Excess methane emissions from shallow water platforms elevate the carbon intensity of US Gulf of Mexico oil and gas production.

The Gulf of Mexico is the largest offshore fossil fuel production basin in the United States. Decisions on expanding production in the region legally depend on assessments of the climate impact of new growth. Here, we collect airborne observations and combine them with previous surveys and inventories to estimate the climate impact of current field operations. We evaluate all major on-site greenhouse gas emissions, carbon dioxide (CO2) from combustion, and methane from losses and venting. Using these findings, we estimate the climate impact per unit of energy of produced oil and gas (the carbon intensity). We find high methane emissions (0.60 Tg/y [0.41 to 0.81, 95% confidence interval]) exceeding inventories. This elevates the average CI of the basin to 5.3 g CO2e/MJ [4.1 to 6.7] (100-y horizon) over twice the inventories. The CI across the Gulf varies, with deep water production exhibiting a low CI dominated by combustion emissions (1.1 g CO2e/MJ), while shallow federal and state waters exhibit an extraordinarily high CI (16 and 43 g CO2e/MJ) primarily driven by methane emissions from central hub facilities (intermediaries for gathering and processing). This shows that production in shallow waters, as currently operated, has outsized climate impact. To mitigate these climate impacts, methane emissions in shallow waters must be addressed through efficient flaring instead of venting and repair, refurbishment, or abandonment of poorly maintained infrastructure. We demonstrate an approach to evaluate the CI of fossil fuel production using observations, considering all direct production emissions while allocating to all fossil products.

Climate change is projected to have severe impacts on the frequency and intensity of peak electricity demand across the United States.

It has been suggested that climate change impacts on the electric sector will account for the majority of global economic damages by the end of the current century and beyond [Rose S, et al. (2014) Understanding the Social Cost of Carbon: A Technical Assessment]. The empirical literature has shown significant increases in climate-driven impacts on overall consumption, yet has not focused on the cost implications of the increased intensity and frequency of extreme events driving peak demand, which is the highest load observed in a period. We use comprehensive, high-frequency data at the level of load balancing authorities to parameterize the relationship between average or peak electricity demand and temperature for a major economy. Using statistical models, we analyze multiyear data from 166 load balancing authorities in the United States. We couple the estimated temperature response functions for total daily consumption and daily peak load with 18 downscaled global climate models (GCMs) to simulate climate change-driven impacts on both outcomes. We show moderate and heterogeneous changes in consumption, with an average increase of 2.8% by end of century. The results of our peak load simulations, however, suggest significant increases in the intensity and frequency of peak events throughout the United States, assuming today's technology and electricity market fundamentals. As the electricity grid is built to endure maximum load, our findings have significant implications for the construction of costly peak generating capacity, suggesting additional peak capacity costs of up to 180 billion dollars by the end of the century under business-as-usual.

A national survey of doctoral psychology education and training in suicide risk and violence risk assessment and management.

INTRODUCTION: When, in the judgment of a mental health professional, patient suicide risk and/or patient violence risk are considered imminent, they have been referred to as behavioral emergencies. Past surveys have suggested that education and training with these emergency situations have been inadequate. The present study was undertaken to obtain more current information on the training that psychologists receive in these areas of practice. METHOD: All directors of APA-accredited graduate psychology programs and all directors of APA-accredited predoctoral psychology internship programs were asked to complete an online survey inquiring about such training provided in their programs. RESULTS: Results indicated that both sets of directors rated such doctoral training in suicide risk assessment and management as very important. Internship directors, however, were significantly more likely than graduate program directors to state that psychologists should be required to complete continuing education courses on other-directed violence risk. Serious gaps in training were identified; that is, only 59.2% of psychology graduate directors reported that their program offered training in safety planning for suicide risk and only 25.4% reported that their program offered training in safety planning for violence risk. CONCLUSION: Given that serious injury and even death can occur from patient suicidal behavior and/or a patient violent behavior, the implications of these findings are discussed.

US Veterans Who Do and Do Not Utilize Veterans Affairs Health Care Services: Demographic, Military, Medical, and Psychosocial Characteristics.

OBJECTIVE: To examine sociodemographic and military characteristics of US veterans who do and do not utilize Veterans Affairs (VA) health care services as their primary source of health care and examine the relationship between VA utilization and medical and psychosocial characteristics. METHODS: Participants were a nationally representative sample of 3,152 military veterans (89.8% male, 83.5% white, 6.0% black, mean age = 62.0 [SD = 13.1] years) who completed a survey in 2011 assessing health care utilization, sociodemographic, military service, medical, and psychosocial characteristics. Receiver operator characteristic analyses and logistic and linear regressions were conducted to provide a comprehensive and multivariate examination of factors associated with VA utilization. RESULTS: Veterans who used VA services were more likely to be black, younger, female, unmarried, and less educated and to have lower household incomes. They were also more likely to have served longer in the military and in combat. VA users were more likely to screen positive for lifetime psychopathology, endorse current suicidality, and report enduring more traumas. VA users were also more likely to report more medical conditions, endorse a disability, and score lower on measures of functioning. The primary factor differentiating VA users from those that did not use VA services was presence of lifetime psychopathology. CONCLUSIONS: Results provide a comprehensive profile of veterans who do and do not utilize VA services and suggest that veterans who use VA services have a substantially elevated health burden compared to other veterans. Results may help inform outreach and engagement initiatives targeting the unique health care needs of veterans who do and do not utilize VA services.