Energy Agency Projects "Golden Age of Gas" Tied to Shale Boom

Energy Agency Projects "Golden Age of Gas" Tied to Shale Boom

A new report from the Paris-based International Energy Agency projects that gas's share of the global energy mix will surpass coal's in the next two decades

By Joel Kirkland and ClimateWire 

Image: DipNote, U.S. Department of State blog

Vast newly discovered natural gas resources and the expectation that demand for the fuel will rise substantially in fast-growing economies are ushering in a "Golden Age of Gas," according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency.

Ratcheting up its projections about natural gas consumption, an IEA report yesterday said gas's share of the global energy mix will surpass coal's in the next two decades and by 2035, gas demand will increase by more than 50 percent.

The IEA forecast goes as far as some of the most optimistic gas industry projections. It also bolsters the assumption that China, India and the Middle East will lean more heavily on gas as a source of power generation. To meet the demand by 2035, IEA found that gas production will have to be about three times the volume of gas produced in Russia today.

The confluence of widely dispersed and abundant shale gas reserves, competitive prices and emerging demand drives IEA's conclusions. But the top global adviser on energy issues reiterated concern among energy and climate change analysts that cheap and abundant gas will displace some zero-carbon power projects expanding nuclear and renewable energy. That has broader implications for cutting greenhouse gases tied to climate change.

Natural gas "is far from enough on its own" to put the world on a carbon emissions path toward an average global temperature increase of no more than 2 degrees Celsius. "Natural gas displaces coal and to a lesser extent oil, driving down emissions, but it also displaces some nuclear power, pushing up emissions," says the report.

IEA cut its assumptions about nuclear power expansions after the recent earthquake in Japan, as Germany plans to move away from nuclear power and as building nuclear power plants becomes more expensive.

"The combination of more competitive gas prices, policy changes in China to 2015, a more restricted outlook for nuclear power and increased future uptake of [natural gas vehicles] results in a significant increase in natural gas demand over the outlook period," the report says.

A bullish outlook
Onshore gas drilling has taken off in the United States and has grabbed the imagination of nations in Europe and Asia that are in search of more energy and lower carbon emissions. American gas producers and oil services giants such as Halliburton and Schlumberger pioneered technology that could tap gas embedded in massive shale-rock formations across large swaths of the central and eastern United States.

In the past five years, gas producers have increased U.S. reserves about 40 percent by exploring shale basins stretching across Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas, in the upper Midwest and the Marcellus Shale basin in the Northeast. An onshore gas boom once led by small and mid-sized drillers is now increasingly controlled by multinational energy producers like Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp.

Even so, the shale gas boom has attracted a lot of critics. Environmental and public health groups contend the industrial process of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing in urban basins could contaminate groundwater supplies. That, plus concerns about air emissions and disposal of toxic waste, is driving inquiries at the federal level by U.S. EPA and the Department of Energy.

The controversial production process is broadly called "fracking," during which drillers blast a mixture of water, sand and chemicals roughly 8,000 feet underground. Doing so creates fissures in the shale that release gas up a well.

IEA cushioned its bullish outlook that gas will probably remain cheap and compete with coal and oil. It listed a number of uncertainties that could slow the growth in gas, including lower economic growth that could dampen demand, bigger production costs than expected, big strides in energy efficiency, and shifts in the competitiveness of other power sources and fuels. China is building import terminals

Because there is so much competition in the energy sector, gas production and demand rely on competitive pricing. IEA analysts say significant amounts of shale gas, tight gas and coal-bed methane can be produced at between $3 and $7 per million British thermal units. In the past few years, drillers have been able to produce gas out of the largest U.S. shale fields for costs at the lower end of that range.

Based on the high-production scenario, "from 2010 gas use will rise by more than 50 percent and account for over 50% and account for over 25% of world energy demand in 2035 -- surely a prospect to designate the Golden Age of Gas," said IEA.

