Energy panel meets in Tucson with little attention

What happens if you hold a national energy forum in Tucson but don't tell anyone about it?

Yesterday, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords held a panel discussion at the University of Arizona on national and international energy issues and policy.

Don't look for news about in the papers or on tv. The only thing I can find is an after-the-fact press release from UA and a short announcement from Channel 4 put out a few hours before the forum.

There was consensus that the U.S. is behind on finding solutions to energy policy issues.

[right, the panel of experts included, left to right, former regional geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey Wesley Ward, UA Eller College of Management Dean Paul R. Portney, and Joaquin Ruiz, dean of the UA's College of Science.]

Panelists were:

Paul R. Portney, dean of the UA’s Eller College of Management. Portney is also the college’s Halle Chair in Leadership and is a professor of economics.

Stewart L. Udall, the former U.S. Secretary of the Interior and who is credited with helping to pass legislation that expanded and supported the nation’s federally designated parks.

Matthew R. Simmons, president of Simmons & Company International. Simmons’ independent investment bank helps energy companies with financial transactions, mergers and acquisitions, and public offerings.

Reginal Spiller, executive vice president for exploration and production at the Houston-based Frontera Resources. Spiller also served as the U.S. Department of Energy’s deputy assistant secretary for gas and petroleum technologies.

Wesley Ward formerly served as chief scientist for the U.S. Geological Survey’s astrogeology program, which is supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. He is currently the United States Geological Survey’s regional executive for geology in the western region.

Measure that would raise mineral severance tax is off the ballot

The TIME transportation ballot initiative was disqualified today because more than 42% of its signatures were ruled invalid by the Secretary of State's Office. The TIME voter initiative would have raised sales taxes by 1% and the mining severance tax from 2.5% to 3.5%, to generate over $42 billion for transportation and infrastructure projects.

Rumors have been circulating since the beginning of the month that the initiative was in trouble.

Geology Data Model for GIS due this Fall

The first release of a Geology Data Model for ArcGIS software is due this Fall, perhaps late October or early November, according to Geoff Wade with ESRI.

ESRI is a partner with the AZGS-led Geoscience Information Network (GIN). Integration of GIS capabilities with the growing "geoweb" resources of online data and webservices was a major theme at last week's ESRI User Conference in San Diego, which draw over 14,000 attendees.

I presented the GIN project on Thursday morning but most of my time was spent talking with companies interested in participating in GIN, mostly as users or application providers.

Geothermal energy growth

A survey released by the Geothermal Energy Association (GEA) shows continued growth in the number of new geothermal power projects under development in the United States, a 20% increase since January of this year. The report identified 103 projects underway including 2 in Arizona. One is in the Clifton hot springs area with Arizona Public Service in phase 1 work on a electric power project of 2 MW that could expand incrementally 2 MW at a time up to 20 MW. [right, Clifton Mineral Hot Springs Bathhouse, built 1928]

The second project is vaguely identified as Northern Arizona University having received GRED II funding and completing preliminary studies.

Geoscience jobs booming

Science magazine reports this week on a phenomena we in the geosciences have been witnessing for the past couple years. They describe "a desperate quest for new talent has sent companies scrambling to hire new graduates" in the petroleum, mining, and environmental consulting industries.
Interestingly they note that "Geoscience graduates will have training that qualifies them for jobs outside of their home field. In fact, only 50% of people with geoscience degrees currently work in the geosciences, according to AGI."

Despite the booming job market, the number of academic positions for the geosciences has actually decreased slightly.

Economic impacts of rock products in Arizona

In spite of a slumping housing market, the 2007 economic impact of the Arizona rock products industry reached an all-time record high of $5.8 billion in 2007 (including all multiplier effects) according to a recent study by the W.P. Carey School of Business at ASU for the Arizona Rock Products Association (ARPA).

The value of direct output, production and deliveries of the Arizona Rock Products industry was $2.8 billion in 2007

The rock products industry includes sand and gravel, crushed stone, ready-mix concrete, asphalt and concrete products, and cement.

DIRECT ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF THE ARIZONA

ROCK PRODUCTS INDUSTRY BY SOURCE: 2007

SOURCE	ECONOMIC ACTIVITY	PAYROLL	JOBS
Sand & Gravel / Crushed Stone	$713,000,000	$176,719,000	3,639
Ready-mix Concrete	$1,168,942,000	$224,797,000	4,618
Asphaltic/Concrete Products	$657,007,000	$120,068,000	2,463
Cement	$276,236,000	$31,038,000	637
DIRECT IMPACTS	$2,815,185,000	$552,622,000	11,357

[Disclosure: ARPA is a corporate sponsor of the AZGS-managed "Explore Arizona" map and bookstore in Phoenix.]

Arizona rock products blog launched

The Arizona Rock Products Association launched their own blog a couple weeks ago at
http://www.azrockblog.com/. Among the first posts is announcement of the new members of the ARPA Executive Board.

