Fracking brine from Ohio injection wells believed to be surfacing, potentially contaminating drinking water

   

Paul Alain Hunt via Sunsplash

Decades ago, the state of Ohio invited the oil and gas industry to inject wastewater into deep wells, which at the time didn’t seem like a major concession. The need wasn’t overwhelming, and to accommodate the industry the state even got permission from the federal government to regulate its own wells.

When fracking came along, the Buckeye State’s more friendly policies made it the go-to place for burying brine. According to a report in The New York Times, “Ohio has permitted more than 240 injection wells for the disposal of oil and gas waste. By comparison, there are 19 such injection wells in Pennsylvania, and a few dozen in West Virginia, both of which border Ohio.”

Quinn Glabicki further notes in her story that Pennsylvania, which produces more natural gas than any state but Texas, sends about three-fourths of its brine to Ohio, and that “Ohio pumps about 1.4 billion gallons of wastewater underground annually.”

Now there are reports of the toxic waste coming to the surface, traditional oil and gas wells being invaded by fracking brine, and concerns about the potential for contaminated drinking water in the rural communities near where injection is taking place. The industry is pushing back, claiming the state’s regulation is sufficient and that wells complying with those regulations are safe. But geologists say the brine is “migrating” through porous underground material and moving to the surface.

Environmental groups and communities are seeking a moratorium on new injection wells, and for any new wells to be a safe distance from drinking water sources. In Marietta, the county seat of Washington County, tests of the drinking water have indicated it is safe but the water association is concerned that if radioactive waste gets into the system it will be impossible to remove. Ground stability also is a concern. Officials told Glabicki that seismic activity in Washington County is 20 times what it was in 2023, suggesting that underground rock formations are unstable because of the volume of wastewater.

A look back at fracking, from a leading reporter on the beat; environmental questions remain as industry shifts

Mike Soraghan started out with Energy and Environment News, which was bought by Politico, so now he writes for both. His latest opus is a look back at the history of horizontal hydraulic fracturing of deep shale, better known as "fracking," which has had a big impact on parts of rural America. Soragahn has covered it for more than a decade.

Mike Soraghan (Politico photo)

"Shale promised riches, and in some instances, it delivered, saving farms," he writes for Politico Magazine. "Fracking birthed tales of instant 'shale-ionnaires' and oilfield strippers tucking four-figure handfuls of cash in their garter belts for a night’s work. And it also fundamentally changed the United States’ position in the global energy economy, in ways that have been on prominent display over the first half of 2026.

"But a lot of the people you’d expect to profit from fracking . . . were instead crushed by it. And drilling wells could wreak environmental havoc, triggering earthquakes, ruining farmland, polluting airways and contaminating household water to the point it could catch fire. In short: Fracking rewrote the book on American energy, globally and domestically. . . . Today, even if you walk everywhere or drive an electric vehicle, fracking is responsible for keeping your grocery and electric bills down."

But now, "That tumultuous chapter is coming to an end, just as a war-driven energy crisis offers — or threatens — to rewrite the script once again. The irony is that the U.S. is outdoing the petro-kingdoms of the Middle East — just as the world is accelerating its turn toward renewable energy. The easy oil is getting harder to find. Even as production continues to climb, the rate of growth is slowing. Automation is replacing oil workers the way it did coal miners. Environmental protests have moved on to data centers. America’s wildcatters are again starting to scan the horizon for new discoveries abroad. Even Michael Steele, the former Republican Party chair who coined the term, 'Drill, Baby, Drill,' thinks the phrase has outlived its usefulness."

Environmental questions remain, especially "the long-term impact of pumping chemicals from the nearly 2 million fracked wells — questions that may not be answered for years or decades," Soraghan writes. Environmentalists are mostly against fracking shale, but Christopher Knittel, the associate dean for Climate and Stability at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told Soraghan that greenhouse-gas emissions have been cut mainly by power plants’ switch from coal to natural gas. More broadly, Knittel worries that the U.S. backoff from electric vehicles means the American industry could be “islanded off” from the rest of the world. "Perhaps the model for the United States’ energy future isn’t Saudi Arabia, but an actual island," Soragahn concludes.

U.S. grid needs operators to plan now with a blend of energies including batteries, gas and coal

North American Electric Reliability Corporation graph

Fueled by increased demand and shrinking power options, the U.S. electricity grid is headed toward a reliability crisis. "Tens of millions of people face a growing risk of blackouts over the next five years, according to an annual assessment by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, a nonprofit organization that works closely with federal regulators," reports Brad Plumer of The New York Times.

As AI data center builds have continued to demand more grid power, many "utilities are retiring older coal- and gas-burning plants and aren’t adding enough generation to dependably meet growing demand," Plumer explains. The report lists regions in Texas, the upper Midwest, the Mid-Atlantic region and the Pacific Northwest as most "at risk of electricity shortfalls."

How electricity is produced is at the heart of electricity reliability and a contentious point of national political debate. "President Trump has said that policies to fight climate change and promote wind and solar energy have weakened the reliability of electric grids, since wind turbines and solar panels can’t run at all hours," Plumer writes. But renewable energy advocates say that "Trump administration efforts to hinder wind and solar projects are depriving the grid of a fast-growing source of power."

