U.S. Shale Has A Glaring Problem
A new report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) and the Sightline Institute detail the “alarming volumes of red ink” within the shale industry.
Fracking
Colorado’s Oil and Gas Industry Goes after Reporters and Signature Gatherers in New fracking Fight
As Colorado gears up for another fight over oil and gas drilling near homes and schools, this time the fossil fuel industry is reportedly doing whatever it takes to win.
Fracking Wastewater Spikes 1,440% in Half Decade, Adding to Dry Regions’ Water Woes
Between 2011 and 2016, fracked oil and gas wells in the U.S. pumped out record-breaking amounts of wastewater, which is laced with toxic and radioactive materials, a new Duke University study concludes.
10 years after the oil price spike: Is peak oil a process rather than a moment?
What if peak oil is a process rather than a moment, a process with a series of twists and turns filled with sometimes ambiguous and counterintuitive signals?
Rise of the Machines: Fracking Execs Plan Profits by Using Automation to Shrink Workforce
At a recent industry conference, Terry Spencer, head of natural gas infrastructure company ONEOK, made clear the direction the fracking industry was headed: “One of these days one of these big ol’ fracs will be operated with nobody there.”
The Secret of the Great American Fracking Bubble
As a whole, the American fracking experiment has been a financial disaster for many of its investors, who have been plagued by the industry’s heavy borrowing, low returns, and bankruptcies, and the path to becoming profitable is lined with significant potential hurdles.
In Pittsburgh, a Community Bill of Rights helped Ban Fracking
ather than “regulate” the amount of harm that fracking would inflict on a city that had been cleaning up smog and brownfields for decades following the withdrawal of the steel industry, CELDF offered to draft a local civil rights law that would guarantee certain community rights, including the right to clean air, pure water, the rights of natural ecosystems to flourish, and the right to be free from toxic trespass (poisoning).
Spooked by Quakes, Oklahoma Toughens Fracking Rules
After swarms of earthquakes caused by hydraulic fracturing, Oklahoma has introduced tougher regulations than those used by any Canadian energy regulator. Last month the Oklahoma Corporation Commission ordered all drillers to deploy seismic arrays to detect ground motion within five kilometres of hydraulic fracturing operations over a 39,000-square-kilometre area in the centre of the state.
Stunning New Research Finds Fracking a Major Source of Carbon Pollution in Pennsylvania
The evidence is now overwhelming that natural gas is not part of the climate solution, it is part of the problem. A new study finds that the methane escaping from Pennsylvania’s oil and gas industry “causes the same near-term climate pollution as 11 coal-fired power plants.”
World’s Largest Fracked-Gas-to-Methanol Refinery Forced to Calculate Climate Impact
Last month one of the largest fracked gas projects in the Pacific Northwest was dealt a legal blow when its development permit was canceled for failing to fully account for the plant’s greenhouse gas emissions. The project, backed by Northwest Innovation Works (NWIW), would refine fracked gas into methanol, an industrial feedstock used in chemical production, that would be shipped in bulk from Kalama, Washington, to China, where backers say it will produce plastics.
Do Energy Industry Activities Threaten Dams? BC Hydro Now Says Yes
A 2013 technical memo on seismic considerations at Site C dismissed fracking as a potential threat to public safety. But since then a wave of industry-triggered earthquakes — and BC Hydro’s concerns about the waste water disposal well near the Peace Canyon Dam — suggest that fracking and dams are simply incompatible land uses.
Whitehall’s Fracking Science Failure
The issue here is about science and uncertainty. So first, What is ‘science’? It is a process for how we find, measure and then evaluate the real world in order to identify how it works. The problem is, particularly for contentious debates in the media and politics, that we seldom hear about the degree of confidence attached to scientific findings, or the uncertainties that surround them.