A major reason for coal plants shutting has been public opposition to pollution from coal. Also, looming requirements by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for stringent pollution controls could take a toll on the coal industry, while boosting the market for pollution control devices. One huge coal plant in New Mexico lost a legal battle with the EPA to avoid having to install a more effective type of pollution-control equipment.

But what really has the coal industry “frightened” is cheap natural gas, the result of a boom in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, of shale deposits. But demand for natural gas may soon grow, since more natural gas vehicles are already in the works, and an announcement by President Obama that he’ll expand tax credits for alternative vehicles to include those powered by hydrogen and natural gas.

How Clean is the Clean Energy Standard?

Meanwhile, Sen. Jeff Bingaman introduced the Clean Energy Standard Act of 2012, which would force the largest utilities to meet targets starting in 2015 that by 2035 would ramp up to require 84 percent clean energy—defined as sources that create less greenhouse gases than modern coal plants. If enacted, which analysts rated as unlikely, the law would benefit natural gas, at least initially, but several renewable energy groups endorsed the bill.

However, last month a study led by former Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold found that switching from coal to gas would lead to only a slight drop in warming by the end of the century, so achieving “substantial reductions in temperatures” compared with use of coal would require “rapid and massive deployment” of very low-emissions energy such as solar and wind.

This fits with an analysis last year from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, whose lead researcher concluded switching to natural gas “would do little to help solve the climate problem.” Such findings led activist Bill McKibben to argue natural gas is not a “bridge fuel,” but rather “a rickety pier extending indefinitely out into a hotter future.”

Meanwhile, plans are under way to expand exports of U.S. coal with new shipping terminals in the Pacific Northwest and a “tremendous increase” in capacity at a Louisiana port. At CERAWeek, a major meeting for the oil and gas industry, the most popular discussion about U.S. natural gas is the “prospect of exporting it,” an issue Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman said the administration is “looking at closely.”

China Puts on the Brakes

The growth of China’s coal production is expected to slow down—part of a general slowing for the country in 2012.

In the annual meeting of China’s parliament, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao announced a lower target for economic growth—7.5 percent, the lowest in seven years—and would shift from an export-focused economy to instead emphasize domestic consumption.

Wen also said the country will “put an end to blind expansion in industries such as solar energy and wind power”—possibly referring to oversupplies of wind turbines and solar panels. China’s wind industry has exploded from six turbine manufacturers in 2004 to more than 100 today, leading to manufacturing capacity that’s larger than the demand and a large number of projects awaiting connections.

China had “imbalanced, uncoordinated, and unsustainable development,” Wen said. The country had missed half its major targets for energy conservation and environmental protection, largely because they “have not transformed the economic development model,” said Zhang Ping, minister of the National Development and Reform Commission.

The government also announced it will create stricter laws for air pollution, and an official said two-thirds of Chinese cities would likely fail to meet the new standard.

Hockey Stick in a Knife-Fight

Climate researcher Michael Mann has been under attack by Virginia’s Attorney General, Kenneth Cuccinelli, who has been trying to force Mann’s former employer, the University of Virginia, to release documents on Mann’s work so he could “determine whether or not fraud had been committed.” But the Virginia Supreme Court turned down Cuccinelli’s request, which the Union of Concerned Scientists called “a victory for science in Virginia.”

Mann has become a lightning rod for his research on ancient climates and for creating the famous “hockey stick” graph showing rising temperatures in recent decades—a tale recounted in his new book, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars.

He said scientists are in a tough position, because they’re in a “knife-fight” with climate change skeptics, but scientists “can’t play by the rules of knife-fighting ourselves.”

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

Countering calls to “drill, baby, drill,” Obama called the GOP candidates’ ideas “bumper sticker” strategies, “not a plan.” Reiterating his call for an end to oil and gas tax breaks, Obama called them “outrageous” and “inexcusable.”

Also, some Democrats called for dipping into the U.S. strategic oil reserves to try to bring down prices. However, this notion seemed based on the misconception that the availability of oil in the U.S. has a big influence on the price.