Battery build-outs can help regional power operators create a more resilient grid that can meet demand even during extreme heat or cold snaps. "In MISO, a grid spanning 15 states in the Midwest and South, more than one-third of coal plants are set to retire by 2030," Plumer reports. "But the grid operator recently instituted a plan to speed up the connection of new gas plants and batteries over the next five years."

The report offers a list of recommendations for operators to start planning now, including "speeding up permitting processes for new power plants and transmission lines, and policies to ensure that large new sources of demand, such as data centers, don’t overwhelm the grid," Plumer adds. "It also suggests that utilities and grid operators should be careful about shutting down older coal and gas plants too quickly."

Higher energy prices and older residences mean more rural residents will struggle to stay warm this winter

Many rural residents will struggle to afford heat this winter. 
(Photo by Nadine Marfurt, Unsplash)

Rural residents can struggle to pay their utility bills during the winter months because they face barriers to conserving heat, such as living in older homes or apartments that can be drafty and lack energy-saving features. They are also more likely to have limited access to aid programs designed to help Americans afford energy while avoiding utility debt.

Roughly 80 million Americans have trouble paying their monthly heat and electricity bills. "Now, as the cost of energy climbs, experts say more people are at risk of energy insecurity and poverty, defined by the struggle or inability to keep up with electric, heating, and cooling bills," reports Julia Tilton of The Daily Yonder. 

As electricity and gas rates continue to increase across the U.S., the number of rural residents who can't afford their utility bills has soared. "In the South and Appalachia, rates of severe utility debt were nearly twice as high as of June 2025, per analysis from the Century Foundation economic think tank," Tilton reports. "With winter approaching, home heating costs are expected to outpace inflation."

Maria Castillo, a senior associate on the electricity team at energy think tank RMI, told Tilton, "Who we understand as experiencing energy poverty is unfortunately expanding because of the affordability pressures brought on by rising prices and the volatility of gas prices."

While many rural families qualify for federal utility support through the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, completing LIHEAP paperwork can prevent rural residents from accessing energy aid.

Katrina Metzler, the executive director for the National Energy and Utility Affordability Coalition, told Tilton, "If they’re having trouble affording their utility bills, can they also afford gasoline to get in the car and drive many miles, however many it might be, to reach the office where assistance is available and complete the application?” 

If natural gas is relatively cheap, why are so many Americans facing higher utility bills?

Graph by Alyson Hurt and Jeff Brady, NPR from U.S. Energy Information Administration data

Across the country, utility companies are replacing leaky pipes and upgrading natural gas infrastructure, which is expensive. "Because it's a monopoly utility, regulators will pass those costs on to ratepayers," reports Jeff Brady of NPR. "Gas utilities have increased construction spending dramatically in recent years — up 50% from 2022 to 2023, to $49.1 billion."

Since gas companies don't make money selling gas, they aim to profit from reconstruction costs. "Utilities make their money by building new infrastructure, such as pipelines, and replacing outdated infrastructure," Brady explains. "Regulators then allow companies to recover those costs, plus profits, in customer bills."

Even as the cost of natural gas has dipped, consumers haven't benefited. "In 1984, about two-thirds of gas utility bills paid for the gas, and one-third covered infrastructure, utility costs and taxes," Brady reports. "Now that has flipped. In 2024, less than a third of customer bills went to gas, and about two-thirds went to the other costs."

One solution to reduce utility costs is for state regulators to encourage utilities to repair rather than replace faulty pipes. Regulators in Massachusetts asked gas companies to do three things to hold down costs: Fix pipes, shut down segments of leaky pipes and install electric heat pumps. Brady adds, "State officials say gas utility customers could see up to a 17% decrease in a pipeline replacement surcharge on their monthly bills."

Report: Despite big output, northern Appalachian states with fracking projects reap fewer rewards than expected

Frackalachia residents don't earn 'higher than average incomes'
from regional fracking projects. (Graph by S. O'Malley, ORVI)

Residents in heavily fracked northern Appalachian states haven't seen the job creation gains oil and gas companies promised, according to a new research report from the Ohio River Valley Institute. "The report uses the term ​'Frackalachia' to describe 30 top oil- and gas-producing counties in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia," reports Kathiann M. Kowalski of Canary Media. 

Despite the region's surging output, which "increased their share of the country’s gross domestic product by 6%" over the course of 15 years, Kowalski writes, Appalachia residents living near natural shale-gas fracking sites did not benefit from "higher-than-average incomes. . . . [The area's] income growth was 25% below that of the nation as a whole."

Part of the dilemma for communities with shale deposits is that extraction doesn't require a constant workforce, but it does require financial backing and expensive machinery. Kowalski reports, "Most earnings go to shareholders, investors, and suppliers based far from where fossil fuels are extracted, so only a small share of project income stays in the community to stimulate more economic activity."

Transferring employees into a region with extraction is another reason oil and gas companies don't generate jobs for residents. "From 2012 through 2022, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services issued annual reports about the economic impact of the state’s oil and gas industry, including data for ​'core' jobs," Kowalski adds. "More than half of the new hires for the core industry jobs in 2021 came from outside Ohio, according to the state data."

