Making Energy
Interactive Map: Where Are Wyoming’s Abandoned Wells?
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Explore Wyoming’s abandoned well locations on this interactive map.
Inside Energy (https://insideenergy.org/author/jbrock/page/4/)
Explore Wyoming’s abandoned well locations on this interactive map.
Inside Energy’s Jordan Wirfs-Brock explains how and why the massive methane leak from an underground natural gas storage facility in California matters to Colorado and to the oil and gas industry here.
Methane is spewing from an underground natural gas storage field in southern California called Aliso Canyon at a rate of 50,000 kg per hour – the equivalent of 5 million full-grown cows. The leak is causing health problems, air traffic detours, and mass evacuations. And because methane is a potent greenhouse gas, its contribution to global warming is like having three extra coal-fired power plants. This isn’t just California’s problem: In addition to those direct consequences, Aliso Canyon is a wake-up call about the challenges facing our natural gas infrastructure. U.S. energy strategy, as outlined by the new Clean Power Plan, hinges on the idea that burning natural gas has a smaller carbon footprint than burning coal.
As part of our Feasting On Fuel project, Jordan Wirfs-Brock has created this simple quiz to test your knowledge, or best guesses, on how much energy it takes to create basic food products.
North Dakota’s Fort Berthold Indian Reservation is at the heart of the Bakken oil boom. When anthropologist Jen Shannon first visited the tribes there, it was to return religious artifacts. But the relationship grew. Next came an oral history project, then a film. And now, a more unusual request – help kids do science projects to understand their changing community.
As part of our IE Questions project, Inside Energy investigated how much energy is lost as electricity travels from a power plant to the plug in your home. In the U.S., five to six percent of the energy in electricity is lost during transmission and distribution, but that varies widely state-to-state and year-to-year. See how your home state measures up.
How much energy is lost along the way as electricity travels from a power plant to the plug in your home? This question comes from Jim Barlow, a Wyoming architect, through our IE Questions project. To find the answer, we need to break it out step by step: first turning raw materials into electricity, next moving that electricity to your neighborhood, and finally sending that electricity through the walls of your home to your outlet.
With feast season right around the corner, dreams of pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce have us wondering: What do you want to know about the way energy impacts your food? Send us your questions! We’ll put them to a reader vote, then investigate the winning question. #eatyourfuel
Companies have drilled tens of thousands of new wells in the last few years; deeper wells, that will be more expensive to clean up when they run dry. How much more expensive?