Rising oil prices, argued Bloomberg columnist Caroline Baum, “tap into a barrel of nonsense,” making people “go all wobbly in the head.” Backing up that idea is Media Matters’ laundry list of misconceptions common in energy reporting, which concluded that the only way to become less vulnerable to oil price spikes is to “use less oil. Period.”

Move To Natural Gas—But Will It Help?

In his speech, Obama announced a new $30 million research grant to boost the number of vehicles running on natural gas.

Natural-gas-powered trucks are becoming more popular among big fleets, refueling stations are spreading, and some companies are creating better storage tanks for compressed natural gas.

This push for natural gas vehicles is “the hottest energy fad in Washington” according to a Wall Street Journal editorial titled “Boone-Doggle,” since the fad has been spurred in part by petroleum billionaire T. Boone Pickens and his “Pickens Plan.”

Two former U.S. officials argued for a twist on the natural gas vehicle, calling for cars that can run on methanol, an alcohol that can be “efficiently and inexpensively produced from natural gas,” according to an MIT report.

Globally, natural gas vehicles have increased exponentially, with most of the growth in the past decade in Asia and Latin America.

However, a new climate modeling study by Nathan Myhrvold, former Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft, found that switching from coal to natural gas would do little to slow global warming.

Meanwhile, in the Washington Post, a bipartisan group of current and former Congressmen, called for taxes on greenhouse gas emissions as a way to fight climate change, lower oil imports and raise revenue that could help spur clean energy industries and reduce the debt. Beyond the authors of this op-ed, there may be further bipartisan support for such a plan.

EPA Greenhouse Gas Limits Face Appeals Court

In federal court this week, energy industry groups challenged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its move to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

One line of argument being used is the science on climate change is not settled, so the EPA should not be allowed to regulate greenhouse gases. By putting climate science on trial, it’s been dubbed the “Scopes trial for climate change.”

The plaintiffs are also arguing that in issuing the “tailoring rule,” which limits greenhouse gas rules only to the biggest emitters, the EPA overstepped its bounds.

The judge hearing the case found the tailoring argument strange, saying that if the alleged harm is regulatory burden, but the remedy is a heavier regulatory burden, then the plaintiffs’ argument “doesn’t even make good nonsense.”

Gene Therapy for Climate Change

Climate Central lampooned geoengineering—ideas for planetary-scale projects to cool Earth—with its own set of not-so-serious proposals, including giving Maalox to livestock.

A research project at the Mote Marine Laboratory sounds like it might be another of these far-fetched plans, but it’s for real. A geneticist is investigating gene therapy for coral reefs—or, more specifically, for the bacteria that live symbiotically with the corals—to help them adapt to climate change.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

Gleick resigned from the board of the National Center on Science Education, and stepped down as chairman of the American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) taskforce on scientific ethics.

His admission has triggered an ethics debate in the climate community, with ethics expert Dale Jamieson calling Gleick’s actions “unethical” but adding, “relative to what has been going on on the climate denial side, this is a fairly small breach of ethics.”

Cognitive scientist Stephan Lewandowsky argued that “revealing to the public the active, vicious, and well-funded campaign of denial … likely constitutes a classic public good,” against which the ethics of Gleick’s deception have to be weighed.

The president of the AGU said the organization was disappointed with Gleick, whose actions were “inconsistent with our organization’s values.” NASA climate researcher Gavin Schmidt said “Gleick’s actions were completely irresponsible.” Bryan Walsh of Time argued Gleick’s actions “have hurt … the cause of climate science.”

In the U.K., a freedom of information act request for details on the funder of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a climate change skeptic group, was denied by a court on the grounds the foundation is not influential enough.

PTC Could Equal Permanent Tax Credit

The Production Tax Credit (PTC) that aids wind energy is set to expire at the end of 2012, but some legislators are fighting to save it, with Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado arguing that “every minute counts” in trying to forge a deal.

To avoid such struggles over regular renewals of the PTC, President Obama proposed a new corporate taxation plan that would make the subsidies permanent, as well as make permanent a research-and-experimentation tax credit that expired Jan. 1.

