Nuclear Woes Could Propel Quest For Natural Gas

The ongoing nuclear disaster in Japan may undermine support for nuclear power in the U.S. If it does, other sectors of the energy economy stand to benefit — none more than the natural gas industry.

A natural gas boom is already underway in the 400-million-year-old Marcellus shale reserves beneath Pennsylvania. That boom is apparent on a hilltop about an hour from Wilkes-Barre, Pa., where the farmland and forest give way to a brand new industrial site known as the Lathrop compressor station. It's a collection of pipes and compressors that help move natural gas from local wells to market.

"There are about 75 wells behind this particular station, and plans to double that over the next couple of years," says Michael Dickinson, a manager for Williams Companies Inc. The company operates two compressor stations in Pennsylvania, with plans to add three more. It's also building a new 30-mile stretch of pipeline to transport natural gas on to Philadelphia and New York City.

"Those pipelines are kind of like the railroads are to the coal industry, or the high line wires are to the electricity industry," Dickinson says. "We have to have those pipelines — that infrastructure — to get this gas to the place that it can be used."

Impact On The Marcellus Shale

The Marcellus shale, which runs from Kentucky to upstate New York, contains one of the largest natural gas reserves in the world, although the gas has been difficult to extract until recently. Energy experts say the accident at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Japan may accelerate development in Pennsylvania, as the U.S. and other countries will likely put the brakes on plans for additional nuclear power plants, at least in the short run.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2011/04/08/135149579/nuclear-woes-could-propel-quest-for-natural-gas?ft=1&f=1007

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Next Up: The Debt Limit And The 2012 Budget

Freshman Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-MI), who was elected with support from the Tea Party, tells NPR's Scott Simon that he's not sure he'll vote to approve the full spending bill.

Saying that the bill doesn't go far enough to reduce federal spending, Huizenga said, "We had outpatient surgery last night. What we need is a heart transplant. We have got to get more serious about this."

Huizenga said that he voted for the short-term resolution for two reasons.

"One, because it pays our troops," he said. "I think it's absolutely an abomination that our troops are having any doubt in their mind" about whether they would be paid.

The other reason for approving the measure, Huizenga said, is to give both him and the American public time to review the larger legislation.

The Democratic Reaction

The budget compromise was hailed by Reid for containing a "historic amount of cuts for the remainder of this fiscal year." Still, not all Democrats are giving their full support to the deal.

Early Saturday, Rep. George Miller (D-CA) released a statement saying, "The American people have been told the agreement contains both 'historic' and 'painful' cuts. The question will be painful for whom."

And House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said that she and her colleagues "look forward to reviewing the components of the final funding measure" to determine how it will affect the middle class, according to The Wall Street Journal.

In his weekly radio address Saturday, Obama called the budget deal "good news for the American people."

The president said that after the budget issue is resolved, "it's my sincere hope that we can continue to come together as we face the many difficult challenges that lie ahead."

The Public Reaction: Not Overwhelmed

The news that a government shutdown would be avoided was welcomed by those hoping to use federal park services this weekend — like the tourists who came to Washington, D.C., for the annual Cherry Blossom Festival.

But there was also a sense that politicians were not to be congratulated for allowing the budget impasse to reach that point.

"It makes America look bad," said Carolyn Dempsey, who was visiting from New Jersey with her husband, Brian, and their three children.

"If the government can't get together and decide on a budget, then America does lose," she said, "and it makes our government look like they don't know what they're doing. And it's very disappointing."

Brian Dempsey said that he couldn't see a good reason for the standoff — and that it amounted to a lot of finger-pointing over ridiculous things.

"It makes the rest of the country think that Washington is out of touch with what the rest of the country needs," he said.

For federal employee Michael Anderson of Springfield, Va., news of the deal put an end to the stress that had been building as the deadline neared.

Anderson said that after he learned Saturday morning that he would be reporting to work for his job at the Bureau of Land Management on Monday, "I did my little Super Bowl dance to myself."

