In a week that has seen a number of blows for the prospects of ecological stability - there's been an innovative backlash to...
Thursday, June 14, 2018 - 17:29 • Sharon Kelly
Back in 2011, The New York Times first raised concerns about the reliability of America's proved shale gas reserves. Proved reserves are the estimates of supplies of oil and gas that drillers tell investors they will be able to tap. The Times suggested that a recent Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rule change allowed drillers to potentially overbook their “proved” reserves of natural gas from shale formations, which horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) were rapidly opening up.
“Welcome back to Alice in Wonderland,” energy analyst John E. Olson told The Times, commenting on the reliability of these reserves after the rule change. Olson, a former Merrill Lynch analyst, is best known for seeing the coming Enron scandal 10 years before the infamous energy company imploded in 2000.
Today, those same rules have allowed shale drillers to boost their reserves of oil, as well as natural gas. As a result, these “proved” reserves, which investors and pipeline companies are banking on, could potentially be much less proven than they appear.
And the unprecented degree to which this is happening in the shale industry casts a shadow of doubt on the purportedly bright future of America's booming oil and gas industry.
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Wednesday, June 20, 2018 - 11:02 • Mark Renburke
Read time: 5 mins
The American Energy Alliance (AEA), a free market group with close ties to the Koch brothers, just released misleading results of a poll asking voter opinions on electric vehicles (EV) and car fuel efficiency standards.
Though the public opinion poll showed that Americans overwhelmingly view electric cars as better for the environment, and a majority believe in the necessity and value of fuel economy standards, the AEA is claiming that Americans don’t support EV-friendly policies.
Not surprisingly, most of the questions in this agenda-driven “push poll” were worded to influence the respondent’s choice, framing federal programs as anti-choice and taxpayer-subsidized.
Tuesday, June 19, 2018 - 22:38 • Ben Jervey
Read time: 4 mins
Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper announced Tuesday that his state would join 13 states and the District of Columbia in adopting California’s clean car emissions standards.
“Colorado has a choice,” Gov. Hickenlooper said in a statement. “This executive order calls for the state to adopt air quality standards that will protect our quality of life in Colorado. Low emissions vehicles are increasingly popular with consumers and are better for our air. Every move we make to safeguard our environment is a move in the right direction.”
Tuesday, June 19, 2018 - 15:45 • Guest
Read time: 8 mins
By Robert Brulle, Drexel University
June 23, 1988 marked the date on which climate change became a national issue.
In landmark testimony before the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Dr. James Hansen, then director of NASA’s Institute for Space Studies, stated that “Global warming has reached a level such that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause-and-effect relationship between the greenhouse effect and observed warming … In my opinion, the greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now.”
Monday, June 18, 2018 - 17:03 • Ben Jervey
Read time: 4 mins
There’s a major sector of the automobile industry that is unwavering in its support of strong clean car standards: auto parts manufacturers.
Carmakers, through the powerful Auto Alliance trade group, have flip-flopped on fuel economy and emissions targets for cars and light duty trucks — claiming they aren’t for rollbacks even after lobbying for them. On the other hand, auto parts suppliers have consistently argued on behalf of strong national standards, going against the direction currently pursued by the Trump administration.
Monday, June 18, 2018 - 16:01 • Chloe Farand
Read time: 4 mins
One of the biggest corruption cases faced by the oil industry in recent years is due to resume in Milan on Wednesday as two of the world’s biggest oil companies Royal Dutch Shell and Italian firm Eni are facing trial.
Prosecutors are bringing criminal charges against Shell and Eni executives over allegations of corruption regarding a $1.3 billion oil deal in Nigeria.
This is the first time an oil company as large as Shell or senior executives of a major oil company have ever stood trial for bribery offences.
The case, which has been repeatedly delayed, involves the 2011 purchase by Shell and Eni of Nigeria’s OPL 245 offshore oilfield — one of Africa’s most valuable oil blocks.
Monday, June 18, 2018 - 12:30 • Guest
Read time: 3 mins
By Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch. Crossposted with permission from EcoWatch.
More than 300,000 U.S. coastal homes could be uninhabitable due to sea level rise by 2045 if no meaningful action is taken to combat climate change, a Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) study published Monday found.
The study, Underwater: Rising Seas, Chronic Floods and the Implications for U.S. Coastal Real Estate, set out to calculate how many coastal properties in the lower 48 states would suffer from “chronic inundation,” non-storm flooding that occurs 26 times a year or more, under different climate change scenarios.
Friday, June 15, 2018 - 15:50 • Guest
Read time: 10 mins
By Simon Evans, Carbon Brief. Originally posted on Carbon Brief, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Renewable energy grew by the largest amount ever last year, while coal-fired electricity also reached a record high, according to new global data from oil giant BP.
However, set against continued rapid rises in energy demand fuelled by oil and gas, renewables were not enough to prevent global CO2 emissions rising significantly for the first time in four years, the figures show.
Thursday, June 14, 2018 - 22:41 • Guest
Read time: 7 mins
By Dan Zegart, crossposted from Climate Investigations Center
In a split decision Thursday, Pennsylvania state regulators allowed the aging Mariner East 1 (ME1) pipeline to resume transporting highly explosive natural gas liquids (NGL), but continued an emergency shut-down of work on a section of a second NGL pipeline, the almost-complete Mariner East 2 (ME2).
Wednesday, June 13, 2018 - 17:10 • Justin Mikulka
Read time: 7 mins
As attendees of this year's annual Energy Information Administration (EIA) conference walked into the Washington, D.C., Hilton Hotel on June 4, there was a bit of confusion. The only conference sign in sight was for a meeting on the “Effects of Climate Change on the World’s Oceans.”
Eventually, conference organizers remedied the problem, and the sign for the climate change conference would be the last time EIA meeting attendees would hear about the warming of the planet and its impacts.
Instead, the EIA conference, hosted by the federal agency that tracks energy industry trends and statistics, would focus on a decidedly different topic: the booming oil and gas industry.
