
If you
have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another chance for you.
What we call failure is not the falling down but the staying down. Mary
Pickford
There’s
something romantic about being Canadian. We’re a relatively unpopulated,
somewhat civilized and clean and resourceful country. I always push the fact
that I’m Canadian. k.d. Lang
Canadians
are more polite when they are being rude than Americans are when they are being
friendly. Edgar Friedenberg
How would
you like a job where, if you made a mistake, a big red light goes on and 18,000
people boo? Jacques Plante
Canada
and space are a natural fit. Marc Garneau
Britons
put up with, Americans fix, while Canadians cope. Margaret Mead
Canada is
the only country in the world that knows how to live without an identity.
Marshall McLuhan
I
understand that many newlyweds are vacationing here (Niagara Falls)I suppode
seeing the falls was their second biggest disappontment. Oscar Wilde
You
Canadians have given us such hope to carry on. We admire your bravery You are
the neighbour of such a rich, powerful country, and yet you don’t mind clashing
with them. Well, that gives us more confidence. Pedro Gutierrez
Canada is
one of the planet’s most comfortable, and caring, societies. The United Nations
Human Development Index cited the country as the most desirable place in the
world to live. This year a World Bank study named Canada the globe’s second
wealthiest society after Australia Time magazine
I think
we are globally minded …. we’ve learned how to play the game and observe
everything. Americans don’t do that … the English and the Americans tend to be
insular. Tom Cochrane
The
Liberals talk about a stable government but we don’t know how bad the stable is
going to smell. Tommy Douglas
----------------------
IDLE NO
MORE CANADA- millions and millions of
Canadians are taking our world back.... be4 all u dumbed down politicians of
all stripes steal and destroy all we have....
AND LOOK AT USA R GOOD EXAMPLE ON THIS DAY.... in ruins -
fracking-oil-coal... sweet jesus, mother mary and joseph...AND LOOK WHAT COAL
HAS DONE... RUINED SO MANY STATES RUINED??
-----------------
IDLE NO
MORE CANADA- millions and millions of
Canadians are taking our world back.... be4 all u dumbed down politicians of
all stripes steal and destroy all we have....
AND LOOK AT USA R GOOD EXAMPLE ON THIS DAY.... in ruins -
fracking-oil-coal... sweet jesus, mother mary and joseph...
-------------------
BLOGGED:
F**KING FRACKING killing our Planet- Say NO
Nova Scotia, Canada = like France and other countries-NS Give Fracking Water
back 2 the f**king Frackers/ HORROR STORIES- Australia,Russia, UK, USA, China-
POPE FRANCIS- WATER MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD- God is angry/FISH FARMS NOVA
SCOTIA- GET SOME RULES2PROTECT ENVIRONMENT
FEB. 2014- WE VOTED OUT TORY PREMIER- WE VOTED
OUT NDP PREMIER... AND IF THIS KEEPS UP WE WILL VOTE OUT LIBERAL PREMIER...
F**KING FRACKING WATER BACK 2 FRACKERS... AND KEEP UR FISH FARM POISON...
----------------
BLOGGED:
O CANADA: F**king Fracking- check
out Texas/ OILFIELDS??- Check out the mass creepy train accidents of Bakken Oil
-North Dakota- and they talk about Alberta?/ FISH FARMS NOVA SCOTIA- EWWW
either put them inland or get rid of them- they kill our fish and shellfish and
environment- how about stop protesting and actually start fixing ur own nations
environment
---------------
Posted by
Sandra Postel of National Geographic's Freshwater
Initiative in Water Currents on December 20, 2013
The Colorado River flows through the town of
Rifle in Garfield County, Colorado. Photo (taken 1972) by David Hiser, courtesy
of U.S. National Archives, Flickr/Creative Commons.
This week, more evidence came in that hydraulic
fracturing (or fracking) poses potentially serious risks to drinking water
quality and human health.
A team of researchers from the University of
Missouri found evidence of hormone-disrupting activity in water located near
fracking sites – including samples taken from the Colorado River near a dense
drilling region of western Colorado.
The Colorado River is a source of drinking
water for more than 30 million people.
The peer-reviewed study was published this week in the journal Endocrinology.
Fracking is the controversial process of blasting
water mixed with sand and chemicals deep underground at high pressure so as to
fracture rock and release the oil and gas it holds. It has made previously
inaccessible fossil fuel reserves economical to tap, and drilling operations
have spread rapidly across the country.
The University of Missouri team found that 11
chemicals commonly used in the fracking process are “endocrine disrupters” –
compounds that can affect the human hormonal system and have been linked to
cancer, birth defects, and infertility.
“More than 700 chemicals are used in the
fracking process, and many of them disturb hormone function,” said Dr. Susan
Nagel, associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and women’s health at the
University of Missouri School of Medicine and a co-author of the study, in a
news release.
“With fracking on the rise, populations may
face greater health risks from increased endocrine-disrupting chemical
exposure.”
The research team collected samples from ground
water and surface water from sites in Garfield County, Colorado, where fracking
fluids had accidentally spilled, as well as from the nearby Colorado River,
into which local streams and groundwater drain. They also took samples from
other areas of Garfield County where little drilling has taken place, as well
as from a county in Missouri where there had been no drilling at all.
They found that the samples from the spill site
had moderate-to-high levels of endocrine-disrupting activity, and the Colorado
River samples had moderate levels. The other two samples, taken from areas with
little or no drilling activity, showed low levels of endocrine-disrupting
activity.
