Welcome! We set this blog up to facilitate the conversation about energy development in the San Luis Valley. With so much happening so fast, I thought we needed a central information site to keep everyone up to date with. We'll blog about "old" energy (gas and oil) concerns - drilling in the Baca National Wildlife Refuge and oil and gas leasing on BLM and private lands and "new" energy (renewable) such as BIG and little (distributed generation) solar energy that is rapidly moving forward.
THIS WEEKS BIG NEWS: The Federal Courts oversaw a stipulated agreement between SLV Ecosystem Council, US Fish and Wildlife Service and Lexam Explorations to halt drilling on the Baca National Wildlife Refuge until Aug. 1, 2009. From our press release...
Drilling on Baca NWR Halted
Alamosa, CO- As part of ongoing litigation, the San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council, Lexam Exploration, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reached an agreement to “cease all construction activities on the Lexam Road”, “not begin construction” on access roads or well pads and to “remove all construction equipment” related to drilling on Colorado’s Baca National Wildlife Refuge (NWR).
The agreement came in response to requests from the San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council (SLVEC) and the San Luis Valley Water Protection Coalition (WPC) who have challenged the Canadian wildcat company, Lexam Exploration’s, bid to drill for gas and oil in Colorado’s newest and largest wildlife refuge. The agreement is in place until Aug. 1, 2009 to allow time for the parties to proceed with the litigation of SLVEC and WPC’s motion for a preliminary injunction.
SLVEC and WPC are asking that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conduct an open and rigorous evaluation of the impacts of drilling on the Valley’s aquifer systems, wetlands, wildlife, endangered species, local economies and cultural resources. There are also concerns that the project could affect the exceptional visual and air quality and natural soundscapes in the Great Sand Dunes National Park and preserve that is less than three miles from the proposed drilling sites.
The Energy Minerals Law Center filed the original lawsuit on behalf of the SLV Ecosystem Council in May of 2007 charging that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) failed to comply with the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA). The FWS initiated an Environmental Assessment (EA) study in response to the lawsuit and released its final decision in October that concluded that drilling on the refuge would not have significant impacts.
“We appreciate the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s new willingness to slow down and analyze the actual impacts of the proposed drilling in response to concerns raised by citizens, county government, state wildlife and cultural resource agencies, the National Park Service, EPA and even the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s own experts,” said Chris Canaly, Director of the Ecosystem Council.
Lexam is proposing to drill two 14,000 ft. wells on the Refuge, in search of oil and natural gas. “They want to drill without assessing the potential consequences of injecting large quantities of hazardous and toxic fluids into the complex and poorly understood aquifer system that the Refuge was created to protect. We think Lexam’s high risk drilling proposal poses an unreasonable and unacceptable risk to the water users of the San Luis Valley”, said Ceal Smith, consultant for the San Luis Valley Water Protection Coalition (WPC) who has joined the Ecosystem Council in the lawsuit.
Lexam purchased the oil and gas interests on the refuge in the 1990’s before the Baca NWR was designated. “The best solution to avoid risking the Valley’s aquifers, wildlife and special values of the Great Sand Dunes National Park is to have the Federal government do what it wanted to do in the first place -- purchase the mineral rights” says Canaly. “We would like to see FWS do a feasibility study for a mineral’s buyout as part of a Comprehensive Management Plan that has yet to be developed for the 97,500-acre Refuge”, Canaly concludes.
“The agreement will allow a more deliberate examination of the extent to which the FWS must act to protect the surface rights,” said Travis Stills, the attorney with the Energy Minerals Law Center who is handling this case. “The unique conditions and special sense of place in the San Luis Valley deserves consideration, and this agreement moves one step closer to an open and transparent examination of the impacts which oil and gas development could have on the Refuge and the Valley as a whole.”
“The ability of Federal employees to analyze the full scope of this proposal was severely limited under the Bush administration” says Smith. The WPC obtained documents that show that industry friendly attorneys consistently circumvented legitimate concerns of state and federal agency scientists and the public. “Attorneys in the Regional Solicitors Office invited Lexam to oversee development of the EA from beginning to end”, says Smith. “We hope this marks an end to an era when industry gets its way at the expense of the environment, public health and our vital air and water resources”, Smith concluded.
The Baca National Wildlife Refuge is located in the rural San Luis Valley, Colorado, where the new Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar was born and raised and served as Senator before being recruited by the Obama administration.
