Home
High Risk Energy Sources

About This Collection

The earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan raised new concerns about the risk of another nuclear reactor disaster.  The explosion of the FUKUSHIMA NUCLEAR POWER PLANT gives our citizens cause to re-examine the risk assumed by the public. At this writing, the full extent of the damage to the plant, the community, and the environment is unknown - it will take years.

At the same time concerns over the high risks associated with extracting natural gas and as noted in a Financial Times article is "energy that comes from the same place as our drinking water. Extracting it had better be safe. The political fault lines over hydraulic fracturing (hence the term fracking) have been easy to predict for anyone paying attention to the controversies over climate change and genetically modified organisms. France’s national assembly voted to ban fracking while in the US its been full steam ahead in 32 states. These are high risk alternative energy sources. 

 

Curated by mokiethecat

Transporting Coal through the Pacific NorthWest

Energy producers, transporters and brokers of coal, specifically, Ambre Energy and Arch Coal Inc. have put Southwest Washington and the Pacific Northwest in the spotlight with proposals to transform ports into key shipping hubs in a worldwide realignment of valuable oil and coal resources. Under 14 different plans and operations, Washington and Oregon ports would essentially serve as a vast transfer station for the coal and oil being extracted from America's heartland, where raw materials are sent to domestic and overseas markets, primarily in Asia, demanding fuel and electricity for growth.  This is a trailer for the documentary, Momenta which explores the impact of these plans and the citizen groups opposed to such plans.