The new findings add urgency to calls for
moratoriums on fracking until the risks have been fully assessed and
regulations and monitoring put in place to safeguard water supplies and public
health.
Due to the so-called “Halliburton loophole,”
the oil and gas industry is exempt from important requirements under the
federal Safe Drinking Water Act, and states have been slow to fill the
regulatory gap.
Colorado, in particular, should exercise the
utmost caution.
According to a report by Ceres, a Boston-based non-profit organization
that educates investors about corporate environmental risks, 92 percent of
Colorado’s shale gas and oil wells are located in “extremely high” water stress
regions, defined as areas in which cities, industries and farms are already
using 80 percent or more of available water.
Adding contamination risks to the high volume
of water fracking wells require – typically 4-6 million gallons per well –
argues strongly for a precautionary approach to future development
and a pause in existing production until the full range of environmental health
risks can be assessed.
But Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper has said the state will sue any city that bans
fracking within its borders. Indeed, in July 2012, the state sued the front-range town of Longmont, which had
issued such a ban.
A statement about the new findings of
endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in waters near fracking sites issued by
Concerned Health Professionals of New York, and posted here, concludes with this warning:
“These results, which are based on validated
cell cultures, demonstrate that public health concerns about fracking are
well-founded and extend to our hormone systems. The stakes could not be higher.
Exposure to EDCs has been variously linked to breast cancer, infertility, birth
defects, and learning disabilities. Scientists have identified no safe
threshold of exposure for EDCs, especially for pregnant women, infants, and
children.”
And environmental health expert Sandra Steingraber writes
in a letter posted at the same site:
“[I]t seems to me, the ethical response on the
part of the environmental health community is to reissue a call that many have
made already: hit the pause button via a national moratorium on high volume,
horizontal drilling and fracking and commence a comprehensive Health Impact
Assessment with full public participation.”
Related posts in Water Currents:
Sandra Postel is director of the Global Water
Policy Project, Freshwater Fellow of the National Geographic Society, and
author of several books and numerous articles on global water issues. She is
co-creator of Change the Course, the national freshwater
conservation and restoration campaign being piloted in the Colorado River Basin
-----------------------
Green Fracking? 5 Technologies for Cleaner
Shale Energy
Dusk falls at a hydraulic fracturing site in
northeastern Pennsylvania. New technologies aim to reduce fracking's impact on
land, water, and air.
PHOTOGRAPH BY JIM LO SCALZO, EPA
Patrick J. Kiger
Published March 19, 2014
It may seem strange to hear the words
"fracking" and "environmentally friendly" in the same
sentence.
After all, hydraulic fracturing, or fracking,
in which high-pressure chemically treated water is used to crack rock
formations and release trapped oil and gas, is a dirty term to many
environmentalists. Critics decry the practice for consuming vast amounts of fresh
water, creating toxic liquid waste, and adding to the atmosphere's greenhouse
gas burden, mostly because of increased risk of leaks of the potent
heat-trapping gas, methane. (See related quiz, "What You Don't Know About Natural Gas.")
James Hill, chief executive of the Calgary,
Alberta-based energy services firm GasFrac, is one of a handful of technology
pioneers determined to change that. Hill's company has introduced a new
fracking method that uses no water at all. Instead, GasFrac uses a gel made
from propane—a hydrocarbon that's already naturally present underground—and a
combination of what it says are relatively benign chemicals, such as magnesium
oxide and ferric sulfate, a chemical used in water treatment plants. Over the
past few years, GasFrac has used the process 2,500 times at 700 wells in Canada
and the United States.
"We're actually using hydrocarbons to
produce hydrocarbons," Hill said. "It's a cycle that's more
sustainable."
GasFrac is one of a growing number of
companies, including giant GE and the oil services firm Halliburton,
that are pioneering technological improvements to mitigate some of the
environmental downsides to the process that has spurred a North American energy
boom. (See Interactive, "Breaking Fuel From Rock.") Besides GasFrac's
water-free method, other companies are working on ways to use recycled frack
water or non-potable brine in fracking. Some are working on replacing harsh
chemicals used in the process with more benign mixtures, or to cleanse water
that's been used in fracking. Other innovators are looking to replace diesel-powered
drilling equipment with engines or motors powered by natural gas or solar
energy, and to find ways to find and seal leaks that allow methane, a potent
greenhouse gas, to escape.
Such efforts have even won cautious support
from some environmental activists, who've decided that it may be more realistic
to mitigate the consequences of fracking than to fight its use.
"Natural gas is a potential energy bounty
for the country, and development is probably inevitable," said Ben Ratner,
a project manager for the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund. (See related "Interactive: Breaking Fuel From Rock" and
"The Great Shale Gas Rush.") "That's why
we're investing our energy into doing everything, from science to policy to
working with companies, to maximize the potential climate advantage that gas
has over coal, and minimize the risk to public health and the environment. We
think natural gas can be an exit ramp from coal, but we have to do it
right." (See related, "U.S. Energy-Related Carbon Emissions Fall to an 18-Year Low,"
and Natural Gas Nation: EIA Sees U.S. Future Shaped by Fracking.")
Here are a few of the efforts to make fracking
greener:
Water-Free Fracking: GasFrac's fracking system, which uses a gelled fluid containing
propane, has other advantages besides eliminating the need for water, according
to Hill. Because the gel retains sand better than water, it's possible to get
the same results with one-eighth the liquid and to pump at a slower rate.