China is a significant piece of the puzzle. According to IEA, China will be among the largest gas producers and buy more than half of its supply off the international market. Gas accounts for less than 3 percent of China's power generation today, but analysts expect that to steadily increase. Import terminals are under construction along China's coast, and higher prices and international cooperation are pushing up domestic production.

Coal dominates China's power sector, but the nation's 12th five-year plan encourages more gas use in the power sector, in part to help control carbon emissions.

"Higher gas usage will depend on sustained low gas prices, environmental regulation and sufficiency of supply, as well as developments in the coal sector," the analysts said about China. "Gas may also find a niche in the power sector in regions far from domestic coal supplies."

By 2035, IEA says, unconventional gas will be more than 40 percent of the global production increase, and growth will mainly be in North America, China and Australia.

Australia, which is the largest coal exporter, has been gearing up to produce and ship coal-bed methane. Indonesia is also starting to produce more gas. Those developments could feed demand in Asia.

Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500

Can Positive Thinking Be Negative

The Danger of "Optimism Bias"

Sometimes, excessive positive thinking blinds us to actual risks. This is known as optimism bias—the belief that "nothing bad will happen to me."

Type of Risk : How Excessive Positivity Hurts Physical HealthIgnoring symptoms or skipping checkups because you "feel fine" and want to "think positive."FinancialMaking risky investments or overspending because you're certain "it will all work out."SafetyEngaging in dangerous activities (like driving recklessly) under the assumption that luck is on your side.

When it Becomes "Toxic Positivity"

Toxic positivity is the belief that no matter how dire or difficult a situation is, people should maintain a strictly positive mindset. It is "toxic" because it denies the full range of human emotions.

Invalidation: Telling someone (or yourself) to "just stay positive" during a tragedy—like a job loss or the death of a loved one—invalidates genuine pain. It makes the person feel like they are "failing" at being happy.

Shame and Guilt: If you believe happiness is a choice, you may feel intense guilt when you naturally feel sad, angry, or anxious, viewing these emotions as a sign of weakness.

Suppression: Research shows that suppressing negative emotions actually makes them stronger and more stressful for the body in the long run.

Research indicates boundaries to focusing on the bright side of life

By Scott O. Lilienfeld and Hal Arkowitz  

“Accentuate the positive,” the 1944 song by Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen cheerfully implored us. From Benjamin Franklin’s 1750 Poor Richard’s Almanack(which advised readers that “sorrow is good for nothing but sin”) to today’s parade of motivational speakers, Americans have long embraced an optimistic, “can-do” attitude toward life. Plug “positive thinking” into Amazon.com, and you will find a never-ending supply of products designed to help us see life through rose-colored lenses, including a “Power of Positive Thinking” wall calendar and an “Overcoming Adversity with Encouragement and Affirmation” poster series.

In fact, however, positivity is not all it is cracked up to be. Although having an upbeat attitude undoubtedly has its benefits, gains such as better health and wealth from high spirits remain largely undemonstrated. What is more, research suggests that optimism can be detrimental under certain circumstances.

Pluses of Pessimism
Despite the popular emphasis on positive thinking, academic psychology was for many decades centered on the negative. Even today a perusal of the typical psychology textbook reveals a predominance of topics dealing with the dark side of life—mental illness, crime, addiction, prejudice and the like—probably reflecting an aim to remediate these personal and social problems.

Then, in the late 1990s, a cadre of prominent psychologists led by University of Pennsylvania psychologist Martin E. P. Seligman established a field called positive psychology. This burgeoning discipline explores the causes and consequences of happiness, character strengths and virtues, resilience, and other important aspects of psychological adaptation and health. Not all positive psychologists push cheerfulness at any cost—in a 1990 book Seligman warned that optimism “may sometimes keep us from seeing reality with the necessary clarity.” But many do advocate a perspective that implies that positive thinking is good for all of us, all of the time, noted Bowdoin College psychologist Barbara Held in a 2004 article.

