Free Republic

Recent news that a gas project in Queensland has been charged with environmental harm has put the spotlight on underground coal gasification, or UCG. Linc Energy’s Chinchilla project was a pilot UCG project which was completed in October 2013. Following a nine-month government investigation, the project now faces a potential fines of A$2 million over alleged “serious environmental harm”. The company has vowed to fight the charges, and claims regulation favours the rival coal seam gas industry. UCG, like coal seam gas (CSG), is an unconventional method of extracting gas from coal seams. It is also considered a “clean coal”...

Booming production of oil and natural gas has exacted a little-known price on some of the nation’s roads, contributing to a spike in traffic fatalities in states where many streets and highways are choked with large trucks and heavy drilling equipment. An Associated Press analysis of traffic deaths and U.S. census data in six drilling states shows that in some places, fatalities have more than quadrupled since 2004—a period when most American roads have become much safer even as the population has grown. “We are just so swamped,” said Sheriff Dwayne Villanueva of Karnes County, Texas, where authorities have been...

Despite official predictions that the U.S. energy boom will pop like a bubble in the next 20 years, people engaged in drilling for oil and gas—from the financiers to the frackers—see no end to boom times or low gas prices, industry insiders said in Chicago Friday.

Fresh government statistics reveal that two west Texas cities, Odessa and Midland, are leading the nation in income growth. The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis found between 2008 and 2012, while many cities saw significant decreases in personal income--Odessa and Midland led the nation with increases of 10.2 percent and 9.6 percent, respectively. According to the data, traditional leading markets like Los Angeles see roughly 10 percent of the population often unable to find a job. Odessa and Midland have the opposite problem. "We have issues filling our jobs," Sara Higgins, a spokeswoman with the City of Midland, told Breitbart...

The Obama administration is quite partial to taking credit for the widespread economic benefits of the shale boom — brought on by the freshly deployed technology of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling — despite the fact that the lion’s share of the production increase has happened on state and private lands while the federal government has deliberately slow-walked new drilling leases on the third of the surface area of the United States it controls (and let’s not even get started on the offshore drilling opportunities it has actively thwarted). This rule has held particularly true in Nevada, where the feds...

Fracking seems to be an issue at the top of many Coloradans minds in this political climate. It’s almost impossible to turn on a television or the radio (or even youtube for that matter) without hearing about it. Many say that to create a social change you must “train your army before you deploy it” and the most basic army that the left continually uses? Children. It makes sense, then, since there will be an effective fracking ban on the ballot this November, that the lefties are training and deploying their “army”. It’s always a little creepy to see them...

California loves to be seen as the trendsetter on energy and environmental policies. But can we really afford to adopt their laws and regulations in the rest of America? Heck, can the once Golden State afford them itself? The path to hell is paved with good intentions, counter-productive policies – and hypocrisy. The official national unemployment rate is stuck at 6.7% – but with much higher rates for blacks and Hispanics and a labor p labor participation rate that remains the lowest in 35 years. Measured by gross national product, our economy is growing at an abysmal 1.5% or even...

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A major supplier to the oil and gas industry says it will begin disclosing 100 percent of the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing fluid, with no exemptions for trade secrets. The move by Baker Hughes of Houston is a shift for a major firm; it's unclear if others will follow suit. The oil and gas industry has said the chemicals used are disclosed at tens of thousands of wells, but environmental and health groups and government regulators say a loophole that allows companies to hide chemical "trade secrets" has been a major problem. A statement on the...

Now, here’s something you won’t here on the mainstream news. Fracking has eliminated CO2 more than more than all of the solar panels and wind turbines in the world. John Stossel at FOX News reported: On my TV show this week, statistician Bjorn Lomborg points out that “air pollution kills 4.3 million people each year … We need to get a sense of priority.” That deadly air pollution happens because, to keep warm, poor people burn dung in their huts. Yet, time and again, environmentalists oppose the energy production most likely to make the world cleaner and safer. Instead, they...

The oil production technique known as fracking is more widespread and frequently used in the offshore platforms and man-made islands near some of California’s most populous and famous coastal communities than state officials believed. In waters off Long Beach, Seal Beach and Huntington Beach — some of the region’s most popular surfing strands and tourist attractions — oil companies have used fracking at least 203 times at six sites in the past two decades, according to interviews and drilling records obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request. Just this year in Long Beach Harbor, the nation’s second-largest...

A human oil spill spread across Dwinelle Plaza on Monday — a silent demonstration against fracking that is the first in a series of events to kick-start Earth Week 2014. The day after the four-year anniversary of the BP oil spill, about 20 students, clad entirely in black, circled and sprawled around a miniature wooden oil rig covered with protest signs. Protesters wanted to illustrate the environmental effects of fracking by using human bodies as symbols of the devastation. “An oil spill is a very visible and recognizable example of the corruption and destruction wrought by the fossil fuel industry,”...