Because GasFrac says the amount of hydrocarbon in the gel is comparable to
what's in the ground, the fluid can simply merge into the flow being extracted
from the ground, eliminating the need to drain contaminated wastewater and haul
it away in trucks for disposal, usually at deep-well injection sites. "We
present a much smaller footprint," he said. (See related, "Fracking Waste Wells Linked to Ohio Earthquakes.")
Using Recycled Water or Brine: While fracking typically uses freshwater, industry researchers have
worked to perfect friction-reducing additives that would allow operators to use
recycled "gray" water or brine pumped from underground. Halliburton's
UniStim, which went on the market about a year
ago, can create a highly viscous fluid from any quality of water, according to
Stephen Ingram, the company's technology manager for North America. In
northeastern Canada, one producer has tapped into a deep subsurface saline water aquifer for a
portion of its supplies for hydraulic fracturing.
Eliminating Diesel Fumes: The diesel-powered equipment used in drilling and pumping wells can be
a worrisome source of harmful pollutants such as particulates, as well as
carbon emissions that contribute to global warming. And diesel fuel is
expensive. Last year, Apache, a Houston-based oil and gas operator, announced it would become the first company to
power an entire fracking job with engines using natural gas. In addition to
reducing emissions, the company cut its fuel costs by 40 percent. Halliburton
has introduced another innovation, the SandCastle vertical storage silo for the sand
used in fracking, which is powered by solar panels. The company also has
developed natural-gas-powered pump trucks, which Ingram said can reduce diesel
consumption on a site by 60 to 70 percent, resulting in "a sizable
reduction in both emissions and cost."
PHOTOGRAPH BY DENNIS DIMICK, NATIONAL
GEOGRAPHIC
Drainage water pours into a settling pond near
the booming oil fields of the Midland-Odessa region of West Texas.
Treating Wastewater: At hydraulic fracturing sites, the amount of wastewater typically far
exceeds the amount of oil produced. The fluid that returns to the surface through the
well bore is not only the chemically treated frack water, but water from the
rock formation that can contains brines, metals, and radionuclides. (See
related, "Forcing Gas Out of Rock With Water.")
That wastewater must be captured and stored on site, and then often is shipped
long distances to deep well injection underground storage facilities. There
have been few treatment options. But Halliburton has developed the CleanWave treatment system, which uses positively
charged ions and bubbles to remove particles from the water at the fracking
site. Last September, GE and its partner Memsys also tested a new on-site treatment system that allows the water
to be reused without being diluted with freshwater, by employing a desalination
process called membrane distillation. (See related Quiz: What You Don't Know About Water and Energy.
Plugging Methane Leaks: A major fracking concern has been whether companies are allowing a
significant amount of natural gas to escape, because methane—the main component
of natural gas—is a potent greenhouse gas, 34 times stronger than carbon
dioxide (CO2). A recent study concluded U.S. methane emissions are likely 50
percent higher than official government estimates. (See related, "Methane Emissions Far Worse Than U.S. Estimates.")
New U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations that go into effect next
year will require that all U.S. oil and gas sites have equipment designed to
cut a wide range of pollutants, a step that the agency expects will cut methane.
(See related, "Air Pollution From Fracked Wells Will Be Regulated Under New
U.S. Rules.")
Methane emissions from onshore oil and natural
gas production could be reduced by 40 percent by 2018, at a cost that's the
equivalent of just one cent per thousand cubic feet of natural gas produced,
concludes a just-released study, conducted by Fairfax,
Va.-based consulting firm ICF International for the Environmental Defense Fund.
EDF's Ratner said that inspectors equipped with infrared cameras can spot leaks
at fracking sites, which can then be plugged. "The cameras cost about
$80,000 to $100,000 apiece," he noted. "But that can pay for itself,
because the more leaks you fix, the more gas you have to sell." (See
related blog post: "Simple Fixes Could Plug Methane Leaks From Energy
Industry, Study Finds.")
Another improvement that can reduce methane
emissions: Replacing conventional pressure-monitoring pneumatic controllers,
which are driven by gas pressure and vent gas when they operate. A U.S.-wide
move to lower-bleed designs could reduce emissions by 35 billion cubic feet
annually. And switching out conventional chemical injection pumps used in the
fracking process, which are powered by gas pressure from the wells, and
replacing them with solar-powered pumps, operators could eliminate an 5.9
billion cubic feet of methane emissions annually, the EDF report concludes.
The Cost-Benefit Equation
Some solutions do not require advanced
technology. A study released Wednesday by the Boston-based Clean Air Task Force
suggests that almost all of the methane leaks from the oil and gas
infrastructure could be reduced at relatively little expense, often by simply
tightening bolts or replacing worn seals.
A number of greener fracking technologies
already are being implemented, according to industry officials. But one
obstacle is economic. The newer, more environmentally friendly technologies
generally cost more than the legacy equipment they would replace. Extracting natural
gas with water-free fracking, for example, could cost 25 percent more than
conventional fracking, according to David Burnett, a professor of petroleum
engineering at Texas A&M University who heads that school's Environmentally
Friendly Drilling Systems Program. He said that switching fracking
equipment from diesel to natural gas is the innovation that's catching on most
rapidly, because it provides a clear economic benefit as well as helping to
lower carbon emissions. With the rising cost of renting fracking rigs,
companies are eager to find improvements that will reduce their costs, he said.
Green fracking is "the same as with any
industry—if you come out with a game-changing technology, you can get in the
market first and ride that," Burnett said. (See related, "Can Natural Gas Bring Back U.S. Factory Jobs?")