When actual employment data from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services was compared to those predicted by the fossil fuel industry, the number of new jobs the industry created in the region fell short. Kowalski writes, "The agency numbers are also far lower than the 79,000 direct and 375,000 total jobs the American Petroleum Institute cited in a 2021 report based on data from 2019."

The report's author, Sean O’Leary, told Kowalski, "Whatever else it is, the natural-gas boom is not an engine for economic prosperity." Kowalski adds, "He thinks the gas industry is ​'structurally incapable' of delivering lasting growth in jobs and income for the people living in heavily fracked areas."

Analysis: Consumer utility bills may climb as data centers get special deals

Getty Images Plus image via The Conversation, CC

At a time when U.S. consumers are getting squeezed from all sides, the idea that average Americans may pay higher electric bills so mega-companies such as Google and Meta can get special discounts for their energy-guzzling data centers may sound unfair, but it could be true, write Ari Peskoe and Eliza Martin in their story for The Conversation.

"In our paper Extracting Profits from the Public, we explain how utilities are forcing regular ratepayers to pay for the discounts enjoyed by some of the nation’s largest companies," they write. “And [we] identify ways policymakers can limit the costs to the public."

While most utilities are sanctioned monopolies, their foundation lies in shared costs. "Splitting the utility’s costs among all consumers made perfect sense when population growth and economic development across the economy stimulated the need for new infrastructure," Peskoe and Martin write. "But today, in many utility service territories, most of the projected growth in electricity demand is due to new data centers.

When data centers are the impetus for a utility having to build more supporting infrastructure, the normal way power utilities pay for their expansion no longer works. They explain, "If state regulators allow utilities to follow the standard approach of splitting the costs of new infrastructure among all consumers, the public will end up paying to supply data centers with all that power."

A Meta data center in Louisiana provides a good example. "By our calculations, [the center will use] twice as much energy as the city of New Orleans," Peskoe and Martin add. "Entergy, the regional monopoly utility, is proposing to build more than $3 billion worth of new gas-fired power plants to meet the data center’s energy demand. … Entergy is proposing to include the costs in rates paid by all customers."

Instead of billing Meta $3 billion for its infrastructure needs, Entergy is working on a separate contract with Meta, with rates the general public won't see. Peskoe and Martin write, "Entergy has asked state regulators to keep key terms of the contract secret, and only a redacted version of its application is available online."

The fact that there are many secret deals isn't much of a secret; however, what's in the deals remains protected. "Our research, reviewing nearly 50 public utility commission proceedings about data centers’ power needs across 10 states, uncovered dozens of secretive contracts between utilities and data centers," Peskoe and Martin explain. "Unlike Louisiana, most states require utilities to submit to the public utility commission their one-off deals with data centers, but they allow utilities to conceal the pricing terms from the public."

Is anything being done to address the issue? "Many state legislatures are noticing these problems and working to figure out how to address them," they add. "Several recent bills would set new terms and conditions for future data center deals that could help protect the public from data center energy costs."

Cooling off from summer sizzle will cost nearly 4% more this year

A hose may be the cheapest way to cool off
this summer. (Photo by J. Tyson, Unsplash)

Summer sun and heat might be good for beachgoers, but climbing summer temperatures will mean spiking power bills for U.S. consumers. Reasons for ballooning energy costs include higher natural gas prices, grid upgrade costs passed on to utility customers and increased domestic demand.

"Electricity prices across the country have increased 4.5% in the past year, topping the 2.2% jump in the price of groceries," reports Jennifer Hiller of The Wall Street Journal. "Consumer prices rose 2.4% in May from a year earlier."

Whether U.S. consumers flip on fans or crank the air, most will pay roughly 4% more "because of a jump in natural gas prices, the largest source of power generation," Hiller explains. "Natural gas deliveries to power plants will cost about 50% more from June through September than last year."

That's painful. "The higher bills are putting a strain on the wallets of consumers who are already stretched thin by rising costs for food, shelter and insurance," Hiller writes. "The average household power bill will reach $784 for the combined period from June to September."

Many Americans started the summer months already behind on their electrical bills. "Mark Wolfe, the executive director at the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, said one of every six U.S. households is behind on their electricity or natural gas bills," Hiller reports. "Customers owed gas and electric utilities more than $24 billion in late payments as of March."

Despite the pinch consumers are bound to feel, several utility companies are asking regulators to approve rate increases. "In Florida, NextEra Energy’s Florida Power & Light is asking regulators to let it increase rates between 1% and 5% a year through 2029," Hiller adds. "About $9.3 billion in additional electricity costs will begin trickling down to customers in the PJM Interconnection, the country’s largest grid operator and wholesale electricity market."

In some markets, AI data centers are "stressing the grid." In other places, increased demand is partially driven by electric vehicles. "Across the U.S., the growing pains are sparking fights over how to pay for upgrades and costs," Hiller reports. "The power industry also warns that a rollback of the clean-energy tax credits offered under the Inflation Reduction Act would push electricity prices higher, too."

