Chinese demand is also bad news for wildlife (HCN, 7/25/11). In Africa, thousands of Chinese are building railroads, highways and other projects while illegally exporting ivory. Elephants are being butchered in the thousands to meet this demand. In Russia, the Chinese will pay $50,000 for one dead, rare Siberian tiger. Apparently, they value tiger parts […]
Energy & Industry
Posted inAugust 22, 2011: Looking for Balance in Navajoland
In praise of prose
“The Global West” was well researched and beautifully written (HCN, 7/25/11). I hope the Atlantic and New Yorker crowd took notice, as the last three paragraphs of Thompson’s article could easily have qualified for their precious space. Also, thanks to the researchers who pulled together the astonishing inventory of extra-national participants in the exploitation of […]
Posted inGoat
Livid over livestock
Just 18 months ago, ranchers effectively defeated a voluntary federal program to trace disease among their livestock. Now U.S. Department of Agriculture officials are coming back to the traceability table with mandatory interstate livestock trade regulations they hope will kick disease out of the barn and are improved enough to overcome rancher resistance. The agriculture […]
Posted inGoat
Air quality and all that gas
If you’ve been following the recent media blitz surrounding fracking — where water, chemicals and sand are pumped at high pressure down a well to help release oil or natural gas — you might think that concerns over the process are all about groundwater pollution. After all, thanks to the “Halliburton loophole,” the process is […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2011: Ganjanomics
Biochar makeover for abandoned mines?
Abandoned mines — about 31,000 of them — linger like ghosts on the West’s public lands. It’s harder to find exact numbers for old mines on private land, but Colorado, for example, has about 14,000, compared to 3,299 public-land sites. In the San Juan Mountains, water from snowmelt and rainfall picks up mining remnants like […]
Posted inGoat
Proposed Alaska dam pushes state to examine hydropower options
Corrected August 5, 2011, 2:53 p.m. Mile 184 on the Susitna River halfway between Anchorage and Fairbanks may look a little different in 12 years. Imagine a 700-foot high dam with a reservoir 39 miles long. That’s what could be there if the proposed $4.5 billion Susitna-Watana hydroelectric project secures permits and financing. The project […]
Posted inWotr
The return of the Lords of Yesterday
A couple of decades ago, the West’s conservationists dreamed a lovely dream: The region’s traditional extractive industry base, which had taken such a huge environmental toll, would soon make way for a kinder, gentler economy based on protecting the land for recreation and tourism. And the dream seemed on the verge of coming true; during […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2011: Ganjanomics
The global is local
Thank you for publishing Jonathan Thompson’s article about international economic influences on the American West’s natural resources (HCN, 7/25/11). A recent drive to Victor, Colo., was a perfect illustration of the disparity between international profits and marginal local benefits. With the value of gold rising in the face of unstable national currencies, the town of […]
Posted inGoat
Next train to … China?
Billionaire Forrest Mars, of Mars candy bar fame, used to be the Tongue River Railroad’s most high-profile foe. The much-disputed rail line — first proposed some 30 years ago — gained new momentum in recent years as interest mounted in mining southeastern Montana’s untapped coal reserves, which currently have no path to market. Mars, like […]
Posted inBlog
Industry boosts pro-fracking PR
Like you, lately I’ve been getting a rapid education in fracking, the natural gas extraction method that’s been much in the public eye, including extensive coverage of the April spill in Pennsylvania , the release of the anti-fracking documentary Gasland, and HCN’s recent in-depth article “Hydrofracked?” in the June 27th issue. The environmental justice connection […]
Posted inRange
Hydropower remains dominant energy source in the West
By Jamie Bedwell, guest writer at NewWest.net ABOUT THIS SERIES: Students from The University of Montana School of Journalism, with the help of American Public Media’s Public Insight Network, reported and wrote stories for New West on the energy economy of the Rocky Mountain region. The project originated as part of the Green Thread initiative […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2011: The Global West
A former energy company lawyer now fights for the other side
In the 1990s, oil and gas was booming, and industry attorney Lance Astrella had it all: a thriving practice, a plump paycheck and a reputation as one of the best in the business. Then one night, disturbed by rumors of drillers trashing private property, he attended a community meeting in Denver. One by one, people […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2011: The Global West
The Global West: how foreign investment fuels resource extraction in Western states
Douglas, Wyo., population 5,000 and home of the legendary jackalope, lies in an almost puritanical landscape — beautiful, yet shy about that beauty, concealing it modestly under a beige blanket of grass and shrubs. A collection of low-slung stone and brick buildings sits at the town’s center, with tree-shaded residential neighborhoods radiating out from it. […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2011: The Global West
Boom or bust for the West’s fossil fuel economy?
How big will the American West’s current fossil-fuel boom become, and how long will it last? Any answer involves as much art as science, but according to the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), which each year calculate outlooks for future energy production in the United States and around the […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2011: The Global West
Global Players in the West’s Extraction Economy
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Posted inJuly 25, 2011: The Global West
When the locals don’t want your coal, sell it overseas
The world’s largest surface coal mine complex is a landscape unto itself. Six 200-foot-high draglines tear open the earth and scoop the black coal into gigantic dump trucks that make school buses look like playthings. Two dozen loaded-down trains, each a mile long, slide out of the mine complex every day, headed for power plants […]
Posted inRange
Judge halts Montana megaload shipments
By New West Editor In what appears to be a major victory for those fighting the transport of oversized oil refinery equipment through Idaho and Montana to the Kearl Oil Sands in Canada, a judge has ruled that the Montana Department of Transportation is in violation of the law and issued a preliminary injunction. The […]
Posted inRange
The climate impact of coal exports
By Eric de Place, Sightline.org This post is part of the research project: The Dirt on Coal One of the nation’s most respected resource economists, Dr. Thomas M. Power, just released a new white paper showing that coal exports to China will increase that country’s coal burning and pollution, and decrease investments in energy efficiency. […]
Posted inBlog
Reflecting on nuclear crises doesn’t leave clear answers
Southeast Utah – It’s another magnificent day here in the remote pinyon/juniper backcountry; the recent afternoon rains have cooled the air and sharpened the views of Canyonlands and the Abajo mountains off in the distance. As a freshly arrived, part-time resident, I’m keenly appreciative of the ambient sounds of this region: the wind (gentle today), […]
Posted inArticles
Leadville, an old Colorado mining town, may resume mining
For more than a century, Leadville was to Western mining towns what the Rolling Stones were to rock ‘n’ rollers: the biggest, richest, wickedest and longest-lasting act around. It’s also among the highest, nearly two miles above sea level at the headwaters of the Arkansas River in central Colorado. Now, after an absence of a […]