Embarrassed by my link to USAToday (which I read on my phone while allocating my time with a non-price mechanism [i.e., waiting in lines]), I now attempt to partially redeem myself with a repetitive link to the blog formerly known as Green, Inc.:
Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in the United States from January through March were the lowest of any recorded for the first quarter of the year since 1992, the federal Energy Information Administration reports. The agency attributed the decline to a combination of three factors: a mild winter, reduced demand for gasoline and, most significantly, a drop in coal-fired electricity generation because of historically low natural gas prices. ...
With a twist:
Yet Michael Mann, a climate scientist who directs the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, emphasized Friday that, in addition to carbon dioxide emissions, natural gas wells contribute to other ills. When shale gas is taken from the earth, researchers suggest, “fugitive methane” – a far potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide — can escape into the atmospheres through fissures in the ground. ...
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the means by which much of the cheap gas is acquired, also raises questions about potential environmental impacts like groundwater contamination, critics say.
Ooops, market-based climate policy (i.e., no climate policy) might not be a freebie.
