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"There's a potential problem when drilling for gas, other than the possibility of well-water contamination by methane, brine or "fracking" chemicals (Plain Dealer, Sunday). In 1995, a national organization called the State Review of Oil and Natural Gas Environmental Regulations (STRONGER) reviewed state regulations on gas and oil wells. One recommendation it made was that the state should test for naturally occurring radioactive material at oil and gas exploration and production sites. In the 2000 and 2005 reviews, the same recommendation was made. Now, 15 years later, legislation requiring the testing has not even been proposed. Is there a reason to be concerned? Yes. An Environmental Protection Agency map of the radioactive gas radon shows statewide distribution. The gas slowly percolates through soil as a decay product of radium, so the potential for bringing both radon and radium to the surface during drilling exists. Additionally, gas-well borehole "cuttings" are normally buried on-site at completion of the drilling. Do those "cuttings" contain radioactive material, which would continue to expose local residents to radiation after completion of the drilling? When is legislation addressing this potential problem going to be proposed and adopted? "

A proposed energy park at Hanford could include piped natural gas, a biofuel plant and acres of solar panels that may help power the vitrification plant and one day produce commercial power. Gary Petersen, vice president of Hanford programs for the Tri-City Development Council, told Benton County commissioners Wednesday that Cascade Natural Gas has proposed piping natural gas to the future site, which could supply a significant amount of the energy needed to power the vitrification plant being built there. Two Cascade pipelines could be used. One would have to cross the Yakima River and the other would have to cross the Columbia. Natural gas is one of four proposals being eyed to offset energy consumption by the massive plant being built to turn some of Hanford's worst waste into a stable glass form.

A proposed energy park at Hanford could include piped natural gas, a biofuel plant and acres of solar panels that may help power the vitrification plant and one day produce commercial power. Gary Petersen, vice president of Hanford programs for the Tri-City Development Council, told Benton County commissioners Wednesday that Cascade Natural Gas has proposed piping natural gas to the future site, which could supply a significant amount of the energy needed to power the vitrification plant being built there. Two Cascade pipelines could be used. One would have to cross the Yakima River and the other would have to cross the Columbia. Natural gas is one of four proposals being eyed to offset energy consumption by the massive plant being built to turn some of Hanford's worst waste into a stable glass form.

"A nuclear explosion was set off 37 years ago, near Krestishche village in Krasnograd district, Kharkiv Region. It was the first in Ukraine and probably the only one in the European part of the Soviet Union. Scientists had determined that a large gas condensate field in the area which was discovered in 1970 could hold up to 300 billion cubic meters of fuel. In 1971, 17 wells were already operating in the Krasnograd district. But an accident occurred when drilling a new well at the field in July 1971. Gas came to the surface before the well reached its planned depth and the force of the spewing gas condensate reached 400 atmospheres, throwing two workers into the air. Engineers took days deciding what to do to stop the well. The nearest village was just 500 meters away. Residents were told to not light any fires and to stay out of their homes and not turn on any lights. Unable to stop the gas, the engineers decided to light it. By the next day, the burning flare was tens of meters high. Several attempts were made during the next year to put out the fire. Filling the well with tons of concrete slabs did not work - they flew apart like toys. Such flares are normally put out by capping the well. But for this case, specialists from Moscow offered an original solution - an underground nuclear explosion."

"Two Republican US senators Monday introduced a bill that would increase the use of natural gas, nuclear power and electric vehicles as a means of reducing the US power sector's air emissions and building domestic energy supply without specifically targeting greenhouse gas emissions. Senators Richard Burr of North Carolina and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, said their bill (S. 3535) would move the country toward cleaner domestic fuel sources through financial incentives. According to a bill summary, the measure would expand US use of natural gas with incentives for vehicles run by the fuel, including requirements for federal purchases of natural-gas fueled vehicles and extending income tax credit for vehicle purchases. For nuclear power, the bill would increase loan guarantees, provide a 15-year accelerated depreciation period for new plants, a 10% investment tax credit and launch a policy for recycling spent nuclear fuel. "

The federal Bureau of Land Management has agreed to Noble Energy's plan to drill 79 natural-gas wells in western Colorado near the site of an underground nuclear blast 40 years ago, according to a news report Monday. The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reported that Noble Energy will drill the wells over the next three to five years, and that gas produced by the wells will be tested for radioactivity. In 1969, a federal test called Project Rulison was conducted to determine if nuclear blasts could be used to retrieve natural gas deep underground. A nuclear device was set off about 8,400 feet underground near Rulison, Colo.