High Oil Prices a Drag

Since the start of the year, oil prices have been on the rise, putting adrag on economic recovery in the U.S., pushing up consumer prices and causing overall inflation—risking a repeat of early 2011, when high oil prices nearly pushed the country back into recession.

President Obama was scheduled to speak about the issue Thursday, and White House spokesman Jay Carney said that the rise in prices—despite a drop in domestic consumption and rise in production—“tells you that there are other things beyond our control.”

The threat high oil prices pose to economies across developed countries could trigger the International Energy Agency to release more oil from strategic reserves, as was done in spring 2011, argued Reuters analyst John Kemp.

The rising oil prices have U.S. consumers wondering why. The prices, experts said, have stayed high because of rising consumption in emerging markets, as well as the threat that Iran’s oil exports may be cut off. An International Energy Agency official said that other countries would be able to make up for a loss of Iran’s exports, which had been 2.2 million barrels a day, and to boost production, Saudi Arabia may restart its oldest oil field.

In response to the European Union’s decision to embargo Iranian oil, Iran halted oil shipments to Britain and France, and possibly other European countries. Major shipping countries are refusing to pick up Iranian oil, with one shipping executive saying it would be like “getting leprosy.”

GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said he would get gasoline down to $2.50 a gallon. However Bryan Walsh said no president can deliver that—at least without making the U.S. economy tank.

Tar Sands Tussle

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would require approval of the Keystone XL pipeline that would carry diluted tar sands from Canada to Texas, which President Obama had earlier nixed.

The European Union held a vote on whether to ban imports of oil made from Canadian tar sands, but it ended in a deadlock.

The amount of tar sands is small compared with the amount of natural gas and coal in the world, so the tar sands alone don’t pose a major threat to the climate, argued a study in Nature Climate Change.

Some took this to mean that Canada’s tar sands are “not so dirty after all.” However, study leader Andrew Weaver—a climate modeler at the University of Victoria in Canada—argued that use of tar sands is “a symptom of the bigger problem of our dependence on fossil fuels,” and policy makers should avoid commitments to infrastructure supporting fossil fuel dependence.

Meanwhile, another study of tar sands sites found levels of air pollution—in particular nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide—were comparable to air above a large power plant.

Small Feet, Large Footprint

A new report on the carbon footprint of a diminutive creature—shrimp—shows they’re worse than cattle, at least when raised in aquaculture. When coastal mangrove forests are cleared to create shrimp farms, it’s the “the equivalent of slash-and-burn agriculture,” said study leader Boone Kauffman.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

The Heartland Institute gave mixed responses to the documents, calling them both “stolen” and “fake,” but only specifically calling one document, titled “2012 Heartland Climate Strategy” a “total fake.”

Nonetheless Think Progress confirmed that two of the main projects mentioned in the documents are real, including an effort to develop curricula for K-12 education that would cast doubt on climate science.

New York Times blogger Andrew Revkin said the Heritage Institute is using a double standard in being outraged about this leak, while celebrating the “Climategate” leak of emails from researchers.

Climate researcher Judith Curry of Georgia Tech—who has been branded a “heretic” by her colleagues for raising questions such whether there’s actually a consensus on climate change—said one of the most interesting things about the Heartland Institute is that it has been “so effective with so little funds.”

Last month, the Copenhagen Consensus Centre, directed by well-known climate skeptic Bjørn Lomborg, announced it will shut because the Danish government cut its funding.

New Budget to Boost “Clean Sources” of Energy

With the announcement of the Obama administration’s proposed 2013 budget, the President called again for an end to $40 billion in tax breaks for oil and gas companies over the next decade. However The Hill said this is “largely a political statement” because Congress is unlikely to support the end of these tax breaks.

The budget request calls for doubling the share of electricity from “clean sources.” It would increase funding for renewable energy, nuclear power, and technologies to reduce emissions from coal, including a 29 percent increase for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, bringing its budget to $2.33 billion.

Meanwhile, U.S. regulators approved plans for a new nuclear power plant for the first time in 30 years, to be built in Georgia. Work is proceeding, with hopes of having the reactors—a new type never used in the U.S.—running by 2016, but the plant is encountering opposition.

