Energy Technology

State Senate Deputy Majority Leader With Fracking Connections is Taking Heat

A Bloomberg story blew the lid on one state senator's ties to the fracking industry yesterday. Turns out state Senator Tom Libous (R-Binghamton), who said in March that he'd "make sure no [fracking moratorium] bill passes the Senate," has deep ties to a real-estate company leasing underground natura ... More >>

DEC Hired Fracking Lobby for $50 Million to Assess...Fracking?

Update: See statement from the DEC, and a letter from E&E explaining its relationship to IOGANY, at the bottom. New York State might just have to scrap the latest draft of its environmental impact study on hydraulic fracturing. The New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) and state lawmake ... More >>

Promised Land's Hard Sell

For Matt Damon and company, the message is the message

New Yorkers Still Slightly in Favor of Fracking Even as More Shady "Studies" Emerge

New Yorkers believe that the economic benefits of drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale outweigh the risk of potentially harmful environmental repercussions, according to today's Quinnipiac University Poll. The poll finds that 44 percent of New Yorkers think the economic pros of hydrauli ... More >>

Gasland

Fracking: Boom or Doom

America's hydraulic fracturing gold rush portends the greatest environmental disaster of a generation

Mayor Bloomberg, Fracker-in-Chief?

In the late 1980s, George Mitchell, owner of Mitchell Energy & Development Corporation with a degree in petroleum engineering from Texas A&M, wanted a method that could find and extract formerly unseen deposits of natural gas. With a combination of horizontal drilling and something ... More >>

Hydraulic Fracturing: Is There Bad Science in The Fracking Debate?

Does fracking make people sick? The jury is largely still out on that one. However, new info indicates that some claims about hydraulic fracturing's reportedly significant health risks appear to have been based on bad science.

Hydraulic Fracturing: Can Environmental Regulators Handle a Fracking Boom? (UPDATE)

Can New York's environmental regulators keep up with fracking? This is the question raised in a report recently published by Earthworks, a group that monitors the petroleum and mining industries. Earthworks' new accountability project charges that New York's Department of Environmental Conservati ... More >>

Fracking Rules: Obama Administration Guidelines Don't Affect Most U.S. Land

As the fracking debate rages on in New York, Barack Obama's administration hasn't hidden the fact that it's pro-fracking, and widely publicized its decision to release environmental guidelines for the practice. Indeed, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's announcement Tuesday that his department had OK ... More >>

Utah Will Get Fracked!

There's so much fracking news across the country, it's hard to keep up with! As the debate over hydraulic fracturing in New York continues, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar just OKd a major gas drilling project in Utah, The Associated Press reports. Though some fracking is already taking plac ... More >>

Will Fracking Spread Across America?

The Prez has hardly made it a secret that he supports fracking as part of his push for domestic oil and natural gas development, with the Obama administration announcing last week that it plans on setting environmental standards for hydraulic fracturing. And what happens in D.C. does not stay in D ... More >>

NY Post Goes Fracking Crazy in Pro-Hydraulic Fracturing Editorial

The Post is a bit beside itself this morning, unable to process the position of fracking opponents. It's not simply that the editorial board disagrees with them and published an opinion piece explaining why -- the board can't wrap its head around the fact that dissenting opinion should have weight ... More >>

Fracking Secrets: Hydraulic Fracturing Still Shrouded in Mystery

As Albany pols weigh the pros and cons of hydraulic fracturing, it seems like full disclosure of fracking practices remains iffy. Shortly after reports surfaced that physicians in Pennsylvania couldn't publicly discuss info about fracking chemicals, some New Yorkers have started to begging Departm ... More >>

Are Fracking Chemicals a Secret? (UPDATE)

The health risks of hydraulic fracturing have been key in policymaking debates, with health advocates calling on legislators to assess fracking chemicals before allowing the polemic practice to take place. Friends of fracking, however, have pushed back against full disclosure: in Pennsylvania, for ... More >>

HYDROFRACK OFF

The pros and cons of the practice

Water Wars: What's Up With The Upstate-Downstate Debate?

The Times reports today on the "slow boil" over water issues now playing out between Upstate communities and New York City. Ulster County, for example, has been pissed at the City for years. The county says that it's unfairly had to endure "development bans, flooded basements and ruined crops" just ... More >>

Will Woodstock Criminalize Hydraulic Fracturing?

From a report earlier today, it looks like Woodstock might try outlawing hydraulic fracturing -- the highly controversial natural gas extraction method that many fear will pollute New York's water supply with carcinogenic chemicals and radiation. The Town Board has decided to consider a proposal t ... More >>

Hydrofracking Can Be Banned in Dryden, NY

​A court decided yesterday that the upstate town of Dryden -- located in Tompkins county -- can bar hydrofracking -- marking a major win for fracking opponents. The New York Times reports that Dryden's battle began in August, when the town's board passed a zoning law that bans gas drilling w ... More >>

Cool Interactive Map Shows You Which City Blocks Use the Most Electricity

A new interactive map tool, created by the Modi Research Group at Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Science, reveals some unsurprising patterns about New York City's energy consumption. The tool can tell you, down to individual buildings, which parts of the city used the most ... More >>

Gasland Filmmaker Joshua Fox Arrested at Fracking Hearing, by Order of House Republicans

In an unprecedented move, House Republicans had a filmmaker arrested yesterday after he showed up to a public congressional hearing. The House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment was meeting to discuss the controversial topic of hydraulic fracturing, colloquially known as "fracking." When Joshua ... More >>