In fact, much of the data supporting solid benefits from positive thinking is weak. According to a 2010 review by Cornell University psychologist Anthony Ong, although most studies show that optimistic people tend to be physically healthier than others and they may also live longer, these findings come from correlational studies, which examine statistical associations between positive thinking and life outcomes but cannot tell us about cause and effect. Thus, thinking positively might make us healthier, but being healthier may instead lead us to think positively. Another interpretation of the same results: positive thoughts and good health are the result of a third factor—being highly energetic, say—that was not measured in most of these studies. The same ambiguity plagues most studies purporting to show that optimism can lift depressed moods or boost job performance.

Even if more optimistic results about optimism eventually surface, a rosy outlook is unlikely to benefit everyone. Defensive pessimists, for example, tend to fret a great deal about upcoming stressors such as job interviews or major exams, and they overestimate their likelihood of failure. Yet this worrying works for these individuals, because it allows them to be better prepared. Work by Wellesley College psychologist Julie Norem and her colleagues shows that depriving defensive pessimists of their preferred coping style—for example, by forcing them to “cheer up”—leads them to perform worse on tasks. Moreover, in a 2001 study of elderly community participants, Seligman and Brandeis University psychologist Derek Isaacowitz found that pessimists were less prone to depression than were optimists after experiencing negative life events, such as the death of a friend. The pessimists had likely spent more time bracing themselves mentally for unpleasant possibilities. Another study calls into question the healing power of positive affirmations—those ubiquitous fixtures of pop psychology parodied by former comedian Al Franken as counselor Stuart Smalley (“I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggonit, people like me”). In a study published in 2009 University of Waterloo psychologist Joanne Wood and her colleagues found that for participants with high self-esteem, repeating a positive affirmation (“I am a lovable person”) multiple times indeed resulted in slightly better moods right afterward. But among those with low self-esteem, the positive affirmations backfired, resulting in worse moods. Wood and her colleagues conjectured that statements like Smalley’s ring hollow in the minds of individuals with low self-esteem, serving only to remind them of how often they have fallen short of their life goals.

Too Much of a Good Thing?
Another potential hitch in the positive-thinking movement is that a sanguine attitude may be unhealthy when taken to an extreme, because it can become unhinged from reality. In a 2000 article University of Michigan psychologist Christopher Peterson, a founder of the positive psychology movement, distinguished realistic optimism, which hopes for the best while remaining attuned to potential threats, from unrealistic optimism, which ignores such threats.

A 2007 study by University of Virginia psychologist Shigehiro Oishi, University of Illinois psychologist Ed Diener and Michigan State University psychologist Richard Lucas reinforces Peterson’s concerns. Using analyses from several large international samples, they found that although extremely happy people are the most successful in close interpersonal relationships and volunteer work, moderately happy people are more successful than extremely happy people financially and educationally and are also more politically active. Admittedly, Oishi and his colleagues measured happiness rather than optimism per se, although the two tend to be fairly closely associated. Still, their findings raise the possibility that although a realistically positive attitude toward the world often helps us to achieve certain life goals, a Pollyannaish attitude may have its costs—perhaps because it fosters complacency.

Positive thinking surely comes with advantages: it may encourage us to take needed risks and expand our horizons. But it has downsides as well and may not be for everyone, especially those for whom worrying and kvetching come naturally as coping mechanisms. Moreover, positive thinking may be counterproductive if it leads us to blithely ignore life’s dangers. Finally, as journalist Barbara Ehrenreich warns in a 2009 book, the pervasive assumption that positive attitudes permit us to “think our way out of” illnesses such as cancer has an unappreciated dark side: it may lead people who fail to recover from these illnesses to blame themselves for not being more chipper.

How to Strike a Balance: "Tragic Optimism"

Psychologists often recommend Tragic Optimism (a term coined by Viktor Frankl) or Emotional Agility. This means:

1. Acknowledge the Reality: "This situation is really difficult, and I feel overwhelmed."

2. Validate the Emotion: "It is okay and normal to feel this way right now."Find Meaning (Eventually): "Even though this is hard, I can still find a way to move forward or learn something from it."

