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Crude exports would reduce US gasoline prices, RFF paper suggests

US crude oil exports would lead to more efficient use of the country’s refineries, resulting in more gasoline and lower prices, a Resources for the Future issue brief concluded. “With the increased efficiency of Western Hemisphere refinery operations that would come from lifting the ban, US prices for refined products will be reduced—even if world oil prices increase,” it said. Most US refineries are configured to process heavy grade of crude and cannot process light crudes from the Bakken and other US tight oil plays, said Stephen P.A. Brown, a visiting fellow at RFF and director of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas’s Center for Business and Economic Research. Brown and three others wrote the issue brief. High levels of US light, sweet crude oil production , combined with a general ban on crude exports and transportation bottlenecks, have led to sharply lower prices for crude oil–but not […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Report: US Energy Secretary Favors Reducing Oil Shipped By Rail

U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz supports reducing the amount of crude oil shipped by rail in favor of pipelines that are safer, cheaper and cleaner, Capital New York reported on Wednesday. "What we probably need is more of a pipeline infrastructure and to diminish the need for rail transport over time," he said in an interview published on the Capital New York website. He said the infrastructure is "not there" to handle the surge in North Dakota Bakken oil production from near zero to 1 million barrels per day (bpd). "Frankly, I think pipeline transport overall probably has overall a better record in terms of cost, in terms of emissions and in terms of safety." A Department of Energy spokesman was not immediately available to provide more detail on Moniz’s comments. His comments are among the first by a senior Obama Administration […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Fog, smog to blanket north, central China

Fog and smog will blanket China’s north and central regions on Thursday, the National Meteorological Center (NMC) said. It will affect regions including those along the Yellow, Huaihe and Yangtze rivers, as well as south of the Yangtze, according to the NMC. The national weather observatory forecast that visibility will be reduced to less than 1 km in parts of Shanxi, Shaanxi, Hebei, Henan, Shandong, Anhui, Jiangsu, Hunan, Jiangxi and Guizhou provinces on Thursday morning. In some areas, visibility will be less than 500 meters. The NMC also said that light smog will shroud parts of northern China, areas along the Yellow, Huaihe and Yangtze rivers, Shaanxi Province and the southwestern Sichuan Basin on Thursday morning. Some parts of these regions will experience moderate and heavy smog.

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Moniz wants closer look at methane emissions across gas system

US Energy Secretary Ernest G. Moniz called for more scrutiny of methane emissions from natural gas operations beyond exploration and production. “We certainly need more data not just from production wells, but also from transmission and distribution systems,” he said in response to a question after a Feb. 19 speech at the National Press Club. The administration already has a very active methane emissions study group that includes the Domestic Policy Council, the US Department of the Interior , and US Environmental Protection Agency, Moniz said. “There also are private efforts, by groups such as the Environmental Defense Fund and a blue-green alliance of organized labor and environmental organizations, that are doing important work,” he said. “Certainly, the technologies for capturing methane emissions at the wellhead exist and are being used,” Moniz said. “Green technologies have been deployed in North Dakota to reduce the amount of gas associated with […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Group seeks fracking ban in Texas town

A group of residents from a heavily drilled Texas town have banded together in an effort to ban hydraulic fracturing in their city. If they are successful, Denton would become the first city in the state to ban fracking outright. “We’ve spent years trying to make fracking compatible with our city,” Adam Briggle, a member of Denton Drilling Awareness Group, the group organizing the ban, told Al Jazeera. “But we’ve realized that you can have fracking, or you can have a healthy city — but you can’t have both.” Denton, a city northwest of Dallas and with just over 100,000 residents, is home to hundreds of gas wells and hundreds of miles of pipelines. Fracking critics say the drilling — shooting pressurized water, chemicals, and sand underground to release oil and gas trapped there — impacts public health and safety. Briggle said there is strong support for the ban, and that residents who […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Coal ash still contaminating NC river, but state response lags

