Free Republic

Over the past three years, dozens of cities across the country have banned natural gas hookups in newly constructed buildings as part of a growing campaign to reduce carbon emissions from homes. The movement scored a major victory last month, when New York City’s outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio signed into law a ban on gas hookups in new buildings. Though new laws apply to the entire home, the policy debate often focuses on one room in particular: the kitchen. Gas stoves account for a relatively small share of the emissions released by a typical household, but they’ve become a...

German Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht on Thursday warned against drawing a link between the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, meant to transport natural gas from Russia to Germany, and the differences with Moscow over Ukraine. "We should not drag (Nord Stream 2) into this conflict," Lambrecht told the broadcaster rbb in an interview. "We need to solve this conflict, and we need to solve it in talks - that's the opportunity that we have at the moment, and we should use it rather than draw a link to projects that have no connection to this conflict."

President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov wants to extinguish the flames of the “Gates of Hell” – a gas crater that has been blazing for decades. The site, also called “Door to Hell,” is located in the middle of the desert about 160 miles north of the capital, Ashgabat, and has become an attraction for the country’s few visitors. The hellish hole, which measures 190 feet wide and 70 feet deep, was formed in 1971 following a Soviet Union gas drilling collapse, according to Turkmen news site Turkmenportal.

Huge cargo ships carrying liquid gas that were destined for China have changed course and are now heading towards the UK as Europe remains trapped in a major supply crunch. While the Continent’s energy crisis and high prices have attracted ships away from other parts of the world, the new arrivals are now bringing prices down. Benchmark Dutch front-month gas fell for a fifth day yesterday, dropping as much as 9.2pc in Amsterdam. The UK gas price rocketed to a record 470p per therm last week, up from just 50p in April, but has since fallen to under 270p. James...

The European Union’s executive Commission is considering whether to include nuclear and natural gas in its “sustainable finance taxonomy”, a rulebook that will restrict which activities can be labelled as climate-friendly investments. “We are going to have most likely a discussion tomorrow in college, which then will lead… to approval next year,” EU environment commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius told a news conference on Monday, referring to the Commission’s weekly “college” meeting.

In a vote Wednesday, New York's city council approved a ban on natural gas in newly constructed buildings, joining cities like San Jose and San Francisco that have made similar commitments to reduce emissions. Moving away from natural gas means that stoves and heat pumps will be powered by electricity instead, cutting down on carbon emissions. Nearly 40% of carbon emissions in the country — and more than half of New York City's emissions — come from buildings. The new ban, with 40 votes in the affirmative and seven votes against the measure, applies to buildings that are seven stories...

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City lawmakers are poised to decide Wednesday whether to prohibit most new buildings from using natural gas, a move that would make the nation’s most populous city a showcase for a climate-change-fighting policy that has been both embraced and blocked around the country. The measure is expected to pass the City Council and subsequently receive Mayor Bill de Blasio’s signature. If all that happens, most construction projects submitted for approval after 2027 would have to use something other than gas or oil — such as electricity — for heating, hot water and cooking. Some...

At a time when the Biden administration is panicking in an attempt to keep energy prices down, the House has slapped a "fee" on methane that is being called a "stealth tax" on natural gas and everyone who uses it.The House bill results in an "escalating tax on methane emissions by oil and gas producers," a new op-ed in the Wall Street Journal points out. The tax will hit $1,500 per ton by 2025 and the fee is supposed to be a contribution to recent promises made in Glasgow to curb methane emissions.The cost of the fee will obviously get...

BEDFORD, Ind. (AP) — General Motors is planning a $51 million upgrade at its aluminum die casting foundry in southern Indiana to support manufacturing of the upcoming electric Chevrolet Silverado pickup. GM said it will install state-of-the-art equipment at its sprawling Bedford plant, which this year began producing electric drive unit castings for the 2022 GMC Hummer EV Pickup and 2024 GMC Hummer EV SUV, The Herald-Times reported. Production of the 2022 GMC Hummer EV Pickup will begin this month at GM’s Factory ZERO assembly plant, located in Detroit and Hamtramck, Michigan. “This investment is another example of the company...

SANTA FE – The oil and gas industry injected nearly $5.3 billion into the budgets of state and local governments in the past fiscal year – a record amount, according to a report released Wednesday by the New Mexico Tax Research Institute and New Mexico Oil and Gas Association. The association celebrated the report and highlighted the industry’s critical contribution to government revenue. The 30-page report estimates that oil- and gas-derived income made up 35% of all general-fund revenue for the state budget last year – a share exceeded only once in the most recent eight-year period. In raw numbers,...