No Guarantees

The proposed U.S. budget includes no money for the U.S. Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program, which gave funding to now-bankrupt solar panel manufacturer Solyndra.

Despite the uproar about Solyndra, an audit of the loan guarantee program found that the investments were actually safer than Congress had expected. Nonetheless, the audit recommended changes to loan guarantees to improve management and oversight.

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu warned more recipients of loan guarantees may go bust, but that they have always known there are “inherent risks in backing innovative technologies.”

 Feed-In Tariffs’ Fate

Feed-in tariffs and other subsidies for renewable energy are in turmoil as countries rearrange their systems. The U.K. is changing to a dynamic tariff that adjusts as the cost of solar panels falls, to avoid a bubble in installations and ballooning costs for the program.

Germany is expected to cut its solar feed-in tariff—and some analysts said the cuts could be deeper than expected. Two different proposals from the Ministry of the Environment could both hurt the industry; in retaliation, three German states reportedly said they’d block these measures.

Taiwan is also lowering its solar feed-in tariff, and the U.K. is proposing to do the same for small wind turbines.

The United States has lagged behind Europe and East Asia in implementing feed-in tariffs, but two new places in the U.S. are considering starting such programs: the state of Iowa and the city of Palo Alto, in California’s Silicon Valley.

Weather Trumps Turbines

A headline about a new study in the U.K.’s Daily Mail reading “Wind farms can actually INCREASE climate change…” received a lot of attention, but the Guardian argued the claim has now grown into a myth.

The research did show that wind farms could affect microclimates, and there are reasons to think they could have beneficial effects on crops.

But even if turbines can affect microclimates, a new study suggested powerful hurricanes could topple offshore wind farms planned along the United States’ Atlantic and Gulf Coasts.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

His resignation followed weeks of protests and was apparently motivated by internal politics unrelated to his environmental views.

Global Warming behind Europe’s Winter

Global warming could be behind the Arctic blast that recently hit Europe, killing more than 200. The unusually small ice cover over the Kara and Barents Seas has changed wind patterns, pushing frigid air into Europe.

Meanwhile, most of the U.S. has been enjoying an especially mild winter—although Alaska has had one of the coldest and snowiest on record, and the Bering Sea’s ice grew to its second-highest on record in January.

Meteorologist Jeffrey Masters said it’s not clear if global warming is the culprit behind the U.S. weather, but “… over the last couple of years, it’s really not the atmosphere I know anymore.”

When the Los Angeles Times reported on the warm winter without mentioning the possible influence of global warming, climate scientist Michael Mann called it “journalistic malpractice.”

However, the media is too often the scapegoat, with politicians and the economy having a bigger influence on public opinion about climate change, according to a new study.

“Fracking” Study Raises Greenhouse Gas Worries

A new study, which sampled the air around sites where hydraulic fracturing is being used to extract natural gas from shale, revealed more gases—mainly methane—escape into the air than previously thought. Although natural gas is usually touted as being better for the climate than other fossil fuels, the study indicated these leaks could erase much of that benefit.

Geoengineering Gets More Scrutiny

Tycoons including Bill Gates and Richard Branson have funded research and reports on geoengineering—proposed planetary-scale projects to fight climate change—raising concerns about the power of vested interests.

Research into geoengineering is a small but fast-growing field. One recent study found that sunlight-blocking particles could cool the planet, but would change regional climate patterns, so would not be able to keep the climate as it is now. Another recent study found that such geoengineering could help food production by limiting heat stress, while retaining the boost in growth from higher CO2 levels.

Wind Power Struggles Ahead

Wind turbine installations in 2011 were up 6 percent over the year before, a slight increase compared with the rapid growth before the 2008 recession. Less than half of the installations were in Europe or North America, and Asia led the growth.

The world’s largest turbine manufacturer, Denmark-based Vestas Wind Systems, has been flagging: it lost $220 million in 2011—four times more than expected—and a number of senior officers left, most recently the chairman.

In the U.S., wind-power advocates have been fighting for offshore turbines along the Atlantic for decades, and now the federal government is aiming to speed permits after a positive environmental review. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said, “We’ll have those leases issued by the end of 2012.”