But Halliburton's Ingram said that innovations such
as chemical treatments to make brine usable will drop in price as the
technology is perfected. "Eventually it will become the lower-cost
chemistry," he said.
A more difficult hurdle might be overcoming
what Ingram calls "sociopolitical constraints" around the country.
One major issue that reduces incentives to invest in green fracking
innovations: the generally low price of freshwater. (See related, "Water Demand for Energy to Double by 2035.")
This story is part of a special series
that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great
Energy Challenge.
------------------
BLOGS
-----------
BLOGGED:
CANADA MILITARY NEWS APRIL 2014- AFGHANS BRING PRIDE 2 NATO TROOPS AND
AFGHAN TROOPS AND POLICING APRIL 5, 2014- they are rising up and defiant and
proud showing the world how 2 be free at last- no taliban gonna take their
world no more... no way- Whilst UN, EU,USA, Canada politicians hijack our world
and turn humanity in2 ashes-Ukraine4oil.... Afghanistan rises us up/DAILY
UPDATES AFGHANISTAN
BLOGGED:
SAD COMMENTARY OF OUR WORLD- Half the educated on planet no jobs- other
half no food- and world is abuzz on Crimea while Syria eats itself and women
reduced 2... still nothing- we need a new world order that's not 80%male and
white don't u think
BLOGGED:
FREEDOM ROARS BABY EDWARD SNOWDEN-SUPERSTAR... FREEDOM ROARS..... F**K the
free world who refused 2 help the freedom of each of us... only Russia had the
guts2 step up.... we will remember. hugs and love Edward Snowden... hugs and
love... AND 2 our troops- 2Da Canada finishes in Afghanistan- Afghan Women and
Children matter 2
BLOGGED:
SOCHI WINTER PARALYMPICS 2014-MOTHER RUSSIA-U HONOUR OUR WORLD-Brilliant
Incredible Talent- u rattle my heart with ur talent among world's best athletes
-SOCHI! SOCHI! SOCHI! / CBC/AMI will telecast opening etc- Go Canada Go- DAILY
UPDATES- u raise us up
BLOGGED:
Crimean War-- Nova Scotia's William Nelson Edward Hall Victoria
Cross-Halifax has only monument 2 honour/Nations of War- u all need 2
behave/CANADA'S CRIMEA HISTORY-DAILY UPDATES
BLOG:
UNITED NATIONS:-Environment u????-
7 BILLION PEOPLE are destroying our planet- all nations must pay and $$$
participate not just country with 36 Million iddy biddy population- u can't
even make women equal in 2013- seriously??
BLOG:
CANADA MILITARY NEWS: Aug9/GLOBAL
EPIDEMIC HOMELESS- JOBLESS- because Money lenders-banker Billionaires greed
stole our planet n r everyday life-We need 2 fix- Afghanistan -election april 5
2014
--------------
BLOGGED:
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH GLOBALLY- SHAME
ON CANADA/ USA/EU/UN/NATO– u stand by and watch billions slaughtered starved
and destroyed every damm day… 2014- women are NOT even equal- who are u 2 judge
others with ur dirty hands…
-----------
BLOGGED
CANADA'S ENVIRONMENT BEING QUESTIONED BY UN?- seriously how about Golden
Five - Russia, USA, China, Japan and India- who are pure toxic... and will
never sign anything???- seriously u have audacity 2 approach Canada and NOT
Golden Five?
-------------------
not keen on Greenpeace and many environmental groups... they say kill a few
billion people and all the children... SERIOUSLY... they are violent... and
rich... why can so many everyday people quietly respect and honour our
environment and many have over 50 years... yet these rich, spoilt and
privledged few... destroy public property, ruin and have so little regard 4
humanity?
BLOGGED:
Why is Sea Shepherd, Greenpeace and PETA- sooooooo heavily funded???... and
so violent?- 60% world youth have no jobs, economy in tatters- 3 billion
children women starving abject poverty- u must change
BLOGGED:
F**KING FRACKING killing our Planet- Say NO Nova Scotia, Canada = like
France and other countries-NS Give Fracking Water back 2 the f**king Frackers/
HORROR STORIES- Australia,Russia, UK, USA, China- POPE FRANCIS- WATER MORE
PRECIOUS THAN GOLD- God is angry/FISH FARMS NOVA SCOTIA- GET SOME RULES2PROTECT
ENVIRONMENT
BLOGGED:
BLOGGED:
SOCHI WINTER PARALYMPICS 2014- March 7-16 /F**K all the hate and talk of
wars- bring on the games that inspire us children around the world.
blogged:
BLOGGED:
SWEET JESUS, MOTHER MARY AND JOSEPH- Canada’s 221 Olympians of Sochi 2014
honour us each and all- WHILST STUPIDITY REIGNS POLITICALLY FROM ALL PARTIES-
Shame Justin- NDP no better- and Tories Where the hell were u??? Justin Ukraine
matters- Russia matters-we all matter
BLOGGED:
CANADA MILITARY NEWS: Nov25- FISH FARMING KILLING our fish, water, soil-
and cost NDP Nova Scotia an election
BLOGGED:
NOVA SCOTIA- check out all the cool environment stuff going on in our
communities- gittin r done- Annapolis Valley Regional Library- tutoring on
line/WE DAY 4 r Youth Nov 27- From Martin Sheen, Martin Luther King III,
Classified- Free the Children- come visit Nova Scotia baby
BLOGGED:
UNITED NATIONS:-Environment u????- 7 BILLION PEOPLE are destroying our planet-
all nations must pay and $$$ participate not just country with 36 Million iddy
biddy population- u can't even make women equal in 2013- seriously??
