Category: Fossil Fuels

Carbon-Free Energy Required by 2050 Under ACC Proposal

11/21/2020

tates across the Southwest have adopted clean energy plans that regulate utility companies and work toward carbon-free goals. After lagging for several years, Arizona is starting to catch up. The Arizona Corporation Commission on Friday passed a proposal requiring utilities to be 100% free of carbon emissions by 2050 and meet particular benchmarks along the way. According to the commission, carbon free requires the use of resources that do not generate carbon emissions “resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels, such as coal, petroleum, natural gas, oil, shale, and bitumen.” Nuclear and hydroelectric generators are considered carbon free, as are wind and solar. The 4-1 vote initiated the commission’s formal rulemaking process, which includes opportunities for customer comment and will provide the foundation for a final commission vote in 2021. - Cronkite News

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Oil Field Operations Likely Triggered EQs in CA Near the San Andreas Fault

11/16/2020

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The way companies drill for oil and gas and dispose of wastewater can trigger earthquakes, at times in unexpected places. In West Texas, earthquake rates are now 30 times higher than they were in 2013. Studies have also linked earthquakes to oil field operations in Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and Ohio. California was thought to be an exception, a place where oil field operations and tectonic faults apparently coexisted without much problem. Now, new research shows that the state's natural earthquake activity may be hiding industry-induced quakes. - Phys.Org

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Shell Wants Biden to Reverse Methane Emissions Rollback

11/16/2020

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Royal Dutch Shell Plc will push for the reversal of President Donald Trump’s rollback of methane emissions rules and the introduction of carbon pricing when Joe Biden moves into the White House next year. “Some of the regulatory rollbacks that we’ve seen under the current administration haven’t actually benefited our industry,” Shell U.S. President Gretchen Watkins said Tuesday on a webcast hosted by the Greater Houston Partnership. The easing of direct regulation of methane emissions put the energy industry in a “backwards-facing position,” while the absence of carbon pricing makes it harder to incentivize new technologies like carbon capture, Watkins said. “Whoever is in the White House, we will work constructively with them and are actually very much looking forward to building that relationship with the new administration that’s coming in in January,” she added. - Bloomberg

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Occidental Petroleum Announces Net-Zero Target for greenhouse Gas Emissions

11/16/2020

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Occidental Petroleum Corp OXY.N on Tuesday laid out a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at its operations to net zero by 2040, becoming the latest oil and gas company to set long-term climate goals. Oil and gas producers, under pressure from investors who want to see the industry operate more cleanly, have announced new emissions targets this year even as they have slashed spending and production following a coronavirus-driven plunge in crude prices. Occidental will provide detail on its net-zero target by the end of November when it releases its sustainability report, Chief Executive Vicki Hollub said on an earnings call with analysts. - Reuters

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Trump Administration, in Late Push, Moves to Sell Oil Rights in Arctic Refuge

11/16/2020

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In a last-minute push to achieve its long-sought goal of allowing oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, the Trump administration on Monday announced that it would begin the formal process of selling leases to oil companies. That sets up a potential sale of leases just before Jan. 20, Inauguration Day. The Arctic refuge is one of the last vast expanses of wilderness in the United States, 19 million acres that for the most part are untouched by people, home instead to wandering herds of caribou, polar bears and migrating waterfowl. It has long been prized, and protected, by environmentalists, but President Trump has boasted that opening part of it to oil development was among the most significant of his efforts to expand domestic fossil fuel production. - NYTimes

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Blue Wave or Not, a Green Wave is Sweeping the Canadian Oil Patch

11/8/2020

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In a sign of the changing environment in the oil patch, North America’s largest pipeline company Enbridge Inc. set new net-zero emissions targets Friday and outlined how the company sees the global energy transition from carbon-based energy to renewables playing out over the next few decades. Enbridge’s target of net-zero emissions by 2050 aligns the Calgary-based pipeline and utilities giant with the country’s three largest oil producers Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., Suncor Energy Inc. and Cenovus Energy Inc., along with European oil majors Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Total SA and BP Plc. — all of whom have adopted net-zero targets. - Financial Post

“We’re going to need all sources of supply to meet demand until at least 2040 and very likely beyond,” said Enbridge president Al Monaco.

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New Mexico’s Oil Fields Have a Sinkhole Problem

11/5/2020

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On a July morning in 2008, the ground below southeastern New Mexico began to shift and crack, shooting a huge plume of dust into the air. Within minutes, a massive sinkhole emerged, which eventually grew to roughly 120 feet deep and 400 feet in diameter.
“At the time, it was an unfortunate situation, but most people considered it to be a one-off,” says Jim Griswold, a special project manager with New Mexico’s Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department. But a few months later, in November, dust once again streamed toward the sky as another similarly sized sinkhole opened, cracking a nearby roadway. - High Country News

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Will the Extraction Industry’s Economic Turmoil Blight Colorado?

10/22/2020

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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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<<Previous

Carbon-Free Energy Required by 2050 Under ACC Proposal

Oil Field Operations Likely Triggered EQs in CA Near the San Andreas Fault

Shell Wants Biden to Reverse Methane Emissions Rollback

Occidental Petroleum Announces Net-Zero Target for greenhouse Gas Emissions

Trump Administration, in Late Push, Moves to Sell Oil Rights in Arctic Refuge

Blue Wave or Not, a Green Wave is Sweeping the Canadian Oil Patch

New Mexico’s Oil Fields Have a Sinkhole Problem

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

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