NASA: Fracking Is Source of Massive Methane "Hot Spot"

This map shows anomalous U.S. methane emissions (or how much the emissions differ from average background concentrations) for 2003 to 2009, as measured by the European Space Agency's SCIAMACHY instrument. The Four Corners area [circled]—the area where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah meet—is the only red spot on the map. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Michigan; click to enlarge)

by Gaius Publius

Methane, fracking, and global warming — like three musketeers, all for one and one for all.

As anyone who reads here regularly knows, methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas — it traps the earth's heat — just like CO2. When it's burned (for power-generation, for example) it's emitted into the atmosphere as CO2 and H2O (water vapor, another greenhouse gas, by the way). While methane is shorter-lived than CO2, which is stable in the atmosphere and is only drawn out slowly by natural processes, when methane breaks down in the air, it becomes CO2 and other products, including water vapor, which again are also greenhouse gases. So methane, even after breaking down, does long-term damage.

The lifespan of methane in the lower atmosphere is estimated at about ten years and 12 years in the stratosphere, but its greenhouse effect in that brief time is over 100 times the effect of CO2 over the same period.

So, not only is burning methane bad for the global climate (Ms. Clinton, take note), but direct methane leaks are terrible. If the "greenhouse effect" of CO2 (its "global warming potential") is indexed as "1", the greenhouse effect of methane over 100-year timespan is about 30, and and over a 20-year timespan, about 85.

Methane in the Earth's atmosphere is a strong greenhouse gas with a global warming potential of 29 over a 100-year period. This means that a methane emission will have 29 times the impact on temperature of a carbon dioxide emission of the same mass over the following 100 years. Methane has a large effect (100 times as strong as carbon dioxide) for a brief period (having a half-life of 7 years in the atmosphere), whereas carbon dioxide has a small effect for a long period (over 100 years). Because of this difference in effect and time period, the global warming potential of methane over a 20-year time period is 86.

There are many sources of direct methane emissions, including animal husbandry (consider how much beef is consumed in just the U.S. each day; live cows emit methane almost hourly) and also melting Arctic permafrost, both undersea and on land (there's a massive amount of methane sequestered in the Arctic, most of it still there ... for now).

But a new and important source of methane is our increasing dependence on "natural gas" as a fuel for power generation. It's true that burning methane provides more energy per unit of CO2 emission, but the CO2 it emits is still CO2. In addition, methane leaks at every point in the production and usage process, from well heads to pipelines, to facilities that "liquefy" it for long-distance transport, to the transportation vehicles themselves, to delivery to customers, and finally at sites where it's ultimately burned. Every step of the process produces methane leakage.

But the most important source of methane leakage is from the fracking that's increasingly used to extract it.

Put simply, fracking doesn't just cause earthquakes and water pollution. Fracking causes large methane leaks as well.

NASA: Fracking Is Causing the Largest Methane Leak in the Country

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the "four corners" region of the American Southwest, where Arizona, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico meet (see map above). We've known for years that there's a massive (visible from space) methane "hot spot" in that region. Now we know why. Fracking.

Via Common Dreams:

NASA Study Nails Fracking as Source of Massive Methane 'Hot Spot'

The 2,500-square mile plume is said to be the largest concentration of the potent greenhouse gas in the country

A NASA study released on Monday confirms that a methane "hot spot" in the Four Corners region of the American southwest is directly related to leaks from natural gas extraction, processing, and distribution.

The 2,500-square mile plume, first detected in 2003 and confirmed by NASA satellite data in October 2014, is said to be the largest concentration of atmospheric methane in the U.S. and is more than triple a standard ground-based estimate. Methane, the primary component of natural gas, is a highly-efficient greenhouse gas—84 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, and a significant contributor to global warming.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and funded primarily by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), surveyed industry sources including gas processing facilities, storage tanks, pipeline leaks, and well pads, as well as a coal mine venting shaft.

It found that leaks from only 10 percent of the individual methane sources are contributing to half of the emissions, confirming the scientists' suspicions that the mysterious hotspot was connected to the high level of fracking in the region.