HHS fires staff dedicated to helping low-income Americans pay for utilities: 'There's nobody left to do anything'

About 17% of U.S. households spend more than one-
tenth of their income on energy. (Adobe Stock photo)

A recent staffing purge of Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program employees at the Department of Health and Human Services may leave millions of low-income Americans unable to pay their utility bills. "The Trump administration abruptly laid off the entire staff running a $4.1 billion program to help low-income households across the United States pay their heating and cooling bills," reports Brad Plumer of The New York Times. The loss of assistance could burden millions of poorer rural residents who already spend a disproportionate amount of their incomes on energy bills when compared to their more urban counterparts.

It's unclear how a program that routinely helps roughly 6.1 million Americans can continue to offer assistance without any employees to administer payments. Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, which works with states to secure funding from the program, told Plumer, “They fired everybody. There’s nobody left to do anything. Either this was incredibly sloppy, or they intend to kill the program altogether.”

While most of the 2025 funds have been paid, a remaining $378 million hangs in the balance. Plumer explains, "Congress had approved $4.1 billion for the program for fiscal year 2025, and about 90% of that money had already been sent to states in October to help households struggling with high heating costs." The $378 million could help lower-income residents pay for summer air-conditioning bills, but LIHEAP disbursements seem unlikely without program staffing.

The firings angered several Democratic lawmakers. Plumer reports, "Representative Jared Golden, a Democrat who represents a largely rural district in Maine that voted for President Trump, wrote in a social media post, 'What efficiency is achieved by firing everyone in Maine whose job is to help Mainers afford heating oil when it’s cold?'" Senator Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, referred to the LIHEAP staff eliminations as "sabotage."

A study published last year in The Economic Journal "found that roughly 17% of U.S. households spend more than one-tenth of their income on energy, a threshold that researchers often define as a 'severe' energy burden," Plumer adds. "The study also found a strong relationship between energy affordability and winter mortality."

A historic first in Alaska may mean drilling in an untouched national refuge; Native Alaskans want a 'seat at the table.'

Map by Sarah Melotte, The Daily Yonder, from Bureau of Land
Management data. Click on map to enlarge.

Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is big, beautiful, and rich in natural resources and biodiversity. It has also been the "focal point of more than six decades of drilling controversy," which will come to a tentative resolution when tracts within the region's 19-million-acre expanse open for oil and gas leases this month, reports Sarah Melotte of The Daily Yonder. Native Alaskan communities want to be among the decision-makers for the coastal land that "is estimated to contain 11.8 billion barrels of recoverable oil."

Drilling in ANWR has never been done before. The region is home to "charismatic species like polar bears, wolves, and the caribou that are sacred to the Gwich’in, a Northwestern Alaska tribe," Melotte writes. "Oil and gas operations elicit mixed responses from Alaskan Natives. . . Some worry that drilling activity will hurt vulnerable wildlife and subsistence living, others say the oil and gas industry funds important infrastructure for their communities."

The coastal region, also known as the North Slope Borough, receives 95% of its total budget from oil and gas development taxation. Reservation members also depend on shareholder income regional corporations generate and pay out to Alaskan Natives. The Artic Slope Regional Corporation serves as an example. The company "has over 13,000 shareholders who receive dividends," Melotte notes. "Since its establishment in 1972, the ASRC has distributed more than $1 billion in dividends."

"Many leaders of the Iñupiat, an indigenous people native to Alaska’s North Slope Borough, say that oil and gas operations can be good for native communities if conducted responsibly," Melotte reports. Nagruk Harcharek, president of the Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, a nonprofit organization that advocates for Alaska’s Iñupiat people, told Melotte, "Before oil and gas, you couldn't graduate high school and stay in the North Slope. Now there are K-12 schools in every North Slope village."

Harcharek used a past North Slope drilling project to help explain how Native Alaskans want to be included in drilling activity and practices. Melotte writes, "He said they were consulted 'early and often' in the decision-making process. . . . He said they want to be included before decisions are announced publicly."

Despite Alaska's rich natural resources, many Alaskan Natives live in poverty and still hunt for food, and drilling activities could interfere with their reliance on wild game. "Hunting is more than just a hobby in many native villages with high poverty rates," Melotte writes. "Hunting is a method of survival, said Dr. A.L. Lovecraft, professor of Political Science and director of the Center for Arctic Policy Studies at the University of Alaska. '[Drilling] also comes with all of this other baggage... Problems related to health, indoor health, indoor air quality, outdoor air quality.'"

Working on behalf of an unknown data company, an electric utility plans to build a natural gas plant in rural Louisiana

The gas-fired power plant would increase greenhouse
gas emissions. (LED photo via Floodlight)

Electric utility Entergy wants to build a $3.2 billion natural gas plant in rural northeast Louisiana to provide energy for an unnamed company's data center. Some people are "calling the development a 'godsend' for the region, where one in five people live in poverty," reports Pam Radtke of Floodlight. However, environmental and economic concerns have left some officials and residents questioning the viability of a project that creates more fossil fuel emissions and could result in electricity rate hikes.

Whit Cox, regulatory director of the Southern Renewable Energy Association, told Radtke, "Entergy is proposing to add huge amounts of greenhouse gas emissions." Radtke adds, "And a Louisiana utility consumer group questions whether the cost of the new plants will be passed onto residential customers."

