by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 9, 2012 | Mining & Drilling
By Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Wind turbines, one of the fastest-growing sources of emissions-free electricity, rely on magnets that use the rare earth element neodymium. And the element dysprosium is an essential ingredient in some electric vehicles’ motors. The supply of both elements — currently imported almost exclusively from China — could face significant shortages in coming years, the research found.
The study, led by a team of researchers at MIT’s Materials Systems Laboratory — postdoc Elisa Alonso PhD ’10, research scientist Richard Roth PhD ’92, senior research scientist Frank R. Field PhD ’85 and principal research scientist Randolph Kirchain PhD ’99 — has been published online in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, and will appear in print in a forthcoming issue. Three researchers from Ford Motor Company are co-authors.
The study looked at 10 so-called “rare earth metals,” a group of 17 elements that have similar properties and which — despite their name — are not particularly rare at all. All 10 elements studied have some uses in high-tech equipment, in many cases in technology related to low-carbon energy. Of those 10, two are likely to face serious supply challenges in the coming years.
The biggest challenge is likely to be for dysprosium: Demand could increase by 2,600 percent over the next 25 years, according to the study. Neodymium demand could increase by as much as 700 percent. Both materials have exceptional magnetic properties that make them especially well-suited to use in highly efficient, lightweight motors and batteries.
A single large wind turbine (rated at about 3.5 megawatts) typically contains 600 kilograms, or about 1,300 pounds, of rare earth metals. A conventional car uses a little more than one pound of rare earth materials — mostly in small motors, such as those that run the windshield wipers — but an electric car might use nearly 10 times as much of the material in its lightweight batteries and motors.
Currently, China produces 98 percent of the world’s rare earth metals, making those metals “the most geographically concentrated of any commercial-scale resource,” Kirchain says.
Historically, production of these metals has increased by only a few percent each year, with the greatest spurts reaching about 12 percent annually. But much higher increases in production will be needed to meet the expected new demand, the study shows.
China has about 50 percent of known reserves of rare earth metals; the United States also has significant deposits. Mining of these materials in the United States had ceased almost entirely — mostly because of environmental regulations that have increased the cost of production — but improved mining methods are making these sources usable again.
Rare earth elements are never found in isolation; instead, they’re mixed together in certain natural ores, and must be separated out through chemical processing. “They’re bundled together in these deposits,” Kirchain says, “and the ratio in the deposits doesn’t necessarily align with what we would desire” for the current manufacturing needs.
Neodymium and dysprosium are not the most widely used rare earth elements, but they are the ones expected to see the biggest “pinch” in supplies, Alonso explains, due to projected rapid growth in demand for high-performance permanent magnets.
Kirchain says that when they talk about a pinch in the supply, that doesn’t necessarily mean the materials are not available. Rather, it’s a matter of whether the price goes up to a point where certain uses are no longer economically viable.
The researchers stress that their study does not mean there will necessarily be a problem meeting demand, but say that it does mean that it will be important to investigate and develop new sources of these materials; to improve the efficiency of their use in devices; to identify substitute materials; or to develop the infrastructure to recycle the metals once devices reach the end of their useful life. The purpose of studies such as this one is to identify those resources for which these developments are most pressing.
While the raw materials exist in the ground in amounts that could meet many decades of increased demand, Kirchain says the challenge comes in scaling up supply at a rate that matches expected increases in demand. Developing a new mine, including prospecting, siting, permitting and construction, can take a decade or more.
“The bottom line is not that we’re going to ‘run out,’” Kirchain says, “but it’s an issue on which we need focus, to build the supply base and to improve those technologies which use and reuse these materials. It needs to be a focus of research and development.”
Barbara Reck, a senior research scientist at Yale University who was not involved in this work, says “the results highlight the serious supply challenges that some of the rare earths may face in a low-carbon society.” The study is “a reminder to material scientists to continue their search for substitutes,” she says, and “also a vivid reminder that the current practice of not recycling any rare earths at end-of-life is unsustainable and needs to be reversed.”
