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Concerns about potentially poisonous emissions from natural gas drilling sites have quickly spread from Fort Worth to other area cities as officials and residents struggle to interpret preliminary test results from the state that found high levels of benzene near well sites. Last week, Flower Mound considered a moratorium on drilling permits until more information becomes available on how drilling affects air quality in the Barnett Shale production region. The Town Council voted 3-2 against the moratorium in a meeting that stretched well past midnight Dec. 17, officials said. Town Manager Harlan Jefferson had proposed the moratorium after recent air...

Kuwait has discovered a new oil and gas field and is exploring for more as the OPEC producer seeks to boost its crude output capacity by about 27% to 4 million barrels of oil a day by 2020, a senior oil official said in comments carried by state-run Kuwait News Agency late Tuesday. The new field in northwest of Kuwait had an estimated initial output capacity of 80,000 barrels per day of light crude and 110 million cubic feet of gas a day, Sami Al Rushaid, chairman and managing director of state-run Kuwait Oil Co. or KOC said. "We are...

New York City joined a broad coalition of environmental groups Wednesday in calling for Gov. David Paterson to scrap proposed state rules on natural gas drilling and start over. The city Department of Environmental Protection said a proposed 802-page state rule book on gas drilling released in September by the Department of Environmental Conservation should be abandoned because it "does not adequately address the risks of drilling in the New York City watershed, which supplies drinking water for nine million New Yorkers." DEC is working on rules to regulate hydrofracking, a drilling technique that uses a high-pressure mix of water,...

An everlasting hope of finding significant amounts of oil in Israel may have been realized with the announcement Thursday that “significant quantities” of oil were found in a well in the area of Rosh HaAyin, a city located east of Tel Aviv on the western edge of Samaria.

This figure shows the energy density and the power density of nano vacuum tubes in comparison to other energy storage devices. Credit: H?bler and Osuagwu. (PhysOrg.com) -- Physicists theorize that quantum phenomena could provide a major boost to batteries, with the potential to increase energy density up to 10 times that of lithium ion batteries. According to a new proposal, billions of nanoscale capacitors could take advantage of quantum effects to overcome electric arcing, an electrical breakdown phenomenon which limits the amount of charge that conventional capacitors can store. In their study, Alfred Hubler and Onyeama Osuagwu, both of the...

'There Is a Shift Going on Across America' Despite a lack of substantive action on climate change in Copenhagen or, yet, in Washington, environmental groups are celebrating a year of victories over one of climate change’s biggest culprits. Coal releases more carbon dioxide emissions per unit of energy produced than any other fossil fuel, but it also provides more than half the United States’ electricity supply. It is possible, however, that 2009 marked a turning point away from that reliance on coal. Seminole Electric dropped plans to build a new coal-fired power plant in Florida late last week, in part...

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - New York City's Department of Environmental Protection called on state officials Wednesday to ban natural gas drilling in the Catskills watershed, saying it would pose too great a risk to the city's upstate drinking water system. The DEP took that position in response to the state Department of Environmental Conservation's draft regulations on gas drilling in New York's portion of the Marcellus Shale region, which includes parts of the Catskills where reservoirs supply drinking water for 9 million people. The state is taking public comments on its 800-plus page draft until Dec. 31. The city DEP...

Energy: An oil company wants to invest its profits in clean-burning American natural gas. A Hungarian billionaire and a "green" politician want to stop it. This is the real Climate-gate scandal. While the greenies of the world united in Copenhagen to talk about the weather, emitting a Third World-country-size chunk of greenhouse gases to gather there, the world's largest oil company, Exxon Mobil, was doing something about it.

Sadly, media misfeasance (or malfeasance) has become such a common experience that it begins to look like a go-to story on Zero Hedge during slow news cycles. All we can say is that despite its increasingly droll repetition, we think media degradation in all its forms an important issue. So when, just for instance, the mainstream media jumps all over the Iranian "invasion" of Iraq to seize oil wells, despite the fact that the seizure of the well itself is only one of a rather unremarkable series of similar incidents in exactly the same disputed area going back years, and...