If Entergy's construction is green-lighted by the Louisiana Public Service Commission, "Louisiana would join a cohort of states building natural gas power plants to meet the pressing demand for electricity to run data centers being built by Amazon, Meta, Google and others," Radtke reports. "Data centers are forecast to account for up to 12% of all U.S. electricity demand by 2030."

Like other plants intended to feed energy-guzzling AI owned by data behemoths, Entergy's project targets land in small-town rural America where good-paying jobs can be hard to come by and land is cheap. "In its filings, Entergy says the data center will employ 300 to 500 people with an average salary of $82,000," Radtke adds. "The utility calls the development a 'game changer' that will bring a 'historic investment' to the region."

Even if environmental concerns are put to rest, Louisiana residents are worried the plant could drive up their utility bills. "Costs not paid by the data center, either through electricity rates or separate agreements, would be spread across Entergy’s 1.1 million Louisiana customers, although the utility says the proposed deal 'largely insulates [Entergy’s] other customers from paying for the upgrades required' for the data center," Radtke reports. "The PSC will take up the project for the first time [this month] as it considers hiring outside consultants to help evaluate the proposal."

Bound by a passion to protect a 'pristine corner of Colorado,' this 'ragtag organization' helped change government policy

A hiker enjoys the White River National Forest, which overlaps
with the Thompson Divide. (Adobe Stock photo)

A shared passion for protecting Colorado's Thompson Divide brought together a group of people with few other interests in common. "The drilling leases in a pristine corner of Colorado seemed like a done deal. But then an unlikely alliance of cowboys and environmentalists emerged. And things changed," reports Zoë Rom for The New York Times. "Their campaign could serve as a model for future environmental efforts."

Located in west-central Colorado, the Thompson Divide "overlaps with part of the White River National Forest, one of the most visited national forests in the U.S.," Rom explains. The area is also "home to endangered lynxes and one of the expansive organisms in the world: the state’s largest Aspen stand, a colony of trees connected by a lateral root system."

The region is beloved by hikers, conservationists, ranchers, cyclists and snowmobilers, some of whom formed "the self-described ragtag organization" now known as the Thompson Divide Coalition, Rom writes. The coalition added legal assistance from Peter Hart, legal director for Wilderness Workshop, a nonprofit environmental group in Carbondale, Colorado. Together the movement developed "a novel legal strategy that helped win a 20-year pause on new oil and gas development across the area."

Originally, the group tried and failed to buy back the 80-some oil and gas leases the Bush Administration had issued on the Thompson Divide. When leaseholders turned down the the coalition's offers, Hart's legal team scrutinized the sales. There they found "that the federal government’s haste to issue leases had left them with vulnerabilities," Rom reports. "For one thing, opportunities for public comment during the leasing process appeared to be inadequate, an apparent violation of the National Environmental Policy Act."

More legal digging led to "administrative challenges, which eventually sent one leaseholder to federal court against the Bureau of Land Management," Rom explains. With the lease's legal and administrative problems exposed, "leaseholders who had declined to sell were now eyeing the exits in light of potential legal complications and public discontent around drilling."

Interior Dept. proposes restrictions on mining, energy work, grazing in 'sagebrush sea' to protect greater sage-grouse

Bureau of Land Management map; for a larger version, click on it. For more maps and the whole plan, click here.

The bird's mating dance (Photo by Bob Wick, BLM)

The Bureau of Land Management proposed Thursday to save the greater sage-grouse "by limiting oil and gas drilling, mining, livestock grazing and other activities across much of the American West," reports Maxine Joselow of The Washington Post. That "sets up a fierce clash with the fossil-fuel industry, which has long seen the bird as a barrier to extracting some of the richest oil and gas reserves in the region."

The BLM's draft plan "outlines several alternatives for managing nearly 67 million acres of the birds’ habitat across 10 Western states," the Post reports. "The 'preferred alternative' would restore some restrictions on drilling and other activities that the Obama administration imposed in 2015, although it would maintain some elements of the Trump administration’s 2019 strategy." Those plans weren't fully implemented because of court action.

The greater sage-grouse — known for its mating dance — numbers as many as 200,000 and is not listed as threatened or endangered but there were once a million. In 2015, the Fish and Wildlife Service, another arm of the Interior Department, said that was unnecessary because the Obama-era plan would protect it enough. "Since then, congressional Republicans have inserted provisions into must-pass spending bills to prevent a future listing," the Post reports. "Much of the birds’ habitat, known as the 'sagebrush sea,' has been destroyed by huge wildfires and an invasive plant called cheatgrass. Climate change has hastened the habitat loss, since fires have spread more easily through a warmer, drier landscape parched by a two-decade megadrought.”