Coming Next: The Debt Limit, And 2012

With a shutdown averted, two more large budget issues will demand Washington's attention in the coming months. The U.S. Treasury has told Congress it must vote to raise the debt limit by this summer — Secretary Tim Geithner says the federal government will hit its limit on borrowing by May 16.

And soon, Congress will turn to the 2012 budget.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) says the budget compromise is relatively small change compared to the fights ahead.

While the current reductions deal with numbers in the billions, McConnell said, "Once we get through this process, by the end of next week, we will move on to a much larger discussion about how we save trillions."

Republicans say they hope to use the debt limit issue to force Obama to accept their measures to reduce the deficit.

Of those upcoming debates, fiscal policy expert J.D. Foster of the conservative Heritage Foundation tells NPR's Liz Halloran, "The middleweight fight is going to be over the 2012 budget resolution. And the heavyweight match will be over the debt limit."

NPR's Ari Shapiro and Tamara Keith contributed to this report, which contains material from The Associated Press.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2011/04/10/135271474/reaction-to-budget-deal-is-mixed-more-fights-loom?ft=1&f=1014

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Budget Details Slow To Emerge, Even To Congress

Lawmakers reached a budget agreement late Friday night to avert a partial government shutdown, but the details of what exactly they agreed to are a little murky. Lawmakers are realizing they've got a deal in hand, but not much else.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2011/04/10/135289353/despite-agreement-budget-details-slow-to-emerge?ft=1&f=1003

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Egyptian Mummies Diagnosed With Clogged Arteries

Heart disease is supposedly a modern affliction, the result of a diet rich in animal fat and too many hours spent on the sofa. But recent discoveries suggest that strokes and heart attacks may have been bedeviling humans for millenia.

Dr. Greg Thomas is part of a team of scientists that recently discovered the earliest known case of atherosclerosis — clogged arteries — in ancient Egyptian mummies. The startling findings mean scientists may not understand heart disease as well as they think they do.

Thomas tells Weekend All Things Considered host Linda Wertheimer that his team began by running mummies through a CT scanner.

"Our hypothesis was that they wouldn't have [heart disease], because they were active, their diet was much different, they didn't have tobacco," he says.

But they were wrong.

One of the mummies the team scanned was a princess in her 40s, who presumably ate fresh food and wasn't sedentary. "That she would have atherosclerosis," Thomas says, "I think we're missing a risk factor. Right now we know that high blood pressure, smoking, cholesterol, inactivity and other things cause athersosclerosis, but I think that we're less complete than we think."

Ancient Egyptians did have access to meat, though Thomas says their diet consisted mostly of grains, fruits and vegetables.

The subjects the team studied belonged to an elite class; working people didn't merit mummification. Thomas says the legendary inbreeding of Egypt's royal families probably had little to do with the incidence of heart disease, however.

"We found the atherosclerosis over 2,000 years of time, and so there would be many different families who were the pharaohs or the ruling parties at the time ... We think it's common to the environment there, among the elite."

Thomas says his team hopes to find some less-exalted mummies to scan. "But we're suspicious that even the more middle-class persons, that they may well have had [heart disease]. But that's research to be done."

Source: http://www.npr.org/2011/04/09/135269340/egyptian-mummies-diagnosed-with-clogged-arteries?ft=1&f=1007

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DHS nears terror warning decision

The Department of Homeland Security is nearing a decision on its plan to replace the color-coded terror warning alert introduced after the attacks on 9/11 with a two tier detailed advisory system.

"The plan is not yet final, as we will continue to meet and exercise with our partners to finalize a plan that meets everyone's needs. We remain on track to implement the new system later this month," said Amy Kudwa, DHS spokeswoman.

The new alerts are expected to distinguish between "elevated" and "imminent" threats and could be limited to warnings for specific industries or police or communicated more broadly to the public.

Source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_allpolitics/~3/jNquSoz3r_Y/index.html

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Video: What was cut to avoid a government shutdown? (cbsnews)

The Senate and the house both passed a six day spending bill averting a government shutdown and allowing them time to finalize the agreement that will cover the rest of the fiscal year. Nancy Cordes reports. Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/75445082?client_source=feed&format=rss

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