On February 27, Wyoming passed a set of laws designed to flesh out a legal framework for burying carbon emissions in the geologic cavities, or “pore spaces,” that lie beneath significant portions of the state. The rules attempt to answer a few pertinent questions. Notably: Who will be responsible for the carbon once it’s been injected […]
Climate change
Posted inMarch 2, 2009: How low will it go?
Remembering Rocky Flats
Regarding your story “The Half-life of Memory,” I had the pleasure of serving on the Rocky Flats Citizens Advisory Board (RFCAB), and in 2000 we had the chance to tour Building 771 (HCN, 2/16/09). The DOE considered 771 to be the most dangerous building in America. The opportunity to walk through a building that was […]
Posted inWotr
Time to cowboy up
There’s a saying here in the West when you’re sniveling too much. The term is “cowboy up,” and it means, “Suck it up.” It’s “buck up, little camper” for grownups. Here’s a sample use: If you’re a cowhand who just tore a thumb off in a roping accident, you need to cowboy up and bite […]
Posted inGoat
Airing dirty laundry
The Vulcan Project, an interactive map and tracking system for carbon dioxide emissions, is like one of those UV light photographs that show all the splotches of sun damage you’ve accrued on your face over years of neglecting to wear sunscreen. Clever scientists at Purdue University have created a Google map that shows not only […]
Posted inWotr
How long do we wait for clean coal?
When Joe the Plumber donned a baseball cap displaying the words “Clean Coal” last fall, he may not have known it, but he was participating in a public relations effort sponsored by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. So far, that campaign has been a smashing success. The phrase “Clean Coal” was chanted over […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2009: The Half-life of Memory
Rocky Flats lives on
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The Half-life of Memory.” GRAND JURY FOREMAN WES MCKINLEY:“… I kind of like the bomb. We are the super country on the planet because we got the biggest weapon … I wasn’t a red-hot activist or had an ax to grind, or anything. … […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2009: The Half-life of Memory
The struggle to remember the nuclear West
After toxic waste leaks, catastrophic fires and years of protests, Rocky Flats was raided by both the FBI and the EPA.
Posted inGoat
Lend me a hand
The effects of global warming on plants and animals are likely to be as varied as the species themselves. Some will adapt; some will even benefit. But what does the future hold for those too slow-moving, slow-growing, or otherwise unable to make the best of things? Conservation biologists have been talking, many nervously and some […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2009: The Half-life of Memory
Red light, green light
Despite the midwinter economic-recession blues plaguing much of the West, environmentalists have reason to feel good. After eight years of being frustrated by President George W. Bush, suddenly they’re getting traction. Signs include: On Jan. 20, just hours into his term, President Barack Obama froze all the Bush deregulation efforts that had not been finalized […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2009: The Half-life of Memory
DOE and the volcano
Judith Lewis’ story “Mountain of Doubt” in the Jan. 19, 2009, issue of HCN provides an admirably accurate and balanced description of the history of Department of Energy-led efforts to establish Yucca Mountain as a safe repository for the nation’s high-level nuclear waste. Beyond the politics, Lewis explains, “Doubts about Yucca Mountain’s geologic suitability have […]
Posted inGoat
Climate Bale Out
Stuart Strand takes climate change seriously, and I’m not just talking about the groovy recumbent bicycle he rides to work. The environmental engineer from the University of Washington was searching for a way to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere when he came across an intriguing report. Its authors suggested that annual […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2009: Non-navigable River Blues
The darkest element
Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock That Shaped the WorldTom Zoellner317 pages, softcover: $26.95.Viking, 2009. Writer Tom Zoellner has a great sense of timing. His latest work, Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock That Shaped the World, hits the shelves as media attention zeros in on Iran and North Korea’s nuclear programs, the explosion […]
Posted inGoat
Managing a busted climate
How do you manage for “natural” conditions when humans have twisted nature all out of pitch? If you’re trying to make decisions in an unprecedented situation, what experience do you lean on? These are a couple of the underlying concerns in a recent report from the federal Climate Change Science Program. The report focuses on climate-sensitive […]
Posted inGoat
59,000 trees can’t be wrong
Westerners can see that there’s trouble in the woods — these days, it seems like there’s a beetle-killed lodgepole stand around every corner — but here’s some especially sobering evidence of forest die-offs, just published in the journal Science. A long-term study of almost 59,000 trees in plots throughout the region shows that tree deaths […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 2009: Blood Quantum
Mountain of doubt
Will the country’s only planned nuclear waste dump survive Obama?
Posted inJanuary 19, 2009: Blood Quantum
Notes from the (water) underground
Gordon Grant’s pioneering work on the northwest’s hydrologic sponge
Posted inGoat
Waking up to coal’s other mess
Raymond “Squeak” Hunt is not one to be ignored. He’s not afraid to speak his mind (even if it means building a giant billboard to do so). More often than not, he’s holding a large, sharp knife (he butchers sheep for a living). And he’s prone to spouting aphorisms which, though they don’t always make […]
Posted inNovember 10, 2008: Still Howling Wolf
Who’ll clean up when the party’s over?
Land managers and industry are stepping up efforts to reclaim public lands scraped and drilled for oil and gas. Is it too little, too late?
Posted inNovember 10, 2008: Still Howling Wolf
Passing gas
Western states struggle to capture methane emissions from coal mines