From PhysOrg: http://phys.org/news/2012-04-energy-scarce-materials.html
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 9, 2012 | Mining & Drilling, Toxification
By Farron Cousins / DeSmog Blog
As we here at DeSmogBlog have been covering in exhaustive detail for quite some time now, there is virtually no safe way to perform hydraulic fracturing (fracking) for unconventional oil and gas.
Fracking has been linked to numerous problems, including the release of radioactive molecules that cause an array of health problems, earthquakes and groundwater contamination. Cancer, pollution, environmental destruction—all of these things have been linked to the practice of fracking in recent years.
So with all of the dangerous side effects, you’d expect the practice to at least be heavily monitored by some sort of official watchdog group.
You’d think so, but you’d be wrong. According to new studies, there is a dangerous lapse in oversight for fracking wells and the pipelines being used to transport gas from these wells. From News Inferno:
According to an AP report, there are thousands of miles of unregulated pipeline going from active fracking wells across the U.S. to larger pipelines transporting the gas to processing facilities. Though many of these pipelines are relatively new construction, there are no guarantees they’ve been built safely or aren’t at risk of cracking, corroding, or exploding.
The report cites a study this week from the Government Accountability Office which counts at least 240,000 miles of natural gas and oil pipeline leading from fracking wells to larger pipelines and eventually to processing facilities around the country. These pipelines are not regulated by the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and likely could pose major risks to public health and safety. The report indicates some government officials have no idea where many of these miles of pipeline are and some even wind through residential areas.
The report also says that the majority of the pipelines that are not within about 220 yards of a minimum of ten homes have not been inspected by anyone from local, state or federal agencies. This leaves more rural areas much more at risk of a serious gas leak.
But the lack of inspection is only half of the story. The real danger to the public is the fact that even if a gas leak occurs, the companies that own the pipes aren’t required to let anyone know:
Further, if there have been any problems caused by these virtually unknown pipelines, it’s unlikely the public will ever hear about them … the government, too. Because this pipeline is not regulated, natural gas and oil companies using these pipelines in the fracking process are not required to report any accidents, injuries, fatalities or dangerous releases from them. The federal agency in charge (PHMSA) only concerns itself with the fractional 10 percent of pipeline nearest populated areas. Only preliminary plans to expand oversight of these relatively unknown miles of pipeline exist and it could be years before they’re ever inspected by anyone other than companies which own them.
The fact that there is no federal oversight of the industry has allowed the companies involved to keep their toxic fracking solution recipes hidden from the American public:
As fracking has become a household term, those directly impacted have realized that loose regulations on the drilling process has allowed drillers to open natural gas wells almost unchecked. Lax safety regulations on the process has led to poor well construction which has, in turn, led to leaking of toxic chemicals used in fracking.
It’s those same regulations, or lack thereof, that has allowed companies using the fracking process to deny the public access to information on some of the most toxic chemicals used in it. Dozens of families across the U.S., especially in the Mid-Atlantic region which has seen the biggest boom in fracking drilling, believe fracking has caused their ongoing nightmare, forced to find alternate sources of fresh water because their wells have become too contaminated with fracking chemicals, including benzene and methane gas.
But, in bad news for the fracking industry, the public overwhelmingly supports increasing regulations and oversight of unconventional oil and gas drilling activities.
Sixty-five percent of Americans want the federal government to impose tougher regulations on the industry, while just 18 percent said they didn’t think more regulations were necessary.
It will be interesting to see how the public reacts to the fact that the industry is operating without even basic pipeline safety standards, well construction oversight or other needed health and safety protections.
From EcoWatch
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 8, 2012 | Mining & Drilling
By Joe Romm / Think Progress
A U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) team has found that a sharp jump in earthquakes in America’s heartland appears to be linked to oil and natural gas drilling operations.
