Economic Impact of the Value Chain of a Marcellus Shale Well

University of Pittsburgh School of Business / by William E. Hefley, et al. http://bit.ly/p6XZN0 (report) http://www.washcochamber.com./news/article.php?nid=215&w (press release) [KeystonePolitics.com post by Gregg Palmer]  Even though the numbers are big, there are less fracking jobs than the industry predicted, and less wealth staying in Pennsylvania. It’s called “leaking” by economists – where money looks like it’s [...]

White Paper: Methanol Use in Hydraulic Fracturing Fluids

Exponent for the Methanol Institute /  by Tarek Saba,  Farrukh Mohsen,  Brun Hilbert and Michael Garry http://bit.ly/owkZri [From Press Release via Market Watch.com]  A new report prepared for the Methanol Institute concludes that methanol is not expected to be a concern if it reaches groundwater or surface water when used as a component of hydraulic [...]

Sustainable Efforts and Environmental Concerns Around the World: A Nielsen Report

Nielsen http://bit.ly/o58E1u [From Green Car Congress]   Concern about climate change/global warming among online consumers around the world took a back-seat to other environmental issues such as air and water pollution, water shortages, packaging waste and use of pesticides, according to Nielsen’s 2011 Global Online Environment & Sustainability Survey of more than 25,000 Internet respondents in [...]

Evaluation of the Use of Hindcast Model Data for Oil-Spill Risk Analysis (OSRA) in a Period of Rapidly Changing Conditions

Science Applications International Corporation for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, Alaska OCS Region http://www.boemre.gov/ooc/press/2011/press0829.htm [From Green Car Congress]  The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) released a new report evaluating how climate change may affect the environmental conditions measured and used in mathematical modeling for oil-spill trajectory analysis [...]

Community Managed Forests and Forest Protected Areas: An Assessment of their Conservation Effectiveness Across the Tropics

Forest Ecology and Management (2011 in press) via Center for International Forestry Research / by Luciana Porter-Bolland,  Edward A. Ellis, Manuel R. Guariguata, Isabel Ruiz-Mallén, Simoneta Negrete-Yankelevich  and Victoria Reyes-García http://www.cifor.org/publications/pdf_files/articles/AGuariguata1101.pdf [Yale Environment 360] A new study says deforestation rates in tropical forests designated as “protected” areas are typically much higher than in community-managed forests. [...]

The Future of Photovoltaic Manufacturing in the United States

National Research Council http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12724 [Description] Technological innovation and growth are critical to U.S. competitiveness in a global economy. One means of facilitating growth and improving competitiveness is to foster more robust innovation ecosystems through the development of public-private partnerships, industry consortia, and other regional and national economic development initiatives. Public-private partnerships, in particular, catalyze the [...]

Coastal Capital: Jamaica — The Economic Contribution of Jamaica’s Coral Reefs

World Resources Institute http://pdf.wri.org/working_papers/coastal_capital_jamaica_summary.pdf [MacArthur Foundation site] Tourism, fisheries, and shoreline protection represent just three of the many culturally and economically important services reef ecosystems provide in Jamaica, according to a MacArthur-supported report by the World Resources Institute, the Nature Conservancy, the University of the West Indies’ Marine Geology Unit, and the Mona GeoInformatics Institute. [...]

Development of a Fast, Urban Chemistry Metamodel for Inclusion in Global Models

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (2011, v11 p7629–7656) / by J. B. Cohen and R. G. Prinn http://globalchange.mit.edu/files/document/MITJPSPGC_Reprint2011-11.pdf [From Press Release] Urban regions account for an ever increasing fraction of Earth’s population, and are consequently an ever increasing source of air pollutants…But modeling aerosol emissions from urban areas is difficult due to the detailed temporal and spatial [...]

Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Keystone XL Pipeline Project

US State Dept. http://www.keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov/clientsite/keystonexl.nsf?Open [From a post on The Hill's E2 Wire by Andrew Restuccia and Ben Geman]  The State Department said Friday that a proposed pipeline slated to carry Canadian oil sands to Gulf Coast refineries poses little environmental risk if managed properly, a decision that moves the controversial project one step closer to [...]

Continued Warming Could Transform Greater Yellowstone Fire Regimes by Mid-21st Century

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (August 9, 2011 vol. 108 no. 32 13165-13170) / by Anthony L. Westerling,1, Monica G. Turner,1, Erica A. H. Smithwick, William H. Romme, and Michael G. Ryan http://www.pnas.org/content/108/32/13165.full.pdf+html [Abstract]  Climate change is likely to alter wildfire regimes, but the magnitude and timing of potential climate-driven changes in regional [...]