Energy: Earlier this year, Congress approved a scheme to pour $80 billion — on top of the tens of billions already spent — into renewables. A government report released last week indicates the money will be wasted. Renewable energy is the shiny gem that everyone wants but no one can have. Not even a president. Campaigning last year in Lansing, Mich., President Barack Obama said that it was his goal for the U.S. to generate 10% of its electric power from renewable sources by 2012 and 25% by 2025. But he cannot, by the force of will or executive order,...

With a h/t to Sissy Willis for one of these items. First, today via the AP. Can we significantly help solve our energy problems with natural gas? An unlikely source of energy has emerged to meet international demands that the United States do more to fight global warming: It's cleaner than coal, cheaper than oil and a 90-year supply is under our feet. It's natural gas, the same fossil fuel that was in such short supply a decade ago that it was deemed unreliable. It's now being uncovered at such a rapid pace that its price is near a seven-year...

According to a recent Congressional Budget Office report, the increased use of ethanol is responsible for a rise in food prices of approximately 10 to 15 percent. Why? We're turning corn into fuel — a highly inefficient one, at that — instead of food. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy points out that "mixing food and fuel markets for political reasons has done American consumers no discernable good, while producing measurable harm." However, perhaps summing up the issue most succinctly is Mark J. Perry, professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan-Flint: Anytime you have Paul Krugman agreeing...

Energy: An oil company wants to invest its profits in clean-burning American natural gas. A Hungarian billionaire and a "green" politician want to stop it. This is the real Climate-gate scandal. While the greenies of the world united in Copenhagen to talk about the weather, emitting a Third World-country-size chunk of greenhouse gases to gather there, the world's largest oil company, Exxon Mobil, was doing something about it. On Dec. 14, Exxon agreed to buy XTO Energy, a natural gas firm, in a deal valued at $41 billion. XTO is one of the leaders in something called "fracking" technology, in...

"...Feinstein's legislation would assist companies with projects currently proposed inside monument boundaries in relocating to federal energy zones being developed elsewhere. It would also permit construction of transmission lines within existing utility rights of way to facilitate the transfer of renewable energy generated in the Southern California desert and adjacent states. Some congressional Republicans accused Feinstein of engaging in a not-in-my-back-yard campaign when her plans for legislation restricting renewable energy projects in California deserts surfaced earlier this year."

Environ mental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide .. ABSTRACT A review of the research literature concerning the environmental consequences of increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide leads to the conclusion that increases during the 20th and early 21st centuries have produced no deleterious effects upon Earth’s weather and climate.

Nevada's stimulus-funded weatherization programs are living down to expectations of inefficiency and incompetence. What a surprise. Of all the debt-growing, make-work boondoggles crafted by Congress this year, the "green jobs" grants set aside to make low-income homes more energy-efficient left elected Democrats especially excited: "We're handing out welfare, creating jobs and saving the planet!" The state got $18.6 million in weatherization funds, with the condition that all the money be spent by June 30. About 1,850 homes with incomes at or below 200 percent of the poverty level were supposed to get new insulation, new caulking and the minor repairs...

A consortium led by China's top oil producer initialled a deal with Iraq on Tuesday to develop the southern Halfaya oil field, oil ministry spokesman Assem Jihad told AFP. "Yes, they signed the contract today," he said of the group made up of China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) and which also includes France's Total and Malaysia's Petronas. The three companies are aiming to increase production at Halfaya, which has proven reserves of 4.098 billion barrels of oil, to 535,000 barrels per day (bpd).

Unistar Nuclear Energy, which in 2007 became the first company in nearly 30 years to apply to build a new reactor in the US, bills itself as "the business model for a new generation of nuclear energy facilities." If that's so, taxpayers should be mighty concerned. In addition to its proposed flagship plant in the tiny Chesapeake Bay town of Lusby, Maryland, UniStar plans to build three more reactors in Missouri, New York, and Pennsylvania. But while UniStar estimates that these projects will cost up to $38 billion, the company, a joint venture between a French nuclear firm and US-based...

Energy-guzzling Christmas light displays are one holiday tradition that makes this mostly festive blogger cringe. How do you feel about Griswald-esque lawn spectacles? Call me what you will — Scrooge, wet blanket, hater, the bah humbuggy blogger who stole Christmas — but holiday scenes like the ones pictured above and below tend to make me think of global warming rather than good tidings; carbon footprints rather than Christmas cheer. Sure, there's an undeniable "wow" factor to a genuine, over-the-top holiday yard display but for me that "wow" is generally short-lived and overruled by thoughts along the lines of "good lord,...

According to Platts, China's apparent oil demand in November soared 18.7% from a year ago as the country's economic recovery picked up momentum. November's surge in oil demand marked the third straight month that the world's second largest oil consumer posted double-digit yearly growth in oil demand. Chinese oil demand was estimated to reach 33.67 million mt (8.22 million barrels per day) in November, versus 28.36 million mt a year ago, a Platts analysis of official data showed on December 21. November oil demand was slightly less than the 33.89 million metric tons (8.01 million b/d) seen in October. "China...

Iranian troops pulled back at least partially Sunday from an oil well along the border with Iraq which Baghdad claims as its own. Iraqi officials said an Iranian flag, which had reportedly been planted at the Fakkah oil field, some 450 kilometers south of the capital, had been removed. Around a dozen Iranian soldiers were involved in seizing the well along the ill-defined border, Iraqi officials had said. The war between the two countries in the 1980s left the status of some areas in the region unclear. Ali al-Dabbagh, an Iraqi government spokesman, said that while they pulled back, the...

An explosion and fire at a natural gas plant operated by Fairbanks Natural Gas LLC levelled a maintenance building in Point MacKenzie, Alaska, according to an official. "Trucks weren't damaged nor was the plant itself, according to a worker who was there," said Dennis Brodigan, emergency services director of the Matanuska Susitna Borough. "All gas to and from the plant has been secured." The cause of the fire was unknown, he said. The blaze in the maintenance building was being allowed to burn itself out. The explosion may have been caused by oil drums stored near the maintenance building being...

The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Thursday approved the $2.5-billion US Jordan Cove liquefi ed natural gas import terminal and related pipeline project that will help meet growing natural gas demand in the Pacific Northwest. The terminal, to be located on Coos Bay in Oregon, would provide up to one billion cubic feet of gas a day. The 377-kilo-metre Pacific Connector pipeline that was also approved by the commission would transport the terminal's gas to the Oregon-California border. The import terminal is owned by a subsidiary of Fort Chicago Energy Partners and the pipeline is a limited partnership between...

As cleanup continues on one of the biggest oil spills ever on Alaska's North Slope, criminal and civil investigations are under way into the circumstances of the pipeline's rupture. The criminal investigatory arm of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency joined with the FBI and others to examine what led the pipeline to split open in late November, officials said. An estimated 46,000 gallons of crude oil and water poured from a 2-foot-long gash onto the snowy tundra, cleanup officials say. "The (EPA) Criminal Investigation Division is continuing to work in concert with our federal and state partners, and British Petroleum,...

A vast reservoir of clean-burning natural gas could be available at reasonable cost in the coming years, freeing us from some of our dependence on imported energy. Yet there are those who consider such a development a threat. A small group of billionaires (and mere multimillionaires), formed under the aegis of the Democracy Alliance, has amassed a great deal of political influence in America on behalf of the Democratic Party and Democratic politicians. Among the more important members of this "club" are George Soros and his liberal allies, Herbert and Marion Sandler. The latter two are billionaire beneficiaries of the...

