Energy News for week ending August 9, 2019

Cooking with gas – or not? | Turn to Stone | Chernobyl “Atomik”

Happy Friday afternoon folks. We start this week’s news recap with a question posed in a WBUR headline – Give up your gas stove to save the planet? “As more cities and states try to cut carbon emissions, some are taking aim at a new target: natural gas inside homes. Buildings, through heating and cooking, use almost a third of the natural gas consumed in the U.S. In July, Berkeley, Calif., became the first city in the country to ban natural gas in new buildings, starting next year. City officials say new efficient electric appliances have lower carbon footprints than gas-powered furnaces and water heaters…Cities like San Jose, Sacramento and Los Angeles are developing their own policies to make buildings zero carbon, and a number of cities around the world have pledged to do the same. But opponents say the push to get rid of gas goes against what consumers are asking for, especially in their kitchens. ‘People love their gas stoves,’ says Bob Raymer, technical director with the California Building Industry Association. ‘We don’t want to force something onto the consumer that makes the consumer feel uncomfortable, or that they just don’t like. After all, it’s their home.’ But California has committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2045, and about a quarter of the state’s emissions come from energy used by buildings. To reach its ambitious climate change goals, the state will eventually have to force — or entice — homeowners to electrify everything.”

If you’re not yet ready to give up your gas appliances, there’s another option to help reduce your climate footprint. In the words of an ELO song you can “turn to stone.” From Quartz – “…One option, if you care about the environment…is to offset your personal carbon use—by turning it into stone. Starting in June, a company called Climeworks began offering customers the option to buy a personal carbon offset subscription. You can choose one of three tiers: €7 a month (~$8) will pay for trapping 85 kg of carbon dioxide in a year (about the same as driving 700 km or 435 miles in a gasoline car); €21 a month will get you 255 kg in a year; and €49 a month will convert 600 kg of carbon dioxide into stone. You can also customize your payments up to as much as €2,000 per month to offset 25,000 kg…Climeworks is one of just three companies in the world that have the technology to draw carbon dioxide from the air, called direct air capture (DAC). And it already has a few small commercial plants running…[one] in Iceland captures carbon dioxide and pumps it underground, where it is converted into stone in less than two years.”

Because it’s Friday afternoon and I have the weekend on my mind, here’s an interesting story about a new vodka. From Breaking News Ireland, “A radioactivity-free vodka produced from crops in Chernobyl’s abandoned zone has been brewed by a team of British scientists. Professor Jim Smith, from the University of Portsmouth, described the artisan vodka – branded Atomik – as ‘possibly the most important bottle of spirits in the world’ as he believed it would help the region recover economically. He said tests on the vodka showed that, following the distillation process, only ‘natural Carbon-14’ radioactivity was found in line with any normal spirit drink. Prof Smith now wants to produce the traditionally-brewed vodka for sale through a social enterprise called The Chernobyl Spirit Company, with 75% of the profits going back to the affected community in Ukraine.” OK — I’m not sure the land has been cleaned to US standards of “unrestricted use” and they mention “the team found some radioactivity in the grain: Strontium-90 is slightly above the cautious Ukrainian limit of 20 Bq/kg.” But that after distilling it went away. I don’t know about you, but I’m still not convinced. However, the Atomik vodka appears to have a wild boar on the label, so if you’ve been enjoying the social media trend this week on wild boars, there’s that.

That’s the recap. Have a wonderful weekend!

Natural Gas/Oil/Pipeline/Drilling

Uniform reporting of gas leaks sought, Salem News

State delays key review for Weymouth compressor station, Wicked Local

Give Up Your Gas Stove To Save The Planet? Banning Gas Is The Next Climate Push, WBUR

The Leaks That Threaten the Clean Image of Natural Gas, Wall St. Journal

Environmental advocates denounce planned natural gas plant in Killingly, Hartford Courant

Protests will seek to ‘shut down’ Merrimack Station power plant in Bow, Concord Monitor

Too Soon To Know If Gas Disaster Settlement Is Adequate: Rep, Patch

A primer on methane (and cow flatulence), Boston Globe

National Grid takes campaign for gas pipeline to radio, Newsday

Renewables/Climate Change/RGGI