3. The Rule of Thumb: Positivity should be a tool for resilience, not a mask for reality.

Molecular imaging shows chronic marijuana smoking affects brain chemistry

Molecular imaging shows chronic marijuana smoking affects brain chemistry

Definitive proof of an adverse effect of chronic marijuana use revealed at SNM's 58th Annual Meeting could lead to potential drug treatments and aid other research involved in cannabinoid receptors, a neurotransmission system receiving a lot of attention. Scientists used molecular imaging to visualize changes in the brains of heavy marijuana smokers versus non-smokers and found that abuse of the drug led to a decreased number of cannabinoid CB1 receptors, which are involved in not just pleasure, appetite and pain tolerance but a host of other psychological and physiological functions of the body.

"Addictions are a major medical and socioeconomic problem," says Jussi Hirvonen, MD, PhD, lead author of the collaborative study between the National Institute of Mental Health and National Institute on Drug Abuse, Bethesda, Md. "Unfortunately, we do not fully understand the neurobiological mechanisms involved in addiction. With this study, we were able to show for the first time that people who abuse cannabis have abnormalities of the cannabinoid receptors in the brain. This information may prove critical for the development of novel treatments for cannabis abuse. Furthermore, this research shows that the decreased receptors in people who abuse cannabis return to normal when they stop smoking the drug."

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, marijuana is the number-one illicit drug of choice in America. The psychoactive chemical in marijuana, or cannabis, is delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which binds to numerous cannabinoid receptors in the brain and throughout the body when smoked or ingested, producing a distinctive high. Cannabinoid receptors in the brain influence a range of mental states and actions, including pleasure, concentration, perception of time and memory, sensory perception, and coordination of movement. There are also cannabinoid receptors throughout the body involved in a wide range of functions of the digestive, cardiovascular, respiratory and other systems of the body. Currently two subtypes of cannabinoid receptors are known, CB1 and CB2, the former being involved mostly in functions of the central nervous system and the latter more in functions of the immune system and in stem cells of the circulatory system.

For this study, researchers recruited 30 chronic daily cannabis smokers who were then monitored at a closed inpatient facility for approximately four weeks. The subjects were imaged using positron emission tomography (PET), which provides information about physiological processes in the body. Subjects were injected with a radioligand, 18F-FMPEP-d2, which is a combination of a radioactive fluorine isotope and a neurotransmitter analog that binds with CB1 brain receptors.

Results of the study show that receptor number was decreased about 20 percent in brains of cannabis smokers when compared to healthy control subjects with limited exposure to cannabis during their lifetime. These changes were found to have a correlation with the number of years subjects had smoked. Of the original 30 cannabis smokers, 14 of the subjects underwent a second PET scan after about a month of abstinence. There was a marked increase in receptor activity in those areas that had been decreased at the outset of the study, an indication that while chronic cannabis smoking causes downregulation of CB1 receptors, the damage is reversible with abstinence.

Information gleaned from this and future studies may help other research exploring the role of PET imaging of CB1 receptors—not just for drug use, but also for a range of human diseases, including metabolic disease and cancer.

More information: Scientific Paper 10: J. Hirvonen, R. Goodwin, C. Li1, G. Terry, S. Zoghbi, C Morse, V. Pike, N. Volkow, M. Huestis, R. Innis, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD; National Institute on Drug Abuse, Baltimore, MD; "Reversible and regionally selective downregulation of brain cannabinoid CB1 receptors in chronic daily cannabis smokers," SNM's 58th Annual Meeting, June 4-8, 2011, San Antonio, TX.

Provided by Society of Nuclear Medicine

"Molecular imaging shows chronic marijuana smoking affects brain chemistry." June 6th, 2011. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-molecular-imaging-chronic-marijuana-affects.html

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

Microbe Outbreak Panics Europe

Microbe Outbreak Panics Europe

Spread of rare strain raises questions over surveillance of infectious diseases.