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Friday recommended an overhaul of the nation’s oil and gas leasing program to limit areas available for energy development and raise costs for oil and gas companies to drill on public land and water. The long-awaited report by the Interior Department stops short of recommending an end to oil and gas leasing on public lands, as many environmental groups have urged. But officials said the report would lead to a more responsible leasing process that provides a better return to U.S. taxpayers. “Our nation faces a profound climate crisis that is impacting every American,″...

A federal judge on Monday issued a nationwide injunction on President Joe Biden’s executive order to halt oil and gas operations on all federal lands in the name of fighting so-called climate change.

Spire Energy, a natural gas firm that supplies 1.7 million homes in Missouri, Alabama, and Mississipi warned custormers in an email that a federal review of the STL Pipeline could jeopardize their energy supply. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) will discuss revoking the pipeline’s permit during a Nov. 18 hearing. In an email to customers, Spire Energy president Scott Carter wrote that “The STL Pipeline was built to support your energy needs, along with those of more than 650,000 homes and businesses in the St. Louis region,” adding that “Since 2019, this safe, fully operational pipeline has been bringing...

Retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, who led U.S. Army Europe until 2017, said he believes Russia's actions over the last year, including the troop buildup along the Ukrainian border in March and alleged involvement in fostering a migrant crisis at the Polish-Belarusian border, are strategic in nature."This is part of an ongoing process to undermine Ukrainian government, to present Ukraine to the West as a failed state so that there is no further effort to integrate Ukraine into the West, into the EU ... or NATO," Hodges said.Russia is being further emboldened by the European Union's failure to apply more...

United States agricultural suppliers are sounding the alarm over the rising cost of fertilizers that threatens to lower crop yields and worsen strains on global food supplies. “It’s put a stranglehold on us,” said John Ortiz, sales manager at BigYield.us in Garden City, Missouri, an organization focused on creating strategies that increase the size and quality of crops grown on the farm using liquid nitrogen-based fertilizers. “You’re always going to need seed. You’re always going to need fertilizer” to grow crops on a large scale, Ortiz told The Epoch Times. “People need to eat.” Fertilizers have been in short supply...

New EPA methane-emission regulations will strangle domestic oil production, enrich our adversaries, and damage the global environment. Biden administration is escalating its war against the American oil industry. According to an article in the November 2, 2021, Wall Street Journal, Biden’s EPA will soon issue regulations requiring that all associated natural gas released in conjunction with oil production be put in pipelines for delivery to market: The Environmental Protection Agency would seek for the first time to regulate methane at existing wells nationwide, a move smaller producers fought for years. The move would place roughly a million new and existing...

High natural-gas prices today mean your electricity and heating bills will likely be expensive this winter. Next year, it could mean you will end up paying more to eat and to fill up your car. In Europe, where natural gas is almost six times as expensive as it was a year earlier, fertilizer companies—including Norwegian company Yara, as well as BASF and Borealis—have announced curtailments as a result of expensive gas. Fertilizer production in the region has dropped as much as 40% as a result of tight supplies, according to CME Group. Natural gas can account for up to 85%...

Hertz, the car rental agency, said Monday that it had placed an order for 100,000 Teslas, a sign of growing momentum in the shift to electric vehicles. By the end of next year, when the Tesla order is completed, electric vehicles will make up more than 20% of Hertz’s global vehicle fleet, the company said. Hertz said it was teaming with NFL quarterback Tom Brady to promote its EV offerings in a marketing campaign. “Electric vehicles are now mainstream, and we’ve only just begun to see rising global demand and interest,” Mark Fields, Hertz’s interim chief executive, said in a...

The expanding energy crisis is causing propane to rocket higher (read: here) as supplies dwindle to below seasonal levels as research firm IHS Markit Ltd. warns of “armageddon” during the Northern Hemisphere winter. IHS analyst Edgar Ang told attendees during a virtual presentation on Tuesday that US propane inventories are at a record low and will be extremely tight as cold weather is ahead. Mean temperatures in the Lower US 48 are expected to dip into the 60-55F range through the end of this month. Heating degree days are set to soar by month end, suggesting the heating season has...

Coal-fired electricity generation climbed this year in the U.S. for the first time since the Obama administration, spurred by spiking natural gas prices, a setback for the Biden climate agenda and a sign that the president’s drilling crackdown may be backfiring. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said Monday that electricity generated by coal-fired plants is expected to jump by 22% in 2021 over last year’s levels for the first year-over-year increase since 2014. The reason: the rising cost of natural gas, which began climbing in April and hit a 13-year high this month, fueled by pent-up pandemic demand that has...