Category: Fossil Fuels

Will the Extraction Industry’s Economic Turmoil Blight Colorado?

10/22/2020

Mark Schell’s family has farmed in Colorado since 1906 and even though he works as a certified public accountant, he hasn't left that way of life behind. About a year ago, Schell bought a 310-acre farm in Mead, Colorado, that he leases to someone else to raise crops. But he was spending more and more time there, trying to get Occidental Petroleum to clean up, or “plug,” old wells the company inherited when it bought Anadarko Petroleum in 2019. “(Occidental) started plugging these in April and then they told me they weren’t going to plug the rest of them...because they don’t have the money,” Schell said. - HCN

An aerial view shows gas wells encroaching on the Roan Plateau near the town of Battlement Mesa, Colorado.

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Exxon, Oil Rivals Shield Their Carbon Forecasts From Investors

10/19/2020

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There’s evidence oil majors do assess the climate consequences of their future plans. Exxon had internal projections, never made public, that showed a 17% rise in carbon-dioxide emissions over the next five years, according to company documents reviewed by Bloomberg. In a statement, Exxon said those projections were “a preliminary, internal assessment of estimated cumulative emission growth through 2025” and that its projections had since changed. - Bloomberg NEF via MSN

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US Fossil Fuel Giants Set for a $750 Billion Bond Coronavirus Bailout Bonanza

10/4/2020

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Fossil fuel companies and coal-powered utilities in the US are set for a potential bonanza under federal government plans for a bond bailout, part of the rescue package for the coronavirus crisis. At least 90 fossil fuel companies, many of them established giants such as ExxonMobil, Chevron and Koch Industries, stand to gain from the Federal Reserve’s coronavirus bond buyback programme, alongside more than 150 utilities including coal-heavy firms such as American Electric Power and Duke Energy, according to a new analysis. - The Guardian

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Dramatic Plunge in London Air Pollution Since 2016

10/4/2020

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London air pollution plunged since Sadiq Khan became mayor, with a 94% reduction in the number of people living in areas with illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide. The number of schools in such areas has fallen by 97%, from 455 in 2016 to 14 in 2019. Experts described the reductions as dramatic and said they showed the air pollution crisis was not intractable. More than 9,000 people in the capital were dying early each year due to dirty air in 2015. The report from the mayor of London, reviewed by scientists, shows that more than 2 million people in the capital lived with polluted air in 2016, but this fell to 119,000 in 2019. The report, which does not include the further falls in pollution seen after the Covid-19 lockdown began in March, shows levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) by roads in central London fell by 44% between early 2017 and early 2020. - The Guardian

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Colossal Crater Found in Siberia. What Made It?

9/30/2020

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This is just the latest in a series of such curious craters discovered in the Siberian Arctic, after the first was identified in 2014. Scientists believe they form from blasts of methane and carbon dioxide gas trapped within mounds of dirt and ice—a phenomenon that may be increasingly common as the climate warms. - National Geographic

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Charleston Sues Fossil Fuel Companies to Pay $2bn to Combat Climate Crisis

9/21/2020

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Charleston recently became the first city in the US south to sue large oil firms for damages, claiming they concealed knowledge that their product would heat up the planet and cause the sort of inundation that now bedevils many coastal cities around the world. Internal documents show oil companies knew from at least the 1960s that burning oil and other fossil fuels would cause the global temperature to rise, triggering heatwaves and causing the seas to rise due to rapidly melting glaciers. Charleston’s lawsuit claims that by obscuring these findings and funding a campaign of misinformation, the oil companies are liable for damage caused due to deception. “It’s tragic, just imagine what we could’ve done to avoid all this if they didn’t deceive everyone,” said John Tecklenburg, Charleston’s mayor, who said the world hasn’t seen such flooding “since Noah built the Ark”. - Guardian

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BP Report: Oil is Dying, Long Live Green Energy

9/15/2020

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BP stated in a forecast published today that oil may have reached its peak due to the pandemic and that renewables will take the place of fossil fuels. BP has released its 2020 Energy Outlook, which is remarkably different from its 2019 report, when BP’s base case only expected oil consumption to grow over the next decade, reaching a peak in the 2030s. The report looks at three scenarios to explore energy transition to 2050. BP writes that “the scenarios help to illustrate the range of outcomes possible over the next 30 years, ‎although the uncertainty is substantial and the scenarios do not provide a comprehensive ‎description of all possible outcomes.‎" - Elektrek & BP Energy Outlook Report

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Study: U.S. Fossil Fuel Subsidies Exceed Pentagon Spending

9/11/2020

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The US spent more subsidizing fossil fuels than on defense spending, according to a new report from the IMF which found that direct and indirect subsidies for coal, oil and gas in the U.S. reached $649 billion in 2015. Pentagon spending that same year was $599 billion. The study defines “subsidy” very broadly, as many economists do. It accounts for the “differences between actual consumer fuel prices and how much consumers would pay if prices fully reflected supply costs plus the taxes needed to reflect environmental costs” and other damage, including premature deaths from air pollution. These subsidies are largely invisible to the public, and don’t appear in national budgets. Broken down to an individual level, fossil fuel subsidies cost every man, woman and child in the United States $2,028 in 2015. - Rolling Stone

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Will the Extraction Industry’s Economic Turmoil Blight Colorado?

Exxon, Oil Rivals Shield Their Carbon Forecasts From Investors

US Fossil Fuel Giants Set for a $750 Billion Bond Coronavirus Bailout Bonanza

Dramatic Plunge in London Air Pollution Since 2016

Colossal Crater Found in Siberia. What Made It?

Charleston Sues Fossil Fuel Companies to Pay $2bn to Combat Climate Crisis

BP Report: Oil is Dying, Long Live Green Energy

Study: U.S. Fossil Fuel Subsidies Exceed Pentagon Spending

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