Publicly at least, energy groups took a wait-and-see attitude, noting variations among areas, while "Conservation groups offered a mixed reaction to the draft plan," the Post reports. "Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, called it the 'last best hope' to save the sage grouse. But Vera Smith, senior federal lands policy analyst at Defenders of Wildlife, said the proposal does not go far enough. . . . . Although sage grouse regulations have rankled the oil and gas industry, they could also curtail clean-energy projects essential to the nation’s transition away from fossil fuels. Such projects include wind farms, solar installations, and mines for minerals used in electric vehicles and other green technologies. That poses a conundrum for the Biden administration, which has set a goal of permitting 25,000 megawatts of renewable energy on federal lands by 2025 — a key pillar of its climate agenda."

Winter is almost here and many states have power grids unprepared for extreme weather, new report warns

Dusk in rural Maine. The state faced rolling power outages last
December. (Photo by Andrew Dickinson, The Washington Post)

Winter is coming and many states have power grids unprepared to handle the cold. Their possible failure leaves thousands of residents vulnerable to dangerous outages. "The nation's power grid faces a sharp risk of buckling in the event of major storms or prolonged cold snaps this coming winter, according to the regulator that monitors the electricity system," reports Evan Halper of The Washington Post. 

While the deadly 2021 grid failures in Texas may come to mind, swaths of the country face a similar threat. Halper writes: "A sweeping portion of the country that extends from Texas to the Canadian border is not adequately equipped for tough winter conditions, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation warned. . . . The report is a sobering assessment of a power grid that continues to fray and suffer from underinvestment, despite promises by politicians and regulators to shore it up following deadly blackouts in recent years."

Jim Matheson, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, which represents 900 local electricity providers, told the Post, "This forecast again shows that our nation faces looming grid reliability challenges while demand for electricity continues to soar. That's unacceptable and should be cause for concern for all Americans."

During stretches of sustained cold, natural gas generation is a weak link "as power plants and the infrastructure that delivers fuel to them are destabilized by the strain of extreme cold," Halper reports. 

While many states have been working to repair and prepare their systems, Texas has not been able to work fast enough. The reports showed "more power generation is at higher risk of energy shortages this winter than last because it is not bringing enough new power online to meet the state's surging demand, and its existing infrastructure has not been adequately weatherized," Halper adds. "New England meanwhile is struggling with its own natural gas infrastructure issues that create a threat in that region, the report found. And in a number of Mid-Atlantic and southeastern states, the demand for electricity at peak times has increased, while the amount of power available 'has changed little in these areas since Winter Storm Elliott caused energy emergencies across the area,' the report found."

As states move from traditional energy to renewables such as solar and wind, their impact also influences grid integrity. "Some, including Matheson's group, argued the report exposes the risks of tough new emissions rules proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency, which they say will further destabilize the system," Halper reports. "But others point to considerable research that finds the proposal does not threaten reliability and could ultimately strengthen the grid by more quickly bringing to market new technologies to store wind and solar power, which can be delivered to the grid when traditional power plants fail."

California's new climate laws are set to have a global impact; the state is the fifth-largest world economy

Lily Hsueh, Associate Professor of Economics
and Public Policy, Arizona State University

Under California's new climate laws, corporate behemoths like Apple and Exxon that do business in the state will have to track and report "almost all their greenhouse gas emissions -- including emissions from their supply chains, business travel, employees' commutes and the way customers use their products," reports Lily Hsueh for The Conversation, a platform for journalism for academics. "That means oil and gas companies like Chevron will likely have to account for emissions from vehicles that use their gasoline, and Apple will have to account for materials that go into iPhones."

The mandatory disclosure laws are "a huge leap from current federal and state reporting requirements, which require reporting only certain emissions from companies' direct operations. And it will have global ramifications," Hsueh explains. While other places have similar laws, "California is the fifth-largest economy in the world. So, the state's new laws are poised to have substantial influence worldwide."

Despite the change in rules, many corporations knew mandatory reporting was coming and prepared, and some were already doing a portion of it. "Close to two-thirds of the companies listed in the S&P 500 index voluntarily report to CDP, formerly called the Carbon Disclosure Project. CDP is a nonprofit that surveys companies on behalf of institutional investors about their carbon management and plans to reduce carbon emissions," Hsueh reports. "Many also face reporting requirements elsewhere, including in the European Union, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Singapore and cities like Hong Kong."

Research is unclear if mandatory disclosures work.
(Photo by Robin Sommer, Unsplash)

What changes do mandatory disclosures make in terms of lowering greenhouse gas output? Hseuh writes, "My research shows that voluntary carbon disclosure systems like CDPs that focus on reporting corporate sustainability outputs, such as having science-based emissions targets, tend not to be as effective as those that focus on outcomes, such as a company's actual carbon emissions. . . . For example, a company could earn an A or B grade from CDP and still increase its entity-wide carbon emissions, notably when it does not face regulatory pressure.

"In contrast, a recent study of the U.K.'s 2013 disclosure mandate for U.K.-incorporated listed firms found that companies reduced their operational emissions by about 8% relative to a control group, with no significant changes to their profitability. When companies report their emissions, they can gain important knowledge about inefficiencies in their operations and supply chains that weren't evident before. . . . Ultimately, a well-designed disclosure program, whether voluntary or mandatory, needs to focus on consistency, comparability and accountability. Those traits allow companies to demonstrate that their climate pledges and actions are real, not just a front for greenwashing."