CALLICOON, New York (AFP) – After a lifetime struggling to make money from the land, New York farmer Bill Graby has discovered he's sitting on treasure -- possibly the biggest natural gas deposit in America. "It's like winning the lottery," says the 6.6-foot (two-meter) dairy farmer from the picturesque town of Callicoon in the Catskills hills. The deposit, called the Marcellus shale, stretches all the way from New York to Tennessee, containing 168 to 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to New York State's Department of Environmental Conservation. That dwarfs the previous big daddy, the Barnett shale in...

Washington, D.C. are reporting laboratory evidence supporting the possibility that some of Earth's oil and natural gas may have formed in a way much different than the traditional process described in science textbooks. Their study is scheduled for Nov./Dec. issue of ACS' Energy & Fuels, a bi-monthly publication. Anurag Sharma and colleagues note that the traditional process involves biology: Prehistoric plants died and changed into oil and gas while sandwiched between layers of rock in the hot, high-pressure environment deep below Earth's surface. Some scientists, however, believe that oil and gas originated in other ways, including chemical reactions between carbon...

An out clause exists for Exxon in its merger with XTO Energy if Congress decides to regulate hydraulic fracturing, reported Russell Gold of the Wall Street Journal’s Environmental Capital blog on Wednesday. Exxon will spend $41 billion to purchase XTO, an energy firm known for its expertise in natural gas drilling and production. XTO has invested heavily in the Marcellus Shale, a region in western New York and northern Pennsylvania which is home to large reservoirs of natural gas. However, obtaining this gas is difficult and requires the use of hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking, in which thousands of gallons of...

The Copenhagen summit achieved its main aim, to maintain the carbon-trading system established by the Kyoto Protocol, says Christopher Booker As fairy-tale snow gently descended on Copenhagen, the great global warming conference degenerated through pantomime, boredom, chaos and anger to its entirely predictable conclusion – a colossal pile of fudge with a very hard and nasty rock hidden at its centre. The "world summit" on climate change was never really going to be about saving the world from global warming at all. Even if the delegates had got all they wanted, it would no more have had any influence on...

Tehran denies Iraqi claim to borderline oil field, says troops are 'on Iranian soil, as defined by known international borders'. Iran confirmed Saturday that its forces had taken over East Maysan oil field, located on the Iran-Iraq border. The move caused a 2.4% spike in oil prices. "The Iranian forces are on Iranian soil, as defined by known international borders. This oil field is Iran's" said an Iranian armed forces statement quoted by the Islamic Republic Arab-language television station, al-Alam.

The Heritage Foundation’s Steven Groves and Ben Lieberman are live at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference reporting from a conservative perspective. Follow their reports on The Foundry and at the Copenhagen Consequences Web site.“Collapsing in chaos” is a phrase the media is using to describe the Copenhagen climate conference, and that certainly is the feeling among many here at the Bella Center. Little has gone right, and indeed many registered participants were never even let in. The Danish minister in charge has resigned. Now, those of us who managed to make it in may get turned away for the crucial...

An Irish company, Steorn, today began public demonstrations of an ‘over-unity’ device powered by rotating magnets. Developed over a six year period, the Orbo technology provides a new energy source to power electrical devices and cars. It is claimed to produce more energy than it consumes at a ratio of 3:1, which has led to considerable skepticism from the scientific community. In a Press Release, Steorn announced a six week period for public examination and evaluation in Dublin Ireland from December 15 to January 31, 2010. Plans exist to develop the Orbo technology for commercial production and distribution. If the...

An extraordinary recent statement by Sen. Robert Byrd has stunned his coal-dependent home state and left West Virginia politicians and business leaders scrambling to understand the timing and motivation behind his unexpected discourse on the future of the coal industry. In an early December op-ed piece released by his office — also recorded on audio by the frail 92-year-old senator — Byrd argued that resistance to constraints on mountaintop-removal coal mining and a failure to acknowledge that “the truth is that some form of climate legislation will likely become public policy” represent the real threat to the future of coal....

