oil and gas
The Dim Outlook for Trump Energy Dominance
About the best he can hope for in the long run is to maintain the status quo.
U.S. oil is seeing a future of declining U.S. and global demand for gasoline and diesel, with U.S. production also remaining stagnant. The future for natural gas production is looking rosier given increasing energy demand and possible growth in U.S. exports. From the perspective of the oil industry, this is probably an optimistic forecast. It assumes that there are no major advances in battery technology that would further accelerate adoption of EVs or sharp decreases in the price of solar. It also assumes that nuclear power doesn’t expand globally, and that other countries are willing to trust the U.S. as a source of a vital energy resources.
CONTINUE READINGWord on The Street
The Wall Street Journal’s news coverage of EVs is surprisingly positive.
You might expect the Wall Street Journal to take a dim view of electric vehicles, given the paper’s conservative slant. You’d be wrong. The Journal’s news coverage, which is less ideological than the opinion page, tells us something important. In a newspaper designed for businesspeople, electric vehicles are taken very seriously. That’s good news for the industry.
CONTINUE READINGThe National Security Scam
Just about everything gets labeled an emergency or national security threat these days. The courts may be starting to catch on.
The Trump Administration invokes national security and declares national emergencies to justify all manner of actions such as excusing violation of environmental laws. Past Administrations have gotten strong deference for their emergency claims. But this one may be quickly using up its credibility. You can pass a certain number of counterfeit bills, but a flood of counterfeits is hard to hide.
CONTINUE READINGTroubled Waters
We’re seeing increasing signs of a malfunctioning US water system.
Water problems are popping up all over. Literally so, in at least one case. In the Permian basin, geysers of toxic wastewater are erupting. The water was pumped underground as part of the basin’s massive fracking operations. Fracking produces five or six barrels of wastewater for every barrel of oil. High pressure underground is pushing wastewater into oil and gas basins as well as threatening drinking water aquifers. We’ve been taking our ability to obtain water and manage discharges for granted, just as we tend to take plumbing for granted except when it starts leaking or breaking down. It appears that our neglect is beginning to catch up with us.
CONTINUE READINGTurning Methane Pledges into Action
Inside Canada’s 2025 Enhanced Methane Regulations
While transitioning away from fossil fuels and accelerating renewable energy deployment remains the ultimate goal, we need to minimize the climate impact of the existing oil and gas industry. According to the Global Methane Budget, human activity is responsible for roughly 60% of the 580 million tonnes of methane entering the atmosphere every year. The …
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CONTINUE READINGGas Pains
Higher gas prices are inflicting real pain on lower-income families.
Commentators seem bemused by the intense political reaction to gasoline prices, which are up by about a dollar a gallon due to the war. No doubt the reaction is accentuated because gas prices are highly visible. People buy gas frequently and even more frequently see signs posting the prices. But to a greater extent than many in the upper income distribution appreciate, the actual economic pain is very real. Current price increases presumably won’t be permanent, but the problem isn’t going to go away quickly and might well get worse.
CONTINUE READINGGuess What? The Next 2 Weeks Are “National Energy Dominance Month”
October 17-31 has now been proclaimed to be an entire month, courtesy of Trump.
“National Energy Dominance Month.” So typical of Trump: a bungled exercise in foolish bravado. The “bungled” part is that they forgot to designate October as a special month until it was halfway over. The “bravado” saturates almost every sentence, combined with the fact that the blustering has no practical effect. And the “foolish” part is about bad energy policy and bad economics. To expand supply, he needs higher prices, but that would hurt him politically. And there’s no reason to think foreigners would pay them.
CONTINUE READINGSome Good News About the El Segundo Chevron Explosion
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
When the state’s second-largest refinery emitted a fireball into the heavens last week, it was bad. But it wasn’t all bad. The “incident” at the Chevron refinery in El Segundo was a good reminder that air pollution is present during the entire life cycle of oil and gas products, from when it comes out of …
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CONTINUE READINGReconciliation and Public Lands Part 2
Final legislation is narrower than House bill, focused on fossil fuel leasing on federal lands.
As a (belated) follow-up from my post this summer about the House version of the reconciliation bill, here is a summary of the key public lands provisions of the reconciliation bill as finally enacted. In general, the scope of what is covered is substantially less than what was in the House bill, in part because …
Continue reading “Reconciliation and Public Lands Part 2”
CONTINUE READINGTrump & Environmental Policy: The Sequel, Part I
Expect a lot of the same, but there could be some new twists.
They say that history never repeats itself, but it often rhymes. As in many sequels, there will be many things we’ve seen before. Much of that consisted in an all-out attack on environmental law. If you hated the original, you won’t enjoy watching the same thing the second time around. This will include massive regulatory rollbacks and expansion of fossil fuels regardless of environmental harms.
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