Obama was recently quoted in the Salt Lake Tribune; "We had an administration that I think was heavily tilted towards opening up lands to commercial interests, was less concerned with environmental and sustainability issues. And I think for our Department of Interior to say, 'Let's just take a look at what benefits we're getting' and ‘Are we getting a fair deal?' There's nothing inappropriate." Interior Secretary Ken Salazar pulled the plug on 77 disputed federal oil and gas leases in Utah earlier this month, rejecting the leases for some 103,000 acres of public land adjacent to Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, Dinosaur National Monument, and Desolation and Nine Mile Canyons. For more information contact the San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council at info@slvec.org or visit their website at slvec.org or the San Luis Valley Water Protection Coalition contact@slvwater.org or visit their website at slvwater.org. To learn more about how natural gas drilling may be endangering US drinking water go to: http://www.propublica.org/feature/buried-secrets-is-natural-gas-drilling-endangering-us-water-supplies-1113.
Amory B. Lovins is the energy maven’s energy maven, viewed variously as a visionary or a heretic in his assessments of how the U.S. and the world should be generating and using energy. More specifically, he is the chairman and chief scientist at the Rocky Mountain Institute, a man who has won many awards, written many books, and, as if that weren’t enough, was a fan favorite for Energy Secretary when we asked blog readers a few months ago to give incoming President Obama some advice.
The New York Times ran a guest post on Lovin's views on the new energy economy, to check it out go to: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/09/does-a-big-economy-need-big-power-plants-a-guest-post/.
Science Friday did an excellent show on the smart grid. The guest speakers also explain why distributed generation is so important to achieving an efficient and clean energy future and how state policy favors utilities and proliferation (in their expert guests opinion) of the STUPID GRID. The web page also has some very good links. This is your one-stop shop for smartgrid!
What's a Smart Grid? (broadcast Friday, February 13th, 2009)
There's been plenty of attention paid in recent weeks to the idea of rebuilding our nation's electric infrastructure using new technologies. Experts say it's time to transform our aging electric grid into a "smart grid". But what's SMART about it? Just what is a 'smart grid,' how would one work, and is the idea realistic?
The concept of a 'smart grid' covers a variety of technologies. Some are very local, such as appliances that can communicate with your power meter about the best time to run. Others focus on the creation of a microgrid, distributing locally-produced power to consumers. And at the largest-scale level, improving grid technologies would allow for more efficient and reliable operation of the electricity distribution system nationwide.
Distributed generation is not as expensive as claimed, either. Consider the following, excerpted from The Case for Decentralized Generation of Electricity, published in the Energy Bulletin:
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/4095
"Meeting global load growth with decentralized energy can save $5 trillion of capital, lower the cost of incremental power by 35-40 percent, and reduce CO2 emissions by 50 percent versus the IEA central generation dominated reference case"
Build Baby Build calls for and supports development of distributed generation clean energy projects. This is because we believe in the power of community-based projects, and the incredible effect that each of us can have when we band together - project by project, clean kilowatt by clean kilowatt.
150 MW Solar PV Plant Proposed east of Saguache -- according to an article in the SLV Lifestyles newspaper, 11-March-2009, OptiSolar has submitted an application to the BLM to build a 150 mW photovoltaic power plant on 2100 acres of BLM land east of Saguache. Mike Blakeman, public affairs officer for the SLV Public Lands Center, says BLM still needs the development plan from OptiSolar, and once the application is complete, BLM will perform the EIS.
i am all for producing our own oil so we can say stick it to the arabs. What is wrong with people stopping the move for oil in our own country. As far as san luis valley i think people need to be more aware of how safe te process can be. Of cource towns that rely on spring water no don't let the drilling take place above towns like that. But there are alot of areas that won't do harm to water system. I guess they have forgotten about all the nuclear fall out that infected the valley and i bet you can find this in the water. We had a giger counter in my house and it showed very high levels of radition. The valley has a very high cancer count from this but people want to ignore what they can't see. I have seen test wells and after capped off a couple years you can not tell anything happened. Need to find the right person to convince them its ok. I think its only far to give the residents a great discount of there gas they use.
solar elec is great my house runs off solar but is heated with gas. To heat a home with solar electric takes alot of panels to run electric heaters the average person in the valley can't afford this kind of set up. But wait what happened to thin film why is this not being promated to the poor people? I guess they have to figure a way to make the cost higher. I read 10cents a watt so where is it.come on help the people and not steal from them
Welcome! We set this blog up to facilitate the conversation about energy development in the San Luis Valley. With so much happening so fast, I thought we needed a central information site to keep everyone up to date with. We'll blog about "old" energy (gas and oil) concerns - drilling in the Baca National Wildlife Refuge and oil and gas leasing on BLM and private lands and "new" energy (renewable) such as BIG and little (distributed generation) solar energy that is rapidly moving forward.
