Free Republic

The Trump administration is developing an order to open new areas to offshore oil and gas drilling, reversing former President Barack Obama’s unilateral decision to lock up most of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, according to industry sources. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke told industry representatives the new drilling plan would be signed soon, according to Bloomberg. However, he gave few details on what the order could include. The Department of the Interior’s (DOI) new five-year offshore drilling plan could take years to develop and would replace the Obama administration’s five-year plan finalized in November. President Donald Trump promised...

OSLO, Norway – Recent research from Rystad Energy shows that oilfield service companies should begin recruiting later this year following the significant workforce reduction in the industry throughout 2014 to 2016. Service companies working within the shale sector are already starting to recruit again, the analyst firm said, after the top four service companies, all of which were exposed to the US land market, were forced to lay off between 30-40% of their workforce. Rystad found that companies exposed to more of the international market have cut more modestly, in the range of 20-30%. “Among the top 50 service companies,...

China is now the largest foreign buyer of U.S. oil, according to new data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). U.S. crude oil exports in February jumped 35 percent from a month earlier, according to EIA. This rise in total exports caused China to start buying American oil. China purchased more oil because the U.S. was selling more. China’s dramatic economic growth over the last decade has fueled its lust for oil, and demand has long surpassed their oil industry’s production capabilities. As China’s need for oil imports rose, imports heading into the U.S. fell due to the hydraulic...

An expensive solar road project in Idaho can’t even power a microwave most days, according to the project’s energy data. The Solar FREAKIN’ Roadways project generated an average of 0.62 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity per day since it began publicly posting power data in late March. To put that in perspective, the average microwave or blow drier consumes about 1 kWh per day. On March 29th, the solar road panels generated 0.26 kWh, or less electricity than a single plasma television consumes. On March 31st, the panels generated 1.06 kWh, enough to barely power a single microwave. The panels...

As opponents of the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline continue to fight the project, others who believe it will stimulate the economy recently ensured their voices were heard, sending hundreds of letters expressing a positive view of the pipeline to U.S. lawmakers. The Mid-Atlantic Region of the Laborer’s International Union of America (LIUNA), a union of construction workers and public service employees, on Friday hand-delivered about 1,600 letters from workers to U.S. Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner. The letters express support for the proposed $5 billion natural gas pipeline, which would run about 600 miles from West Virginia to North...

SAINT-PAUL-LEZ-DURANCE, France — At a dusty construction site here amid the limestone ridges of Provence, workers scurry around immense slabs of concrete arranged in a ring like a modern-day Stonehenge. It looks like the beginnings of a large commercial power plant, but it is not. The project, called ITER, is an enormous, and enormously complex and costly, physics experiment. But if it succeeds, it could determine the power plants of the future and make an invaluable contribution to reducing planet-warming emissions. ITER, short for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (and pronounced EAT-er), is being built to test a long-held dream: that...

Full title................The War on Coal is over! President Trump signs executive order to roll back Obama-era environmental regulations .............................. President Donald Trump paid a visit to the Environmental Protection Agency today to sign an executive order that would roll back Obama's climate actions Coal miners were invited to the event as the president proclaimed that his administration 'is putting an end to the War on Coal' Trump will initiate a review of the Clean Power Plan, which he has labeled as a job killer

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump will roll out a new executive order on Tuesday that eliminates several Obama-era climate change orders in favor of policies centered on energy independence. A senior administration official said that the coming EO will review some and take other Obama executive orders “off the books immediately to the extent we can,” while also looking forward to providing a “beginning framework for a strategy on energy.” Under the new order, each executive department and agency in the U.S. government will be responsible for identifying impediments to energy production. Energy policy under the order will stay...

PARIS - Total announced Monday that it is entering into a joint venture to expand their plants in Port Arthur and Bayport. The company, headquartered in Paris, will hold a 50% interest in a new joint venture with Borealis and Nova1 to build an ethane steam cracker in Port Arthur and a new Borstar polyethylene unit in Bayport according to a release from the company. The new $1.7 billion cracker in Port Arthur is scheduled for a 2020 startup and is expected to create about 1,500 jobs according to the release. CB&I has been awarded the engineering, procurement and construction...

Environmental activists vowed over the weekend to fight the Keystone XL oil pipeline to the bitter end, insisting the Trump administration’s approval of the long-delayed project will not be the final word. Powerful green groups are launching a two-pronged strategy to block the pipeline in the streets and in the courts. First, they intend to use a state review process in Nebraska — where Keystone still does not have a legal route, despite federal approval of the project — to delay any movement forward. Nebraska state officials charged with approving the pipeline’s path say a decision shouldn’t be expected until...

