Gas prices, oil sands, fracking and the Canadian pipeline have all thrust energy back into the headlines. Politicians posture, eco-alarmists protest and those global warming fanatics continue to predict the end of the world as we know it. If you are tired of the hype and disinformation, if you really want to understand energy—where it comes from, how it works and how much of it the world has—then you need a copy of The Energy Gap. In this follow-on to The Resilient Earth, Hoffman and Simmons address the world's energy questions with the same wit and erudition displayed in their previous work. Even better, in honor of April 15^th, tax day in the US, you can now download a copy of The Energy Gap for free from Amazon.

Writing in a paper to appear in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, NASA scientist and noted climate alarmist James Hansen has come down on the side of nuclear power. He and coauthor Pushker A. Kharecha claim that getting power from nuclear energy actually saves lives. “Global nuclear power has prevented about 1.84 million air pollution-related deaths,” they report. Of course it also prevented 64 gigatonnes (Gt) CO₂-equivalent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, when compared to the burning of fossil fuels, perhaps explaining why Hansen has suddenly become a nuclear power booster. With global warming on hiatus for the past decade and a half, the climate change cabal may be growing desperate for allies and have turned to that most unloved of energy sources—nuclear. Is this a sign that warmists and tree-huggers have a developing schism over nuclear power?

For decades the US government has funded research into “clean coal” technology. Billions of dollars have been spent with the only visible result being employment for a small army of government coal researchers and academics. Now scientists at Ohio State University have announced that, after 15 years of effort, they have produced a breakthrough—a new technology capable of turning coal green and carbon dioxide emission free. This was widely reported in the news media and passed practically without critical comment. Is it true? Is coal no longer the dirty, devil spawned fuel of evil industrialists everywhere?

There's been plenty of talk about potentially radical US foreign policy changes as a result of the shale boom. While one shouldn't expect any dramatic US foreign policy move away from the Middle East, factors are influencing a greater focus on Asia. Only one thing is certain in this transforming world: The shale boom is real and the implications are many and difficult to predict. The Resilient Earth is pleased to bring you the following interview with energy security expert Michael Levi.

The Resilient Earth Press is happy to bring you an interesting interview with the well known economist Ed Dolan. Courtesy of Oilprice.com, Dolan gives his perspective on oil prices, the prospects for cheap energy, Russia's growing uncertainty and how the natural gas boom is hindering renewable energy efforts. We think you will find a number of thought provoking statements and ideas to ponder in the views expressed in the interview, which appears in its entirety below.

Even though the Wind Production Tax Credit (PTC) may be extended when Congress reconvenes in a post-election, lame duck session, American wind turbine manufacturers are laying off workers right and left. Estimates from the Institute for Energy Research (IER) indicate approximately 3,000 jobs have already been cut or designated to be cut soon. That number is almost 30% of the 11,000 direct manufacturing jobs in the industry. At the same time, the European Union (EU) has launched an investigation of Chinese photovoltaics exporters. Similar charges in the US led to the imposition of preliminary anti-subsidy tariffs on China in March and preliminary anti-dumping tariffs in May. Instead of bringing promised prosperity to developed nations, the green energy industry is collapsing or fleeing to the developing world.

Nowadays the energy picture is confusing at best as the more information we are shown the more blurred our vision seems to become. Mixed messages, poor reporting and a media hungry to sensationalize anything it thinks can grab a headline have led to many wondering what the true energy situation is. We hear numerous reports on how the shale revolution will transform the energy sector, why alternatives are just around the corner, why advances in oilfield extraction techniques and new finds will help to lower oil prices. Yet no sooner have we read these rosy reports than we are bombarded with negative news on the Middle East, on why alternatives will never compete, on peak oil and declining oil production.

Most Americans have noticed that the price of gasoline at the pump has started to rise again. Gasoline prices have surged 30 cents since mid-July and now average $3.70 a gallon, higher than year-ago levels in 39 states. While some sources have blamed the recent refinery fire in California and others a rise in crude oil prices there is one hidden source of increasing fuel costs few are willing to mention—ethanol. Mandated by Congress to make up 10% of automotive gasoline, ethanol made from corn accounts for a quarter of recent fuel price increases while at the same time contributing to rising food costs and shortages world wide. Not satisfied with this astounding government largess, an unnatural alliance of eco-activists and big agribusiness is lobbying to raise the mandate to 15%. It is time for this blatant government kickback to end.

