Author
Bruce Hill
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The carbon-free energy resource you’ve never heard of: superhot rock energy
While the decarbonization debate rages on, the seeds of a quiet geothermal energy revolution are being sown.
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Geologic Storage is Permanent: An FAQ with Bruce Hill
Carbon capture technologies are essential tools to reduce today’s industrial CO₂ emissions, providing a transition pathway from fossil fuels to zero-carbon energy alternatives being developed today as well as to remove CO₂ directly from the atmosphere. In order for carbon capture to be effective, storage of those captured emissions must…
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U.S. Department of Energy Goes Deep, Investing in Geologic Carbon Storage
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) made an important decision in late April to fund five CarbonSAFE project applications for a total of $85 million. These five projects are part of the Carbon Storage Assurance Facility Enterprise (CarbonSAFE), a NETL initiative to further the development of…
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Deep Thinking on Geology and the Rollback of the Clean Power Plan
If you’re like me, you’re alarmed by the regulatory rollbacks that are undermining health and environmental protections that we have enjoyed in the United States. One such rollback is EPA’s proposal to replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, the regulatory requirements that would reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants, with the “Affordable” Clean Energy (ACE) rule.
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The Wait is Over, But the Job is Not Done: BLM’s New Rules for Fracking
Today, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management released its long-awaited updates of its rules for hydraulic fracturing in oil and gas development. It’s about time. As BLM Director Neil Kornze has put it: “The portfolio of oil and gas wells overseen by the BLM has expanded at the same time…
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Do CO2 Injections Pose Risk of Harmful Earthquakes?
How common are measurable earthquakes in association with oilfield operations? The answer is: exceedingly rare. Nevertheless, another scientific paper has raised the possibility of seismic events occurring as a result of injection of CO2 to stimulate new oil production from depleted oil fields. Since this process, known as enhanced oil…
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Seismicity and carbon storage: MIT responds to Zoback
In the December 2012 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a published letter by MIT researchers Ruben Juanez, Howard Herzog and Brad Hagar provides several cogent geophysical counter-arguments to a 2012 PNAS Perspectives piece by Stanford researchers Mark Zoback and Steve Gorelick. The two had…
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Seismic Risk Won’t Threaten the Viability of Geologic Carbon Storage
This week’s rumblings against carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a powerful means to mitigate global climate change come not from any natural geological source, but solely from an opinion piece published in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) Perspectives. Despite the arguments of two Stanford…