Hair, No—But Grass, Yes

Reports from a few years ago that Nepalese teenagers made a solar panel from hair was apparently a hoax, but now MIT researchers have done something that seems equally unlikely: making solar panels from grass clippings. The new study described how to fairly cheaply isolate a key part of the molecular machinery behind photosynthesis, and then apply it to a metal or glass surface to create a photovoltaic panel. The researchers are trying to make it simple enough that anyone can hack together a solar panel using grass clippings and a bag of cheap chemical powder.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

But the market has a glut of natural gas due to widespread use of the drilling method, pushing prices to their lowest in a decade and deflating the shale gas rush, leading large producers to cut production to try to bring the price up.

The House of Representatives held a hearing on fracking to follow up on a recent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report that found fracturing fluids were the likely cause of contaminated groundwater in Pavilion, Wyo. At the hearing, a filmmaker who made the documentary “Gasland” was arrested for filming without a press credential—an action that Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) said was unprecedented.

Meanwhile, the EPA began new tests of groundwater in Dimock, Pa., after becoming aware of data that suggests drinking water contamination near fracking sites.

In Europe, shale gas exploration would be covered by existing regulations on water contamination and use of chemicals, so there is no need for new regulations at this point, a European Commission report said.

Also, the International Energy Agency urged the G20 to put stringent rules on shale gas production, while also planning a workshop to consider ways of easing obstacles to shale gas production around the world, with the aim of producing a “Magna Carta” of rules to guide the industry for years to come.

Shale gas is off to a slow start in Europe, and is unlikely to challenge Russia’s dominance of the natural gas market there anytime soon, argues Foreign Policy‘s Steve LeVine. Exxon announced disappointing results from shale gas wells in Poland, and Bulgaria banned fracking, following the lead of France.

Battery Bankruptcy

In Obama’s State of the Union address last week Obama mentioned battery makers as an example of clean-tech. The next day Ener1—whose subsidiary, EnerDel, makes electric vehicle batteries and received $118 million in green stimulus grant money—filed for bankruptcy.

Some called this a repeat of Solyndra, the solar panel manufacturer that went bankrupt, and which Obama had touted as a model cleantech business.

However, many others shot back, pointing out that Ener1 is different in many ways. Ener1 will continue operating during bankruptcy proceedings, rather than shutting down as Solyndra did. Also, Ener1 received widespread support over the past several years, netting a deal with the United States Advanced Battery Consortium and a U.S. Department of Defense research grant, and enjoyed bipartisan support.

Overall, it has been a tough time for electric-car battery makers, with demand for electric vehicles lower than expected. But the future is bright for the sector, argued Bloomberg New Energy Finance, with goals to get a million electric cars on the road within the next several years in both China and the U.S.

Also, the California Air Resources Board mandated that by 2025, roughly one in seven cars sold in the state would have to be plug-in hybrid, electric, or fuel-cell vehicles—a standard that 10 other states may likewise adopt.

Biofuels’ Big Footprint

Some of the most popular biofuels—made from palm oil or soybeans—cause more global warming than regular fossil fuels, and nearly as much as tar sands, according to a European Commission (EC) evaluation of biofuels, which was leaked to Euractiv.

Under the European Union’s 2009 Renewable Energy Directive, for biofuels to count toward the goal of increasing renewable energy, the biofuels must have substantially less emissions than regular gasoline. The EC will use the data on emissions when issuing new legislative proposals on biofuels this spring.

Today’s biofuels have such large emissions in large part because tropical forests are often cleared to grow them—and a new study found that such forests store about 20 percent more carbon than previously thought.

Carbon Labels, Glaciers Disappear

British supermarket chain Tesco pledged in 2007 to label all its products with their carbon footprint, but the company announced it has given up the plan since it proved too difficult, requiring several months of work for each product, and because other companies didn’t follow their lead.

In Chile, a new reason for glacier retreat arose: a thief stole five tons of ice from the Jorge Montt glacier, which he planned to sell as designer ice cubes for cocktails.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

Obama also asked the country to imagine “a future where we’re in control of our own energy,” which seemed to be a call for energy independence, a goal set out by all U.S. presidents going back to Nixon.