Many on the right view the Toyota Prius as a tree-hugger's feel-good car. They are much more expensive than non-tree-hugger cars of the same size, and while the mileage is better, the added cost of the vehicle will never equal the gas savings over the life of the car. But the enviro-buyers don't really care about the cost savings (if they did, why would they overpay for the car?). It is really only about one thing: showing the world that they care more about saving the planet than you or I do. To those of us in the global warming...

CANTON, Ohio, Dec. 18 /Christian Newswire/ -- Paul Schiffer, Republican candidate for Congress in Ohio's 16th Congressional District, has already written legislation to repeal last Monday's decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calling carbon dioxide a "pollutant." Paul Schiffer pledged to introduce and fight for this repeal in January 2011 after being elected in November 2010. Schiffer's legislation would leave in place all regulation of genuine pollution but exclude carbon dioxide from the definition of a pollutant in all Federal laws. This would strip the EPA of authority to regulate the carbon dioxide which plants breathe. It would also...

-- Iranian security forces seized oil well in southern Iraq, two senior Iraqi government officials say; Iran denies it.

PEORIA — A bipartisan coalition of members of Congress questions the Environmental Protection Agency's recent decision to delay increasing the ethanol blend wall in gasoline from 10 percent to 15 percent. U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Peoria, along with six of his colleagues sent a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson this week. Their letter said the EPA's decision inhibits their ability to improve the quality of fuels and help the nation realize energy independence. "There has been no evidence to demonstrate that the switch to the E-l5 blend will cause damage to vehicles, regardless of the vintage. Further, changing to...

Crude Oil Headed Lower? Commodities / Crude Oil Dec 17, 2009 - 09:47 AM By: INO The crude oil market continues to soften and is now close to some important levels that I think we should look at. In my new video we look at what is happening in this market right now and what we expect to happen in the future. As we have indicated in our earlier posts, we are now in the official “silly season” for trading. What I mean by that is the markets will be very thin, choppy and can be moved by a relatively...

If you've seen an Internet ad for capacitor-type power factor correction devices, you might be led to believe that using one can save you money on your residential electricity bill. However, a team including specialists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have recently explained* why the devices actually provide no savings by discussing the underlying physics. The devices—sometimes referred to as Amp Reduction Units or KVARs**—are touted as good investments because they reduce the amount of current drawn from power lines while simultaneously providing the necessary amount of current to appliances inside the house. Though engineers elsewhere...

Regulations: The Clean Water Act is being rewritten to give a government bureaucracy the power to regulate every body of water from the Mississippi River to a rain-flooded field. The first casualty may be American coal. With all the concern for the harm that cap-and-trade and regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant might do to the American economy and free markets, the Environmental Protection Agency is doing quite enough damage with an existing law on the books — the Clean Water Act. Congress plans to revise it to make it an even more powerful bludgeon against industry, energy producers and...

As so-called "cap-and-trade" legislation winds its way through Congress, many Americans want to know how they their country's energy future might be impacted if the legislation becomes law. Because the mainstream media isn't being too honest about the topic, they have to find alternative sources of information, including the blog you're reading now. Another good source for insight about this dangerous legislation is the Institute for Energy Research.

A collective gasp was heard when computer enhanced photographs depicting numerous wind turbine generators were shown in Lake Michigan off Pentwater harbor and Little Point Sable at informational meeting in Scottville Tuesday night. The photos were included as part of the public presentation before a full house at West Shore Community College by wind farm developer Scandia Wind LLC. “It’s (Lake Michigan) more beautiful without them. Even I recognize that,” said Harald Dirdal, a project manager with Havgul Clean Energy of Norway. Scandia Wind LLC is exploring the possibility of constructing an estimated $3 billion, 1,000 megawatt wind farm in...