A new leak again raised concerns about water contaminated with coal ash flowing into the Dan River on the border of North Carolina and Virginia. The second leak of arsenic-tainted water comes from the same pond where earlier this month at least 82,000 tons of ash mixed with 27 million gallons of contaminated water — which had been stored in an unlined pond at a decommissioned Duke Energy plant in Eden, N.C. — escaped through a damaged storm drain into the river. The spill caused concerns about the water quality for residents who rely on the Dan River for drinking water, and prompted fierce reactions from environmental watchdog groups that said the spill was indicative of too-lax regulations for coal ash. The newly discovered leakage of arsenic-tainted water, made public by Duke Energy and the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) on Tuesday, comes from a […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Sun, mild weather in Midwest offers new headache

Blue skies and temperatures above freezing had giddy Chicago residents basking in the rare sunshine after one of the cruelest winters in recent memory. But there were signs – melting snow, growing puddles – that Mother Nature was about to unleash a whole new miserable on the Midwest. Flooding. Weeks of subfreezing weather are giving way, at least briefly, to temperatures in the 40s and 50s, putting many Midwestern cities on guard for flooding, roof collapses and clogged storm drains. Some areas expected a double whammy: warm, spring-like air combined with heavy rains that could compound the problem and turn the big melt into a muddy, damaging mess. A whole new layer of snow and sleet was forecast to accumulate early Thursday, particularly across Wisconsin, northern Illinois and parts of Indiana, before temperatures rise and change the precipitation to rain, according to the National […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Obama Keystone Pipeline Review Roiled by Nebraska Judge

A Nebraska judge’s decision throwing out the Keystone XL pipeline route in the state may push President Barack Obama ’s final decision on the contested project until after the midterm congressional elections. Judge Stephanie Stacy in Lincoln yesterday invalidated legislation that let Republican Governor Dave Heineman approve the route and bypass the state Public Service Commission. TransCanada Corp. (TRP) will need commission approval, a process that by state law can take seven months. The judge’s decision gives Obama a reason to delay a politically sensitive decision that could roil Democratic plans to keep control of the Senate. Democrats seeking re-election in Republican states, such as Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Mark Begich of Alaska , want Obama to approve Keystone. Putting off a decision lets Obama avoid angering voters in energy-rich states if he decides to back environmentalists and reject the project. Former hedge-fund manager Tom Steyer said he […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Governor plans $687 million for California drought

Gov. Jerry Brown and the top Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday announced a $687 million plan to provide immediate help to drought-stricken communities throughout California, including $15 million for those with dangerously low drinking water supplies. The proposal comes amid one of the driest periods in the history of the nation’s most populous state, forcing farmers to fallow fields and some communities to warn of low water supplies. "There’s many ways we can better use the water we have," Brown said during a news conference at a state office near Sacramento. "You can’t manufacture water." The Democratic plan, which now goes to the Legislature, does not address long-term improvements to California’s water supply and distribution system. Rather, it provides money for immediate aid. Most of the money – $549 million – will come in the form of accelerated spending from two bonds approved previously […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Asian Tigers Stalk U.S. Gas as Louisiana Shale Profits Taper

DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, has a problem. The solution may lie 10,000 miles away in Jakarta. A rustic stretch of bayous and timberland, DeSoto and other communities in the Haynesville shale formation have become victims of the energy industry’s success in extracting natural gas from deeply buried rock. Even as U.S. gas production surges to a record, outpacing domestic demand, Haynesville output has slumped 40 percent since 2011 amid falling prices as companies shift rigs to reservoirs richer in lucrative oil and gas liquids. Tax revenue has tumbled by the same percentage over the past two years from a record $50 million in the parish, home to Civil War battlefields and Billy B’s Cajun Grill. In Jakarta, a city of 10 million, high-rise buildings crowd the skyline and auto-rickshaws, motorcycles and taxis vie for space on gridlocked roads. Indonesia’s energy use may more than […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple