Ending the oil age
Jess Worth, New Internationalist Magazine
Big Oil’s days are numbered – but the industry could still take us all down with it. From divestment to disruption, Jess Worth explores how the transition to an oil-free future is being hastened.
In September 2014, the $860 million Rockefeller Foundation made an historic announcement. Timed to coincide with massive marches for climate action all over the world, the fund revealed it was going to divest from fossil fuels. Following in the footsteps of the World Council of Churches, the British Medical Association and Stanford University, the latest major institution to make such an announcement is also the most symbolic. Because the Rockefeller fortune owes its very existence to oil…
Methane Leaks Wipe Out Any Climate Benefit Of Fracking, Satellite Observations Confirm
Joe Romm, Think Progress
Satellite observations of huge oil and gas basins in East Texas and North Dakota confirm staggering 9 and 10 percent leakage rates of heat-trapping methane. “In conclusion,” researchers write, “at the current methane loss rates, a net climate benefit on all time frames owing to tapping unconventional resources in the analyzed tight formations is unlikely.”
In short, fracking speeds up human-caused climate change, thanks to methane leaks alone. Remember, natural gas is mostly methane, (CH4), a super-potent greenhouse gas, which traps 86 times as much heat as CO2 over a 20-year period. So even small leaks in the natural gas production and delivery system can have a large climate impact — enough to gut the entire benefit of switching from coal-fired power to gas…
The gas industry’s delicate climate policy balancing act
Mat Hope, Carbon Brief
European leaders are currently meeting to discuss the future of the region’s climate and energy policy. Today, representatives of the gas industry called for ambitious changes to ensure the EU hits its ambitious emissions reduction goal without jeopardising their commercial interests.
"Dealing with climate change is a long term issue," Elisabeth Tørstad, CEO of fossil fuel industry advisers DNV told an audience of experts at the Financial Times’ gas summit today. Tørstad was part of a panel tasked with assessing current threats to the European gas industry.
So how enthusiastic is the gas industry feeling about climate policy?…
Oil Producers Cramming Wells in Risky Push to Extend Boom
Bradley Olson and Dan Murtaugh, Bloomberg
U.S. shale producers are cramming more wells into the juiciest spots of their oilfields in a move that may help keep the drilling boom going as prices plunge.
The technique known as downspacing aims to pull more oil at less cost from each field, allowing companies to boost profit, attract more investment and arrange needed loans to continue drilling. Energy companies see closely-packed wells as their best chance to add billions more barrels of oil to U.S. production that’s already the highest in a quarter century…
So far, early results from downspacing experiments by a handful of companies have been mixed.
It’s “the billion-dollar question,” said Jonathan Garrett, a Houston-based upstream analyst for energy consultant Wood Mackenzie Ltd. “Is downspacing allowing access to new resources, or is it drawing down the existing resources faster?”…
Low Oil Prices Hurting U.S. Shale Operations
Nick Cunningham, Oilprice.com
Slumping oil prices are putting pressure on U.S. drillers.
The number of active rigs drilling for oil and gas fell by their most in two months, according to the latest data from oil services firm Baker Hughes. There were 19 oil rigs that were removed from operation as of Oct. 17, compared to the prior week. There are now 1,590 active oil rigs, the lowest level in six weeks.
"Unless there’s a significant reversal in oil prices, we’re going to see continued declines in the rig count, especially those drilling for oil," James Williams, president of WTRG Economics, told Fuel Fix in an interview. "We could easily see the oil rig count down 100 by the end of the year, or more."…
Scientists Just Discovered How To Determine If Water Contamination Comes From Fracking
Emily Atkin, Think Progress
A team of U.S. and French scientists say they have developed a new tool that can specifically tell when environmental contamination comes from waste produced by hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking.
