President Obama’s Senior Advisors today recommended he veto two new energy bills which respectively seek to block Interior Department regulations on hydraulic fracturing and speed up oil and gas drilling permits. On November 19th, 2013, the White House Administration issued a pair of statements strongly opposing two new energy bills: (1) H.R. 2728 – Protecting… Keep reading →
Iran has agreed to an initial nuclear deal that will involving the country dialing back its nuclear program in exchange for six months of sanctions relief. Iran will gain access to over $4 billion in frozen oil revenues, as well as a suspension of sanctions on petrochemical exports. [Bloomberg] The deal will also “eas[e] of the… Keep reading →
Dubbed the world’s most advanced wind turbine drive-train testing facility and a grid-scale distributed power generation simulator, the SCE&G Energy Innovation Center dedicated yesterday at Clemson University is state of the art. The facility will vet technology needed to upgrade the aging US power grid. “Central to updating and improving the efficiency and reliability of the aging… Keep reading →
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its proposal for mandated levels of renewable fuels blended into gasoline and diesel on Friday. The proposal aims to find a balance between encouraging the continued growth of the biofuels sector and avoiding blending more ethanol into the motor fuel pool than some engines can safely handle. Production… Keep reading →
On September 23, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) updated its 2012 New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) and National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) rule, which indirectly regulates fugitive methane emissions at the production phase of oil and natural gas development. EPA will use outcome data from the NSPS NESHAP rule to determine whether… Keep reading →
As the United States moves closer to imposing an economic cost on carbon dioxide emissions in the form of emissions limits on power plants, there will be a shift in the ranking of fuels that are most economic for power generation. And while nuclear’s future is looking more promising, it is not certain that it… Keep reading →
Billionaire hedge fund manager Tom Steyer and his political action committee have taken to the airwaves attempting to urge president Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. The situation was detailed in a recent New Yorker article and you can read Breaking Energy’s view of the issue here. And here is US Senator Jon Tester’s… Keep reading →
It’s day two of the federal government shutdown, and there’s no real sense yet of how long it might last. In the meantime, investment bank Simmons & Co has helpfully laid out some possible effects on the oil and gas industry, depending on its duration. This could include delays to additional Department of Energy approvals for… Keep reading →
Natural gas’s environmental impact can be viewed in a positive light as a lower-emitting power generation source than coal or petroleum derivatives, or in a negative light as a source of methane emissions and driver of drilling activity. The University of Texas at Austin, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund and nine natural gas… Keep reading →
For a long time, the wind industry operated pretty much with impunity when it came to its impact on golden eagles and other birds. Those days could be coming to an end. In California, the Obama administration is pushing an operating 102-megawatt wind power plant to accept a first-ever permit under the Bald and Golden… Keep reading →