There are more than 20,000 oil and gas wells operating in the San Juan Basin, where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah meet. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that overall annual gas production in the basin is as much as 1.3 trillion cubic feet, mostly from coal bed methane and shale formations.

"NASA's finding that the oil and gas industry is primarily responsible for the 'hot spot' is not surprising," stated the Western Environmental Law Center, a nonprofit public interest law firm. "In fact, the researchers found only one large source of methane not related to oil and gas operations: venting from the San Juan coal mine. This discovery renders attempts to point the finger at other potential emissions sources, like coal outcrops and landfills, definitively refuted."

The article goes on to detail "how problematic current estimates of methane emissions from oil and gas operations are" — meaning that the EPA's estimates of methane emissions (leaks) tend to minimize the problem.

So your first bottom line is, we're not only burning ourselves back to the Stone Age, we're fracking ourselves there too.

Hillary Clinton's Transition Team Is Headed by Ken Salazar, a Major Fracking Proponent...

... and it contains other major fracking proponents and evangelists as well, such as Heather Zichal. Which is your second bottom line.

First, a taste of Ken Salazar's interest in fracking. Note that Salazar was Obama's Interior Secretary:

Former Obama official: Fracking has never been an environmental problem

HOUSTON — Former U.S. Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar said Wednesday morning [February 5, 2014] that he believes hydraulic fracturing is safe, and the energy industry should work to convince the public that it doesn’t pose a safety threat.

Salazar spoke in Houston at the North American Prospect Expo, a three-day conference where landowners from around the globe look to make deals with oil, gas and pipeline companies.

“From my opinion and from what I’ve seen … I believe hydraulic fracking is, in fact, safe,” Salazar said.

Salazar said the oil and gas industry must work to educate the public of the technology and “make sure people are not scared.”

“We know that, from everything we’ve seen, there’s not a single case where hydraulic fracking has created an environmental problem for anyone,” Salazar said. “We need to make sure that story is told.”

Now, on Heather Zichal, former top Obama energy aide, from Steve Horn at DeSmogBlog:

Heather Zichal, Former Obama Energy Aide, Named to Board of Fracked Gas Exports Giant Cheniere

Heather Zichal, former Obama White House Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change, may soon walk out of the government-industry revolving door to become a member of the board of directors for fracked gas exports giant Cheniere, who nominated her to serve on the board.

The announcement, made through Cheniere's U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Form 8-K and its Schedule 14A, comes just as a major class-action lawsuit was filed against the board of the company by stockholders.

In reaction to the lawsuit, Cheniere has delayed its annual meeting. At that meeting, the company's stockholders will vote on the Zichal nomination.

The class-action lawsuit was filed by plaintiff and stockholder James B. Jones, who alleges the board gave stock awards to CEO Charif Souki in defiance of both a stockholders' vote and the company's by-laws.

Souki — a central character in Gregory Zuckerman's book “The Frackers“ — became the highest paid CEO in the U.S. as a result of the maneuver, raking in $142 million in 2013, $133 million of which came from stock awards.

Zichal was nominated to join Cheniere's audit committee of the board, and will be paid $180,000 per year for the gig if elected.

Notice that paycheck for sitting on Cheniere's board — $180,000 per year. Does that smell like "thank you" money? It looks like "thank you" money as well. Zichal's anodyne Wikipedia page touts her this way: "A Democratic political operative and energy industry lobbyist ... said [Zichal] was 'absolutely dogged in her pursuit of gaining consensus with external stakeholders'" while pursuing the administration's (methane-centric) "clean energy plan." You don't get a reward from a fracking and natural gas giant for not advocating their interests.

And now Heather Zichal, Ken Salazar and several pro-methane others are a key part of corporate-leaning Hillary Clinton's transition team.

Which brings us to where we started. Methane, fracking, and global warming — like three musketeers, all for one and one for all. Want to stop global warming? In the U.S., you have to first stop fracking — and those who want to enable it. Remember, anti-Sanders activists — the Becky Bond Rule applies here as well.