Munich

Confronted with what has become one of the world's most severe outbreaks of Escherichia coli, physicians and scientists in Germany say that the country's fractured health-management system has failed to handle the crisis properly. They are calling for major reforms so that outbreaks are reported sooner and more modern technology is used to help identify their source, in order to bring health emergencies under control more quickly.

During the past month, a strain of entero¬haemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) has infected more than 2,400 people in 13 countries across Europe, killing 23 (see 'A killer strain'). Public-health experts--scattered across many state and federal ministries for health, agriculture and consumer protection--are still trying to pin down where the bacterium came from and why it causes such severe symptoms.

Hospitals recorded the first cases on 1 May, according to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the German federal agency for disease surveillance in Berlin. Yet it was not until 22 May that the first report of an unusual number of EHEC infections in Germany arrived at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in Stockholm. This was unusually long--it typically takes 14 days to detect an outbreak, says Angelika Fruth from the RKI.

Several factors conspired to cause the delay. EHEC infections are not common in adults--so physicians might have initially diagnosed a Salmonella or viral infection. The microbe also behaves differently to typical EHEC strains when cultured for diagnosis, which hampered scientists trying to identify it. And under the German health system, local authorities only report such infections weekly to state governments--which then have another week to tell the RKI. It was not until 25 May that the rare E. coli strain O104:H4 was named as the culprit.

The strain produces proteins that help it stick to food, and to the human gut. This might explain why symptoms seem more severe than in previous E. coli outbreaks, including bloody diarrhea and, in almost one-third of patients, haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS), which can cause kidney failure, neurological complications and death. Indeed, so many patients have developed HUS that German physicians have treated more than 200 people with the antibody eculizumab, which had previously only been used to treat three infection-related cases of the syndrome.

Despite all the obstacles, the outbreak could have been identified earlier, says Flemming Scheutz, head of the World Health Organization Collaborative Centre for Reference and Research on Escherichia and Klebsiella in Copenhagen. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) could have been used to amplify the microbe's genes, he says, enabling scientists to identify it in hours rather than the days it took to culture and test bacteria from patients' stool samples. "PCR testing for bacteria is already in routine use in livestock and food, and hospitals already have the technical platforms to do PCR," says Scheutz, "but these tests just aren't used regularly in people."

Fruth agrees that a PCR protocol would be highly desirable. However, even though it is as cheap as culture-based techniques, it is not funded as a standard test for cases of diarrhea by the German health-care system, she notes.

Faster reporting would also help next time there is an outbreak. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, introduced a rapid-surveillance platform called PulseNet following an outbreak of a different EHEC strain, called O157:H7, in 1993. The system rapidly compares the molecular fingerprints of suspected bacterial infections in food or humans with those of known pathogens. The results are uploaded to a national database, which allows real-time tracking of the infection clusters in an outbreak.

Epidemiologist Christopher Braden from the CDC says that the number of recognized US outbreaks has now doubled thanks to PulseNet, often leading to earlier identification of problems in food production. Europe does not have a similar real-time tracking system, although Denis Coulombier of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control says that the existing European surveillance system has worked reasonably well during this outbreak. Moreover, PulseNet might have overlooked the unusual O104:H4 strain, because there is no definitive list of the E. colistrains that represent a threat to human health. "We need a constellation of genes, including those for strain markers and toxins, that could be used to identify dangerous bacteria," says Glenn Morris, director of the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

Comparing the genome of O104:H4 with that of other pathogenic E. coli strains should reveal similarities and differences that will be useful in diagnosing future infections. Alexander Kekulé, a microbiologist at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenburg in Halle, Germany, hopes politicians will learn from the outbreak too, and establish a long-overdue national authority for controlling outbreaks.

This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article wasfirst published on May 3, 2011.