CounterSpill

UPDATE:

As of Aug. 30, at least 500 been arrested at the site of the Keystone XL Pipeline protest while government officials seem poised to approve the plan.

David L. Goldwyn, who worked with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs, told Platts Energy Week he believed Clinton will support the move.

“The Last Mountain”, a documentary about mountaintop removal coal mining in West Virginia, made its west coast premiere at the Landmark Theater in West Los Angeles, Calif. on June 15. After a viewing of the film, Bobby Kennedy Jr. made an appearance to briefly engage the crowd in a Q-and-A discussion.

On Nov. 3, the Environmental Protection Agency announced its long-awaited plan to study the effects of hydraulic fracking on drinking water. 

Federal investigators will look to uncover any possible impact that fracking fluid -- which is made up of hundreds of toxic and nontoxic chemicals -- may have on water both above and below drilling sites. 

As activist groups across the country protest methods of natural gas extraction, an online registry of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing has been set for launch.

Announced on April 11, 2011, FracFocus.org will allow the public to look up chemicals used in the extraction of natural gas from local wells, reports ABC News.

Off the coast of Scotland, a gas platform operated by French energy company Total has been spilling millions of cubic feet of methane per day for over two weeks.

The Elgin platform, which is located in the North Sea, has been releasing about 7 million cu. ft. of methane gas every day since the leak's detection on Mar. 25 -- creating a disaster that has been likened to 2010's Deepwater Horizon disaster.