Monthly Archives: June 2015

Water Quantities Used for Hydraulic Fracturing Varies According to Drilling Methods

Posted on by
1

The amount of water required to hydraulically fracture oil and gas wells varies widely across the country, according to the first national-scale analysis and map of hydraulic fracturing water usage detailed in a new USGS study accepted for publication in Water Resources Research, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.usgs.gov

>” […]  from 2000 to 2014, median annual water volume estimates for hydraulic fracturing in horizontal wells had increased from about 177,000 gallons per oil and gas well to more than 4 million gallons per oil well and 5.1 million gallons per gas well. Meanwhile, median water use in vertical and directional wells remained below 671,000 gallons per well. For comparison, an Olympic-sized swimming pool holds about 660,000 gallons.

“One of the most important things we found was that the amount of water used per well varies quite a bit, even within a single oil and gas basin,” said USGS scientist Tanya Gallegos, the study’s lead author. “This is important for land and resource managers, because a better understanding of the volumes of water injected for hydraulic fracturing could be a key to understanding the potential for some environmental impacts.”

Horizontal wells are those that are first drilled vertically or directionally (at an angle from straight down) to reach the unconventional oil or gas reservoir and then laterally along the oil or gas-bearing rock layers. This is done to increase the contact area with the reservoir rock and stimulate greater oil or gas production than could be achieved through vertical wells alone.

However, horizontal wells also generally require more water than vertical or directional wells. In fact, in 52 out of the 57 watersheds with the highest average water use for hydraulic fracturing, over 90 percent of the wells were horizontally drilled.

Although there has been an increase in the number of horizontal wells drilled since 2008, about 42 percent of new hydraulically fractured oil and gas wells completed in 2014 were still either vertical or directional. The ubiquity of the lower-water-use vertical and directional wells explains, in part, why the amount of water used per well is so variable across the United States.

The watersheds where the most water was used to hydraulically fracture wells on average coincided with parts of the following shale formations:

Eagle Ford (within watersheds located mainly in Texas)Haynesville-Bossier (within watersheds located mainly in Texas & Louisiana)Barnett (within watersheds located mainly in Texas)Fayetteville (within watersheds located in Arkansas)Woodford  (within watersheds located mainly in Oklahoma)Tuscaloosa  (within watersheds located in Louisiana & Mississippi)Marcellus & Utica (within watersheds located in parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and within watersheds extending into southern New York)

Shale gas reservoirs are often hydraulically fractured using slick water, a fluid type that requires a lot of water. In contrast, tight oil formations like the Bakken (in parts of Montana and North Dakota) often use gel-based hydraulic fracturing treatment fluids, which generally contain lower amounts of water. […]”<

See on Scoop.it – Green & Sustainable News

Advertisement

Comfort is key in a passive house

Posted on by
1
0620 home green Rendering of the home Chris Weissflog, who operates the renewable energy firm Ecogen Energy, is building for his family. Among other green features, its solar panels will meet most of the 3,000-square-foot home’s heating and cooling needs as well as powering a greenhouse with an extended growing season. With story by Patrick Langston.

0620 home green Rendering of the home Chris Weissflog, who operates the renewable energy firm Ecogen Energy, is building for his family. Among other green features, its solar panels will meet most of the 3,000-square-foot home’s heating and cooling needs as well as powering a greenhouse with an extended growing season. With story by Patrick Langston.

>” […] The falling price of technology may still help us out of the quandary. The CHBA is currently developing a net zero and net zero-ready labelling program for home builders and renovators. A net zero home typically uses photovoltaic panels to produce as much energy as it consumes, generally selling excess electricity to the grid. A net zero-ready home is set up for, but does not include, the photovoltaic system.

The CHBA’s Foster says that a net zero home including photovoltaic panels now costs $50,000 to $70,000 more than a conventional home. That’s 50 per cent of the cost of just five years ago, and the price of PV panels continues to drop.

With rising energy prices, the CHBA says the extra monthly mortgage costs associated with a net zero home are now comparable to the savings in energy costs, making it net zero in more ways than one. […]”<

Airplane Contrails Boost Global Warming by Trapping Earth’s Heat Energy

Posted on by
1

The warming effects of aircraft vapor trails could be eased with fewer night flights, especially during winter, the report says.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: news.nationalgeographic.com

>” […]

Nicola Stuber, first author of the study, to be published in tomorrow’s edition of the journal Nature, suggests that contrails’ overall impact on climate change is similar in scope to that of aircrafts’ carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions over a hundred-year period.

Aircraft are believed to be responsible for 2 to 3 percent of human CO2 emissions. Like other high, thin clouds, contrails reflect sunlight back into space and cool the planet.

