Green is the color: Hurricane Isaac caused more than $7 million in damage to state parks in south Louisiana and forced some into months-long closures. Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne, who oversees the state parks agency, says the damage estimates are based on preliminary surveys. Dardenne says Fontainebleau State Park in Mandeville and Fairview-Riverside State Park in Madisonville bore much of Isaac’s wrath: The two St. Tammany Parks account for more than $3 million of the damage. Fairview-Riverside is not expected to reopen until late this year, while the cabins at Fontainebleau will likely be shuttered for at least six months.
Maybe in a month or two: The Obama administration on Monday again delayed release of a report on expanding liquefied natural gas exports, likely pushing beyond the election a decision on the potentially contentious issue of sending U.S. gas abroad. Commissioned by the Energy Department to examine the economic impact of LNG exports, the report by an unidentified third-party contractor is now expected to be complete by the end of the year. That means any decision on natural gas exports will likely be made by the victor of the Nov. 6 presidential election. The department has said it will not make any decision on allowing further LNG exports until the analysis is complete; it previously pledged to release the report by late summer.
A green use from fossil fuels? A few researchers and entrepreneurs in Texas are looking into ways to produce geothermal energy from spent oil wells, Marketplace reports. There are somewhere between 1.2 million and 1.4 million wells in Texas alone. University of Texas geologist Bruce Cutright says as you drill deeper into the earth, it gets hotter and hotter. By the time you’re below 12,000 feet, you’re encountering temperatures above 300 degrees Fahrenheit. And it’s all that heat, Cutright says, that could be used to create geothermal power. Read the full story here.
