Montana

In Burlington Resources Oil & Gas Co. v. Lang & Sons, Inc., the Montana Supreme Court evaluated the issue of what damages a mineral owner must pay to a surface owner to use pore space for wastewater disposal

Industries Storm States Over Climate Change

Examines 2003-07 contributions by the energy industry, manufacturers, and pro-business and environmental groups to state-level political campaigns. Analyzes data by contributor, recipient type, state, candidate's incumbency, party, and win-loss status

Implementing Connections: The Benefits for Greater Philadelphia

This analysis utilizes DVRPC's modeling capabilities to illustrate and quantify the benefits of implementing the policies and goals defined in the Connections Plan, through a Plan scenario, compared to a continuation of our region's business-as-usual Trend scenario. Both scenarios are set in the horizon year of the Plan, 2035, and compared to each other and current conditions (2010)

Innovations in energy and climate policy: lessons from Vermont

We ask in this article: how can planners and policymakers replicate Vermont’s energy and climate policies? We begin by explaining the research methods utilized for this article—mainly research interviews with a pool of experts, coupled with a targeted literature review. We then analyze the success of Vermont energy policy across four areas: energy efficiency, renewable energy, the smart grid, and energy governance. The following sections first explain how Vermont accomplished these successes, next identify a number of remaining barriers and elements of Vermont’s approach that may not be replicable, and finally present the article’s conclusions

Affordable heat: A whole-buildings efficiency service for Vermont families and businesses

Policy Leadership Initiative Year III Addressing Energy Challenges for Low-income Families in Northern New Englan

Sunflower Variety Trial

Sunflowers are being grown in the Northeast for their potential to add value to a diversified operation as fuel, feed, fertilizer, and an important rotational crop. The major sunflower production areas are in the northern Great Plains, so seed production and agronomic management guidelines generally come from this region. Identifying varieties of sunflower that will perform well in Vermont’s particular climate is essential to viable crop production. With this in mind, UVM Extension’s Northwest Crops and Soils Program have been evaluating sunflower varieties for their performance in our microclimate

BP Rail Logistics Project environmental impact assessment, Bellingham, WA

The purpose of this environmental impact assessment (EIA) is to identify any environmental elements potentially impacted by the BP Cherry Point Refinery Rail Logistics Project, Both on the project site and the land (developed and undeveloped) and water bodies adjacent to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) railway within the western portion of Whatcom County extending from Larrabee State Park to the BP refinery at Cherry Point. The elements of the environment that will be examined will be divided into two categories: environmental and built. The environmental elements include earth, water, air, plants, animals, and energy and natural resources. The built environment includes utilities, transportation, land and shoreline use, public and environmental health, public services, light and glare, and noise. The refinery brings in approximately 225,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil, and the proposed 10,200 foot rail loop project is expected to take in one oil train (consisting of 100 cars) per day transporting roughly 20,000 barrels per day, or two trains and 40,000 barrels of crude oil every other day. The crude oil shipped by rail is expected to reduce oil shipments by oil tankers by a similar amount. This document will address the impacts of the proposed action, as well as benefits and the impacts of an alternative action and a no action plan. The alternative action is to build the proposed Rail Logistics Project, but with additional mitigation to further reduce the impact(s) of the proposed project. The no action plan will be to not build the Rail Logistics Project and resulting in no impacts upon the refinery and project site. The primary environmental issues of the proposed action include a reduction in air and water quality, soil erosion, removal of vegetation and wetlands, removal of wildlife habitat, and impacts associated with train derailments and oil spills

3D oil reservoir visualisation using octree compression techniques utilising logical grid co-ordinates

Octree compression techniques have been used for several years for compressing large three dimensional data sets into homogeneous regions. This compression technique is ideally suited to datasets which have similar values in clusters. Oil engineers represent reservoirs as a three dimensional grid where hydrocarbons occur naturally in clusters. This research looks at the efficiency of storing these grids using octree compression techniques where grid cells are broken into active and inactive regions. Initial experiments yielded high compression ratios as only active leaf nodes and their ancestor, header nodes are stored as a bitstream to file on disk. Savings in computational time and memory were possible at decompression, as only active leaf nodes are sent to the graphics card eliminating the need of reconstructing the original matrix. This results in a more compact vertex table, which can be loaded into the graphics card quicker and generating shorter refresh delay times

Paintings of War, Museums of Memory

This paper examines the artists sent to the Western Front under Britain’s official war artists initiative. The government sought to utilize artwork for propagandistic purposes, and to foster emotional connection between civilian and soldier. However, the growth of the initiative to include some ninety artists complicated this. The experiences of the artists and the truths revealed to them by the conflict were vastly different, and examination of them as a whole does little to elucidate the character of the war itself. What this paper seeks to do, therefore, is examine three artists - Sir William Orpen, Lieutenant Paul Nash, and C.R.W. Nevinson – as individuals. In moving away from aggregated narratives and comparing this small group, the importance of subjectivity in memory and representation becomes clear. By returning individuality to a crowded, multitudinous narrative, war can be seen as it truly is: a unique experience for all involved