Peter Arkle illustrations

  Pacific Gas & Electric starts shutting off power to thousands of California customers as an ongoing fire safety precaution.

  A heat wave bakes India. Temperatures in Rajasthan reach 123 degrees F, and the four reservoirs that supply Chennal (population 9.1 million) go dry.

 Republican lawmakers in 18 states want to criminalize protests against fossil fuel infrastructure like pipelines.

illustrations by Peter Arkle, Sierra Magazine September/October 2019

Wanhua Drops Application for Land Use in St James

Wanhua drops application for land use in St James but is still looking for a U S based location, possibly still in St James Parish because they appreciate the relationship with the St James Parish leadership (William Day of Wanhua Chemical U S Operations)
Wanhua looking at alternative site 

David beat Goliath. A victory for health and the environment.  Louisiana Bucket Brigade . .

Methane is Money

Unfortunately, the total cost of our nation's dependence on fossil fuels and the public health costs, quality of life affects are still not fully accounted for.

Former Shell Oil President John Hofmeister interview on N P R All Things Considered about environmental regulation roll backs  https://www.npr.org/2019/08/29/755555482/former-shell-oil-president-john-hofmeister-weighs-in-on-rollback-of-emissions-ru


""in the future, the ability to operate in the fossil fuel industry is going to demand an environmental performance where the public believes that you are protecting the land, the water and the air. So regulations that protect the water, the land and the air, which enable the industry to continue to do what it does, are essential for the industry to be successful down the road. That's changed in the last 20 years. And so it's necessary for the industry to recognize that this is the way it's going to be, and it is the way it should be."  




"there are thousands of independent operators who produce oil and gas in the U.S., and they operate with much lower volumes of oil and gas. They might have one or two drilling rigs. They might have a half-a-dozen employees. So these are folks that watch where every nickel and dime is spent, and for them and their operating model, it becomes more expensive than they would like to pay for to have these regulations because they would rather just emit a certain amount of fugitive methane, give it up in the marketplace, but not have to pay the costs of engineering and putting in place a completely closed production system which captures the methane."

"It's not good for the public and the environment, and it's not good for the industry because it is really going on the cheap, and there is enough money in the industry to not have to go on the cheap. Consumers pay a good, healthy cost for the oil and gas that they consume, and that money has to pay for all the bills of the producing companies. And like any other industry, if people can't afford to be in the industry, they need to go do something else."