He also said he supports opening up more offshore areas for exploration and development of oil and gas. The president of Shell Oil said it seems the federal government has increased its pace of issuing permits for deepwater drilling.

He also expressed support for shale gas, saying the country had natural gas supplies that could last “nearly 100 years.” However, a new analysis by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said the country may only have about half as much shale gas as the EIA’s 2011 estimate held—and the most extensively drilled shale area, the Marcellus, was downgraded by about two-thirds. For any drilling on public lands, Obama will require companies to disclose the chemicals they use.

The result was a variety of aims that could conflict, since boosting production of fossil fuels could stymie renewable energy and boost greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate change only showed up in the speech once, when Obama blamed partisan division in Congress for delaying climate legislation. He indicated there is no reason Congress shouldn’t at least set a “clean energy standard”—the kind of effort that could sharply cut emissions at low cost, according to an analysis last year by the EIA.

Changes to Taxes and Trade

Another theme in Obama’s speech was an “economy built to last,” calling for a resurgence of U.S. manufacturing. A key part of this would be clean tech, as Obama said, “I will not walk away from … clean energy.” He also touted a wind turbine manufacturer as an example of a U.S. company creating domestic jobs.

To help protect domestic jobs, he announced the creation of a Trade Enforcement Unit that will investigate “unfair trade practices in countries like China,” apparently a reference to recent scuffles over China’s support for solar panel manufacturers.

Obama also argued companies should not get tax breaks for moving jobs overseas. There has been some criticism of green stimulus money supporting jobs overseas and now Evergreen Solar, the United States’ third-biggest solar panel manufacturer, announced plans to shut down its main U.S. factory and open another in China.

Obama also called for an end to tax breaks for the petroleum industry. “We have subsidized oil companies for a century,” he said. “That’s long enough.” Obama has urged such a move several times before, as has Fatih Birol, chief economist of the International Energy Agency, who said cutting fossil fuel subsidies would get the world halfway to reaching ambitious goals for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

However, fuel price hikes have sparked protests—as when Italy raised taxes and Nigeria lowered subsidies.

Oil Market Ratchets Up

Meanwhile, the European Union adopted a ban on importing Iranian oil, to be phased in by July 1, to try to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

In retaliation, Iran is considering immediately ceasing oil sales to Europe, and again threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important oil chokepoint, leading the International Monetary Fund to warn rising tensions could cause oil prices to spike, joining a chorus of earlier warnings.

In case of a shut-down, Saudi Arabia’s leaders said oil could continue flowing through alternate routes, and make up for much of the loss of Iranian oil—also admitting a preference for oil prices to remain around $100 a barrel.

In case of such oil or gas price spikes, six Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced the Gas Price Spike Act to apply a windfall tax that would capture most of the revenue that goes beyond “a reasonable profit.” The money raised would help fund fuel-efficient cars and mass transit systems.

Regardless of acute geopolitical turmoil, high oil prices are here to stay, since oil’s “tipping point has passed” and the “supply of cheap oil has plateaued,” argued an article in Nature.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

“This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline” that did not allow enough time to finish the environmental impact assessment, said President Obama. Republicans who supported the pipeline say they will continue to fight for it, and have asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to testify before Congress on the decision.

The company that wanted to build the pipeline, TransCanada, said earlier this week it was moving ahead with its plans despite the political wrangling. Also, the government of Alberta, the province at the center of Canada’s tar sands activity, had been urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ignore greenhouse gas emissions and climate change impacts when evaluating the pipeline, according to newly released documents.

But with the decision issued by the U.S. State Department, now the company will have to start over and reapply, and the government might not offer an expedited review. TransCanada may reapply within weeks proposing a new route avoiding Nebraska’s ecologically sensitive Sand Hills region, above a portion of the vast Ogallala Aquifer.

Obama reportedly called Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to explain his decision, and Harper said he hoped the pipeline would eventually be approved. Harper is also supporting another pipeline to Canada’s Pacific coast that would facilitate exports to Asia, in particular to China. However, pipeline approval is more difficult in Canada than the U.S., and there is considerable opposition to a Pacific pipeline, a Reuters analyst said.

