Memo to: Jim Lehrer, PBS; Candy Crowley, CNN; Bob Schieffer, CBS
In re: Energy questions you should be asking when you moderate the upcoming October Presidential debates Keep reading →
Fracking
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Prices for natural gas are headed lower after a hot summer showed signs of the first boost in pricing for the fuel on which the US energy sector is increasingly relying.
With the approaching end of the cooling season and continued strong supply from domestic gas producers, prices are likely to revert to their earlier trading range between $2 and $3 per million BTU, predicted Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy and Economic Research, a Massachusetts consultancy. Keep reading →
Sanctions against Iran, uprisings in oil producing nations – headlines often focus on what’s happening with global oil supply.
But they tend to overlook refining, the link between crude oil and consumers that is critical to assessing the strategic effects of those events. Keep reading →
If the disruption in energy politics caused by a flood of cheap natural gas feels familiar, there’s a reason. Energy policy is being transfigured alongside the energy economy by technology advances that have allowed access to enormous reserves of natural gas. The fuel is so abundant that production has swollen to near-unmanageable levels for pipelines and storage hubs even as prices have fallen near or below costs to produce it. It is hard to argue with the reality: The American Gas Association says reserves estimates have risen to 2,100 trillion cubic feet of natural gas as of the end of 2011, a century’s worth of supply. That is disruptive, regardless of the acknowledged potential for hyperbole in industry forecasts. Politicians are noticing that even ExxonMobil – a mainstay of the oil lobby that has set the tone and pace of U.S. energy policy – is increasingly a gas company, not an oil company. The company is investing billions of dollars in new supply ($40 billion on buying XTO Energy, for starters) and says it expects natural gas demand to rise 60 percent through 2040 as coal use declines.
Natural gas producers in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale will have to comply with local zoning codes after a state appellate court struck down a new law that sought to pre-empt municipal ordinances with a statewide land-use standard.
Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court said Thursday that the pre-emption provisions in the controversial Act 13 were unconstitutional because they allow incompatible uses in zoning areas and fail to protect the interests of neighboring property owners. Keep reading →
The abundant supply of North American natural gas has resulted in increased attention to one part of the development process, hydraulic fracturing. Hydraulic fracturing is an advanced technology that has brought energy production into areas that are less familiar with this work, including the heavily populated Northeast. That people want to have a conversation about their questions is admirable. And those entrusted with developing this natural resource safely and responsibly must be committed to answering those questions.
What we are seeing, however, are people with good-faith questions and concerns being overwhelmed by misrepresentations, innuendo and just plain false information. Celebrities from Alec Baldwin to David Letterman to Mark Ruffalo, having no expertise, claim natural gas development is “poisoning our drinking water and air.” Deliberately false “documentaries” meant to inspire fear are being distributed in libraries and schools. And natural gas is being cast as the villain in Hollywood, from episodes of CSI to SyFy’s original movie, Arachnoquake, in which giant fire-breathing albino spiders come out of the earth’s core because of hydraulic fracturing. These characterizations would grab the attention and scare anyone who hears or sees them. Keep reading →
Trucks associated with hydraulic fracturing natural gas wells drive through the countryside on January 18, 2012 in Springville, Pennsylvania.
Consol Energy, which produces billions of gallons of wastewater doing hydraulic fracturing for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale in the Northeast U.S., is turning for help to a startup that’s got a solar-powered method of purifying water. Keep reading →
The Flawed US Energy Policy Discussion
By Jared AndersonAre the energy industry and the business of politics incompatible?
It could be the simplest explanation for why the US does not have a comprehensive, efficient or constructive energy policy set. On the most basic level, two-year and four-year election cycles are problematic for an industry that needs to make decisions and investments over twenty- to thirty-year time horizons. Keep reading →