BLOGGED
CANADA MILITARY NEWS: Sep 16-Canada right on Syria/ISRAEL/Feminists means
all are equal- it's time UN Voted women equal/Bullycides-Bullying/News
(FishFarmsFromHell)
BLOGGED:
CANADA- US Activits rap Keyston BUT LEAVE DIRTY COAL BEHIND??? Canada is
only No. 9 On energy out of 10 countries-what's up with that
BLOGGED:
IDLE NO MORE CANADA-July 209- Mi'kmaq history-Eskasoni's Goat Island-back
in time/ ANCIENT MI'KMAQ CUSTOMS- Shaman's Revelations- before the Europeans
BLOGGED:
CANADA MILITARY NEWS JUNE 26- Come Visit Nova
Scotia-History-Culture-Music..jazz,blues,
hiphop-rap-folk-humour-country-kitchen/Check out or cultures and the fun 4 all
ages and disabilities- we'd love 2 have u visit... enjoy. Always, God bless our
troops.
BLOGGED:
IDLE NO MORE CANADA- Can 10,000 Aboriginals peoples of Canada languages be
saved? Learning about Canada's 10,000 First Peoples culture 4 kids-Canada fun-
FED.GOV.2003- see nothing changes much 4 our First People of
Canada-talk,talk,talk
BLOGGED:
CANADA MILITARY NEWS: Nov26-SEALS- IDLE NO MORE CANADA- FREE TRADE THIS
CANADA: Every four or five days Europe kills more animals for their fur than
the entire annual Canadian hunt does in a year
BLOGGED:
IDLE NO
MORE CANADA-USA-MEXICO-AUSTRALIA-NEW ZEALAND- Suicides- Residential (boarding)
School Assimilation- 1800s- 1900s- here's the facts- our First People Matter,
10,000 years
--------------------
Lab that found virus in B.C. salmon stripped of
credentials after audit
ANDREA
WOO
VANCOUVER
– The Globe and Mail
Published
Wednesday, Jul. 03 2013, 9:29 PM EDT
Last
updated Wednesday, Jul. 03 2013, 9:32 PM EDT
————
BLOGGED:
CANADA
MILITARY NEWS JULY 7: Nova Scotia Black Battalion honered/Rembering r troops/Canada/Nova
Scotia-come visit/Salmon Virus-BC company nailed- PAGE 1
CANADA
MILITARY NEWS JULY 6: Afghanistan 2 Nova Scotia/Global News Canada Style/ Nova
Scotia history- come visit- and always...troop love
————
IDLE NO
MORE CANADA
Keji’s
precious petroglyphs get protection
BEVERLEY
WARE SOUTH SHORE BUREAU
bware@herald.ca
@CH_Warewithall
LIVERPOOL
— Parks Canada says it has stepped up protection of the fading petroglyphs in
Kejimkujik National Park.
People
are now prohibited from visiting the site, which has the largest concentration
of petroglyphs in eastern North America, and anyone found in the restricted
area without permission can be fined $227, park superintendent
Keji site
sacred place for Mi’kmaq
Parks
Canada officials committed to protecting important ‘cultural resource’
Eric Le
Bel said Wednesday.
Park
wardens can also issue a $457 fine against anyone caught defacing the etchings.
“This
cultural resource is very, very important and protection of that cultural
resource is very important,” Le Bell said. “We take it very seriously.”
He is
renewing and adding more signs, both on land and in the water, denoting the
petroglyphs as a protected site. This is being done because they are concerned
about people walking on the etchings or dragging their cano es over them when
they come ashore.
The
problems facing the petroglyphs came to light recently at a National Aboriginal
Day event held at White Point Resort when Mi’kmaq elder Todd Labrador, a former
guide at Keji who used to patrol the protected site, said humans and nature are
taking their toll on the rock carvings.
“I’d
really like to see the protection improved,” Labrador said. “It’s a valuable
place for us; it’s a sacred place.”
Even when
he was a guide, he said people would sneak in, walk over the images and
inadvertently scratch them with their shoes while others would deliberately
scrawl their names and the date of their visit on the rocks.
“I don’t
know what it is but people see graffiti and they’ve just got to add their own,”
said Rob Ferguson, a retired Parks Canada archeologist.
He
witnessed the damage for himself during a 1989 visit when he saw that someone
had scratched a name and the date across a petroglyph.
Ferguson
said he didn’t see it as a “nasty” or “malicious” act. Rather, he feels it’s a
lack of respect and not appreciating the value of the images.
A number
have faded considerably since he first saw them in 1980.
“Some you
can hardly see now,” he said.
Given
that they’re about 200 years old, he predicted they will be gone within the
next few decades.
Some of
the damage and fading is from natural causes, such as scouring from spring ice
and rain. Le Bel said the petroglyphs are currently underwater because of the
recent rain.
The park
conducts daily tours for up to 2 5 people who must remove their shoes and
jewelry, and also has a children’s program that teaches Mi’kmaq culture and the
importance of the petrogly phs.
“We’re
taking good care of them because there are very fragile resources,” Le Bel
said.
Ferguson
said most of the carvings are fine lines barely etched in to the soft slate,
which makes them “fairly delicate” and vulnerable to wear.
They are
sophisticated and “really complex,” but he said many people don’t realize they
are not ancient .
“At most,
they’re 18th century, though the vast majority are 19th century,” Ferguson
said.