ReplyDeleteTHIS WEEKS BIG NEWS: The Federal Courts oversaw a stipulated agreement between SLV Ecosystem Council, US Fish and Wildlife Service and Lexam Explorations to halt drilling on the Baca National Wildlife Refuge until Aug. 1, 2009. From our press release...
ReplyDeleteDrilling on Baca NWR Halted
Alamosa, CO- As part of ongoing litigation, the San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council, Lexam Exploration, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reached an agreement to “cease all construction activities on the Lexam Road”, “not begin construction” on access roads or well pads and to “remove all construction equipment” related to drilling on Colorado’s Baca National Wildlife Refuge (NWR).
The agreement came in response to requests from the San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council (SLVEC) and the San Luis Valley Water Protection Coalition (WPC) who have challenged the Canadian wildcat company, Lexam Exploration’s, bid to drill for gas and oil in Colorado’s newest and largest wildlife refuge. The agreement is in place until Aug. 1, 2009 to allow time for the parties to proceed with the litigation of SLVEC and WPC’s motion for a preliminary injunction.
SLVEC and WPC are asking that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conduct an open and rigorous evaluation of the impacts of drilling on the Valley’s aquifer systems, wetlands, wildlife, endangered species, local economies and cultural resources. There are also concerns that the project could affect the exceptional visual and air quality and natural soundscapes in the Great Sand Dunes National Park and preserve that is less than three miles from the proposed drilling sites.
The Energy Minerals Law Center filed the original lawsuit on behalf of the SLV Ecosystem Council in May of 2007 charging that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) failed to comply with the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA). The FWS initiated an Environmental Assessment (EA) study in response to the lawsuit and released its final decision in October that concluded that drilling on the refuge would not have significant impacts.
“We appreciate the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s new willingness to slow down and analyze the actual impacts of the proposed drilling in response to concerns raised by citizens, county government, state wildlife and cultural resource agencies, the National Park Service, EPA and even the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s own experts,” said Chris Canaly, Director of the Ecosystem Council.
Lexam is proposing to drill two 14,000 ft. wells on the Refuge, in search of oil and natural gas. “They want to drill without assessing the potential consequences of injecting large quantities of hazardous and toxic fluids into the complex and poorly understood aquifer system that the Refuge was created to protect. We think Lexam’s high risk drilling proposal poses an unreasonable and unacceptable risk to the water users of the San Luis Valley”, said Ceal Smith, consultant for the San Luis Valley Water Protection Coalition (WPC) who has joined the Ecosystem Council in the lawsuit.
Lexam purchased the oil and gas interests on the refuge in the 1990’s before the Baca NWR was designated. “The best solution to avoid risking the Valley’s aquifers, wildlife and special values of the Great Sand Dunes National Park is to have the Federal government do what it wanted to do in the first place -- purchase the mineral rights” says Canaly. “We would like to see FWS do a feasibility study for a mineral’s buyout as part of a Comprehensive Management Plan that has yet to be developed for the 97,500-acre Refuge”, Canaly concludes.
“The agreement will allow a more deliberate examination of the extent to which the FWS must act to protect the surface rights,” said Travis Stills, the attorney with the Energy Minerals Law Center who is handling this case. “The unique conditions and special sense of place in the San Luis Valley deserves consideration, and this agreement moves one step closer to an open and transparent examination of the impacts which oil and gas development could have on the Refuge and the Valley as a whole.”
“The ability of Federal employees to analyze the full scope of this proposal was severely limited under the Bush administration” says Smith. The WPC obtained documents that show that industry friendly attorneys consistently circumvented legitimate concerns of state and federal agency scientists and the public. “Attorneys in the Regional Solicitors Office invited Lexam to oversee development of the EA from beginning to end”, says Smith. “We hope this marks an end to an era when industry gets its way at the expense of the environment, public health and our vital air and water resources”, Smith concluded.
The Baca National Wildlife Refuge is located in the rural San Luis Valley, Colorado, where the new Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar was born and raised and served as Senator before being recruited by the Obama administration.
Obama was recently quoted in the Salt Lake Tribune; "We had an administration that I think was heavily tilted towards opening up lands to commercial interests, was less concerned with environmental and sustainability issues. And I think for our Department of Interior to say, 'Let's just take a look at what benefits we're getting' and ‘Are we getting a fair deal?' There's nothing inappropriate."