However, they also trap energy in Earth’s atmosphere and boost the warming effect, the study says. […]

Contrails are artificial clouds that form around the tiny aerosol particles in airplane exhaust.

They appear only in moist, very cold (less than 40ºF/4ºC) air—usually at altitudes of 5 miles (8 kilometers) or higher.

Some contrails can last for a day or longer, though they gradually disperse and begin to resemble natural clouds.

Contrails Mystery Scientists disagree about the extent of contrails’ climate impact.

“The jury is out on the impact of contrails,” said Patrick Minnis, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Langley, Virginia.

David Travis, a climatologist at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, notes that some recent studies suggest that contrails have little impact on global climate change but have a greater regional warming impact.

“I prefer to think of contrails as a regional-scale climate problem, as they are most common in certain regions of the world, such as western Europe, eastern and central U.S., and parts of eastern Asia,” he said.

“This is due to a combination of dense air traffic in these areas and favorable atmospheric conditions to support contrail persistence once they form.”

Because of their locations and short life spans, contrails are a difficult study subject.

“The greatest impediment to understanding the contrail impacts on weather and climate is the poor state of knowledge of humidity in the upper troposphere [3.8 to 9.3 miles/6 to 15 kilometers in altitude],” NASA’s Minnis said.

“Until we can measure it properly and extensively, and model it and its interaction with cirrus clouds and contrails, we will continue to have large uncertainties about the effect of contrails.”

Winter is Contrail Season

At the high altitudes favored by commercial airlines, the air is much more humid in winter, so contrails are twice as likely in that season, study co-author Stuber said.

“We also found that flights between December and February contribute half of the annual mean climate warming, even though they account for less than a quarter of annual air traffic,” she said of her U.K.-based research.

Study leader Piers Forster, of England’s University of Leeds, suggests that contrails’ current impact on the atmosphere is likely to increase as air traffic grows. […]”<

See on Scoop.it – Green & Sustainable News

Jet Contrails Worse for Climate Change Than Aircraft Carbon Emissions

Posted on by
1

By John Timmer, Ars Technica

Air travel has come under fire for its potential contributions to climate change. Most people probably assume that its impact comes through carbon emissions, given that aircraft burn significant amounts of fossil fuel to stay aloft. But the carbon released by air travel remains a relatively minor part of the…

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.wired.com

>” […]Others include the emissions of particulates high in the atmosphere, the production of nitrogen oxides and the direct production of clouds through contrail water vapor.

Over time, these thin lines of water evolve into “contrail cirrus” clouds that lose their linear features and become indistinguishable from the real thing.

Although low-altitude clouds tend to cool the planet by reflecting sunlight, high-altitude clouds like cirrus have an insulating effect and actually enhance warming.

To figure out the impact of these cirrus clouds, the authors created a module for an existing climate model (theECHAM4) that simulated the evolution of aircraft-induced cirrus clouds (they could validate some of the model’s output against satellite images of contrails).

They found hot spots of these clouds over the United States and Europe, as well as the North Atlantic travel corridor.

Smaller affects were seen in East Asia and over the northern Pacific. Over central Europe, values peaked at about 10 percent, in part because the output of the North Atlantic corridor drifted in that direction.

On their own, aircraft-generated cirrus produces a global climate forcing of about 40 milliwatts per square meter. (In contrast, the solar cycle results in changes of about a full watt/M2.)

But these clouds suppressed the formation of natural cirrus clouds, which partially offset the impact of the aircraft-generated ones, reducing the figure to about 30 mW/M2. That still leaves it among the most significant contribution to the climate produced by aircraft.

Some reports have suggested we might focus on makingengines that emit less water vapor, but the water is a necessary byproduct of burning hydrocarbon.

We’ll almost certainly be accomplishing that as a result of rising fuel prices, and will limit carbon emissions at the same time.

The nice thing is that, in contrast to the long atmospheric lifespan of CO2, if we can cause any changes in cloud formation, they’ll have an impact within a matter of days. […]”<

See on Scoop.it – Green & Sustainable News

Exploring the Vast Cyber-Space Information Realms of Clearnets and Darknets

Posted on by
1

Thoughts on Crawling and Understanding the Darknet

Sourced through Scoop.it from: blog.lewman.is

>” […]

Darknets have been around for a decade or so. Some of the most well-known are from the Tor network; Silk Road, Wikileaks, Silk Road 2, StrongBox, and so on. For good or bad, Silk Road is what helped bring darknets to the masses.