From left to right:

Treasurer - Mark Plake, Holly Asphalt
Chairman - Mike Smith, CalPortland
Secretary - Doug Augeri, CEMEX
Immediate Past Chairman - Larry Walker, Advanced Mineral Recovery
Chairman Elect - Dick Hrubes, Arizona Materials

Wall Arch collapses in Arches NP

The National Park Service posted this announcement:

"Wall Arch, located along the popular Devils Garden Trail at Arches National Park collapsed sometime during the night of August 4, 2008. Rock has continued to fall from the arms of the remaining portion of the arch necessitating the closure of the Devils Garden Trail just beyond Landscape Arch.

On August 7, 2008, representatives from both the National Park Service Geologic Resources Division and the Utah Geological Survey visited the site and noted obvious stress fractures in the remaining formation. Rock debris has completely blocked this section of the trail. The closure will remain in effect until visitor safety issues can be resolved.

First reported and named by Lewis T. McKinney in 1948, Wall Arch was a free standing arch in the Slickrock member of the Entrada sandstone. The opening beneath the span was 71-feet wide and 33-1/2 feet high. It ranked 12^th in size among the over 2,000 known arches in the park."

Fight over ballot description of mining severance tax increase

The ballot language for the TIME (Transportation and Infrastructure Moving Arizona's Economy) transportation initiative was rejected last week by a Maricopa County Superior Court judge on the grounds that the description of it was a partisan "editorial comment" rather than an unbiased summary.

The initiative would raise $42.6 billion for transportation and other projects by increasing the Arizona sales tax rate of 5.6% by 1% and raise the state mining severance tax from 2.5% to 3.5%.

The ballot language indicated the sales tax would increase 17.8% and the mining severance tax 40%, which the judge decided is misleading to voters.

Injecting CO2 and increasing natural gas production

A regional coalition that includes Arizona, is injecting [right, SWRP] 75,000 tons of carbon dioxide into a coal seam to test geologic sequestration, while simultaneously producing natural gas (coalbed methane - CBM) from the horizon, in a first of its kind test. U.S. Dept. of Energy is supporting the Southwest Regional Partnership (AZGS is a member) started the 6-month demonstration project a week ago in the San Juan basin near Navajo City, in northwest NM.

The DOE announcement said, "Many coal beds in the United States are saturated with natural gas (methane), but the gas is difficult to produce because methane typically binds to coal. However, CO₂ shares the same tendency … Injecting [it] into the coal bed essentially displaces the methane and makes the gas easier to produce."

My understanding is that CO2 binds to the coal better than does methane and can effectively displace the methane molecules (increasing production) while being locked into the coal.

The San Juan basin is one of the largest CBM sources in the world. DOE and SWRP chose it for this test because of "favorable geology, high methane content, available CO₂ from nearby power plants, low capital and operating costs, and well-developed natural gas and CO₂ pipelines."

The demonstration project is also desalinating some of the abundant produced water from the CBM to irrigate nearby riparian areas, which will result in vegetation taking up additional CO2.

"The Southwest Regional Partnership is one of seven managed by the DOE Fossil Energy Office's National Energy Technology to determine the best carbon capture and storage approaches. It is led by the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, and includes the states of Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Utah, and parts of Arizona, Kansas, and Wyoming. The partnership is conducting five field tests (three geologic and two terrestrial) at various stages of planning and execution," DOE said.

Online Arizona newspaper reports resource stories

I just came across "The Zonie Report," described by it's publisher Adam Klawonn, as "Arizona’s only multimedia news source" using text, audio, video and slideshows.

They report on some natural resources stories, plus a fascinating interview with Grand Canyon National Park superintendent Stephen Martin.

One article is about Prize Energy Holdings of Denver suing Santa Fe Pacific
Railroad to regain 1.2 million acres of oil and gas leases in Mojave County they argue belong to their predecessor company.

Update (8-8-08): I deleted reference to a mining company claim about possible resources to avoid giving an appearance of endorsing the numbers.

Copper company stocks fall faster than copper price

The price of copper is down 15% from its peak but the stock value of copper producers has fallen an average of 45% according to an analysis on Mineweb.com.

Stock price of Phoenix-based Freeport McMoRan, the world's biggest copper producer, has fallen by nearly a third. The story offered no easy explanations for the huge disparity between the falls in metal and producer prices.

Hit even harder is Arizona-based Southern Copper with a nearly 47% drop. While the article didn't mention it, this is the kind of situation that attracts takeover attention.

	Stock	From	From	Value
	price	high*	low*	USD bn
Freeport-McMoRan	USD 87.37	-31.3%	30.3%	33.48
Southern Copper	USD 24.90	-47.9%	6.6%	22.00

Aviation Week story triggered Mars Lander press conference

Tuesday's press conference about the Phoenix Mars Lander followed rumors that were triggered by a story in Aviation Week released on Friday, according to New Scientist: The AW story said the MECA wet chemistry team was kept out of a 31 July press conference "to prevent them from being asked any questions that could reveal information before NASA is ready to make an announcement", about the "potential for life" on Mars. [right: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M]

Accessibility to oil and gas on federal lands

According to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, 60% of federal lands are not available for oil exploration as are 41% of lands for natural gas exploration. BLM analyst Richard Watson explained the process the agency used to reach these conclusions in a presentation yesterday at the ESRI Users Conference. In addition, 30% of lands have additional stipulations beyond the standard restrictions. As a result, only about 8% of the potential oil resources on federal lands are actually available to be found and developed.