Environmental groups cringe as some trade unions support oil and gas drilling, pipelines PITTSBURGH (AP) -- After early complaints that out-of-state firms got the most jobs, some local construction trade workers and union members in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia say they're now benefiting in a big way from the Marcellus and Utica Shale oil and gas boom.That vocal support from blue-collar workers complicates efforts by environmentalists to limit the drilling process known as fracking."The shale became a lifesaver and a lifeline for a lot of working families," said Dennis Martire, the mid-Atlantic regional manager for the Laborers' International Union,...

Opportunities for the West to hurt the Russian economy are limited, President Vladimir Putin said Thursday. Europe cannot stop buying Russian gas without inflicting pain on itself, and if the US tries to lower oil prices, the dollar will suffer. If the West tries to damage Russia’s influence in the world energy market, efforts will likely backfire, the Russian President said during his twelfth annual televised question and answer session. To really influence the world oil market a country would need to increase production and cut prices, which currently only Saudi Arabia could afford, Putin said. The president added he...

One of the criticisms levied against hydraulic fracturing, particularly during recent periods of drought, is the amount of water used in the process. However, energy companies are seeking to reduce water use during hydraulic fracturing, even as research shows more water is used in other activities. The numbers put things into perspective. The amount of water used to frack a well varies, but most reporting entities put the figure in a range of about 3 to 6 million gallons of water. In Pennsylvania, the average amount of water per well is about 4.4 million gallons, according to State Impact Pennsylvania,...

The story of rancher Cliven Bundy has captured an abundance of media attention and attracted supporters from across the West, who relate to the struggle against the federal management of lands. Bundy’s sister, Susan, was asked: “Who’s behind the uproar?” She blamed the Sierra Club, then Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), and then President Obama. She concluded her comments with: “It’s all about control”—a sentiment that is frequently expressed regarding actions taken in response to some endangered-species claim. An Associated Press report describes Bundy’s battle this way: “The current showdown pits rancher Cliven Bundy’s claims of ancestral rights to graze his...

"The Bureau of Land Management has just cashed in with $1.27 million in oil and gas leases in Nevada. This was just reported two weeks ago in ShaleReporter.com, which states: U.S. Bureau of Land Management geologist Lorenzo Trimble tells the Las Vegas Review-Journal the Elko County oil and gas leases sold Tuesday for $1.27 million to six different companies. The auction took place in Reno. The leases are near where Houston-based Noble Energy Inc. wants to drill for oil and natural gas on 40,000 acres of public and private land near the town of Wells. The Review-Journal reports the project...

Anadarko Petroleum, Chesapeake Energy and others will pay the state of Pennsylvania about $225 million in fees this year for drilling in the gas-rich Marcellus Shale — too little, according to critics of the state law setting the fee say. The fees, enacted in 2012, flow to local governments to fund basic needs like bridges, roads, firefighting equipment and environmental programs. By the end of the year, the recurring charges on nearly 6,500 natural gas wells will have brought more than $630 million to state coffers. “We are building a stronger Pennsylvania by harnessing our abundant resources to create jobs...

FERNHURST, England — Europe’s newest weapon in the battle of wills with Russian President Vladimir Putin lies buried deep beneath the ancient oaks and rolling green pastures of this quintessentially English village. There, wedged in the bedrock, lie vast quantities of oil and natural gas — enough, when combined with the spoils of hundreds of other sites like it, to help kick Europe’s addiction to Russian energy. Or so says David Cameron. Ever since Russian forces took hold of Crimea last month, the British prime minister has been leading a chorus of conservative politicians and energy executives in a refrain...

Earthquakes rattled residents in Oklahoma on Saturday, the latest in a series that have put the state on track for record quake activity this year, which some seismologists say may be tied to oil and gas exploration. One earthquake recorded at 3.8 magnitude by the U.S. Geological Survey rocked houses in several communities around central Oklahoma at 7:42 a.m. local time. Another about two hours earlier in the same part of the state, north of Oklahoma City, was recorded at 2.9 magnitude, USGS said. Those two were preceded by two more, at 2.6 magnitude, and 2.5 magnitude, that also rolled...

Eight House Democrats sent a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on April 1, requesting the agency reopen an investigation into the effects of fracking on groundwater contamination. Specifically, there were three major cases of suspected contamination – in Wyoming, Pennsylvania, and Texas – and the EPA has largely abandoned the issue and left regulation to the states. The Democrats called on the EPA to step up and protect communities in those states from the effects of fracking. “While we appreciate that states act as the major source of regulation for unconventional drilling operations, we believe the Environmental Protection...