GP
 

Bill Black & Norman Solomon: Clinton's Transition Team Foretells a Corporate Presidency

Economist William Black discusses the Clinton transition team with The Real News. Continue playing after my programmed stopping point to hear Black discuss Trump's transition team.

by Gaius Publius

There is no question that if Donald Trump becomes president, corporations will have the run of the place. Trump is not a populist; he just plays one on TV. There are other negatives to a Trump presidency as well — rampant nativism, religious intolerance and bigotry, and the full Pandora's list of right-wing evils, coupled with the right-wing's eager willingness to go full-speed in the wrong direction every time they have real power.

That doesn't mean a Clinton presidency will be peaches and roses. Analyzing Clinton's recently announced transition team, it looks like corporate rule will be a feature of her regime as well, at least as a number of writers see it — for example, progressive Norman Solomon (below) and economist and professor Bill Black (quoted below and in the video above).

I write this (a) in the full expectation that a Clinton presidency is fully in our future (assuming none of the remaining black swans land), and (b) that the Becky Bond Rule — which requires anti-Sanders Clinton activists to be first in line to fix what she breaks — is still in place.

So, what might be broken if the next four years are Clinton-controlled? No one can know for sure, of course, and the candidate is still on the stump, so we won't hear wicked plans even if there are some, which if we're lucky there won't be.

But a candidate's transition team is a strong indicator of future policy, since the transition team basically stocks a new administration with people, or at least, strongly suggests candidates — a lot of them. With that in mind, here's Norman Solomon, writing at the Huffington Post, on the recently announced Clinton transition team. Solomon quotes economist and professor Bill Black, from the video above, and offers his own analysis (my emphasis throughout):

Clinton's Transition Team: A Corporate Presidency Foretold

... Clinton is showing her solidarity with the nemesis of the Sanders campaign -- Wall Street. The trend continued last week with the announcement that Clinton has tapped former senator and Interior secretary Ken Salazar to chair her transition team.

After many months of asserting that her support for the "gold standard" Trans-Pacific Partnership was a thing of the past -- and after declaring that she wants restrictions on fracking so stringent that it could scarcely continue -- Clinton has now selected a vehement advocate for the TPP and for fracking, to coordinate the process of staffing the top of her administration.

But wait, there's more -- much more than Salazar's record -- to tell us where the planning for the Hillary Clinton presidency is headed.

On the surface, it might seem like mere inside baseball to read about the transition team's four co-chairs, described by Politico as "veteran Clinton aides Maggie Williams and Neera Tanden" along with "former National Security Adviser Tom Donilon and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm." But the leaders of the transition team -- including Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, who is also president of the Clinton-Kaine Transition Project -- will wield enormous power.

"The transition team is one of the absolute most important things in the world for a new administration," says William K. Black, who has held key positions at several major regulatory agencies such as the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. Along with "deciding what are we actually going to make our policy priorities," the transition team will handle key questions: "Who will the top people be? Who are we going to vet, to hold all of the cabinet positions, and many non-cabinet positions, as well? The whole staffing of the senior leadership of the White House."

Black's assessment of Salazar, Podesta and the transition team's four co-chairs is withering. "These aren't just DNC regulars, Democratic National Committee regulars," he said in an interview with The Real News Network [video above]. "What you're seeing is complete domination by what used to be the Democratic Leadership Council."

What are the politics of this group, according to Black? 

[Black:] "So this was a group we talked about in the past. Very, very, very right-wing on foreign policy, what they called a muscular foreign policy, which was a euphemism for invading places. And very, very tough on crime..."

Black added: "And on the economic side, they were all in favor of austerity. All in favor of privatization. Tried to do a deal with Newt Gingrich to privatize Social Security. And of course, were all in favor of [trade agreements] like NAFTA."

