A truck with the natural gas industry, one of thousands that pass through the area daily, drives through the countryside to a hydraulic fracturing site on January 18, 2012 in Springville, Pennsylvania.
In the continuing debate over whether fracking for natural gas contaminates drinking water, a new health center in the midst of Pennsylvania’s drilling country may provide fresh clues. Keep reading →
The skyline of downtown Pittsburgh.
Shell Chemical has signed an option to lease land in western Pennsylvania for a possible “world-scale” petrochemical complex including an ethane cracker that would use abundant natural gas from the Marcellus Shale field to make ethylene and other components for plastics. Keep reading →
API President & CEO, Jack Gerard
Most in the energy business know the American Petroleum Institute as a Washington DC-based oil and natural gas industry lobby, but some may be surprised to learn the organization’s first initiatives were the creation of an authoritative statistics program and an industry standardization drive. Keep reading →
A court battle over whether to build a natural gas pipeline in north-central Pennsylvania could have wider effects on gas industry regulation, attorneys for both sides said.
Central New York Oil and Gas wants to build the 39-mile MARC1 pipeline to connect three interstate pipelines carrying gas from the Gulf Coast, and to take locally produced gas to Northeastern markets. Keep reading →
The debate surrounding the use of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling as part of oil and natural gas development has certainly reached the national stage, but the American Petroleum Institute – the industry lobby – has not lost sight of stakeholders at the state level.
The group is holding a series of workshops in various cities throughout the country designed to educate interested parties about how API creates industry standards and guidance. When followed by drillers and contractors, those practices are intended to ensure safety and responsible environmental stewardship. Breaking Energy attended one of these workshops earlier this month in the New York the state capital of Albany. Keep reading →
Illinois is using its upcoming smart meter rollout to promote itself as “a hub for the R&D, manufacturing, development and financing of smart grid and energy projects,” said Dr. Mohammad Shahidehpour, Director of the Robert W. Galvin Center for Electricity Innovation at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
“Illinois will now have the most comprehensive smart grid deployment in the U.S., and we can use our existing intellectual and human capital to ensure we serve as a model for the rest of the world.” Keep reading →
A developer hoping to build America’s first offshore wind farm is taking another look at its costs after reports attacked its plans as too expensive, technically unproven, and likely to have a negative effect on the local economy.
Fishermen’s Energy, a consortium of fishing companies, plans to build the wind farm in New Jersey waters three miles off the coast in a five-turbine pilot project that it hopes will pave the way for a bigger installation in federal waters farther offshore. Keep reading →
The planned closure of Sunoco’s Philadelphia refinery, which accounts for a quarter of the US East Coast’s capacity, looks set to constrain supplies of diesel, heating oil, and perhaps gasoline, while pushing prices higher.
The projected shutdown, due to take effect in July if no buyer is found, was highlighted by the Energy Information Administration in a February 27 report saying petroleum product markets in the Northeast could be “significantly impacted” if the closure goes ahead. Keep reading →
Chicago environmentalists won a hard-fought victory late Tuesday as the city’s two coal power plants announced that they will close — one of them by the end of the year. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Midwest Generation has agreed to close its two coal fired plants. The Fisk generating station, in the city’s Pilsen neighborhood, is slated to close by Dec. 31, while the Crawford plant in Little Village will close by the end of 2014. Mayor Rahm Emanuel last week presented what was essentially an ultimatum to the plants — that they either clean up their pollution or risk being shut down by the city. He had campaigned on a promise that he would force the plants to reduce their dangerous emissions, Fox Chicago reports
In his January 23 State of the Union address, President Obama emphatically pointed out that it was public research dollars that helped develop the technologies to extract natural gas from shale rock, “reminding us that government support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the ground.”
Presumably, the President also understands that it is a two-way street. While public investment has created mutually beneficial opportunities for private companies, private companies should closely partner with the public sector whenever opportunities for their participation present themselves. Keep reading →
