The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Monday the agency would delay subjecting large greenhouse-gas emitters such as power plants and crude-oil refiners to new regulations until 2011, and would raise the threshold for using the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.
This decision will be welcomed by the industry but will also afect many GHG (single product) software companies.
WSJ reported today that concerns about potential drinking-water contamination are prompting Congress to investigate hydraulic fracturing, a controversial drilling technique that has helped boost U.S. natural-gas production. Hydrofracturing has been used by the oil industry for decades but has become far more common in recent years as companies discovered large new gas fields in the US. The resulting drilling boom helped U.S. gas production surge by about 20% since 2005, but sparked concerns that chemicals from the process could seep into drinking-water supplies.
“As we use this technology in more parts of the country on a much larger scale, we must ensure that we are not creating new environmental and public health problems,” Mr. Waxman, chairman of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, said in a statement.
The industry beleives that hydrofracturing is safe and with proper tools like Locus EIM water quality management software can prove that hydrofracturing can be managed to protect groundwater resources. Now, more than ever, a proper water quality management tools are necessary to address skeptics and prove that hydraulic fracturing is not linked to large scale drinking water contamination. It is almost certain that EPA will legislate this technology and require better monitoring and reporting.
This week, President Obama announced $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees to build two new reactors at a nuclear power plant in Georgia, signaling the first wave of new nuclear plants in the U.S. in more than three decades. “This is only the beginning,” he said. “My budget proposes tripling the loan guarantees we provide to help finance safe, clean nuclear facilities – and we’ll continue to provide financing for clean-energy projects here in Maryland and across America.”
This is great news for the environment and for Locus’ nuclear module of EIM
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Locus Technologies provides cloud-based environmental software and mobile solutions for EHS, sustainability management, GHG reporting, water quality management, risk management, and analytical, geologic, and ecologic environmental data management.