Researchers
know that because many of the etchings have dates. The first recorded date is
in the 1880s. The most common date is 18 7 7.
“They
don’t have to be old to be valuable records,” Ferguson said.
For the
most part, they record the daily life of the Mi’kmaq, providing valuable
insight into the culture, traditions and clothing.
That’s
important, Ferguson said, because there are no records of the colonial period
from the Mi’kmaq themselves.
Ferguson
helped record the etchings several years ago. The copies of the etchings he
helped make already provide a much clearer image than the petroglyphs
themselves, Le Bel said.
Ferguson
said the team used very fine brushes to go over the fading etched lines with
white paint, working through the night with flash lights and magnifying lens
es.
The
images were then photographed and traced on to mylar.
Ferguson
said Parks Canada also made “beautifully detailed” rubber moulds using a
solution of dish detergent and water that created a molecular layer over the
rock and allowed the silicone compound to adhere. The solution then washed away
without doing any harm to the site.
But those
moulds will also deteriorate in time, so Ferguson said they were put in huge
tanks and electro plated.
When the
petroglyphs have completely faded away, those copper plates will provide a
lasting image.
The
tracings, moulds and plates are kept in a controlled environment in Parks
Canada’s conservation lab in Dartmouth.
With every
etching from the site is now documented, Ferguson said, “We have a pretty darn
good record of what’s on those rocks.”
Matthew
Labrador went to the site with his father, Todd, when he was a child. As an
adult, he also became an interpreter and patrolled the protected area.
He said
he feels a spiritual connection to his ancestors when he places his hand over
the handprints traced into the rocks by those who came before him.
But he
said he can now barely see the outlines of some of the images he looked at as a
child.
April
Hiltz said when she touches her feet to the soil where her ancestors trod, she
feels connected to her culture.
“It is
part of who I am, it’s part o f our family history and it is home. It’s
definitely home,” Hiltz said.
She hopes
all Nova Scotians appreciate the treasure of Keji and its value to Mi’kmaq
people.
—————–
Clean Coal Test: Power
Plants Prepare to Capture Carbon
Can coal be cleaned up? Power plants in
Mississippi and Canada will soon find out.
A 210-foot-tall carbon dioxide absorber is
moved to Southern Company's Kemper, Mississippi, power plant site.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MISSISSIPPI POWER
Robert Kunzig in Meridian, Mississippi
Published March 31, 2014
In Juliette, Georgia, Southern
Company operates a coal-fired power plant that is the single
largest source of planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions in the
United States.
In Kemper County, Mississippi, the same company
is pioneering a technology that many experts believe will be crucial to
preventing a climate disaster: It's building the world's first new
power plant designed to capture and store most of its carbon.
Carbon
capture and storage, or CCS, has been hailed for decades by some as
an essential solution to the climate problem, and pilloried by others as
unworkable and a dangerous distraction. This year, at last, it will be tested
at full commercial scale. (See related, "Can Coal Ever Be Clean?" and photo
gallery, "The Visible Impacts.")
The test ground won't be only a new power plant
in Mississippi. It also will be about 1,600 miles north of here, in
Saskatchewan, Canada, where a public utility is attempting to show that an old
coal-fired power plant can be cleaned up. SaskPower has almost finished retrofitting one
110-megawatt unit of its Boundary Dam Power Station to capture 90 percent
of the CO2 before it flies out the smokestack. In Saskatchewan as in
Mississippi, the CO2 will be pumped underground into a partially depleted oil
field and—after it has helped squeeze valuable oil to the surface—stored there
indefinitely.
The battle to forestall climate change,
President Barack Obama said in a speech last summer, requires us "to put an
end to the limitless dumping of carbon pollution from our power plants."
But because coal is one of the cheapest ways to fuel electricity, with abundant
stores all around the world, global carbon pollution is growing. (See related
"Quiz: What You Don't Know About Electricity.")
Over the next two decades, when science says aggressive steps must be taken to
curb greenhouse gas emissions, several hundred million people in the world will
be getting electricity for the first time—and a lot of it will be fueled by
coal. Many believe the world won't be able to stop drastic climate change
without a technology for curbing emissions from the cheapest, most-carbon
intensive fuel. (See related "Quiz: What You Don't Know About Climate Change Science.")
In February, construction was nearing
completion at Kemper. The facility expects to go on line by the end of this
year.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MISSISSIPPI POWER
In the vanguard of the effort is a company that
has always fought mandated government limits on CO2.
In 2009, Southern Company lobbied hard against the climate bill passed by
the House of Representatives—which died the following year in the Senate—on the
grounds that it would have raised energy prices too much. It is now opposing
regulations, promised by Obama and proposed in January by the Environmental
Protection Agency, that would require new power plants to capture roughly half
their CO2. (See related story: "As U.S. Cleans Its Energy Mix, It Ships Coal Problems Abroad.")
But in Mississippi, Southern is building a
plant designed to capture 65 percent of its CO2—a coal plant that would be as
clean as the cleanest natural-gas-fired one. After delays and cost overruns
that have doubled its price tag to more than $5 billion, the 582-megawatt Kemper
plant is scheduled to go online late this year. That would put it among the
larger U.S. coal plants. When fully operational, it is designed to provide
power for 165,000 Mississippi homes and businesses. Ratepayers will shoulder
much of the cost, and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has contributed $270
million. But Southern's shareholders have already absorbed a loss of more than
$1.1 billion on the project.
"Southern has definitely been one of the
more resistant" companies to federal carbon restrictions, said Sally Benson, a Stanford University researcher
and expert on carbon storage. "Yet look what they're doing [at Kemper].
