ModeShift - Part 41

Grassroots Opposition To Big Energy – Clean or Dirty

by Keith SchneiderFebruary 19, 2012February 19, 20120

The New York Times is catching up to the grassroots opposition to big energy projects, clean energy or dirty. Today the paper reported on the developing push back to big oil pipelines, big electrical transmission lines, and other energy transport projects of scale. The dimensions of what needs to be done to push the country from high-carbon energy production to lower carbon production is as vast as anything the nation has attempted. That’s why it’s …

Newest New York Times Piece: University of Wisconsin’s East Campus Gateway

by Keith SchneiderFebruary 15, 2012February 15, 20120

I’ve been writing for the New York Times since February 1981, covering all manner of people and places and events. Most recently, much of that work has focused on interesting real estate developments around the country. The latest article, featuring the University of Wisconsin’s work to construct a new entrance corridor on the east side of campus, was posted and published today: MADISON, Wis. â€” A century after it was first proposed, a broad pedestrian …

Energy Boom: Is It For Real? Looks Like Answer is Yes

by Keith SchneiderFebruary 8, 2012March 2, 20120

Prompted by President Obama’s unexpectedly cheery assessment of America’s energy outlook in the State of the Union, the Washington Post asked whether the surge in fossil fuel production was real. Yes, the paper concluded, but not for very long. The Post, it appears to me, is too pessimistic. U.S. oil production peaked in 1970s at about 9.6 million barrels per day. It dropped to 4.96 million barrels a day in 2008, the lowest production since …

Obama Worries About Big Turbulence in America’s Clean Energy Sector

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 29, 2012April 19, 20120

Converging trendsÂ are roiling the clean energy manufacturing and production sectors here in Michigan andÂ nationally. President Obama knows it and is worried. The collapse of the Solyndra solar plant in California isÂ a prickly presidential campaign issue. Jobs and the country’s capacity to reduce its climate changing emissions, (as shown in the emissions counter above in NYC), also are big outcomes. On Tuesday evening, the president told the story of an unemployed west Michigan …

Boom in Fuel Production Keeps Obama’s “All Of The Above” Energy Strategy Leaning One Way

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 25, 2012January 29, 20120

Four years ago, when he campaigned for the office he now holds, Barack Obama described the urgent need to pursue clean energy development because of a grave and persistent problem. Demand and prices for oil were rising, along with national and economic security risks tied to ever higher imports. Supplies of domestically-produced fuel, meanwhile, were falling. Last night, as the president defined the basic outlines of an “all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source …

More Rigs, More Wells Describe American Oil and Gas Boom

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 12, 2012March 2, 20120

Every month the Energy Information Administration, a unit of the Energy Department, updates its Total Energy report, one of the most useful compendiums of data describing the interest and capacity of the American energy sector. The latest edition, published last month, illustrates a national oil and gas sector on a roll. Among the rich field of data charts contained in Total Energy, two are arguably the most revealing. Table 5.1 (page 77) reports that the …

Political Irony for Obama in North Dakota Oil Boom: Energy Sector Leads Jobs Recovery and Re-Election Chances

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 7, 2012March 2, 20120

Early this morning Scott Terrell boarded Amtrak’s Empire Builder in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho for the overnight ride east to Williston, N.D. A month ago I met Scott while riding the same train to the heart of the northern Great Plains oil and gas boom. In the weeks since, I’ve learned more about the influence of energy development in the Dakotas and other states, and how it affects men like Terrell. Let’s just put it this …

How Long Will North Dakota Bakken Boom Last? Decades Due To China

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 5, 2012February 2, 20121

Joel Bleth, a lawyer and engineer who co-founded Solar Bee, a very successful Dickinson, N.D.-based manufacturer of solar-powered equipment to circulate wastewater at treatment plants, sent a message here today asking how long the oil and gas boom in his state would persist. Dickinson, a prairie city of 18,000, has grown more than 10 percent since the turn of the century and for several years has experienced swelling markets for retail and office buildings, hotels …

North Dakota Oil Boom Like Air Ambulance Flying In Storm

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 4, 2012February 2, 20120

The day after Christmas, Scott Terrell, a painter and carpenter from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho turned 58. Never has he felt the weight and wear of his years so acutely. Last August Terrell joined the army of oilfield mercenaries that are rapidly converting great stretches of North Dakota, Montana, South Dakota and Wyoming into the most productive fossil fuel development zone in U.S. history. He quickly landed a job driving a Volvo haul truck on a …

North Dakota’s Oil Boom Leads U.S. Out of Recession

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 1, 2012February 1, 20131

Sunday evening, December 2011, Amtrakâ€™s eastbound Empire Builder pulls into Williston, North Dakota, a fast-growing northern Great Plains city riding the lashing tail of an oil-drilling dragon. A crowd gathers on the station platform. Men coming. Men going. Big pickups rumble in the parking lot. Four years into a drilling frenzy that has pushed North Dakota to the top of the nationâ€™s oil-producing states, the sound of Williston is diesel engines. The scent is diesel …