New national monument near Grand Canyon

Serious question: what prevents the next Republican president from just undesignating this land?

 

I have to wonder if the tribes would support the designation if there was oil there.

Tribes in Utah are supporting an application for a railroad to develop oil reserves on their reservations and environmentalists are prepared to skewer Biden if this gets approved. The oil is thre but th eonly way to get it out is via heated truck over high mountain roads. A pipeline makes more sense to me but the area wants a railroad to be able to use it for other development besides just oil.

Utah's multibillion dollar oil train proposal chugs along amid environment and derailment concerns (msn.com)

Most of the crude produced in the Uinta Basin currently makes its way to refineries via heated tanker trucks that traverse mountains on a two-lane highway. Transportation costs force producers to mainly sell their barrels to the five Salt Lake City-area refineries for significantly less than they could get bigger markets in Gulf states like Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. The railroad would start in the northern end of the Uinta Basin and run south to connect producers in Utah’s Duchesne and Uintah counties — combined population 55,000 — to the broader railroad network.
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The Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah & Ouray Reservation also did not respond to questions. Though tribes throughout the United States have become some of the most vocal opponents of fossil fuels, the tribe's business committee chairman said in a statement last year that the “economic well-being of our membership depends on energy mineral production on our Reservation."

Financing for the project is being spearheaded by the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition, a body formed by eastern Utah officials. They used state grants throughout the permitting process and want the Department of Transportation to approve an application to issue $2 billion in tax-free bonds to fund the project. The infrastructure bill that Biden signed in 2021 doubled the Department's ability to approve private activity bonds to $30 billion; the railroad would be the largest project they've approved to date.
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“Once this rail is built, it will be there for 100 or 200 years. Whether or not oil will still be the major commodity in the basin, no one has a crystal ball. But that rail will still be there and can be utilized to ship whatever is needed,” said Keith Heaton, the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition’s Executive Director.

 

I wish we didn’t have to have these legitimate concerns. I keep praying for a breakthrough that will make reliance upon fossil fuels unnecessary.

 

fusion just replicated their previous result

The nuclear fusion era has arrived, if we choose it - Big Think

Last year, on December 5, 2022, an incredible milestone was achieved: for the first time, a nuclear fusion reaction experienced what’s known as a net energy gain. This means, remarkably, that the energy liberated from a nuclear fusion reaction exceeded the (useful) energy that was inputted into the reaction. This wasn’t achieved by a magnetic confinement fusion reactor, which is where most of the worldwide fusion funding is centered, nor by any among the hundreds of private laboratories dedicated to bringing commercial fusion to the public, but rather by a largely forgotten source: the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

This year, on July 30, 2023, the National Ignition Facility did it again, and in an even superior fashion: repeating their results and achieving an even higher energy yield than in the December prior. All of this was achieved despite a paltry amount of funding being directed toward nuclear fusion research by the U.S. government: an average of just half-a-billion dollars per year across all endeavors, combined. With this recent confirmation, the path toward developing widespread nuclear fusion as the anchor to a clean, carbon-neutral energy economy is now clearer than ever. But in order to truly achieve it, we not only need to be brave and bold, but also focused, as the distractions and pitfalls could truly divert us from the ultimate goal.

 

One difficulty is that every source of energy can bring about some kind of environmental concern.

 

I saw that, and it’s given me great hope. I’ll probably never see it come to ubiquitous fruition, however, but my kids and grandkids will.

 

Maybe not in this case.

Are you suggesting we shouldn’t have those concerns?

 

No, I’m just saying there’s no panacea source of energy, at least on the horizon of our lifetimes.

 

I agree not in our lifetime. My concern is what happens to the planet in the meantime.

 

That’s ubiquitous in many countries.

 

Yup. Biking is a great way to get around many cities--especially those with great cycling infrastructure.

I'd give up my car if I lived closer to campus, though I do bike for pleasure and errands around town.

 

My more dour view is that human and animal life will become extinct at some point, though the planet will live on.

 

Killers of the Flower Moon may emotionally impact that calculus

 

I'm reading that at the moment. Have you read The Wager and Fawcett's hunt for Z?

 

Did not

 

The Belgian company I work for pays employees 0.24 €/km to ride bikes to and/or from work. Some of them ride up to 50 km a day, although most are less. Even one of the managing directors rides his bike to work.

Unfortunately, they don't pay the distance I walk from my bedroom to my home office.

 

That's terrific!

Don't understand your company's bias against walking!

You should see if you can ride around your block a few times before work and get paid for it.

 

They also give lunch vouchers to all the employees.