They've really gone out on a limb. It's a fantastic thing."
"A Lot of Pots and Pans"
Twenty miles north of Meridian on highway 493,
the thing itself rises like a fantastic industrial castle from the pinewoods
and cow pastures of eastern Mississippi. "If you were driving here a few
years ago, you were either hunting or lost," said Jeff Shepard, a
spokesman for Mississippi Power, a Southern subsidiary. Now you're almost
certainly headed to the Kemper County Energy Facility. A sea of parked cars
separates it from the highway; more than 5,000 construction workers are mostly
hidden inside, putting the finishing touches on a bewildering mass of pipes,
silos, tanks, and domes.
"We're taking coal and converting it into
gas to burn in a gas turbine," said Randall Rush, a chemical engineer from
Southern's research facility in Wilsonville,
Alabama. "That takes a lot of pots and pans."
As one tours the site with Rush and his
colleagues, the maze of piping gradually becomes penetrable—as do Southern's
reasons for building it in this corner of Mississippi. Mississippi Power owns
42 square miles (109 square kilometers) of land around the Kemper plant. Under
that land, at a depth of 25 feet to 125 feet (8 to 38 meters), lies a 9-foot
(2.7-meter) thick seam of lignite—part of an enormous formation that arcs out
of Mexico through Texas and Louisiana.
Lignite and other low-rank coals make up half the
world's coal reserves, but not many American power plants use them. Lignite has
high ash and water and low heat content. (See related, "Germany Plans to Raze Towns for Brown Coal and Cheap Energy.")
But at the Wilsonville lab, with support from the DOE, Southern has spent nearly
two decades perfecting a system for gasifying and burning lignite efficiently.
Kemper is its commercial debut.
On the south side of the power plant, at the
Liberty Mine, a giant dragline is already taking 86-cubic-yard
(65.7-cubic-meter) bites out of the countryside. From the edge of the pit,
trucks must drive only a few hundred yards to dump their loads of coal onto a
conveyor belt that carries it up and into the power plant. There the coal will
be crushed, dried—the Kemper lignite is 45 percent water—and pulverized to a
consistency "between beach sand and face powder," Rush said.
The coal grains will be blown at high pressure
into the gasifier—essentially a tall pipe. Swirling in steam and air, the coal
is heated to 1,800°F (982°C), but without enough oxygen to burn it completely.
That converts most of the coal into "syngas," which is mostly
hydrogen and carbon compounds, and the rest into ash.
The hydrogen will get burned in two gas
turbines-essentially jet engines strapped to the ground. "The thrust that
would make an airplane fly is used to turn a shaft and make electricity,"
Rush explained. "The gases that come out of that jet engine are hot, and
you recover that heat in a steam generator, and you use it to turn a shaft in a
steam turbine. So you're making electricity in two places."
A crane lifts one of Kemper's six CO2 absorbers
into place.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MISSISSIPPI POWER
Cleaning Up
That system, called an IGCC (for "integrated gasification combined
cycle"), makes burning syngas more efficient than burning coal directly.
But syngas is also easier to clean up. At Kemper, the "gas cleanup
unit" stands between the gasifier and the power block and a little to the
north. It will strip out most of the dust, 90 percent of the toxic mercury, and
99 percent of the hydrogen sulfide—all of which is required by existing Clean
Air Act regulations. It will also remove 65 percent of the CO2, even more than
would be required by regulations proposed by the EPA in January. (See
related, "Poland Hosts Climate Talks, While Boosting Coal Industry.")
CO2 capture was not part of the original plan
for Kemper. The plan was to remedy Mississippi Power's problem—an aging fleet
of power plants concentrated on the Gulf Coast, where one was damaged by
Hurricane Katrina—by tapping into the lignite at Kemper. "The CO2 was
added later," said Rush. That was in 2009, when it seemed likely that
Congress might pass a climate bill.
As it turns out, though, CO2 can be removed
from syngas with the same liquid solvent, Selexol, that strips out the sulfur; it just
takes more pots and pans. The basic principle is simple. You fill a tall tank
with packing material, said Rush, to increase the surface area where gas and
solvent meet. You pour Selexol in at the top and pump syngas into the bottom at
600 pounds per square inch—about 20 times the pressure in car tires. Under high
pressure, the CO2 dissolves in the Selexol as it does in Coke. When you release
the pressure, it's like popping the cap on a Coke bottle—the CO2 comes bubbling
out in pure form.
JOHN TOMANIO AND ALEXANDER STEGMAIER, NGM
STAFF. art: Álvaro Valiño (TOP). Sources: howard herzog, MIT; U.S. Energy
Information Administration
The Kemper plant will capture 3.5 million
metric tons of CO2 a year and compress it to a liquid-like state. The energy
required to do that will use up the efficiency gained by the IGCC process. But
there's a bright side: Mississippi Power will actually sell the CO2, delivering
it by pipeline to Denbury
Onshore and another independent oil company. Those companies already
use CO2 for "enhanced oil recovery" at aging fields along the Gulf
Coast. Right now they mine their CO2 from a natural deposit near Jackson, a
hundred miles west of Kemper.
The Kemper plant will also sell 150,000 tons a
year of sulfuric acid to the Gulf Coast chemical industry, which is flourishing
these days because of cheap natural gas. The fracking boom has transformed the
electric power industry too; coal-fired plants all over the country have been
switching to natural gas. Since 2008, Southern has cut its reliance on coal in
half, from 69 percent to 36 percent of its generating capacity. Mississippi
Power already generates 75 percent of its power from gas.