The federal Bureau of Land Management has agreed to Noble Energy's plan to drill 79 natural-gas wells in western Colorado near the site of an underground nuclear blast 40 years ago, according to a news report Monday. The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reported that Noble Energy will drill the wells over the next three to five years, and that gas produced by the wells will be tested for radioactivity. In 1969, a federal test called Project Rulison was conducted to determine if nuclear blasts could be used to retrieve natural gas deep underground. A nuclear device was set off about 8,400 feet underground near Rulison, Colo.

"Rulison resident Marion Wells, who last summer told the Colorado Independent she was an oil and gas industry "guinea pig," recently bit back with a lawsuit against Williams Companies, the largest natural producer on the Western Slope. According to the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, Wells, whose home is about 10 miles from the Project Rulison nuclear blast site, is suing Williams for building too large of a well pad for drilling on her property, as well as failing to remove construction materials and drilling waste. Those, Wells contends, are violations of her surface-use agreement. Wells has been a frequent critic of the industry on a number of topics, including the failed 1969 underground detonation of a 43-kiloton by the Atomic Energy Commission. The federal government was trying to free up natural gas with the explosion but produced gas that was too radioactive for commercial sale."

France's vast nuclear power network has largely shielded it from the Russian gas crisis, handing the country's atomic energy sector an unexpected public relations coup. With 80 percent of its electricity generated by nuclear power stations, the highest proportion in the world, France was able to reassure nervous households and industry after the Russia-Ukraine dispute cut off gas supplies to Europe. The gas crisis coincided with exceptionally cold weather in France, testing its power system to the limit as households turned up their heaters to maximum.

Officials with the Idaho National Laboratory say a cylinder that began leaking toxic gas after it was moved has been secured and that no gas escaped from the Materials and Fuels Complex. No employees were injured in the gas leak, which was reported late Tuesday morning. A prepared statement from laboratory officials said that nine workers were given medical evaluations and all were cleared to return to work. The cylinder was suspected to contain a toxic gas that can cause irritation and damage to skin, eyes or lungs. Employees were temporarily evacuated to areas at least 220 yards away, but they were allowed to return to the area after tests by a hazardous materials team found no contamination in the building.

The main beneficiaries of more than $700 billion of federal energy incentives over the past five decades have been the oil and natural gas industries. The oil and natural gas industries together garnered 60 percent of federal incentives between 1950 and 2006, with 46 percent of the roughly $725 billion in federal support going to the oil sector. Our new report shows that the oil industry has benefited from $335 billion in combined incentives, with natural gas receiving $100 billion.

Here is your word for the day: Fracking or fraccing. [No, fellow Battlestar Galactica fans, this is a different use of the word "frack," although for some, the sentiment is the same.] Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a technique that releases natural gas trapped in underground shale formations by injecting water, chemicals, and sand to "frack" the rock structures and release the gas. Often, large quantities of groundwater contaminated by chemicals, radioactive elements, or other minerals are produced in the process. Unless great care is taken, this "produced water" mixed with water used for fracturing can flow to the surface or into groundwater systems and contaminate land, drinking water supplies, and natural waterways.

