President-elect Donald Trump wants to create millions of jobs by removing restrictions on American energy development, and the numbers seem to add up. Trump pledged in late November to “cancel job-killing restrictions on the production of American energy — including shale energy and clean coal — creating many millions of high-paying jobs.” A study found that the removal of drilling restrictions on federal lands and water could create 2.7 million energy jobs, while another 1.8 million could be [Read more]
Texas Now Has As Many Oil Rigs As Rest Of The Country Combined
The majority of new oil and natural gas drilling in the U.S. is happening in Texas, according to a report published Tuesday by the federal Energy Information Administration (EIA). American oil and gas drilling is increasingly concentrated in the Permian Basin, which spans parts of western Texas and southeastern New Mexico. The Permian now has nearly as many active oil rigs as the rest of the U.S. combined, according to an EIA report. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration Oil [Read more]
Batteries Necessary To Support Solar Power Don’t Exist, Making Green Energy Expensive
Batteries don’t work well enough to support solar power in a cost effective manner, according to research published Monday by Belgian scientists from the Université libre de Bruxelles. The scientists analyzed data from local energy suppliers, ran it through computer simulations and found it isn’t possible for homes to generate most of their own electricity from solar power and store it in batteries. Researchers determined that the batteries’ short lifetime and high prices [Read more]
Nobody Cares About ‘Peak Oil’ Anymore
Fewer people than ever are searching Google for the phrase “peak oil,” while “too much oil” searches are increasing, according to a chart published Monday by Bloomberg. “Too much oil” began outstripping “peak oil” in late 2015. “As interest in shale-led supply peaks, then naturally interest in the old concern of ‘Peak Oil’ has all but disappeared after the surge in focus on this during the mid-2000s,” Oswald Clint and Mark Tabrett, analysts for the energy research group Bernstein, told [Read more]
Iran Is Back In The Global Oil Game
Iranian oil production is surging after President Barack Obama ended years of sanctions, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Production is almost at 2011 levels, sparking conflict with the country’s rivals in the global oil market. #Iran tells #APPEC forum it's ready to raise #oil output to 4m b/d within 2-3 months #OOTT #OPEC #SaudiArabia pic.twitter.com/6en4LbcpGN — Javier Blas (@JavierBlas2) September 5, 2016 Iranian oil will certainly make the already sour relationship with Saudi [Read more]
Yale Poll: Global Warming Now More Polarizing Issue Than Abortion
Global warming is a more polarizing issue than gay marriage or abortion, according an Associated Press article citing a new Yale University poll. Yale researchers found only 17 percent of Americans are “extremely concerned” by global warming and want immediate action, while another 28 percent are “concerned,” but don’t think it’s an immediate problem. The poll estimates about 10 percent of Americans reject global warming’s scientific validity, and 11 percent think the science behind global [Read more]
90 North American Oil Companies Went Bust In Just 20 Months
Ninety North America oil and natural gas companies have gone under since January, 2015. The law firm Haynes and Boone reported earlier this month bankruptcies were driven by historically oil and natural gas prices. The average price of a barrel of oil in July of 2016 was $41.60, less than half the price oil barrels were selling for in the summer of 2014. Oil companies have discharged approximately $66.5 billion in aggregate debt in dozens of bankruptcy cases. Forty-four of the now bankrupt [Read more]
Dems Offically Slash ‘All Of The Above’ Energy Plan From Platform
The Democratic Party’s 2016 platform has done away with calls for an “all of the above” energy policy, instead embracing a goal of getting half of America’s power from “clean energy” within a decade. The phrase “all of the above” does not appear once in the 2016 platform, but the phrase “clean energy,” referring to wind and solar power, appears 27 times and references positive phrases such as “jobs,” “economy,” “superpower,” and “leadership.” The document dedicates an entire section of its [Read more]
Poll: 77 Percent Of Voters Agree With Trump, Want US To Produce More Oil And Gas
The majority of Americans agrees with Republican nominee Donald Trump’s pro-energy position announced in his nominee acceptance speech Thursday, according to a recent poll conducted by the American Petroleum Institute (API). “We are going to lift the restrictions on the production of American energy. This will produce more than 20 trillion dollars in job creating economic activity over the next four decades,” Trump said Thursday night when accepting the Republican nomination for president. [Read more]
Economists: Colorado Anti-Fracking Vote Costs $15 Billion And 100,000 Jobs
A Colorado ballot initiative that would ban hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, across 90 percent of the state could cost billions in lost economic output and more than 100,000 jobs, according to a study by economists at the University of Colorado. The initiative would block fracking within 2,500 feet of any “occupied structures” or “areas of special concern,” placing 90 percent of the state’s area and 95 percent of its energy development off limits, according to a government report. The [Read more]