The decision was a “brave” call, said Bill McKibben, branded in the Boston Globe as “the man who crushed the Keystone XL pipeline.”

However other commentators—even those who took the decision as good news—argued it won’t stop Canada’s tar sands from flowing, and thus won’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Others called the decision “a gift” to the GOP.

Shale Gas Versus Alternatives

Although world oil prices and U.S. gasoline prices were at all-time highs in 2011, in the U.S. natural gas prices have been plummeting, reaching their lowest in a decade in a “classic case of oversupply.” The price has dropped lately because of a mild winter requiring less heating, a boon to consumers and businesses; the longer trend has been driven by the advent of shale gas drilling techniques, which now account for about a quarter of U.S. natural gas production.

There has been limited shale gas development outside the U.S., and prices in most of the rest of the world have remained much higher.

Although several years ago the U.S. was planning to import large amounts of liquefied natural gas and built ports to receive it in tankers, now the country is considering exporting natural gas. But such a move would have wide-ranging impacts that are difficult to unravel, according to a new report from the Brookings Institution; the U.S. Energy Information Administration said exporting natural gas would likely push domestic prices up.

And an MIT study simulated the impacts a steady supply of cheap shale gas would likely have on the U.S. economy and found it would in many ways benefit the economy over the next couple of decades, but that it could boost greenhouse gas emissions and stunt the growth of renewable energy and other alternatives.

Renewables Reach New High

Global investment in renewable energy hit a new record in 2011, reaching $260 billion, up 5 percent from 2010. Wind investment fell 17 percent from 2010, while solar investment grew by a third, so spending on solar was twice the spending on wind. The growth of solar was attributed in large part to plummeting photovoltaic panel prices.

Meanwhile, manufacturers of both solar panels and wind turbines are being squeezed by oversupply, leaving them with low profit margins.

In the U.S., renewables investment grew by a third, to $56 billion, helping the U.S. to reclaim the title of world’s biggest clean energy investor. However, in 2011 the country also saw the end of “green stimulus” money and federal loan guarantees, and its Production Tax Credit will end at the close of 2012, so future investment onward may drop unless new support for renewables is brought in.

With the drop in wind energy investment, Vestas, the world’s largest turbine manufacturer, is laying off more than 2,000 employees globally, about 10 percent of its workforce. It said it may layoff another 1,600 in the U.S. if the Production Tax Credit is not extended.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

In some ways, these records snuck up on Americans, since there was no extreme spike in oil prices as in 2008 or in the 1970s energy crises. In inflation-adjusted dollars, gasoline averaged $3.56 a gallon, beating the previous record of $3.41 in 1981. But households felt the bite, spending an average of $4,155 on gasoline in 2011.

Prices at the main U.S. benchmark site—in Cushing, Okla.— averaged $95 a barrel, lower than the global price, in part because of bottlenecks in transporting crude oil, while extraction of shale oil in the central U.S. and tar sands in Canada increased. (Production in North Dakota, primarily from shale oil, exceeded 500,000 barrels for the first time, surpassing Ecuador, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.)

The U.S. imported about half of its oil (despite some articles late last year that gave the false impression the country had become an oil exporter), so the U.S. was not immune to high international oil prices.

This year, oil prices are likely to increase further, many analysts said, possibly setting a new record. Former Shell Oil CEO John Hofmeister said gasoline may reach $5 a gallon by the end of 2012.

Cobbling Together an Energy Revolution

Key U.S. federal subsidies for clean energy lapsed at the end of 2011, but many states are pushing ahead with their own clean energy funds, which encourage investment in technology research hubs, start-ups, and green job training programs. These state funds could help get much more renewable energy installed and create many new jobs, according to a new report from the Brookings Institution and the Rockefeller Foundation.

These smaller, localized efforts will accomplish more than a big “moon-shot” program by the federal government, according to a new MIT study on energy innovation.