Here is your word for the day: Fracking or fraccing. [No, fellow Battlestar Galactica fans, this is a different use of the word "frack," although for some, the sentiment is the same.] Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a technique that releases natural gas trapped in underground shale formations by injecting water, chemicals, and sand to "frack" the rock structures and release the gas. Often, large quantities of groundwater contaminated by chemicals, radioactive elements, or other minerals are produced in the process. Unless great care is taken, this "produced water" mixed with water used for fracturing can flow to the surface or into groundwater systems and contaminate land, drinking water supplies, and natural waterways.

"India's opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Wednesday asked the government to withdraw the nuclear liability bill in the wake of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy verdict which only gave light penalty to the accused, reported the Indo-Asian News Service. A spokesman for the BJP said the Congress-led government should withdraw the nuclear liability bill as "the aim of the bill is to please Americans". The BJP had earlier demanded a revision of the civil nuclear liability legislation in the light of the Bhopal gas disaster, in which a gas leak from the U.S.-based Union Carbide killed at least 20,000 people 25 years ago in the central Indian city."

Two conservation groups have joined several local landowners in a lawsuit to try to force the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to rescind a decision to permit natural gas drilling near the site of a 1969 atomic blast test in western Colorado. The suit, filed in the state District Court of Denver County on December 18, seeks to prevent Denver-based EnCana Oil and Gas from drilling five directional wells from a well pad within three miles of the Project Rulison site near the town of Battlement Mesa in Garfield County. The plaintiffs in the suit say that the COGCC in November issued EnCana permits to drill the wells without holding hearings on the potential of drilling so close to the site where the Atomic Energy Commission detonated a 43-kiloton nuclear bomb 8,4000 feet below ground.

While the national media currently focus on the economic stimulus program of President Barack Obama, a major internal battle is shaping up between his environmental team, led by Carol Browner, who will seek a greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program and a carbon tax, and his economic team, led by Larry Summers, who will almost certainly oppose such measures as having a significant deleterious effect on economic recovery. There is no doubt that the economic team will prevail. President Obama, however, does not need either a cap-and-trade program or a carbon tax to attain his laudable air quality and greenhouse gas reduction goals. Over 40 per cent of all greenhouse gases generated in the United States emanate from coal fired power plants. A national program to begin the process of replacing coal plants with nuclear power plants would eliminate this greenhouse gas generation and likewise overwhelmingly reduce America's smog (ozone) and soot (particulate matter) pollution.

The ground rippled when a nuclear blast shattered the earth beneath Doghead Mountain south of Rulison 40 years ago, witnesses remember. "It was an ocean wave that came across the valley, and you could see it coming at you clear as a bell," said Cristy Koeneke, who was a college freshman watching the detonation of Project Rulison from an observation tent set up several miles away, across the Colorado River. The Project Rulison experiment was conducted Sept. 10, 1969. The federal government and private companies were trying to free natural gas from underground sandstone formations. The experiment continues to cause reverberations today because of the nuclear contamination it left behind. The gas Project Rulison produced was less than anticipated and too radioactive to use. But hydraulic fracturing subsequently has unlocked the enormous gas reserves in the Rulison area and elsewhere in the Piceance Basin

Japan's plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 is expected to boost the nation's share of electricity from nuclear power to 44 percent from 31 percent now, a government estimate shows. The world's fifth-biggest greenhouse gas emitter has been under huge pressure from developing nations to opt for deep 2020 greenhouse gas reductions as part of a new global climate pact at the end of the year.

Eastern Europe is promoting nuclear energy as the only way to tackle climate change and reduce dependence on Russian gas, in spite of costs of going nuclear that it cannot meet. Amid the last Ukrainian-Russian gas spat early this year, officials from several Central and Eastern European countries were quick to point to the need for nuclear energy to reduce problematic imports of Russian gas. Unlike many countries in the West, public opinion in Central and Eastern Europe overwhelmingly supports nuclear energy, with opinion polls showing 80 percent support in Slovakia and 70 percent in Hungary. "They see it as a way to export electricity, and they believe the simple solution is to have big facilities," Olexi Pasyuk, energy specialist in Kiev with Bankwatch, an independent group monitoring European Bank investments told IPS. "But you have to invest a lot, and maybe you get money back in 30 years, if you're lucky."

