Hydrofracking Contaminates Ground Water in Colorado and Pennsylvania

Extra Extra Read All About It!  The New York Times just sampled 200 wells in Pennsylvania and found carcinogens like Benzene and radioactivity at 10,000 times the levels considered safe by the EPA.  I hate to say I told you so. Back in 2007, I sat through a presentation in Del Norte, Colorado where ranchers from the Western Slope were going from town to town telling the story of how "hydrofracking" polluted the 3500 acre family ranch ground water supply to the point they had to abandon the land that had been in the family for over 130 years.

The rancher's wife even explained that she had been the chairperson for the Republican party in southwest Colorado and was completely black-balled when she raised her voice in opposition to what Halliburton was doing to her livelihood and way of life.  If you could have seen the "crocodile tears" running down the weathered ranchers faces as they watched a slide show punctuated by dead and dying calves poisoned by the fouled waters.

Amazingly, a handful of determined locals convinced the all republican county commissioners to issue a 6 month moratorium on drilling and the Rio Grande National Forest temporarily withdrew the 144,000 acre lease, which was just long enough to send the prospectors packing.  Score one for the right-wing-rancher-left-wing-liberal coalition.  Just goes to show you how hard it is to wash down profits with poisoned water.

And they say natural gas is cheap, sure it is, if you don't own the land where they do the drilling or live downstream from the contamination. To learn more about conserving natural gas in your daily life, go to www.thisefficienthouse.com to learn more.

 Here's the link to the NYTIMES article:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27gas.html?src=me&ref=homepage

 The attached pictures are of the watershed in Del Norte where the auction for leases was to happen.

Global Weirding

Being my first year in Colorado, I have been told this winter has been quite mild.  However, as we near spring, freezing temperatures surround us, while back home the east is having historic snowstorms.  Its winters like these that make people believe global warming is a hoax. They ask themselves, how can the globe be warming when we are experiencing this kind of weather?  Can people take global warming seriously with weather like this?

Thomas L. Friedman an internationally renowned author, reporter, and columnist, challenges us by asking, is “global warming”, or “climate change” really the right expression to explain what is happening?   Instead he tells us to use the term “global weirding”, because that’s what happens.  Over the years we have been experiencing more violent storms, more intense floods, longer droughts, the hot climates getting hotter, and the wet climates getting wetter. 

The NOAA report shows 2010 tied with 2005 as the hottest year on record, this year’s past events, such as the Pakistan floods affecting 14 million people, and Russia’s worst drought in 130 years helps persuade us that the climate among the globe is getting “weird”.  It’s not the fact that it’s just weird; it’s the fact that our extremes are becoming more extreme and abnormal.  If these extremes are the consequences of the rise in average global temperatures, how much more abnormal should we expect these events to get, and how concerned should we be?  On the other hand, it’s not only weather events that are acting “weird”; we are seeing unusual trends in the animal kingdom.  Species are changing range and their timing of migrations has been altered in the past years. 

So ask yourself, is global warming the right word?  How about Climate Change, or is climate change just too bland and less freighting then “global weirding”?  What is the right phrase to describe what is going on with our climate?

Wall Street Journal: "US Sees Thin Cushion of Coal" and Rising Prices!

U.S. Foresees a Thinner Cushion of Coal

Well it looks like once again conventional wisdom turns out to be completely wrong. US coal reserves, which were originally estimated 100 years ago, thought to be a 240 year supply of coal, were widely "over overconfident". The problem turns out to be two fold. First, we have used the coal at a much faster rate than ever predicted. For example "Some 1.2 million short tons leave the Powder River Basin field in Wyoming daily, a river of coal filling more than 75 trains of 125 to 150 cars each." Secondly, according to the Wall Street Journal article by Rebecca Smith, the Powder River play, where 20% of the US coal production occurs, has no more than a 5 to 6 year supply that can extracted at a profit at today's prices.

"We really can't say we're the Saudi Arabia of coal anymore," says Brenda Pierce, head of the USGS team that conducted the study.

The article goes on to state that world wide estimates for proven coal reserves were downgraded by over half since 1980.  A more recent WSJ article explains that China has just become a "net importer" of coal and that Powder River Basin will be sending coal by train to ports on the west coast for export to China.

Congratulate Ken Salazar for Doing the Right Thing!

We just want to acknowledge the wise decision by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to maintain the moratorium on new oil and gas drilling off the coast of Florida and on the East Coast from Maine to Florida.  Born and raised myself in Northern Virginia I spent many a summer at my aunts beach house on the Outer Banks. We would caravan with friends and family to just about every beach and campground from Cape Henlopen, Delaware to the Florida Keys.  The thought of watching those countless estuaries destroyed like those on the Gulf Coast was almost unbearable.  It looks like don't have to worry, for now anyway. If only there was a public bus system, like the one in Mexico, that could take you from one beach town to another for 20 pesos.  

51 Homes Retrofit in the 4th Quarter of 2010!

'This Efficient House' crews completed 51 projects in the last three months of 2010.  The majority of these were in the Fort Collins area, as this program has the highest conversion rate from home energy audit to improvement.  Thanks to all the folks who signed up for work last year.  We are thankful for all the wonderful feedback.  What we are hearing time and time again are things like, "finally, after 20 years of living in this house, it's warm" and "your crews were very friendly and knowledgeable" and "we want to thank you for your attention to detail and thorough clean up".  My personal favorite was from customers of ours who live in a historic farm house that said, "our propane bill has gone from $600 a month to just over $200".

It looks like we are saving our customers about 200 therms per heating season which corresponds to a reduction in green house gas emissions of roughly one ton per year.  We are proud of this accomplishment.  I guess a warm and cozy house doesn't hurt either.