In 1970, oil production within the United States peaked — reached its maximum production rate — at not much more than 10 million barrels of oil per day. That means since 1970, oil production in this country has been declining, and we now import 58 percent of the oil we use. The sheer scale of […]
Energy & Industry
Posted inJanuary 23, 2006: Timberlands up for grabs
Renewable law leaves the gate
When Colorado voters approved Amendment 37 in 2004, most had no idea how long it would take for the state’s renewable standards to go into effect. More than a year later, the state’s Public Utilities Commission finally released the rules implementing the law, which requires the state’s largest utilities to generate 10 percent of their […]
Posted inWotr
The windy West gains influential support
The wind blows constantly across the Western plains, as anyone who’s driven north from Denver and across Wyoming can attest. You feel your car needs alignment until you see the tumbleweeds bustling towards Kansas City. That’s why America’s heartland has been called the Saudi Arabia of wind, and that’s why we should be looking closely […]
Posted inWotr
Bison aren’t Buicks, and other dangerous beliefs
Don’t believe everything you hear about the West. While some Western myths are mere entertainment, others can kill you. Like thinking a 4-wheel drive provides traction on ice. Recently, some dangerously incorrect statements gained serious media attention during the first hunt in 15 years for bison leaving Yellowstone Park. Calling the hunt a slaughter, protesters […]
Posted inWotr
Organic labels don’t tell the real story
When I first sold my family’s vegetables at farmers’ markets in 1980, Slow Food hadn’t been born, and the phrase “local foods” was not yet in the lingo. The word “organic,” however, was in vogue, and our customers always asked you the same question: Are you organic? Nine years old and barefoot, I tried not […]
Posted inWotr
What one small town owes to the gas industry
Miracles are performed in the gas-drilling fields of Wyoming every day by roustabout and frac crews, drillers, hot-shot crews, water-truck drivers, office managers and others at all levels. No one in Sublette County — no rancher, waitress, sheriff’s deputy, newspaper editor, Bureau of Land Management employee — works harder, and we ought to respect that. […]
Posted inWotr
What the gas industry owes us
First, the gas industry should admit that it is changing Pinedale, and not all the change is good. Don’t tell us we should be happy to have industry and the jobs and money that come with it. Certainly, gas exploration and drilling have made our economy stronger than ever, and finally, many of us are […]
Posted inWotr
Someday, chickens will come home to roost
From the air, part of New Mexico’s Carson National Forest looks like a spider web that’s been carved into the landscape. Here on the 33,000-acre Jicarilla District, more than 700 gas wells and a maze of over 400 miles of associated roads crisscross the land. While companies have been leasing this New Mexico forest for […]
Posted inWotr
Oil shale, our feel-good rock
Oil shale has made big news this past year. Congress has ordered the leasing of federal oil shale lands, and would-be developers are reporting advances in both conventional retorting and innovative, in-situ extraction technologies. Yet somehow I don’t get a warm, fuzzy feeling that oil shale is going to help me out at the gas […]
Posted inDecember 26, 2005: A New Green Revolution
A New Green Revolution
In Montana’s dying farm country, ‘vanguard agriculture’ puts people back on the land
Posted inDecember 26, 2005: A New Green Revolution
A desperate move to protect cattle ranchers
Wyoming’s plan to kill suspect elk could become a ‘political disaster’
Posted inDecember 26, 2005: A New Green Revolution
Energy companies score massive refund checks
If forced to retract wilderness leases, the BLM could owe billions
Posted inDecember 26, 2005: A New Green Revolution
Universities lag on organics
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “A New Green Revolution.” David Oien of Timeless Seeds has an immediate reaction when asked if the soils and agriculture departments at state universities have been helpful to organic farmers: “No!” “But then again, the average (conventional) wheat farmer would say the same thing,” […]
Posted inDecember 26, 2005: A New Green Revolution
Organics and biofuels bring independence
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “A New Green Revolution.” For years, conventional farmers and other naysayers could dismiss organic farming with a wave of the hand: too many man-hours, too much tilling to control weeds, too few markets. But because organic farming uses no petroleum-based fertilizers or pesticides, it […]
Posted inWotr
Oh, Christmas tree, oh, Christmas tree
“I will not kill another living tree for Christmas,” announced a waitress at a restaurant I frequent. It is a common misconception that cutting a fir at Christmas is killing a tree that will otherwise live. “Christmas trees are grown to be cut,” I said sagely. “That is their reason for being.” Then I recounted […]
Posted inDecember 12, 2005: The Final Energy Frontier
Living Within Our Means: Beyond the Fossil Fuel Credit Card
Living Within Our Means: Beyond the Fossil Fuel Credit Card Kamyar Enshayan 54 pages, softcover: $12 Congdon Printing & Imaging, 2005. Engineer and city councilman Kamyar Enshayan considers the inevitable end of the fossil-fuel joyride. Short essays ponder topics we’ll all need to grapple with — like the truth about hydrogen and ethanol and what […]
Posted inWotr
Camping out at home
The first heating bill I got was for October, and it jumped from summer levels right up to what I was paying mid-winter last year. Mind you, I didn’t even light the furnace pilot light until Oct.10, and because the weather was nice, we only kicked in the thermostat on a handful of days, less […]
Posted inDecember 12, 2005: The Final Energy Frontier
Sheepherders flock to better-paying jobs
Western ranchers have long relied on foreign workers to tend sheep on the open range. But increasingly, sheepherders are literally walking away from their flocks — and their work visas — in pursuit of more lucrative jobs. The work sheepherders do is hard, the lifestyle is austere, and the pay is low — about $800 […]
Posted inDecember 12, 2005: The Final Energy Frontier
BLM boosts winter drilling
The mule deer herd that winters on the mesa east of Pinedale has suffered a 46 percent population decline since 2002, despite a Bureau of Land Management policy that banned most natural gas drilling in the area in wintertime. Now, the BLM wants to allow several more companies to drill throughout the winter — and […]
Posted inDecember 12, 2005: The Final Energy Frontier
Forget idealism
Renewable energy will save consumers money