The current trend in information security is to try to build insight and intelligence into and from the underground or the darknet. Many companies are focused on the “darknet.” The idea is to learn about what’s below the surface, or near-future attacks or threats, before they affect the normal companies and people of the world. For example, an intelligence agency wants to learn about clandestine operations in its borders, or a financial company wants to learn about attacks on its services and customers before anyone else.

I’m defining the darknet as any services which requires special software to access the service, such as;
1. Tor’s hidden services,
2. I2P,
3. FreeNet, and
4. GnuNet.

There are many more services out there, but in effect they all require special software to access content or services in their own address space.

Most darknet systems are really overlay networks on top of TCP/IP, or UDP/IP. The goal is to create a different addressing system than simply using IP addresses (of either v4 or v6 flavor).XMPP could also be considered an overlay network, but not a darknet, for example. XMPP shouldn’t be considered a darknet because it relies heavily on public IPv4/IPv6 addressing to function. It’s also trivial to learn detailed metadata about conversations from either watching an XMPP stream, or XMPP server.

The vastness of address spaces

Let’s expand on address space. In the “clearnet” we have IP addresses of two flavors, IPv4 and IPv6. Most people are familiar with IPv4, the classic xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx address. IPv6 addresses are long in order to create a vast address space for the world to use, for say, the Internet of Things, or a few trillion devices all online at once. IPv6 is actually fun and fantastic, especially when paired with IPSec, but this is a topic for another post. IPv4 address space is 32-bit large, or roughly 4.3 billion addresses. IPv6 address space is 128-bits large, or trillions on trillions of addresses. There are some quirks to IPv4 which let us use more than 4.3 billion addresses, but the scale of the spaces is what we care about most. IPv6 is vastly larger. Overlay networks are built to create, or use, different properties of an address space. Rather than going to a global governing body and asking for a slice of the space to call your own, an overlay network can let you do that without a central authority, in general.

Defining darknets

There are other definitions or nomenclature for darknets, such as the deep web:

noun 1. the portion of the Internet that is hidden from conventional search engines, as by encryption; the aggregate of unindexed websites: private databases and other unlinked content on the deep web.

Basically, the content you won’t find on Google, Bing, or Yahoo no matter how advanced your search prowess.

How big is the darknet?

No one knows how large is the darknet. By definition, it’s not easy to find services or content. However, there are a number of people working to figure out the scope, size, and to further classify content found on it. There are a few amateur sites trying to index various darknets; such as Ahmia, and others only reachable with darknet software. There are some researchers working on the topic as well, see Dr. Owen’s video presentation, Tor: Hidden Services and Deanonymisation. A public example is DARPA MEMEX. Their open catalog of tools is a fine starting point. […]”<

See on Scoop.it – Social Media, Crypto-Currency, Security & Finance

Water Vortex Hydro-Electric Power Plant Designs

Posted on by
2

In a fairly radical departure from the principles that normally govern hydroelectric power generation, Austrian engineer Franz Zotlöterer has constructed a low-head power plant that makes use of the kinetic energy inherent in an artificially induced vortex. The water’s vortex energy is collected by a slow moving, large-surface water wheel, making the power station transparent to fish – there are no large pressure differences built up, as happens in normal turbines.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: blog.hasslberger.com

>” […] The aspect of the power plant reminds a bit of an upside-down snail – through a large, straight inlet the water enters tangentially into a round basin, forming a powerful vortex, which finds its outlet at the center bottom of the shallow basin. The turbine does not work on pressure differential but on the dynamic force of the vortex. Not only does this power plant produce a useful output of electricity, it also aerates the water in a gentle way. Indeed, the inventor was looking for an efficient way to aerate the water of a small stream as he hit upon this smart idea of a plant that not only gives air to the medium but also takes from it some of the kinetic energy that is always inherent in a stream.

[…] Zotlöterer’s results are quite respectable. The cost of construction for his plant was half that of a conventional hydroelectric installation of similar yield and the environmental impact is positive, instead of negative.

The diameter of the vortex basin is 5 meters.

The head – difference between the two water levels – is 1,6 meters.

The turbine produced 50.000 kWh in its first year of operation.

Construction cost was 57.000 Euro […] “<

See on Scoop.it – Green Energy Technologies & Development

EPA and the Petroleum Industry: Fracking, Cover-ups and Academic Freedom

Posted on by
1

Thyne says he’s not the only one who’s been subjected to undue pressure from the oil and gas industry. He says he knows of faculty around the nation who have been targeted as well, including an engineer at Cornell University who called for an outright fracking ban in his state.

“Industry did a bunch of nasty pieces on him, trying to make him look like a wild-eyed, pistol-waving lunatic,” Thyne says.