As hydraulic fracturing has exploded onto the scene, it has increasingly been connected to earthquakes. Some quakes may be caused by the original fracking — that is, by injecting a fluid mixture into the earth to release natural gas (or oil). More appear to be caused by reinjecting the resulting brine deep underground.
Last August, a USGS report examined a cluster of earthquakes in Oklahoma and reported:
Our analysis showed that shortly after hydraulic fracturing began small earthquakes started occurring, and more than 50 were identified, of which 43 were large enough to be located. Most of these earthquakes occurred within a 24 hour period after hydraulic fracturing operations had ceased.
In November, a British shale gas developer found it was “highly probable” its fracturing operations caused minor quakes.
Then last month, Ohio oil and gas regulators said “A dozen earthquakes in northeastern Ohio were almost certainly induced by injection of gas-drilling wastewater into the earth.”
Now, in a paper to be deliver at the annual meeting of the Seismological Society of America, the USGS notes that “a remarkable increase in the rate of [magnitude 3.0] and greater earthquakes is currently in progress” in the U.S. midcontinent. The abstract is online. EnergyWire reports (subs. req’d) some of the findings:
The study found that the frequency of earthquakes started rising in 2001 across a broad swath of the country between Alabama and Montana. In 2009, there were 50 earthquakes greater than magnitude-3.0, the abstract states, then 87 quakes in 2010. The 134 earthquakes in the zone last year is a sixfold increase over 20th century levels.
The surge in the last few years corresponds to a nationwide surge in shale drilling, which requires disposal of millions of gallons of wastewater for each well. According to the federal Energy Information Administration, shale gas production grew, on average, nearly 50 percent a year from 2006 to 2010.
The USGS scientists point out that “a naturally-occurring rate change of this magnitude is unprecedented outside of volcanic settings or in the absence of a main shock, of which there were neither in this region.” They conclude:
While the seismicity rate changes described here are almost certainly manmade, it remains to be determined how they are related to either changes in extraction methodologies or the rate of oil and gas production.
EnergyWire points out, “all of the potential causes they explore in the paper relate to drilling, or more specifically, deep underground injection of drilling waste.”
Last year, the Department of Energy set up a committee to examine the full range of environmental impacts of fracking. I testified to the members and, in addition to raising the issue about methane leakage and global warming, brought up the issue of earthquakes.
The committee said that they were indeed aware of this issue and ultimately the seven-member panel released a report of environmental guidelines for the natural gas industry, which included call on more research on “Understanding induced seismicity triggered by hydraulic fracturing and injection well disposal.”
It’s time go beyond mere research and start developing national standards to minimize these earthquakes.
From TruthOut: http://truth-out.org/news/item/8396-shale-shocked-remarkable-increase-in-us-earthquakes-almost-certainly-manmade
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 8, 2012 | Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy, Lobbying, Mining & Drilling
By Jason Burke / The Guardian
The leaders of thousands of forest-dwelling tribesmen who have fought for years to preserve their ancestral lands from exploitation by an international mining corporation have promised to continue their struggle whatever the decision in a key hearing before India’s supreme court on Monday.
Dubbed the “real-life Avatar” after the Hollywood blockbuster, the battle of the Dongria Kondh people to stop the London-based conglomerate Vedanta Resources from mining bauxite from a hillside they consider sacred has attracted international support. Celebrities backing the campaign include James Cameron, the director of Avatar, Arundhati Roy, the Booker prize-winning author, as well as the British actors Joanna Lumley and Michael Palin.
On Monday the court will decide on an appeal by Vedanta against a ministerial decision in 2010 that stopped work at the site in the Niyamgiri hills of India’s eastern Orissa state.
Lingaraj Azad, a leader of the Save Niyamgiri Committee, said the Dongria Kondh’s campaign was “not just that of an isolated tribe for its customary rights over its traditional lands and habitats, but that of the entire world over protecting our natural heritage”.
