Energy

A walrus female and pup on an ice floe in the Chukchi Sea, June 2010. Photo: Sarah Sonsthagen/USGS
 
Oceanographers Sylvia Earl and Paul Dayton think it’s a bad idea, as do more than 500 other scientists and numerous environmental groups: energy development in the remote, often ice-choked waters off northern Alaska.
 
It’s a sentiment Audubon shares, and the organization has made it super easy for you to make your voice heard: Click here to tell the Interior Department the Arctic Ocean should be off-limits to drilling. Hurry—the deadline is 11 a.m. Eastern tomorrow, February 8.

What it would take to grow enough food to meet human needs in 2050, while reducing agriculture’s environmental impact? What about supplying the world with clean energy? How do we solve climate change? Experts weigh in on these and many more critical questions.

President rides a ferry from Dauphin Island, Ala., to Fort Morgan, Ala., past a natural gas rig in 2010. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

Just days after the President tackled natural gas, oil, and the environment in his State of the Union address, the Obama administration today laid out his “Blueprint to Make The Most of America’s Energy Resources."

The President will travel west to promote the plan, starting the day at a UPS facility in Las Vegas, a White House press release states, to discuss the importance of America’s workforce in increasing the country’s homemade energy. The President will then travel to Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, Colorado, to further discuss his administration’s plans to promote energy security.

Map: Peter Hoey

President Obama announced yesterday his decision to deny a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have carried 700,000 barrels of crude oil a day from northern Alberta in Canada to refineries in the states, extending to the Gulf Coast in Texas.

Image: NASA Earth Observatory map by Robert Simmon, based on multiple data sets compiled and analyzed by the Woods Hole Research Center.

A map of the 48 contiguous states offers a high-res and detailed look at our nation’s trees. The data is more than just a forest census, however. Trees may hold up to 45 percent of the planet's carbon, making this map of this country's organic carbon banks as well.

For the next two decades there will be no new uranium mining claims on public lands around the Grand Canyon National Park, a move that will protect more than one million acres, the Obama administration announced yesterday.

Three decades of federal ethanol subsidies ended on January 1st without much of a fight from supporters. The reason: Soaring prices thanks to a mandate that an increasing amount of ethanol be mixed into gasoline.

[Click on the images above to get to previous blog posts on the subjects. Photo: Georgia Pecan Commission, Map: Peter Hoey.]

A few stories we recently covered on our blog—about the payroll tax bill including provisions related to the Keystone pipeline, and earlier in November, about a pecan shortage—are popping up again. Click through for a look at how they’ve changed since we wrote about them last.

Map by Peter Hoey

Update, 12/19/11: A two-month extension of the payroll tax cut passed the Senate on Saturday, and with it, a provision that forces President Obama to decide about the Keystone XL pipeline within 60 days and allows “any changes to the pipeline route to bypass the National Environmental Policy Act, which subjects major federal projects to review,” according to The New York Times.

Check back later today for more details and links to additional news stories.
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The Keystone XL Pipeline is back in the headlines, as news of its inclusion on yesterday’s House-passed payroll tax bill spread.

We’ve covered the unfolding drama of this pipeline in our print pages and online, on our blog. In last year’s “Crude Awakening,” writer Barry Yeoman looked at the environmental cost of mining Alberta’s tar sands. Earlier this year, columnist Ted Williams detailed the history and future of the 1,700-mile pipeline, in a piece called “Tarred and Feathered.” And when the State Department stalled plans for moving forward in favor of more research about the environmental impact, senior editor Susan Cosier blogged about this decision.

 
If you're taking your kids (or just your inner child) to see the new hit movie The Muppets, there are a few things you should know about this controversial film. Yes, controversial. Sure, it's funny, delightful, and heartwarming, but it’s also stirring up heated debates: Is it brainwashing youngsters to be anti-oil? Can or can't penguins talk?