Inside Energy (https://insideenergy.org/tag/washington/)
Donald Trump’s victory on Tuesday will have an immense impact on energy and environmental policy in this country. What exactly he and his administration will do with regards to bringing back the coal industry, deregulating oil and gas, exiting from the Paris Climate accord etc., will be discussed and analyzed in the days and weeks to come. In the meantime, here are the results of several important energy issues were on state ballots this week.
While many are fleeing the coal industry, the Crow tribe in south-central Montana is banking on a new mine opening up on their land, and export terminals to ship that coal to Asia.
The State of Wyoming may be getting into the coal export business.
Inside Energy’s Leigh Paterson was a guest journalist this week at the US Senate and US House debates, hosted by Wyoming PBS. Candidates answered questions on education, foreign policy, same-sex marriage, Obamacare, and of course, on energy: oil exports, Wyoming wind power development, climate change in the classroom, and the EPA.
EarthFix reports on a culture at BNSF railway that dismisses safety concerns and retaliates against workers who report.
Hundreds of thousands of tank cars full of crude oil snake across the nation each year, and the number is only increasing — in the last five years, it’s jumped 14-fold. Along with that, there’s been an increased number of accidents, derailments and spills. Public safety advocates are clamoring for more information about where the trains are going and how much crude they’re carrying, but it’s been almost impossible to come by. Regulators don’t collect it and the railroads have refused to disclose it. Why the secrecy?
We know that a lot of crude oil is traveling by rail, but where exactly it is traveling, how much and how often, remains a secret.
An average American household uses 903 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity per month, enough energy to put your Volkswagen bug into space (if you were incredibly motivated). Where does that electricity come from? In the U.S., 37% of our electricity is generated from coal and 30% from natural gas. The rest comes from nuclear and renewables (hydro, wind, solar). These energy sources vary widely from region to region.