Scott Stringer: Let's Put Solar Panels on School Roofs

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, who is likely to run for mayor, released a report yesterday that called for the installation of solar panels on the roofs of city public schools. Releasing reports -- it's the thing to do if you want to be mayor, apparently! This one here is one of tho ... More >>

Department of Environmental Protection Clarifies Fracking E-Mail (UPDATE)

Mayor Mike Bloomberg has had his share of public reservations about hydrofracking, urging government honchos to keep drilling far from NYC's water. The City's environmental agency is on board, too. But a strange little newsletter released this afternoon from the Department of Environmental Protect ... More >>

Royally Fracked: Those 40,000 Comments on Hydraulic Fracturing Don't Change Anything

Remember how New York's citizens, many of them not too keen on having chemicals blasted into underground rock to extract natural gas, recently submitted 40,000 comments to the state's environmental agency? That public comment period on highly polemic hydraulic fracturing came to a close earlier th ... More >>

Frack! EPA Voices Concerns About Hydraulic Fracturing

The Environmental Protection Agency says that New York should set limits to the amount of radiation that can be in fracking wastewater before the drilling starts, according to The Associated Press [via The Wall Street Journal]. The EPA announcement comes just as the state's Department of Environme ... More >>

Seabrook Power Plant

Hot Dogs Against Fracking

Eat this choucroute to show you oppose fracking.​ Actually, it's choucroute against fracking. Bark Hot Dogs, in Park Slope, has teamed with the makers of the film Gasland and the anti-fracking group United for Action for a dinner and screening next Wednesday, November 9.

The Other Koch Brother

In the shadow of his brothers' Tea Party fame, Bill Koch seems almost like a normal billionaire.

Cuomo Attempts to Lift Ban on Hydraulic Fracturing

​When Governor Cuomo signed the landmark same sex marriage bill into law last week, you probably thought, "There's no way the 'gov is topping this." Guess again! The New York Times reports his administration will announce their attempt to lift what is effectively a statewide ban on hydraulic f ... More >>

Today in El Diario: New Yorkers Shafted by Con Ed on "Green" Fund

​Green flight: Energy fund leaves city Con Edison clients in New York have been billed for $342 million since 2004 to subsidize renewable energy. But less than 1 percent of that money -- $ 8 million -- has been used for area green electricity projects, the Spanish-language daily reports. New ... More >>

BP Wants to Get Back to Drilling in Gulf Of Mexico

​BP is petitioning U.S. regulators to continue drilling in the Gulf of Mexico less than a year after the massive oil spill that killed 11 workers and caused massive environmental damage. The deal would be that BP would be able to resume pre-existing drilling operations in the Gulf in exchange for ... More >>

Klaus Jacob, Columbia Disaster Expert: Why Closing Indian Point Makes Sense

​In October 2008, the Voice profiled Klaus Jacob, Columbia University's expert on urban environmental disasters. In that story, we examined how the Ivy League school had ignored warnings by its own expert about expanding into areas subject to flooding because of climate change. Today we talke ... More >>

Rightbloggers Find the Lesson of the Japanese Disaster: We Need More Nuclear Power Plants! (Plus Obama Sux!)

Last week Japan was hit by earthquake, tsunami, and volcano. As the country tries to come back from this series of disasters, donations are pouring in from world citizens. Rightbloggers are doing their part, too. They're using the catastrophe as a teachable moment to explain that Obama sucks, glob ... More >>

Earth Will Be Crowded, Hungry, and Full of Human-Robot Porn in 2050

​The United Nations is predicting that Earth may be "unrecognizable" in 2050 due to the rise of population and the increase in demand for food. The population is expected to jump from seven billion to nine billion by that year. Yahoo quotes Jason Clay of the World Wildlife Fund as saying, "We ... More >>

Amateur Bed-Stuy Scientist Embodies 'Do or Die' Ethos with Amateur Nuclear Reactor

​"Cute nerd alert!" notes Daily Intel's assessment of Bed-Stuy resident Mark Suppes, a guy who, the BBC explains, works on web-development for Gucci by day and his homemade nuclear reactor by night. Which is great, because what we really need to do is encourage him.

Scott Stringer, Working Families Circulate Petition Opposing Drilling That Could Poison New York's Drinking Water

More refreshing without the natural gas drilling.​While oil drilling has made a sorry wreck of the Gulf coast, another kind of drilling could threaten New York's water supply.

City Universities Are Part of Bloomberg's Green Jobs Vision

Vallone, Locals Protest Astoria Power Plant

Earth Wind & Fire: Bloomberg Solicits Renewable Energy Ideas

Behind the Blackout

Thanks to deregulation, Queens merely a pawn in the utilities' board game

Drilling in Alaska: The Big Picture

U.S. oil eyes northern riches beyond the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Got Oil?

Bush Digs Dry Well in Alaska

Glut of right wingers, dearth of oil

Hydrogen's Dirty Details

Cleaning Up: Bush's Pals, an Oligarch, and a Siberian Pollution Factory

Coal Dirt Cheap

New EPA Rule Threatens to Increase Local Pollution

It's Nucular

Republicans Plan a Hydrogen Economy—at Your Expense

Forget Your Problems, We're Preparing for a War

Nuclear Waste Makes Haste

The Hazardous Roads to Yucca Mountain

Deep Time, Short Sight

Bracing for Yucca Mountain's Nuclear Forever

Unsafe at Any Price

If Terrorists Take Down Nuclear Plants, You Pay—By the Hundreds of Billions