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar pulled the plug on 77 disputed federal oil and gas leases in Utah earlier this month, rejecting the leases for some 103,000 acres of public land adjacent to Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, Dinosaur National Monument, and Desolation and Nine Mile Canyons.
For more information contact the San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council at info@slvec.org or visit their website at slvec.org or the San Luis Valley Water Protection Coalition contact@slvwater.org or visit their website at slvwater.org. To learn more about how natural gas drilling may be endangering US drinking water go to: http://www.propublica.org/feature/buried-secrets-is-natural-gas-drilling-endangering-us-water-supplies-1113.
Does a Big Economy Need Big Power Plants?
ReplyDeleteAmory B. Lovins is the energy maven’s energy maven, viewed variously as a visionary or a heretic in his assessments of how the U.S. and the world should be generating and using energy. More specifically, he is the chairman and chief scientist at the Rocky Mountain Institute, a man who has won many awards, written many books, and, as if that weren’t enough, was a fan favorite for Energy Secretary when we asked blog readers a few months ago to give incoming President Obama some advice.
The New York Times ran a guest post on Lovin's views on the new energy economy, to check it out go to: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/09/does-a-big-economy-need-big-power-plants-a-guest-post/.
Science Friday did an excellent show on the smart grid. The guest speakers also explain why distributed generation is so important to achieving an efficient and clean energy future and how state policy favors utilities and proliferation (in their expert guests opinion) of the STUPID GRID. The web page also has some very good links. This is your one-stop shop for smartgrid!
ReplyDeleteListen at: http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/200902132
(The PLAY button is on the upper left).
What's a Smart Grid? (broadcast Friday, February 13th, 2009)
There's been plenty of attention paid in recent weeks to the idea of rebuilding our nation's electric infrastructure using new technologies. Experts say it's time to transform our aging electric grid into a "smart grid". But what's SMART about it? Just what is a 'smart grid,' how would one work, and is the idea realistic?
The concept of a 'smart grid' covers a variety of technologies. Some are very local, such as appliances that can communicate with your power meter about the best time to run. Others focus on the creation of a microgrid, distributing locally-produced power to consumers. And at the largest-scale level, improving grid technologies would allow for more efficient and reliable operation of the electricity distribution system nationwide.
More good energy ideas/thoughts from the virtual world....
ReplyDeleteFrom "Build Baby Build" a blog call for Distributed Generation:
http://www.buildbabybuild.net/blog/distributed-generation/
Distributed generation is not as expensive as claimed, either. Consider the following, excerpted from The Case for Decentralized Generation of Electricity, published in the Energy Bulletin:
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/4095
"Meeting global load growth with decentralized energy can save $5 trillion of capital, lower the cost of incremental power by 35-40 percent, and reduce CO2 emissions by 50 percent versus the IEA central generation dominated reference case"
Build Baby Build calls for and supports development of distributed generation clean energy projects. This is because we believe in the power of community-based projects, and the incredible effect that each of us can have when we band together - project by project, clean kilowatt by clean kilowatt.
150 MW Solar PV Plant Proposed east of Saguache
ReplyDelete-- according to an article in the SLV Lifestyles newspaper, 11-March-2009, OptiSolar has submitted an application to the BLM to build a 150 mW photovoltaic power plant on 2100 acres of BLM land east of Saguache. Mike Blakeman, public affairs officer for the SLV Public Lands Center, says BLM still needs the development plan from OptiSolar, and once the application is complete, BLM will perform the EIS.
i am all for producing our own oil so we can say stick it to the arabs. What is wrong with people stopping the move for oil in our own country. As far as san luis valley i think people need to be more aware of how safe te process can be. Of cource towns that rely on spring water no don't let the drilling take place above towns like that. But there are alot of areas that won't do harm to water system. I guess they have forgotten about all the nuclear fall out that infected the valley and i bet you can find this in the water. We had a giger counter in my house and it showed very high levels of radition. The valley has a very high cancer count from this but people want to ignore what they can't see. I have seen test wells and after capped off a couple years you can not tell anything happened. Need to find the right person to convince them its ok. I think its only far to give the residents a great discount of there gas they use.
ReplyDeletesolar elec is great my house runs off solar but is heated with gas. To heat a home with solar electric takes alot of panels to run electric heaters the average person in the valley can't afford this kind of set up. But wait what happened to thin film why is this not being promated to the poor people? I guess they have to figure a way to make the cost higher. I read 10cents a watt so where is it.come on help the people and not steal from them
ReplyDelete