Another writer looking at the same subject (and quoting the same Bill Black interview), Paul Street, offers this about other members of Clinton's transition team:

It Takes a Ruling-Class Village to Staff the White House

... Also on Clinton’s transition leadership team is [Tom] Donilon, a member of the Bilderberg Group’s steering committee. After serving as Obama’s national security adviser from late 2010 through the spring of 2013, he became a distinguished fellow at the CFR [Council on Foreign Relations] and resumed his prior longstanding position as a partner in the leading multinational corporate law firm O’Melveny & Myers.

Other senior Clinton transition officials are longstanding, Democratic Leadership Council-style operatives Neera Tanden (a Yale Law graduate and president of the CAP), Maggie Williams (partner in a leading Washington, D.C., management consulting firm and former director of a top mortgage lending firm that collapsed in late 2007) and Harvard Law graduate Jennifer Granholm (whose pro-Big Business record as a two-term Michigan governor helped score her lucrative positions on the boards of Universal Forest Products Inc. and Dow Chemical).

I don't want to turn this into an essay. I just want to give the short strokes and list some names to watch — Tom Donilan, Neera Tanden, Maggie Williams, Jennifer Granholm — along with the truly terrible, pro-TPP, pro-fracking Ken Salazar. We'll have more about these fine people in due time, I'm sure. (About Neera Tanden, we've already written a little bit.)

Hillary Clinton may turn out to be a progressive's dream as president. That's certainly the claim, and perhaps the belief, of her most ardent activist supporters. If that turns out to be true, we'll all celebrate together.

But if it doesn't, remember the Becky Bond Rule — those who broke it (the campaign of the genuinely progressive Bernie Sanders) have the first obligation to fix what their own choice does wrong. Looking at the transition team, the odds that Clinton-supporting anti-Sanders progressives (and "progressives") will have their work cut out for them.

GP
 

"You Broke It, You Bought It": A Sanders Activist Challenges Clinton Supporters

Carbon-loving TPP proponent Ken Salazar, Clinton's new head of her transition team. Salazar's group will will recommend names to fill thousands of Executive Branch jobs in the next Clinton administration, should there be one. What do progressive Clinton supporters have to say about his ascension? Anything? Will they push back against it?

by Gaius Publius

This really matters. That Clinton is a better progressive choice than Trump is not much contested. But was Clinton the better progressive choice against Sanders? Almost no Sanders-supporting Democratic voter would say yes to that. Not on trade, not on climate, not on breaking up too-big Wall Street banks, not on criminally prosecuting (finally) "too big to jail" members of the elite — not on any number of issues that touch core progressives values.

Yes, Clinton was and will be good on some progressive issues, but the list is expected not to be Sanders-long. Progressive vs. "progressive" was, in fact, the hill on which Sanders battled Clinton. Sanders was made to lose. Clinton supporters won.

So what happens if (or when) a newly installed President Clinton "pulls an Obama" — if she starts supporting job-killing trade deals, say, and sells them as "well managed" and "a way to keep China and Russia in check"? Or institutes a large, climate-killing, fracked-methane buildout and calls it a "bridge fuel to a safe and energy-independent future"? What will Clinton supporters, those who happily helped bring down Sanders, do then? The question matters.

(About trade deals: Sanders supporters say — no, they know — that all pro-corporate trade deals are job killers, no matter the words these deals are painted with. About methane expansion: If it's a "bridge fuel," will investors be told that the methane facilities they're investing in will be torn down in ten years to make way for the fuel that methane is a bridge fuel to? If so, why not just invest in that? Or is the "bridge fuel" talk just talk?)

Becky Bond on the Challenge to Clinton Supporters

Becky Bond has a unique place in the progressive ecosystem. As former president of the activist CREDO SuperPAC, she was at the center of a great many progressive actions, including the fights to stop TPP and the Keystone pipeline. As a senior advisor to the Sanders campaign, she saw the Democratic primary battle firsthand.

Now Bond looks at what the primary has wrought, and issues this challenge to activists who helped defeat Sanders: You broke it, you bought it. Will you now take charge in the fight to hold Clinton accountable? Or will you hang back (enjoying the fruits) and let others take the lead? ("Enjoying the fruits" is my addition. As one attendee noted, the Democratic Convention this year seemed very much like "a jobs fair.")