In one fell swoop, every utility’s claim of “smart meters do not spy on you” is now dissolved. Their myth is now shattered. In a cutesy marketing video, shown below, global data analytics company Onzo admits to helping utilities surveil and profile their customers — and sell direct surveillance access to their customers’ homes. “We use this characterized profile to give the utility… the ability to monetize their customer data by providing a direct link to appropriate third-party organizations based on the customer’s identified character.” Watch Onzo’s rather jaw dropping 90-second marketing video: [see video and more at source article]

On Tuesday, President Trump will announce new executive orders that target EPA regulations that hindered electricity production in the United States. The regulations were created by the Obama administration as part of an anti-fossil fuel strategy to combat global warming. With the installation of a new EPA chief, Scott Priutt - a confirmed global warming skeptic - the electricity production sector of the economy is about to receive a much needed shot in the arm. Pruitt says that the White House plan is both "pro-jobs and pro-environment" and, unlike the Obama plan, will not be "tethered" to the Paris Climate...

Last week President Trump unveiled his budget blueprint, which detailed savage cuts to most areas of discretionary spending while boosting defense outlays by a whopping $54 billion. Nearly all government agencies were major losers under the President’s budget, except for those dealing with defense and border security. The Department of Energy would see a 5.6 percent cut, or a reduction of $1.7 billion. But digging into those numbers, certain areas of DOE were winners while others were losers. Areas of DOE dealing with clean energy, smart grid technologies, and electric vehicles are either entirely eliminated or suffer steep cuts. Meanwhile,...

Oil fell as a U.S. drilling revival undermines the potential for OPEC output curbs to rebalance the market. Futures dropped as much as 1.9 percent in New York. Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih said on March 16 that the kingdom may extend its cuts if supplies stay above the five-year average. A day later, though, data showed the U.S. rig count growing for a ninth week, and a Libya official said Sunday that the Es Sider and Ras Lanuf ports are preparing to restart oil exports.

Energy giant Repsol has found the largest onshore U.S. oil find in 30 years. Oil exploration that started in 2008 has paid off for Spanish oil company Repsol and its U.S. partner, Armstrong Energy. Roughly 1.2 billion barrels of light crude are available in Alaska’s North Slope and ready to come up in 2021. “The successive [exploration] campaigns in the area have added significant new potential to what was previously viewed as a mature basin,” the company said in a statement posted to its website on Friday. “Additionally Alaska has significant infrastructure which allows new resources to be developed more...

If you listen to the media narrative on climate change and "clean energy," you'd think that the rest of the world has moved smartly and seamlessly toward 21st century green energy while the U.S. is the high-polluting laggard that just won't get with the program to save the planet. Think again. The green energy revolution around the world has turned into a big green meltdown, with many nations sprinting away from "renewable" energy with the speed of Usain Bolt. Here are a few of the latest news flashes from Europe and Asia. In Germany, the world leader in green energy,...

Some 1.2 billion barrels of oil have been discovered in Alaska, marking the biggest onshore discovery in the U.S. in three decades. The massive find of conventional oil on state land could bring relief to budget pains in Alaska brought on by slumping production in the state and the crash in oil prices. The new discovery was made in just the past few days in Alaska’s North Slope, which was previously viewed as an aging oil basin. Spanish oil giant Repsol and its privately-held U.S. partner Armstrong Energy announced the find on Thursday, predicting production could begin as soon as...

Researchers have successfully used graphene to reinvent abandoned heat energy converter technology and to make it more efficient. This will be used to boost the output from older power stations. Power station efficiency has been substantially increased by utilizing satellite-powering technology that was abandoned many years ago. The technology has been reconfigured to function with traditional power stations to aid the conversion of heat to electricity (what’s called thermionic energy conversion) more efficiently. In better news for the environment, this means lower amounts of fossil fuel will be needed to be burnt to produce equivalent amounts of power. Much of...

The House of Delegates has approved a bill to permanently ban natural gas fracking in Western Maryland. The bill passed by a vote of 97-40. The 97 votes is 12 more than the minimum of 85 needed to override a veto from Governor Larry Hogan. That majority was important to the chairman of the committee hearing the bill in the Senate. The chairman of the Senate Education Health and Environmental Affairs Committee, Joan Carter Conway of Baltimore City, says she won’t bring the bill to the Senate floor unless lawmakers have enough votes to override a possible veto from Governor...

Shell has struck a deal to sell all its oil sands production assets in Canada, except for a 10-percent stake in the Athabasca Oil Sands Project, as part of its $30-billion divestment program aimed at reducing its debt load that it accumulated with the acquisition of BG Group. The total net value of the deal is $7.25 billion, and the buyer is Canadian Natural Resources, which will partner with Shell on another deal: the acquisition of Marathon Oil Canada Corporation, which has a 20-percent stake in the AOSP. The stake will be split equally between the partners, each contributing $1.25...