A study commissioned by the California legislature has just reported that, in order to achieve the state's aggressive greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions by 2050, the golden state will need to more than triple the percentage of electrical power it gets from nuclear energy. In the January 6, 2012, issue of the journal Science a paper outlining the report's findings was published and they may be a bit unsettling for deep green Californian ecologists. It finds that technically feasible levels of energy efficiency and decarbonizing the state's energy supply alone are not good enough. The answer? Here is a hint—electric vehicles powered by expanded nuclear energy.

The ineffective and mostly ignored Kyoto agreement is due to expire in 2012. Climate change activists around the world are girding their loins in preparation for the battle over Kyoto 2, the follow on treaty. Their goal? New regulations for black carbon, methane and driving anthropogenic CO₂ emissions to zero. Leaving no bad idea unused, there is talk of implementing a global cap & trade system where developed nations that are able to reduce emissions beyond their Kyoto targets can sell excess reduction credit to other developed nations through the Emissions Trading mechanism. Beyond that, rather than negotiating CO₂ emission reduction targets on a nation-by-nation basis—as in the current Kyoto framework—a future level of maximum allowable global temperature increase can be chosen. It is clear that the warmists have made the transition from irrational to delusional.

According to a new report from the American Physical Society, Direct Air Capture (DAC) of CO₂ using chemicals is not a viable solution for removing greenhouse gases from Earth's atmosphere. DAC involves a system in which ambient air flows over a chemical sorbent that selectively removes the CO₂. It is one of a small number of strategies that advocates say could allow the reduction of atmospheric CO₂. Prepared for the APS Panel on Public Affairs (POPA), a collection of scientific experts, the report claims to be a technology assessment containing no policy or funding recommendations. Unfortunately for its advocates, the APS report finds the approach untenable for technical reasons.

Many people have been pushing natural gas as the fuel of the future. Less polluting than oil or coal, the only thing holding gas back has been supply, causing a scramble for new gas fields using the latest drilling techniques. The conclusion of a new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is that drilling for natural gas in shale formations, using the process known as fracking, has seriously contaminated shallow groundwater supplies beneath Pennsylvania. Duke University scientists sampled well water across 175 kilometers of far northeast Pennsylvania centered on the town of Dimock, made famous by the film Gasland. The analysis does not indicate how pervasive such contamination might be.

Methane is an important greenhouse gas, 30 times more potent than CO₂, but our knowledge of the methane cycle is woefully inadequate. Sediments on the ocean's floor contain immense quantities of methane and there are enormous fluxes of methane into and out of these sediments. Trapped frozen in ice, there are some 10,000 gigatons of carbon stored under the sea—twice as much carbon as contained in conventional fossil fuel reserves. Some scientists consider the release of this methane the single worst environmental danger we face as a species. A massive release of ocean floor methane could cause real runaway global warming that would have dramatic impact on life. But methane continually leaks from seabeds around the world, contributing to the total amount of carbon injected into the ecosystem. A new report finds that ocean methane concentrations have been underestimated by a factor of 10 to 20 fold.

When night falls, many insects come out to feed, often on human food crops. Helping to turn back the pillaging insect hoards is an aerial armada of unsung and unloved heroes—bats. Bats are voracious predators of nocturnal insects, helping to control the populations of many crop and forest pests. Tragically, several migratory tree-dwelling species are being killed in unprecedented numbers by wind turbines across North America. Recent analysis presented in the journal Science suggests that reduced bat populations cause agricultural losses estimated at more than $3.7 billion/year and could rise as high as $53 billion/year if bats are driven to extinction. Oblivious to the carnage being caused by wind turbines, climate change alarmists and green political dupes have continued to push for rapid expansion of wind power. It is time to call a moratorium on wind park construction until a more realistic and less damaging policy can be formulated.

An investigative report published by The New York Times identifies important but previously unnoticed environmental hazards in natural gas fracking. Potentially the most serious disclosure is that waste water from natural gas drilling wells can contain levels of radioactivity that far exceed Federal drinking water standards. And that is not the only significant problem reported. In other areas, the disposal of used fracking solution by re-injecting it into the ground may be contributing to earthquakes. With turmoil sweeping the world's major oil producing regions and demand for energy continuing to rise, the US has been developing new natural gas fields at an accelerating pace. In the rush for energy independence is America getting fracked?