Bond says this, writing in The Hill (my emphasis):

Progressive Clinton supporters: You broke it, you bought it

It’s time for progressives who helped Hillary Clinton beat Bernie Sanders in the primary to take the lead on holding her accountable.

With Donald Trump tanking in the polls, there’s room for progressives to simultaneously crush his bid for the presidency while holding Hillary Clinton’s feet to the fire on the TPP.

And yet:

She’s now appointed two pro-TPP politicians to key positions on her campaign  —  Tim Kaine as her Vice President and Ken Salazar to lead her presidential transition team. It’s time for progressives who helped Clinton beat Bernie Sanders in the primary to take the lead on holding her accountable.

Progressives who supported Clinton in the primary should use their leverage to ensure Clinton makes good on her vow to stop TPP and keep other promises she made on the campaign trail to win progressive votes. Bernie supporters will have your back, but it’s up to you to lead on this one.

It’s a serious matter, and it can’t wait until after the inauguration. From the perspective of progressives who supported Bernie in the primary, this election is a shotgun wedding. We’re going to vote for Clinton because we have to, but the honeymoon ends with the appointment of Salazar.

Bond has more on Salazar and why both he and Tim Kaine are a "tell," a signal of things to come from Hillary Clinton: "The choice of Salazar is a pretty good sign that as expected we’ll be seeing the 'revolving door' in full force in a Clinton administration. As head of the transition he’ll have enormous influence on who fills thousands of jobs at the White House and federal agencies."

Will Clinton-supporting activists take up the challenge?

To Clinton Supporters: "You have a special responsibility"

For Bond, the time to act is now and the primary responsibility for supporting progressive goals belongs to those who help kill the Sanders campaign:

So to progressives who supported Clinton in the primary  —  labor advocates, environmentalists, immigration reformers, anti-war activists  —  you have a special responsibility to lead efforts to hold your candidate accountable.

Yes, to "lead" efforts. But will they? That's the challenge. The response to that challenge will also be a test and a "tell," a sign of who Clinton activists actually are. Many will pass the test easily (I can name quite a few right now), but many will likely not.

The Split Among Democratic Activists

The "Becky Bond Rule" says progressives in the Clinton camp must be first in line to fix what Clinton does wrong, to aggressively and proactively lead the pushback. That seems only right. Yet there's a problem with this rule.

The problem: Applying this rule aggressively will expose those on the Clinton side who are really just centrists after all — or worse, just job-seekers — with only a few progressive positions. The dynamic within the "progressive" community was always complex (and pretty patched over), and will only become more so, more complex for sure, and maybe more patched over.

During the primary, a great many "progressives" got unmasked as mainly centrists (after all, Clinton allies held one of their big pre-Benghazi Committee strategy session in Third Way HQ). The reaction to Clinton activists by Sanders activists then, and the reaction going forward, was and will be the stuff of drama, or at least of daytime TV.

And this doesn't begin to touch the issues around war.

I predict a lot of "hanging back" from the Clinton-supporting camp — after all, no one butters their bread on both sides, the Clinton side and the anti-Clinton side, and the butter on the Clinton side is alluring. Thus it's easy to predict a lot of angst from Sanders activists about how much calling out to do. The Becky Bond Rule — "You broke it, you bought it" — is a challenge to take responsibility. Note that it implies wrong-doing ("you broke it"). A real gauntlet throw-down on matters of urgent and critical importance.

The progressive-"progressive" split is as real as it always was, and it's not going away. The next few years of activist interaction, especially among electoral and Party activists, will be revealing, especially when the real action, as I'll explain later, moves out of the electoral arena. If I'm right about that, the loss of the orderly electoral arena as a place to make large changes could also be laid to Clinton's ascendancy as well, and thus, to her supporters.

"You broke it, you bought it" is the right thing to say. But will Clinton's activist base own what they did when they need to? We're about to find out.

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