The results were released some time ago as part of the EPCA Phase III inventory that is available at www.blm.gov.

Watson emphasized this study was purely an inventory with no recommendations, despite claims by both proponents and opponents of drilling.

Good news or bad news for life on Mars?

The UA Phoenix Mars Lander team held a press conference yesterday in response to speculative news reports claiming the team was holding back a major finding regarding habitability on Mars.

"Right now, we don't know whether finding perchlorate is good news or bad news for possible life on Mars," according to project leader Peter Smith.

According to the UA press release, "Perchlorate was discovered with a multi-use sensor that detects perchlorate, nitrate and other ions. Perchlorate is an ion, or charged particle, that consists of an atom of chlorine surrounded by four oxygen atoms. It is an oxidant, that is, it can release oxygen, but it is not a powerful one. Perchlorates are found naturally on Earth at such places as Chile's hyper-arid Atacama Desert. The compounds are quite stable and do not destroy organic material under normal circumstances. Some microorganisms on Earth are fueled by processes that involve perchlorates, and some plants concentrate the substance. Perchlorates are also used in rocket fuel and fireworks. "

"Finding perchlorates is neither good nor bad for life, but it does make us reassess how we think about life on Mars," said Michael Hecht of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., lead scientist for the Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer (MECA), the instrument that includes the wet chemistry laboratory.

The team wants to check the results with another lander instrument, the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA) [above, UA]

Martian soil contradictions

NASA is holding a news media teleconference at 11 am PDT, Tues, Aug. 5 to discuss recent scientific findings of the Phoenix Mars Lander. [right, NASA/JPL-CalTech/Univ. Arizona]

According to principal investigator Peter Smith of the Univ. of Arizona, ""We are committed to following a rigorous scientific process. While we have not completed our process on these soil samples, we have very interesting intermediate results. Initial MECA [a wet chemistry lab] analyses suggested Earth-like soil. Further analysis has revealed un-Earthlike aspects of the soil chemistry."

Tucson company plans millions of CO2 collectors

An interview in a recent issue of Smithsonian with Lamont Doherty geochemist Wallace Broecker [right, credit Swedish Academy of Sciences] about his new book, Fixing Climate, that proposes large scale removal of CO2 from the atmosphere, mentioned that he is a technical advisor to Tucson-based Global Research Technologies (GTR). The company is developing a device that would remove CO2 per day from the air around us, that would then be sold for commercial uses, or more likely buried (geologically sequestered).

Broecker said, "We need something that can be manufactured, like air conditioners or cars, by the millions. Each day, a unit would take about a ton of CO₂ out of the atmosphere, liquefy it and send it out through pipes to wherever it's going to be stored. The developers are now envisioning a device about 6 to 10 feet in diameter, 50 feet high. It would be like a little silo, in that shape so the wind could blow through it from any direction."

He estimated 17 million of the units would have to be deployed around the U.S. with many more than that worldwide.

Reports about GTR are appearing in the press as their ideas spread.

Wyoming wind to power Arizona?

A new study says Wyoming wind energy is the cheapest renewable energy supply for the southwestern U.S., including Arizona. The report by National Grid and Energy Strategies, a London-based transmission and utility firm, concludes that more than half of the country's best quality wind resources also are located in Wyoming. [right, Wyoming Wind Energy Center, Orion Energy]

They project that the western United States will require 116,000 gigawatt hours of energy each year to meet renewable energy portfolio goals.

The proposed $3 billion TransWest Express high-voltage transmission line would connect southern Wyoming with Nevada, Arizona, and California and be completed in 2014.

Mining leads Arizona job growth

Arizona Dept. of Commerce reports show the number of mining jobs in Arizona increased 10.7% over June 2007, the highest among all sectors. Construction jobs dropped 14.3 %, information sector jobs dropped 4.6%. Government sector jobs also decreased. Health care jobs were up by 3.4%. [right: Rio Tinto]

Resolution copper feasibility studies - $652 million

Rio Tinto Group told the Australian stock exchange that feasibility studies on Arizona's Resolution copper mine will cost $652 million, with Rio's share being $341 million. Rio Tinto owns 55% of the project and manages it. BHP Billiton owns the rest. The studies will be completed by 2012 with mining beginning by 2020.

[right: schematic of block cave mining technique at Resolution copper mine. Credit, Resolution Copper]

A proposed land exchange including private, state, and federal lands is critical to the mine moving forward.

Update (8-4-08): Mineweb.com has the most extensive article on this that I've seen. Details on the feasibility study, a fair amount of exploration history, geology, reserves, and the land exchange needed to make it all happen.