The Sierra Club, which strongly opposes the
Kemper project—"It's dirty, it's expensive, and it's unnecessary,"
said Louie Miller, the Club's state director—argues that the state as a whole
has excess generating capacity and that Mississippi Power, which serves
southern Mississippi, could have bought an existing natural gas plant at a
fraction of the cost of building Kemper. To help pay for the plant, in the
poorest state in the nation, the utility has already raised rates 18
percent—about $270 a year for its average customer. It expects to ask for
another hike of 4 to 6 percent next year. Miller predicts more rate hikes will
follow.
Southern says it doesn't want to rely too much
on natural gas, which has a history of volatile prices. At Kemper, Southern
owns the lignite and has a long-term contract with North
American Coal to extract it. The price is stable and cheap. In fact,
said Southern start-up manager David Hardin, with revenues of at least $50
million a year expected from the sale of CO2 and other byproducts, "it's
almost like the fuel is free."
There are 600 million tons of lignite at
Kemper, more than three times as much as the plant will burn in its 40-year
lifetime. "Maybe somewhere down the road we'll want to put in another
facility that burns lignite," Hardin said.
The conveyer belt will carry lignite from the
adjacent mine into the Kemper plant. The dome on the right protects a few days'
supply of coal from Mississippi rains.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MISSISSIPPI POWER
Boundary Dam
The view from southern Saskatchewan is similar.
"We sit on top of a 300-year supply of coal," said SaskPower CEO
Robert Watson. But the regulatory outlook is clearer.
Under Canadian regulations that will take
effect in July 2015, any new coal-fired plant, and any existing one that's at
least 50 years old, can emit no more than about 925 pounds of CO2 per
megawatt-hour. (EPA's proposed limit is 1,100 pounds per megawatt-hour for new
plants; Kemper will emit around 800 pounds.) When a Canadian power plant turns
50, it must either be shut down or start capturing carbon.
The Boundary Dam station consists of six
separate units that burn pulverized lignite. SaskPower shut down the oldest
unit last year and plans to close a second one. Unit 3 will turn 50 in 2017.
"We had to do a major reno or shut it down," Watson said. "We
determined it would be the perfect unit to try out new technology."
Gasifying the coal and capturing the CO2 before
combustion was not an option; that would have required an entirely new plant
like Kemper. SaskPower will do its cleanup after the coal is burned. Because
CO2 is less concentrated and at much lower pressure in smokestack gases than it
is in syngas, it won't spontaneously dissolve into a liquid solvent. SaskPower
will use a solvent called an amine that reacts with CO2 chemically and grabs it
out of the air.
That process had been considered more costly,
but the technology has been improving. SaskPower claims it will actually spend
less energy capturing CO2 than Kemper will—with a technology that can be
applied to existing coal plants, not just fancy new IGCCs. And SaskPower aims
to capture 90 percent of the CO2, from that one unit at least, to bring its
emissions downs to about 330 pounds per megawatt hour. That's "far better
than any other fossil fuel unit around," Watson said.
Mississippi Power owns 42 square miles of land
and 600 million tons of lignite around the Kemper plant.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MISSISSIPPI POWER
The CO2 will be sold to Canadian oil company
Cenovus Energy and injected into the Weyburn oil field in Saskatchewan. That
field has been the site of a long-running experiment in carbon storage
monitored by the Paris-based International Energy Agency. So far no major leaks
or other problems have been reported.
The renovation of Boundary Dam Unit 3 is
costing about $1.2 billion, of which the Canadian government is paying close to
20 percent. Like Southern, SaskPower hopes to sell its technology overseas,
especially in China. "We think we will show a model to the world,"
Watson said, "to allow companies to keep burning coal, but do it cleaner.
Everybody agrees we've got to clean it up." (See related, "Harbin Smog Crisis Highlights China's Coal Problem,"
and "Coal Burning Shortens Lives in China, New Study Shows.")
Adequately Demonstrated?
The amine process that SaskPower is relying on
is not new; it has been widely used in other industries. It has also been
successfully tested at a Southern Company plant near Mobile, Alabama. As of
last fall, Southern had stored 100,000 metric tons of CO2 underground. Like
other companies in the industry, though, Southern opposes EPA's efforts to
require carbon capture and storage on the grounds that the technology has not
been "adequately demonstrated," as the Clean Air Act requires.
There is much debate about what that term
means. "'Adequately demonstrated' doesn't mean it has to have been run at
commercial scale," said Howard Herzog, senior research engineer and carbon
capture specialist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "If it's been
shown to work at pilot plants, it's adequately demonstrated. As far as the
capture goes, there's no doubt that the technology is here today. It's
demonstrated that it will work."
What's still uncertain is the long-term cost of
CCS—and that's why the two plants that are coming online this year are so
important. The new Boundary Dam unit will be switched on this summer, Watson
said. Mississippi Power expects to start making syngas at Kemper in June, and
to connect to the grid by the end of the year. A half-million-ton pile of coal
is already mined and waiting.
"Psychologically it's very important for
Kemper to work," said Herzog. "But the Boundary Dam is probably a
truer test of how carbon capture can be adapted to the marketplace."
"You've got to give Southern credit though—they
really are trying to push the technology. From an engineering viewpoint,
Boundary Dam was a much simpler project. This is a very ambitious project
Southern is doing. I'm hoping they're going to pull it off." (See related
interactive map: "Four Ways to Look at Global Carbon Footprints.")
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