Faced with a Monday deadline and a lopsided number of public comments opposing the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration has delayed its decision – likely until mid-December – on whether to permit the controversial project… [T]he state issued a four-page “request for additional information” … to ensure the natural gas pipeline won’t harm the over 320 rivers and streams and hundreds of acres of wetlands in its path.
Duke Energy Gas Expansion
Duke Energy is planning a massive increase in its burning of natural gas to produce electricity. This would be a climate disaster because of the large amounts of super-potent methane that leak unburned from gas operations, particularly fracking. Recent science from the United Nations and others show that new gas infrastructure is incompatible with the goal of preventing catastrophic climate change. Read more here and in the news items below about NC WARN’s work to block Duke’s fracking gas future.
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Flawed Environmental Justice Analyses — Science
Federal Law Requires Restart of Atlantic Coast Pipeline Review Process, says NC WARN Attorney – News Release by NC WARN
Intervenor NC WARN and two dozen allied nonprofits opposing the pipeline filed a motion late yesterday citing clear federal law that requires FERC to carefully review the new data and prepare an updated EIS, and allow the public, along with various state and federal agencies, to review and comment on the completed document.
Natural gas building boom fuels climate worries, enrages landowners – Center for Public Integrity
But Robert Howarth, an environmental biology professor at Cornell University, estimates that methane emissions produced by shale gas from wellhead to delivery could add up to a 12-percent leak rate — causing substantially more warming in the short term than coal. Howarth sees the rapid rise in gas development as a contributor to the recent spike in global temperatures, including record-breaking heat waves in 2015 and 2016. “The buildout of pipelines,” he said, “is a true climate disaster.”
NC NAACP, NC WARN Launch Campaign to Ban Use of Climate-Busting Fracked Gas — News Release
The NC NAACP and climate justice nonprofit NC WARN have joined forces in a new statewide campaign calling on Governor Roy Cooper to phase out the import and use of fracked gas in North Carolina. They say this state must seize this urgent opportunity to help slow the global climate crisis, especially due to a failure of national leadership, and to stem the many other harms of fracked gas.
Press Conference with Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II
Charge Toward Natural Gas — WUNC
How Reliable Is Natural Gas? — WUNC
Last year Duke Energy acquired Piedmont Natural Gas … a marker of the energy industry’s shift toward using natural gas to produce electricity. Supporters of natural gas say it is cheaper and burns cleaner than coal. But critics argue that methane leaks during storage and transportation, which can accelerate global warming.
In delaying recommendation, Duke University subcommittee concerned about “credibility” problem with new natural gas plant — NC Policy Watch
For a university that has always been protective of its global reputation, contributing to global greenhouse gases through a natural gas plant is no way to burnish that image. That’s one of the conclusions of a Duke University Campus Sustainability Subcommittee, which released a report on a proposed combined heat-and- power natural gas plant today.