The Public Service Commission voted 4-1 Tuesday to allow Tampa Electric to purchase solar energy from a West Palm Beach-based company in 2011 and charge its customers premium prices for it. The agreement allows Energy 5.0 to build a 25 megawatt plant next year and sell its electricity exclusively to TECO for a fixed price over the next 25 years. TECO will be allowed to charge its customers an estimated 52 cents a month beginning in 2011 to pay for the solar power,. The cost to customers would drop to 19 cents a month in 2035, and could be lowered...

Florida Power & Light will be required to lower its energy use by 3,082 gigawatt-hours by 2019 -- more than three times the amount the utility had proposed. The Public Service Commission voted unanimously Tuesday to require higher goals for all of Florida's major utilities. To achieve those goals, the utilities will have to consider providing discounts for measures such as compact fluorescent light bulbs. Florida utilities have opposed rebates for energy-saving programs that pay for themselves within two years because customers arguably don't need incentives for them.FPL, the state's largest utility, will have to spend more than $15 million...

I just got a free golf cart. Actually, it cost me $6,490 – but the dealer, Colin Riley of Tucson, Ariz., points out that there's a $6,480 federal tax credit on such vehicles. Riley runs ads that say: "FREE ELECTRIC CAR … !" Some consumers probably assume it's a car-dealer scam, but it's not. It's an Uncle Sam scam. The tax code is outrageously complex and damaging in many ways, but it is made especially complex and damaging when congressmen use it "creatively" to manipulate us into doing things they deem "socially constructive." These are things that always bestow advantages...

I just got a free golf cart. Actually, it cost me $6,490 -- but the dealer, Colin Riley of Tucson, Ariz., points out that there's a $6,480 federal tax credit on such vehicles. Riley runs ads that say: "FREE ELECTRIC CAR … !" Some consumers probably assume it's a car-dealer scam, but it's not. It's an Uncle Sam scam The tax code is outrageously complex and damaging in many ways, but it is made especially complex and damaging when congressmen use it "creatively" to manipulate us into doing things they deem "socially constructive." These are things that always bestow advantages...

Native Alaskan groups who depend on whaling and a coalition of environmental groups sued the federal government Tuesday, seeking to block a Shell Oil subsidiary from drilling next year in the Beaufort Sea. The Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission and the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, a federally recognized tribal government representing Alaska North Slope communities, asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a drilling plan the Minerals Management Service approved in October. Hours later, a coalition of 10 environmental groups and Arctic communities filed a second action with the San Francisco court, claiming the MMS did...

Lawmakers eager to trigger a renaissance of nuclear power in the United States have focused mostly on large reactors that can provide more than 1,000 megawatts of electric power, but two bills advancing in the Senate aim to spur smaller projects. Those small, modular reactors, which provide less than 300 megawatts and are built off-site, could take power to people living in remote regions, benefit the petrochemical industry and ease concerns about lethal nuclear material falling into the wrong hands, experts told a Senate panel Tuesday. Warren Miller, assistant secretary for nuclear energy in the Department of Energy, said small...

Cosco (China's container ship company) CEO is seriously investigating the creation of nuclear powered container ships. This site has already examined a study of the economics of nuclear power for commercial shipping. The study showed that a nuclear ship would be $40 million per year cheaper to operate when bunker oil is at $500/ton. Those studies had indicated improved economics when bunker fuel is over $300/ton. Bunker oil is currently about $375/ton. Also, changing to nuclear powered container ships would reduce air pollution by the equivalent of about 20,000 cars converted to electric per container ship that is converted. A...

We may never see plug-in airplanes, but the airline industry is one step closer to breaking free from the bonds of petroleum. Fifteen major airlines and air cargo companies just announced that they’re in negotiations to buy billions of gallons of alternative fuels - made from vegetable oil, coal, and petroleum coke. Some of it is the rebirth of an old tradition: aircraft have been burning coal-based alternatives to petroleum for nearly a century – but mainly under duress, such as when the international community placed an embargo on South Africa’s apartheid regime in the 1980s. Now a group of...