An alliance of local tribes has now formed to defend the Dongria Khondh. Kumity Majhi, a leader of the Majhi Kondh adivasi (indigenous people), said local communities would stop the mining “whether or not the supreme court favour us”.
“We, the Majhi Kondh adivasis, will help our Dongria Kondh brothers in protecting the mountains,” he said.
India’s rapid economic growth has generated huge demand for raw materials. Weak law enforcement has allowed massive environmental damage from mining and other extractive industries, according to campaigners.
Vedanta, which wants the bauxite for an alumina refinery it has built near the hills, requires clearance under the country’s forest and environmental laws. But though it had obtained provisional permission, it failed to satisfy laws protecting the forests and granting rights to local tribal groups.
A government report accused the firm of violations of forest conservation, tribal rights and environmental protection laws in Orissa, a charge subsequently repeated by a panel of forestry experts.
Jairam Ramesh, the then environment minister, decided that Vedanta would not be allowed to mine the bauxite because “laws [were] being violated”.
At the time, a spokesman denied the company had failed to obtain the consent of the tribal groups. “Our effort is to bring the poor tribal people into the mainstream,” Vedanta Aluminium’s chief operating officer, Mukesh Kumar, said shortly before the 2010 decision.
Since then the company has made efforts to win over local and international opinion. This weekend Vedanta, contacted through their London-based public relations firm, declined to comment.
Many Indian businessmen say economic growth must be prioritised even at the expense of the environment or the country’s most marginalised communities. They argue these are the inevitable costs of development.
Ramesh was considered the first environment minister to take on major corporate interests after decades where legal constraints on business were routinely ignored. But his stance caused a rift within the government and he was moved to a different ministry.
Chandra Bhushan, of the Centre for Science and Environment in Delhi, said the outcome of the court case would either be “very encouraging for business or very encouraging for civil society”.
“There are so many reasons not to mine there [in the Niyamgiri hills], the court could only overturn it on procedural grounds. Otherwise it will send a signal of total political paralysis,” he told the Guardian.
The supreme court may decide to send the case to the newly constituted national green tribunal, a body of legal and technical experts, to consider once more.
Last week the tribunal suspended the environmental permits for the massive Posco iron and steel refinery, also in Orissa. The project would see an £8bn investment from a South Korean firm, and would significantly enhance India’s industrial capacity as well as generating hundreds of jobs. The tribunal decided however that studies on its environmental impact had been based on a smaller venture and were thus invalid.
Elsewhere in India, power plants, dams, factories, roads and other infrastructure projects are stalled pending environmental clearance. There are frequent reports of clashes over land throughout the country. In February, Survival International, a UK-based campaign group, said it received reports of arrests and beatings apparently aimed at stopping a major religious festival in the Niyamgiri hills where Vedanta’s bauxite mine is planned.
From The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/08/indian-tribe-avatar-supreme-court
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 6, 2012 | Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy, Mining & Drilling
By Justine Hunter / The Globe and Mail
The federal review of the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline has hit another setback this week after a coastal first nation community withdrew from the process, saying the Harper government has predetermined the outcome.
The hearings were temporarily derailed when the panel was greeted by protests in the remote native community of Bella Bella on Sunday. The panel ended up holding abridged hearings in Bella Bella.
On Thursday, the Nuxalk First Nation of Bella Coola cancelled its status as an intervener, vowing to find other ways to oppose the project.
“Our intention was to be part of the process, but just seeing how they treated our neighbouring community, it was disheartening,” Nuxalk hereditary Chief Charlie Nelson said. It was last week’s announcement from the federal government that the process will be fast-tracked, however, that persuaded the band’s leadership to withdraw.
Mr. Nelson said it is clear the federal government intends to approve the project, adding that the new time limits only serve to further compromise the independence of the panel.
The proposed pipeline would cross northern B.C. to move Alberta’s oil-sands crude to reach markets in Asia and California. Much of the land is still open to aboriginal land claims.
