Tim McDonnell

Climate Desk Associate Producer

Tim McDonnell joined the Climate Desk after stints at Mother Jones and Sierra magazine, where he nurtured his interest in environmental journalism. Originally from Tucson, Tim loves tortillas and epic walks.

Get my RSS | Follow @timmcdonnell

Will Obama's New Rules Make Fracking Better for the Planet?

—By Tim McDonnell

| Wed Apr. 18, 2012 3:15 PM PDT

"Green completion" equipment in the field

The Obama administration took a heavy swing in the ongoing battle over fracking today by imposing new rules that would, for the first time, restrict the release of smog-causing pollutants from natural gas wells. But the law turns a blind eye to greenhouse gases released by fracking; the EPA admits fracking accounts for 40 percent of the nation's overall methane (an even stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide) emissions.

By 2015, all fracked wells will be required to implement "green completion" equipment, which catches toxic gases like benzene on its way out of the earth and into the atmosphere. But the rule does not directly limit emissions of greenhouse gases.

David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council said the EPA's move to exclude greenhouse gases from the ruling was likely political: "If you're controlling toxic air pollutants, right-wing ideologues are back on their heels, but when the EPA goes after climate change, all the right-wing nuts come out of the woodwork." Still, Doniger stressed that while the rule could have gone further, the mandated equipment would indirectly take a big bite out of methane emissions.

The announcement has already excited many in the areas of Pennsylvania where fracking is a fact of daily life. "As a resident near a gas field, air pollution is way scarier than water well contamination," said Susquehanna County environmental organizer Rebecca Roter, referring to the other major concern many locals have about fracking.

Matt Walker of Pennsylvania's Clean Air Council stressed that while the rule is a boon for health concerns, further regulation was needed to curb the release of gases, like carbon dioxide and methane, that contribute to global warming. "We need to keep pushing," he said. "We hope the EPA will set standards for greenhouse gases in the future."

Gina McCarthy of the EPA said the mandate would yield a 90 percent reduction in air pollutants released as a byproduct of the fracking process at some 13,000 gas wells nationwide.

"Green completion" equipment is already mandatory in some states, and is already in place at nearly half the nation's natural gas wells, McCarthy said, but the three-year rollout period was requested by industry leaders to allow all well operators time to purchase, install, and train employees on it.

[Read more in the Blue Marble blog]

Advertise on MotherJones.com

Apple, Google, Facebook: Whose Data Centers Are the Dirtiest?

Apple's iCloud is at the vanguard of personal computing. It also relies on a lot of dirty energy.

—By Tim McDonnell and James West

| Tue Apr. 17, 2012 7:00 AM PDT

Climate Desk You've heard about the Foxconn factory in China where your iPad is assembled. But have you ever considered the energy required to store your emails, photos, and videos in the cloud? As worldwide demand for data storage skyrockets, so do the power needs of the servers where all our digital archives live. While some companies (like Facebook) have made great progress in ditching dirty fossil-fuel energy for cleaner renewables, a few internet giants lag far behind. Climate Desk visited Maiden, North Carolina, for a close-up view of what will soon be one of the world's biggest data centers—owned by Apple and powered by the coal-heavy power behemoth Duke Energy.

UPDATE: A spokeswoman for Apple pushed back in a statement to Climate Desk after publication that the Maiden facility will be the "greenest data center ever built," and released figures that dispute Greenpeace's report. Greenpeace's report estimates the facility will draw 100 megawatts of power. Apple says the facility will use 20 megawatts at full capacity, and is on track to supply more than 60 percent of that power on-site from renewable sources including a solar farm and fuel cell installation, "which will each be the largest of their kind in the country." Suzanne Goldenberg from Climate Desk partner site The Guardian, quotes Greenpeace's Gary Cook as remaining skeptical about Apple's internal numbers: "I do feel that's a bit of a lowball number. That would be a very empty building they are putting there in terms of power demand if it's only 20MW. That seems disproportionally small," he said.

Apple's new data center is only one of many coal-fueled server farms across the country. The map below shows 52 of the largest, owned by companies like Google, Amazon, Apple, and Twitter. Mouse over a point on the map to see who owns the plant, and how reliant on coal it is, according to Greenpeace estimates. (Some data centers are clustered close together; zoom in on a particular area to see each one in more detail.)