In the shadow of the coal industry, the Mountain Valley Pipeline runs into resistance in Appalachia

The Daily Yonder graphic

The long relationship between Appalachian people and energy industry representatives was barely forged before it started to fracture due to misrepresentation and unscrupulous contracts pushed by coal representatives, reports Hannah Wilson-Black of The Daily Yonder. More recently, Mountain Valley Pipeline representatives have come calling, and wiser Appalachians are not all-in for their contracts or pipeline.

"When speculators and early corporations first came to the hollers of Central Appalachia's coal country in the late 1800s, they wanted to buy landowners' mineral rights — not the rights to their farmland, but to the coal underneath," Wilson-Black writes. "Knowing that these landowners were subsistence farmers who had little money and were not fluent in legal language or the going price of coal, the land agents offered to buy mineral rights for as little as fifty cents an acre. Or, as West Virginian community organizer Maury Johnson put it, for 'a little bit of nothing and a Christmas turkey.'"

MVP representatives first approached West Virginia and southwest Virginia landowners in 2014, "seeking 'right-of-way' easement agreements that would allow the pipeline to go through private property without requiring purchase of the land itself. Johnson, a resident of Monroe County, was one such landowner," Wilson-Black reports. "An analyst sent by the company asked to survey his farm, and Johnson agreed — with the stipulation that he accompany the surveyors. . . . Johnson claimed that when he followed the surveyors around, he watched them omit the existence of springs or dangerous karst formations on his property in their reports, and said the surveyors would only note the geographic obstacles when he drew attention to them."

Sunset in Monroe County, W.Va., one of the counties the MVP
pipeline passes through. (Photo by Hannah Wilson-Black)

Johnson and Arietta DuPre, who also lives in Monroe County, told Wilson-Black that MVP representatives employed some of the same undervalue-offer tactics coal companies used years ago. Johnson told her: "A lot of people, they've never dealt with this. They don't know what they're doing. I didn't know what I was doing. They [MVP representatives] say, 'We'll give you X amount of dollars, this is the best you're going to get."

Johnson found a way to protect his property. Wilson-Black reports, "He retained an eminent domain attorney who negotiated a higher price for his easement based on 'real impacts to the property,' as he put it. This allowed him to avoid a protracted — and expensive — court battle with MVP. He was also able to stipulate, through his final contract, which crops or chemicals MVP must use to restore the land."

As the pipeline build continues, landslides and explosions remain a top concern to residents who fear a repeat of the Leach XPress Pipeline explosion in Marshall County, West Virginia, where "a fireball burned for several hours after an 83-foot section of the pipeline burst into flames, releasing more than $430,000 worth of natural gas," Brittany Patterson reported for West Virginia Public Broadcasting. Land shift was blamed for the explosion, which left a crater in the ground and a stark reality burned into Appalachian communities.

You'll pay less for power, but 25% more than pre-pandemic

Bureau of Labor Statistics graph via The Wall Street Journal

In a welcome about-face, Americans can look forward to lower electric bills in the coming months, reports Bob Henderson of The Wall Street Journal. "A slide in prices for natural gas and coal—which together fuel about 60% of U.S. power production—has only begun feeding through to ratepayers, according to some Wall Street analysts. Retail rates typically lag behind fuel costs by six to nine months, partly because utilities often protect against price swings by buying in advance, Goldman Sachs economist Spencer Hill found in a recent research note."

Cheaper fuels will reduce "average electricity prices by 3-4% from their peaks by fall, Hill's modeling suggests. . . . National electricity rates were already sliding early in the year but rebounded in June after a Southwestern heat wave," Henderson writes. Despite the decrease in prices, "Americans now pay an average of nearly 25% more for power than they did before the pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine."

Drastic weather could change the predicted decrease. Henderson adds, "Temperatures typically peak in late July, and the outlook for August is in line with 10-year averages, said meteorologist Matt Rogers. The pattern means the worst of this summer's heat is likely over, though he still sees a possibility of roving hot spots and power price spikes in places such as Texas, the Southwest and the Pacific Northwest."

"The country's ongoing renewable energy build-out might weigh on electricity rates beyond Goldman's estimates. Solar-power production this summer will be 23% higher than last year, estimates the Energy Information Administration," Henderson reports. But even with the hoped decrease, some people will keep their thermostats up. Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Jeff Heller, of Canyon Lake, Texas, "keeps his upstairs thermostat set to 84 degrees in summer." He told Henderson, "If it drops by 20%, I might be inclined to drop it by another degree."

States having issues with federal program to plug orphan oil and gas wells: not enough pluggers, new rules from Interior

Crude oil, water, chemicals and probably methane leak from an orphaned well’s

borehole in West Texas. (Photo by Shelby Webb, Energy & Environment News)

The federal government has $4.7 billion to plug orphaned oil and gas wells, "but the new federal money is creating logistical and regulatory challenges . . . raising many questions about whether the money will live up to its promise," Shelby Webb reports for Energy & Environment News.

"Some officials say they are having a hard time finding enough crews to plug the wells under the timelines dictated by the federal funds, and available workers are charging higher prices than originally anticipated," Webb reports. "Many orphaned wells also remain undiscovered, putting pressure on states to develop new methods for finding and plugging them."