Sparked by environmental concerns about both the pipeline and the increase in tanker traffic off the coast, strong opposition to the project has come particularly from first nations communities in B.C. that are now threatening legal action if the project wins federal regulatory approval.
Although there are still 46 first nations with intervenor standing, the cancellation will provide further ammunition for legal action against the project, said Ed John, grand chief of the First Nations Summit.
“It lays the groundwork for a court challenge, when the government does not consult with first nations,” he said.
Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver has said Ottawa will fulfill its constitutional duty to consult with first nations affected by the pipeline but, Mr. John said, the review does not meet that obligation. “The panel cannot discharge the government’s responsibility,” he said.
Mr. Oliver also said the project will be decided based on the national interest, a point that rankled Mr. John. “If that energy strategy built on the tar sands and the pipeline and that tanker traffic is in the national interest, surely to God the resolution of the land question in B.C. should be in the national interest as well,” he said.
Mr. John met with Mr. Oliver in January and urged him to tour the pipeline route and meet with people who live in those northern communities.
“Rather than making the decision from their lofty perch in Ottawa,” he said in an interview, “they ought to come out and look for themselves – they need to make an informed decision.”
The mayor of Smithers, Taylor Bachrach, said he would love to have the opportunity to play host to the key federal ministers who will be making the final decision. “We’ll take them out Steelhead fishing, maybe help them understand why people up in our neck of the woods are so concerned about the project,” he said.
Mr. Bachrach is registered to make a submission to the hearing when it moves to Smithers later this month. He is speaking not as mayor, however, but as a resident. “I want to tell them that the natural resource industries are important to this part of the world but it’s not oil country. There are some things we are not willing to sacrifice.”
The joint panel of the National Energy Board and Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency is expected to wrap up hearings in the spring of 2013, but that timeline is now in doubt after Ottawa promised to streamline the major project review process. It will be retroactive but it is not yet clear how it will be applied to these hearings.
From The Globe and Mail:
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 5, 2012 | Male Violence, Mining & Drilling, Rape Culture, Toxification
By Sara Jerving / PR Watch
Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” has generated widespread media attention this year. The process, which injects water and chemicals into the ground to release “natural” gas and oil from shale bedrock, has been shown to contribute significantly to air and water pollution and has even been linked to earthquakes. But little has been reported on the ways in which fracking may have unique impacts on women. Chemicals used in fracking have been linked to breast cancer and reproductive health problems and there have been reports of rises in crimes against women in some fracking “boom” towns, which have attracted itinerant workers with few ties to the community.
Toxins in Fracking Process Linked to Breast Cancer
Not only has the chemical cocktail inserted into the ground been shown to contaminate groundwater and drinking water, but fracking fluid also picks up toxins on its trip down to the bedrock and back up again that had previously been safely locked away underground. Chemicals linked to cancer are present in nearly all of the steps of extraction — in the fracking fluids, the release of radioactive and other hazardous materials from the shale, and in transportation and drilling related air pollution and contaminated water disposal.
Some reports indicate that more than 25 percent of the chemicals used in natural gas operations have been linked to cancer or mutations, although companies like Haliburton have lobbied hard to keep the public in the dark about the exact formula of fracking fluids. According to the U.S. Committee on Energy and Commerce, fracking companies used 95 products containing 13 different known and suspected carcinogens between 2005 and 2009 as part of the fracking fluid that is injected in the ground. These include naphthalene, benzene, and acrylamide. Benzene, which the U.S. EPA has classified as a Group A, human carcinogen, is released in the fracking process through air pollution and in the water contaminated by the drilling process. The Institute of Medicine released a report in December 2011 that links breast cancer to exposure to benzene.
Up to thirty-seven percent of chemicals in fracking fluids have been identified as endocrine-disruptors — chemicals that have potential adverse developmental and reproductive effects. According to the U.S. EPA, exposure to these types of chemicals has also been implicated in breast cancer.