Energy efficiency improvements could become easier to fund in California, if a program advanced by the state’s Public Utility Commission goes through. The program, based on a proposal by the Environmental Defense Fund, would allow customers to gradually pay off the cost of efficiency renovations through their utility bills. The Commission is taking comments on the proposal and if it moves forward, would be the first state-wide program of this kind.

“Ambitious” Clean Air Rules

At the end of January, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to release its first rules for greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants, an EPA official said. This follows on new rules for emissions of mercury and other toxic elements, higher vehicle mileage standards and other efforts that together constitute the “most ambitious clean air rules in decades.”

Meanwhile, President Obama stopped at the EPA to offer his support of the agency, which has been under fire by Republican candidates for the presidency, some of whom vowed to drastically cut back the agency’s powers.

Also, a new EPA tool makes detailed data on greenhouse gas emissions public for the first time. This includes a searchable database and an interactive map showing regions that have the highest greenhouse gas emissions and which power plants are the largest polluters.

In addition to tackling emissions of carbon dioxide, there are also opportunities for cheaply and easily cutting warming by cutting emissions of heat-trapping methane and soot, according to a new study by an international team of scientists. “In the short term, dealing with these pollutants is more doable …,” said lead author Drew Shindell of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Solar-Powered Law Enforcement

In an effort to save gasoline and the cost of replacing batteries the Jacksonville, Fla., Sheriff’s Department outfitted many of its cars with solar panels to help power all the electronics on board. Recent budget cuts stopped the program, but other law enforcement agencies—in Ohio and New Jersey—have launched similar programs.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

If the pipeline is approved, some environmental groups say they’ll sue—but if it is cancelled, the company proposing the pipeline, TransCanada, will probably reapply.

Meanwhile, Jack Gerard, the President of the American Petroleum Institute (API), said if President Obama does not approve the pipeline, there will be “huge political consequences“—which many took as a strong threat. The API also launched a major advertising campaign to push for the pipeline and other oil and gas projects, aiming to make energy a bigger issue in the upcoming elections.

Mike Klink, an engineer who inspected another TransCanada pipeline carrying tar sands, alleged he was fired for blowing the whistle about substandard materials and poor craftsmanship. In an opinion piece published in a Nebraska newspaper, Klink said he is not against pipelines, but “we just should not build this one.”

End of Ethanol Subsidies

Two key subsidies for ethanol fuel—a tax credit for domestic ethanol and a tariff on imports—came to an end at the close of 2011 after a three-decade, $20 billion run, a casualty of budget woes and an unusual alliance of fiscal conservatives and liberal environmentalists.

Ethanol subsidies did not turn out to be a major issue in Iowa’s Republican primaries.

The Renewable Fuels Association, a major biofuels industry group, did not fight the end of the ethanol tax credit—but urged Congress to extend the tax credit for cellulosic ethanol, which is due to expire at the end of 2012.

In late December, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) amended the Renewable Fuels Standard to require far less cellulosic ethanol, which can be made from switchgrass or trees. The EPA slashed the requirement by 2012 from 250 million gallons a year to under nine million gallons a year. So far the U.S. has no commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol production.

Methane Time Bomb Defused

Methane—a powerful greenhouse gas—is bubbling up from the shallow waters off the coast of Siberia, which has triggered big worries among some researchers.

But in-depth reports argued that a “methane time bomb” is unlikely. Fossil fuels are likely to remain the main source of warming, with methane a smaller but still very significant feedback that would be a chronic problem, and make it far harder to meet targets for limiting warming. Climate scientist David Archer argued the effect of methane releases would play out over centuries or millennia, and would not be a huge contributor in the next 100 years.

With Arctic ice melting, new shipping lanes are opening in the Arctic, which could provide a small silver lining, since ships may be able to cut the distance they have to travel between some ports. However, warming from methane will likely outweigh any decrease in warming from shipping emissions.

Anti-Pollution Rule Delayed

An Obama administration power plant regulation aimed at lowering pollution that crosses state borders has been put on hold by a Federal Court’s ruling while litigation by a dozen utilities is active. The regulation could have an effect on global warming in a couple of ways—it targets sulfur dioxides, which have a short-term cooling effect, and may force the closure of older coal-fired power plants.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.