See a full-screen version here.

The figures in the map are for individual data centers. To give you a better sense of the big picture, here's an overview of how much of each company's overall energy comes from coal, according to Greenpeace estimates:

1. Apple: 55.1 percent
2. HP: 49.7 percent
3. IBM: 49.5 percent
4. Oracle: 48.7 percent
5. Facebook: 39.4 percent
6. Microsoft 39.3 percent
7. Twitter: 35.6 percent
8. Amazon: 33.9 percent
9. Rackspace: 31.6 percent
10. Google: 28.7 percent
12. Dell: 20.1 percent

To see how other tech giants stack up against Apple, look through the Greenpeace report here.
To read about companies' energy use, check out this table from Greenpeace's report here.
Learn more about how Apple powers its facilities in its 2012 Facilities Report.
Learn more about Duke's renewables development, emissions reductions, and more in its 2011 report.
Check out these sweet aerial photos of the iDataCenter from Climate Desk partner Wired.

Why Gas Prices Are High, Explained

Is it Obama's fault? Iran's? BP's? And what can we expect down the road?

—By Tim McDonnell and James West

| Tue Apr. 3, 2012 3:00 AM PDT

This interactive explainer was produced by the Climate Desk. (Don't worry, it may take a few seconds to load.)

Front page image: Karin Hildebrand Lau Shutterstock

WATCH: Can Pond Scum Save You From $5 Gas?

—By James West and Tim McDonnell

| Thu Mar. 22, 2012 3:00 AM PDT

In the spectrum of alternative fuel sources, biofuel made from algae is perhaps the most easily mocked. How could the slimy green muck that grows in your aquarium and washes up on the beach be a future cornerstone of American energy independence? So when President Obama stood before the University of Miami recently and said algae could provide up to 17 percent of our transportation fuel, we wanted to know: Is he right? Here's what we found out:

In February, President Obama announced the Department of Energy would allocate $14 million in new funding to develop transportation fuels from algae. DOE is already supporting over 30 such projects, together worth $94 million. Click through the map below to learn more about these projects.

Introducing the New Climate Desk: Stories for a Changing World

—By James West and Tim McDonnell

| Thu Mar. 22, 2012 3:00 AM PDT

Climate change is one of the defining stories of our time: rising sea levels, bigger storms, peak oil, colder winters and hotter summers. That begs the questions: Why aren't we talking about it more, and what the hell are we going to do about it?

Fortunately, there is a host of scientists, politicians, educators, artists, entrepreneurs, community leaders, journalists, and others who spend every day thinking about the answers to those questions. Maybe you're one of them. Ultimately, the story of climate change is their story—your story. But the media could still do a better job of telling it.

That's where the Climate Desk comes in.

Two years ago (the hottest year on record, by the way), a group of forward-thinking news outlets (The Atlantic, Center for Investigative Reporting, Grist, Mother Jones, PBS' Need to Know, Slate, and Wired) launched an innovative journalistic collaboration to explore the impact—human, environmental, economic, political—of a changing climate. Climate Desk has been gathering pace ever since, and today we're proud to announce our revamped website and the addition of a new partner: The Guardian. It's one of the UK's oldest and most distinguished newspapers, and has a substantial digital footprint in the US. The first UK newspaper to launch a dedicated environment section, the Guardian has one the biggest and most prolific environmental coverage teams in the world.

We're here to sift through the policy, protests, and polar bears to bring you the most important climate change stories: the ones that affect you, your corner of the world, the changes in your own backyard.

Check out our latest video, Pond Scum to the Rescue, to understand how algae might battle political derision to become a vital fuel source. Your Town Is Fracked shows how Pennsylvania limits local control over oil and gas drilling—potentially jeopardizing residential neighborhoods, watersheds, and even school zones. Climate Desk's one-on-one with Michael Mann, reported and written by Suzanne Goldenberg, of the Guardian, is the climate scientist's account of attacks by entrenched interests seeking to undermine his “hockey stick” graph.

We want to hear from you. What are you concerned by, or want to know more about? Tell us and keep checking back with the Climate Desk for more from this unfolding story .