The Marcellus Shale in the northeast part of the United States also naturally contains radioactive materials, including radium, which is largely locked away in the bedrock. The New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) analyzed 13 samples of water, contaminated by the fracking process, as a result of the hydraulic fracturing of the shale during the extraction process. The DEC found that the resulting water contained levels of radium-226, some as high as 267 times the limit for safe discharge into the environment and more than 3000 times the limit safe for people to drink. One gas well can produce over a million gallons of contaminated water. A New York Times expose in 2011, released secret EPA documents that illustrated how this water is sometimes sent to sewage plants that are not designed to process the dangerous chemicals or radiation which in some instances are used in municipal drinking supplies or are released into rivers and streams that supply drinking water.
Emerging data points to a problem requiring more study. In the six counties in Texas which have seen the most concentrated gas drilling, breast cancer rates have risen significantly, while over the same period the rates for this kind of cancer have declined elsewhere in the state. Similarly, in western New York, where traditional gas drilling processes have been used for decades before hydrofracking came along, has been practiced for nearly two centuries, rural counties with historically intensive gas industry activity show consistently higher cancer death rates (PDF) than rural counties without drilling activity. For women, this includes breast, cervix, colon, endocrine glands, larynx, ovary, rectal, uterine, and other cancers.
Toxins linked to Spontaneous Abortion and Birth Defects
Certain compounds, such as toluene, that are released as gas at the wellhead and also found in water contaminated by fracking have the potential to harm pregnant women or women wishing to become pregnant. According to the U.S. EPA, studies have shown that toluene can cause an assortment of developmental disorders in children born to pregnant women that have been exposed to toulene. Pregnant women also carry an increase risk of spontaneous abortion from exposure to toluene. Wyoming, which contains some of the most active drilling fields in the country, failed to meet federal standards for air quality due to fumes containing toluene and benzene in 2009.
Sandra Steingraber, an acclaimed ecologist and author of “Raising Elijah” — a book on how to raise a child in an age of environmental hazards, takes the strong stand that fracking violates a woman’s reproductive rights. “If you want to plan a pregnancy and someone else’s chemicals sabotage that — it’s a violation of your rights as a woman to have agency over your own reproductive destiny,” she said.
Steingraber sees banning fracking as an issue that both the pro-choice and anti-abortion camps can both rally behind. She has been giving talks on why opposition to fracking should be considered a feminist issue. The author won a Heinz award — which recognizes individuals for their contributions in areas including the environment — for her work on environmental toxins. She dedicated the $100,000 prize to the fight against fracking.
Crimes Against Women on the Rise in Some Energy Boom Towns
Beyond concerns about cancer and toxins are other societal ills related to fracking that disproportionately impact women. Some areas across the country where fracking has boomed have noted an increase in crime — including domestic violence and sexual assault. In Dickinson, North Dakota, there has been at least a 300% increase in assault and sex crimes over the past year. The mayor has attributed the increase in crime to the oil and “natural” gas boom in their area.
The Executive Director of the Abuse & Rape Crisis Center in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, Amy Miller, confirmed that there has been an increase in unknown assailant rapes since the gas industry moved into the region — which are much harder to prosecute. Miller also noted that domestic abuse has spiked locally, with the cases primarily from gas industry families. The county has more than 700 wells drilled, with more than 300 of these operational, and another 2,000 drilling permits have been issued.
The Gas Industry’s Pink Rig
Even though fracking and drilling are dependent on a potpourri of carcinogenic chemicals, big energy companies don’t hesitate to slap on pink paint in PR campaigns championing breast cancer awareness.
In 2009, a natural gas drilling rig in Colorado was painted pink with a percentage of the daily profits from the unit going to the Breast Cancer Foundation. This and other showy gestures by the methane gas industry appear to do little to alleviate concerns about the impact that fracking chemicals and practices may be having on public health and safety.
From TruthOut: http://truth-out.org/news/item/8336-the-fracking-frenzys-impact-on-women