The latest hiccup is the Interior Department's new rules for the grant money, which it announced last week. They "will require states to track methane emissions, develop screening processes to check for groundwater pollution and prioritize plugging wells near historically underserved communities," Webb reports. "However, Lori Wrotenbery, executive director of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, said in an email that Interior cannot require states to track methane or groundwater pollution and can instead only tell states they are 'expected' or 'encouraged' to do so. The Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission represents all but one of the 26 states that have been deemed eligible to receive the federal orphaned well plugging funds."

The Interior Department told Webb that while methane and water-pollution measurements were encouraged in its initial grants, they are now “requirements.”

Webb writes, "There may be as many as 800,000 orphaned wells across the country, according to some estimates. In 2021, states reported 126,806 to the Department of Interior, although many experts say that number vastly understates the problem. Along with being eyesores, the wells may be polluting groundwater and are estimated to be the 10th largest source of methane emissions in the U.S., according to a study by McGill University in Canada."

Peer-reviewed study by clean-energy group says if only 0.2% of natural gas leaks, it's as bad as coal for the climate

A New York Times video with an infrared filter, at right,
captured natural gas leaking from a plant in Midkiff, Texas.

"Natural gas, long seen as a cleaner alternative to coal and an important tool in the fight to slow global warming, can be just as harmful to the climate, a new study has concluded, unless companies can all but eliminate the leaks that plague its use," reports Hiroko Tabuchi of The New York Times.

The study found that if only 0.2 percent of gas leaks into the atmosphere, it is "as big a driver of climate change as coal," Tabuchi reports. "That’s a tiny margin of error for a gas that is notorious for leaking from drill sites, processing plants and the pipes that transport it." Her story does not give any estimates of what the actual leak volume might be, or any comments from the gas industry.

The study was led by Deborah Gordon, the lead researcher and an environmental policy expert at Brown University and at the Rocky Mountain Institute, a nonprofit that promoptes clean energy. It also involved researchers from NASA, Harvard University and Duke University, and is scheduled for publication next week in the journal Environmental Research Letters. It "adds to a substantial body of research that has poked holes in the idea that natural gas is a suitable transitional fuel to a future powered entirely by renewables, like solar and wind," Tabuchi writes.

Power plants' shift from coal to gas "has helped reduce carbon emissions from power plants by nearly 40 percent since 2005," Tabuchi notes. "But natural gas is made up mostly of methane, which is a far more potent planet-warming gas, in the short term, than carbon dioxide when it escapes unburned into the atmosphere. And there’s mounting evidence that methane is doing just that: leaking from gas systems in far larger quantities than previously thought. Sensors and infrared cameras are helping to visualize substantial leaks of methane from oil and gas infrastructure, and increasingly powerful satellites are detecting “super-emitting” episodes from space."

Sun and wind power surpass coal; it's a first for the two renewables combined without adding hydropower

Solar panels in a California desert at sunset.
(Photo by thinkreaction/Getty Images via E&E)

For the first time, solar and wind have generated more U.S. power than coal as measured during the first five months of 2023, reports Benjamin Storrow of Climatewire: "Federal data shows renewable energy generation exceeded coal-fired power in 2020 and 2022, but only when hydropower was counted as a source of renewable energy, according to figures compiled by the Energy Information Administration."

Storrow reports, "The milestone illustrates the ongoing transformation of the U.S. power sector as the nation races to install cleaner forms of energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels. Power markets have witnessed a precipitous drop in coal-fired generation this year, driven by low natural gas prices, a mild winter and a wave of coal plant retirements." Andy Blumenfeld, an analyst who tracks the coal industry, told Storrow, "From a coal perspective, it has been a disaster. The decline is happening faster than anyone anticipated."

Coal has been in decline since 2008 "as a wave of older coal facilities retired and was replaced by a combination of natural gas and renewables," Storrow explains. "Yet even by that standard, coal's sudden drop in 2023 has been remarkable." In 2022, the war in Ukraine caused a temporary increase in coal prices, but now, "coal plants will have difficulty competing against gas in that market, analysts said. But structural factors have also contributed to the fall in coal output. . . The U.S. has retired around 14 gigawatts of coal capacity, or roughly 7 percent of the coal fleet, since the start of 2022. . . . EIA figures show that coal was down 27 percent compared with the same time last year and below levels recorded in 2020."

The quick switch to renewables has some experts worried about the reliability "of the country's web of power grids," Storrow reports. "In recent testimony to Senate lawmakers, North American Electric Reliability Corp. CEO Jim Robb said, 'The pace of change is overtaking the reliability needs of the system.' . . . Others said those worries could be eased by unclogging a bottleneck that's preventing clean energy projects from connecting to the grid." Still, the switch "is a boost to U.S. climate efforts. Coal accounted for 55 percent of power sector emissions in 2022, according to Environmental Protection Agency data, despite representing just 20 percent of total power generation. . . . Carbon Monitor, an emissions tracker run by academics, estimates U.S. emissions were down 5.6 percent through April compared with the same time in 2022. Power sector emissions were down by nearly 1 percent."