MIT just updated its seminal 2003 study on the role nuclear power could play in America's energy mix. The upshot: Nuclear power's appeal may have grown due to concern over greenhouse-gas emissions, but that hasn't translated into any real progress in the U.S. SCPlant_art_257_20090520140249.jpg Same as it ever was (AP) "The sober warning is that if more is not done, nuclear power will diminish as a practical and timely option for deployment at a scale that would constitute a material contribution to climate change risk mitigation," the study concludes. In 2003, MIT argued that nuclear power could play an important role in U.S. electricity generation, and that government help was needed to jumpstart a U.S. revival. That has yet to happen yet, the revised study notes. Many of the challenges facing nuclear power are the same. Take economics. Building nuclear plants is still a lot more expensive than building coal- or gas-fired plants, and nuclear-generated electricity is still more expensive than either fossil-fuel option: 8.8 cents a kilowatt for nuclear versus 6.2 cents for coal and 6.5 cents for gas, MIT figures.

"There are four "fairly firm" proposals from companies interested in a proposed energy park at Hanford that would help provide power to the vitrification plant under construction at the site, a representative of the Mid-Columbia Energy Initiative said Tuesday. The Mid-Columbia Energy Initiative, a group seeking to establish the energy park, is working to secure 20 square miles of reclaimed land on the Hanford site for the energy park by 2013 and 60 square miles by 2015. Gary Petersen, vice president of Hanford programs for the Tri-City Development Council, told Richland City Council members at a Tuesday workshop that the types of energy the companies interested in the park would provide include piped natural gas supplied by Cascade Natural Gas, and biofuel, anhydrous ammonia and liquefied natural gas plants."

The Town of Vian and the Cherokee Nation are asking the Oklahoma Corporation Commission to overturn a decision that re- commends approval of a commercial disposal well in the city limits. I-MAC Petroleum Services of Muskogee is seeking to construct the well for disposal of salt water that comes from the natural gas drilling process at wells in Arkansas. Greg Riepl, a geologist for I-MAC, said that Arkansas doesn't have a lot of underground rock formations that are conducive for water disposal. "Arkansas put a moratorium (on salt water injection wells) until they can gin up some regulations," because some of the gas companies were not following the existing rules, Riepl said. Ideal sites for injecting salt water are thick formations that are porous and permeable so that fluids can move through them, Riepl said.

The Town of Vian and the Cherokee Nation are asking the Oklahoma Corporation Commission to overturn a decision that re- commends approval of a commercial disposal well in the city limits. I-MAC Petroleum Services of Muskogee is seeking to construct the well for disposal of salt water that comes from the natural gas drilling process at wells in Arkansas. Greg Riepl, a geologist for I-MAC, said that Arkansas doesn't have a lot of underground rock formations that are conducive for water disposal. "Arkansas put a moratorium (on salt water injection wells) until they can gin up some regulations," because some of the gas companies were not following the existing rules, Riepl said. Ideal sites for injecting salt water are thick formations that are porous and permeable so that fluids can move through them, Riepl said.

Late changes could have impact on BGE, ratepayers BALTIMORE - Consumer advocates said Wednesday that newly proposed changes to the Constellation Energy deal with a French nuclear power company could bring less money into the state than originally expected and potentially impact how much Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. spends on capital improvements. BGE is a subsidiary of Constellation Energy, which provides power to homes in Central Maryland, including 88,600 natural gas and 221,500 electricity customers in Anne Arundel County.

Late changes could have impact on BGE, ratepayers BALTIMORE - Consumer advocates said Wednesday that newly proposed changes to the Constellation Energy deal with a French nuclear power company could bring less money into the state than originally expected and potentially impact how much Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. spends on capital improvements. BGE is a subsidiary of Constellation Energy, which provides power to homes in Central Maryland, including 88,600 natural gas and 221,500 electricity customers in Anne Arundel County.