In peer-reviewed research published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology on Monday, the researchers say their new forensic tool can distinguish fracking wastewater pollution from other contamination that results from other industrial processes — such as conventional oil and gas drilling. Fracking is a controversial oil and gas well stimulation technique that uses a great deal of water, mixed with chemicals, to extract oil and gas from miles deep underground. Once the rock is fractured by the high pressure fluid, fossil fuels follow the fracking fluid to the surface. The disposal of this often-radioactive water mixture, known as “fracking fluid,” is widely considered to be one of the biggest environmental threats that fracking poses, along with the emissions of greenhouse gases like methane and carbon dioxide…
Why There’s a Real Chance My Texas Town Might Ban Fracking
Candice Bernd, Truthout
I live on Denton Street, in Denton, Texas, in Denton County, so I know a thing or two about the city of Denton – and its ongoing struggle with the gas drilling technique of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) within city limits.
I live a little more than a mile from McKenna Park, where, in 2009, Range Resources sparked the city’s anti-fracking movement when the company announced plans to erect five gas wells on Denton’s Rayzor Ranch development, one of which would be across the street from the park, residential neighborhood and hospital…
Total’s CEO De Margerie Dies In Plane Crash; Moustachioed Dealmaker Predicted Peak Oil
Christophe de Margerie, Forbes
…Immediately recognizable for his bristle-brush moustache, De Margerie was gregarious and outspoken. I interviewed him in 2010 for this feature story and found him to be a refreshing departure from the typically close-guarded Big Oil boss.
Chatty and blunt, De Margerie didn’t hide his conviction that Peak Oil was a fast approaching reality, insisting at the time that the world’s producers would be hard pressed to ever grow past 95 million barrels per day. He may have revised that number upwards a bit in recent years, considering the booming development of tight oil in the United States, but his dogma remained the same as then: “There will be a lack of sufficient energy available,” he said…
The World Just Had its Hottest "Year" on Record
Eric Holthaus, Mother Jones
A few days ago, I told you that—according to NASA data—we just finished the warmest six-month streak on record. Welp, it just got worse.
According to data released Monday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, last month was the warmest September on record globally. What’s more—and here’s the kicker—the NOAA says the Earth has just completed its warmest 12-month period on record…
Hundreds of World’s Scientists Ask Stephen Harper to Return Freedom to Science in Canada
Carol Linnitt, DeSmog Blog
In an open letter published Monday more than 800 scientists are asking Prime Minister Stephen Harper to end “burdensome restriction on scientific communication and collaboration faced by Canadian government scientists.”
The Harper government has recently attracted international attention after a report published by a leading research union identified Canadian scientists as particularly hard hit by budget cuts and communications protocols that prevent their freedom of expression…
China’s coal use actually falling now (for the first time this century)
Lauri Myllyvirta, Greenpeace Energy Desk
Coal use in China is falling this year – according to official data reported in the Chinese press.
It is the first time this century that China has seen year on year quarterly falls in coal use. The Chinese economy continues to grow by 7.4%.
The data suggests the world’s largest economy is finally starting to radically slow down its emission growth, and it comes ahead of key talks next year on a new global climate and energy deal…
Kiruna: the town being moved 3km east so it doesn’t fall into a mine
Oliver Wainwright, The Guardian
Cities don’t often decide to pack their bags, get up and move down the road. But that’s exactly what Kiruna, an Arctic town in northern Sweden, is having to do – to avoid being swallowed up into the earth.
“It’s a dystopian choice,” says Krister Lindstedt of White architects, the Stockholm-based firm charged with the biblical task of moving this city of 23,000 people away from a gigantic iron ore mine that is fast gobbling up the ground beneath its streets. “Either the mine must stop digging, creating mass unemployment, or the city has to move – or else face certain destruction. It’s an existential predicament.”…
A sprinkle of compost helps rangeland lock up carbon
Carolyn Lochhead, San Francisco Chronicle
A compost experiment that began seven years ago on a Marin County ranch has uncovered a disarmingly simple and benign way to remove carbon dioxide from the air, holding the potential to turn the vast rangeland of California and the world into a weapon against climate change.
The concept grew out of a unique Bay Area alignment of a biotech fortune, a world-class research institution and progressive-minded Marin ranchers. It has captured the attention of the White House, the Brown administration, the city of San Francisco, officials in Brazil and China, and even House Republicans, who may not believe in climate change but like the idea that “carbon farming” could mean profits for ranchers….