There was even one woman from the tiny town of Raton, N.M., who claimed she was being followed and harassed after complaining about her water well being contaminated by nearby drilling operations.

“This ain’t shit,” Thyne says of his own situation. “I’ve talked to people who’ve been shot at. … It’s a real sticky situation, because there are some people getting jobs in the community, because of the development, and they’re good-paying jobs, and this is changing our economy, so it’s all positive, and then you say, ‘Yeah, well, so-and-so screwed up my well, and they won’t compensate me for it, so I’m going to take them to court, or I’m going to make waves.’ And you’ve got your neighbors mad at you.”

In addition, taking a big oil or gas company to court isn’t a walk in the park.

“You’ve got to have really deep pockets, you’ve got to go to court for a couple of years,” Thyne says. “They’re going to push it back and push it back and push it back, and then they’re going to wait until the last second, literally, and they’re going to settle. And they’re probably going to simply buy your land for what you paid for it, and get you to sign a nondisclosure [agreement] and say bye bye.”

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.boulderweekly.com

See on Scoop.it – Green & Sustainable News

E.P.A. Proposal to Regulate GHG Emissions and Fuel Economy for HD Trucks

Posted on by
1

The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to propose rules requiring heavy trucks to increase their fuel economy by up to 40 percent by 2027.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.nytimes.com

>” […] This week, the E.P.A. is expected to propose regulations to cut greenhouse gas emissions from heavy-duty trucks, requiring that their fuel economy increase up to 40 percent by 2027, compared with levels in 2010, according to people briefed on the proposal. A tractor-trailer now averages five to six miles a gallon of diesel. The new regulations would seek to raise that average to as much as nine miles a gallon. A truck’s emissions can vary greatly, depending on how much it is carrying.

The hotly debated rules, which cover almost any truck larger than a standard pickup, are the latest in a stack of sweeping climate change policy measures on which President Obama hopes to build his environmental legacy. Already, his administration has proposed rules to cut emissions from power plants and has imposed significantly higher fuel efficiency standards on passenger vehicles.

The truck proposals could cut millions of tons of carbon dioxide pollution while saving millions of barrels of oil. Trucks now account for a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles in the United States, even though they make up only 4 percent of traffic, the E.P.A. says.

But the rules will also impose significant burdens on America’s trucking industry — the beating heart of the nation’s economy, hauling food, raw goods and other freight across the country.

It is expected that the new rules will add $12,000 to $14,000 to the manufacturing cost of a new tractor-trailer, although E.P.A. studies estimate that cost will be recouped after 18 months by fuel savings.

Environmental advocates say that without regulation, the contribution of American trucks to global warming will soar.

“Trucking is set to be a bad actor if we don’t do something now,” Jason Mathers, head of the Green Freight program at the Environmental Defense Fund.

But some in the trucking industry are wary.

“I’ll put it this way: We told them what we can do, but they haven’t told us what they plan to do,” said Tony Greszler, vice president for government relations for Volvo Group North America, one of the largest manufacturers of big trucks. “We have concerns with how this will play out.”

The E.P.A., along with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, began its initial phase of big truck fuel economy regulation in 2011, and those efforts have been widely seen within the industry as successful. But meeting the initial standards, like using more efficient tires, was not especially difficult by comparison. […]”

See on Scoop.it – Green & Sustainable News

Green Infrastructure: A Landscape Approach

Posted on by
Reply

“There are really two definitions of green infrastructure. One is an inter-connected network of green open spaces that provide a range of ecosystem services — from clean air and water to wildlife habitat and carbon sinks. The other is a more limited one promoted by the E.P.A.: small-scale green systems designed to be urban stormwater management infrastructure. In either definition, green infrastructure is about bringing together “natural and built environments” and using the “landscape as infrastructure,” said Rouse. […]”

THE DIRT

gibook
Green infrastructure is starting to mean different things to different people, said David Rouse, ASLA, a landscape architect and planner at Wallace, Roberts & Todd (WRT) during a session at the American Planning Association (APA) conference in Chicago. Rouse was there with Theresa Schwarz, Kent State Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative; Karen Walz, Strategic Community Solutions; and Ignacio Bunster-Ossa, FASLA, a landscape architect with WRT, who together co-authored a new book published by APA called Green Infrastructure: A Landscape Approach.

There are really two definitions of green infrastructure. One is an inter-connected network of green open spaces that provide a range of ecosystem services — from clean air and water to wildlife habitat and carbon sinks. The other is a more limited one promoted by the E.P.A.: small-scale green systems designed to be urban stormwater management infrastructure. In either definition, green infrastructure is about bringing together “natural and…

View original post 1,297 more words