The Gulf of Mexico has a a large number of offshore oil and gas wells connected to the mainland by a welter of pipelines. The Biden administration, through the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, plans to issue leases in two areas of the Gulf of Mexico for offshore wind development next summer. One is about 91 miles off Lake Charles, Louisiana and the second is 29 miles off the coast of Galveston, Texas. Lake Charles is home to many oil refineries, petrochemical plants, and fertilizer factories, which have made it one of the most polluted cities in the US and a major contributor to carbon emissions.
Fossil Fuels & Offshore Wind The fossil fuel industry has heard about offshore wind. In fact, many of the techniques used to drill for oil and gas at sea can be also be used to build offshore wind installations. It has also heard that there are plans afoot around the world to co-locate electrolyzers on those offshore wind platforms to make hydrogen from the electricity they produce. And hey, you know what? That hydrogen can be piped ashore using the existing pipeline network, where it can be used in many of the industrial processes that already exist along the shore of the Gulf to help reduce harmful emissions
Typically a tree limb will hit a power line, which causes a short and a surge at substation which causes an auto resetting breaker to trip. If it’s a small enough limb , the voltage will burn up the limb or the force of the electricity will repel the limb.
Back at the substation auto resetting breaker will reclose and try again a few times to test if the momentary fault is corrected before finally shutting down the line until a technician can clear the fault.
“The more aggressive the temperature goal, the more important potent, short-lived greenhouse gases such as methane become,” says Rob Jackson, professor of energy and environment at Stanford University. In a new analysis with Abernethy, Jackson calculates that measured on a timeframe to the mid-2040s — the likely deadline for capping warming under the Paris Agreement — methane is three times more important than assumed under existing regulations.
“We are severely undervaluing methane,” says Abernethy. “We need drastic climate action in the short term to achieve our Paris Agreement goals. Methane is the best lever to make that happen.”
This will require action against not just leaks from oil and gas infrastructure, but also the many biogenic sources, such as landfills and livestock. But achieving that is being undermined by what Abernethy calls the “arbitrary and unjustified” timeframe under which regulators currently assess the gas.
Miles Hatfield was walking into his dining room when he felt the wooden floor give way. His legs dropped hip-deep into water that had pooled under the brick house in the green hills of eastern Kentucky where he had lived for the past 40 years, trapping him in his own floor.
Hatfield, a retired coal miner, raised two boys in the house a few miles from the West Virginia border and added on five rooms as his family grew. But the red water running off from the nearby Love Branch coal mine had turned his backyard into a marsh, ruined his septic system, and finally sucked him through his floor three years ago.
Love Branch used to be owned by one of the biggest coal companies in the U.S. Federal law requires companies to clean up the land when they finish mining — and Love Branch hasn't produced any coal in more than a decade. But the former owner, now named Alpha Metallurgical Resources Inc., transferred the mine and its cleanup obligations to a smaller company in 2018, the year before Hatfield fell through his floor.
World leaders will begin climate talks in Egypt in a little over a week, and tensions are expected to run high in the negotiations to reduce heat-trapping emissions.
Now, new research shows the world has already fallen drastically behind in adopting the changes needed to avoid a future with even more extreme storms, heat waves and floods.
Collectively, countries have promised to reduce heat-trapping emissions by about 3% by 2030, compared to 2020 levels. That's far from the 45% drop that's needed, according to a new report from the United Nations Environment Program.