“In the wake of the BP spill,” cautions Brian Merchant, “there are numerous calls for ramping up clean energy.”

[And,] as we have seen with the BP spill, governmental regulations aren’t always capable of preventing worst-case scenarios from unfolding. Private industry, given the opportunity, will sometimes cut corners.

Thus, while favoring a move away from petroleum, the Brooklyn Treehugger advises that we exercise caution with the alternatives to which we switch.

Now that British Petroleum has despoiled the Gulf Coast and is well on its way to do same in the Arctic, we see it and other corporations wanting to seize the opportunity to destroy our drinking water. The despoilers present their new business opportunity with nicely packaged proposals and a proper amount of environmental consciousness.

The Internet provides 2 recent examples:

  1. For the Environmental Defense Fund, Brian Groosman relays announcement of a new report by Resources for the Future, “Toward a New National Energy Policy: Assessing the Options.” Groosman claims that the report provides a good basis for policy comparisons because it employs an “apples to apples” comparison approach by running differing policies through the same economic model and scoring them on the same two effectiveness metrics:“reduction in barrels of oil consumed and reduction in tons of CO2 emitted.”

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  2. Green Car Congress announces a major new interim report from MIT. The MIT report finds natural gas has significant potential to cut GHGs (Greenhouse Gas Emissions).

These reports suggest that natural gas is a good compromise with our fossil fuel masters in the short-term. The reports promise advantages from switching to natural gas; the advantages depend upon low-cost supply. The low-cost relies upon federal energy policy same as the old. GCC cites the MIT report as noting…

Environmental issues associated with producing unconventional gas resources are manageable but challenging. Risks include: Shallow freshwater aquifer contamination with fracture fluids; surface water contamination by returned fracture fluids; excessive demand on local water supply from fracturing operations; and surface and local community disturbance, due to drilling and fracturing activities.

 

This blog noted before that natural gas companies want to prevent oversight of fracking. Sarah Collins and Tom Kenworthy inform that the Safe Drinking Water Act loophole isn’t the only exemption natural gas producers enjoy. Natural gas drillers also are free from reporting the specific toxic chemicals used for fracking. If all of this sounds more than vaguely familiar, then you have paid attention to the ongoing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.