Oil | Grist

Trope-a-dope

Replace the “Saudi Arabia of wind/solar/etc power” trope 0
Posted 4 days ago
How many times have you heard that Place X is the "Saudi Arabia of solar power" or "Saudi Arabia of wind power" or "Saudi Arabia of geothermal"? Kate Galbraith of The New York Times' Green Inc. blog has heard it one too many times, so she's launched a contest for a new phrase to describe renewable energy potential.
Nigeria’s oil pollution is stark example of resource curse, says Amnesty International 2
Posted 5 days, 2 hours ago
The pollution caused by half a century of oil extraction in Nigeria is one of the world's most disturbing examples of the curse of natural resources, a global rights lobby group said Tuesday.
Our Oil Obsessed Civilization

The oil intensity of food 0
Posted 1 week, 3 days ago
Today we are an oil-based civilization, one that is totally dependent on a resource whose production will soon be falling. This prospect of peaking oil production has direct consequences for world food security, as modern agriculture depends heavily on the use of fossil fuels.
A tax to grind

House GOP unveils energy bill heavy on fossil fuels and nuclear power 13
Posted 3 weeks, 1 day ago
House Republicans have rolled out their own energy plan, the American Energy Act, intended to compete with the American Clean Energy and Security Act put forward by Democrats.
Energy Department changes tune on peak oil

It’s official—the era of cheap oil is over 44
Posted 3 weeks, 2 days ago
Every summer, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the U.S. Department of Energy issues its International Energy Outlook (IEO) -- a jam-packed compendium of data and analysis on the evolving world energy equation.
The legislation

The scoop on climate and energy bills in Congress 2
Posted 3 weeks, 3 days ago
What are the U.S. House and Senate doing about climate change and energy? Here's a rundown on legislation proposed in Congress this year.
How Much Does a Guilty Corporation Owe?

The Unsettling Case of Shell Nigeria 0
Posted 3 weeks, 3 days ago
FRAC Act

Congress introduces twin bills to control drilling and protect drinking water 1
Posted 3 weeks, 4 days ago
In a widely expected move that is sure to draw the ire of the oil and gas industry, Democratic members of Congress on Tuesday introduced twin bills to amend the Safe Drinking Water Act and give the Environmental Protection Agency authority over the controversial drilling process called hydraulic fracturing.
Goldman Sachs: Oil’s going to $85 by year end 0
Posted 1 month ago
Oil hit $67 a barrel yesterday, driven by the perception the global economy may have hit bottom, among other factors. Goldman Sachs raised its end of 2009 oil price forecast to $85 a barrel from $65.
Incurious George

Former Republican Sen. George ‘Macaca’ Allen shills for dirty energy 7
Posted 1 month ago
Hey, remember George Allen, the former Republican senator from Virginia best known for using the racist slur "macaca" on camera during his failed bid for reelection in 2006? Apparently, he's making his comeback as the Republican anti-climate bill poster boy, flacking for on behalf of the coal and oil lobbies.
Who's king now?

King Corn, meet Big Oil 2
Posted 1 month, 1 week ago
Back in March, Tom Philpott flagged some moves from Shell Oil and Valero Energy (the largest U.S. oil refiner) that indicated Big Oil was falling for biofuels. Now, the NYT shows Tom had it right.
CAFE serves up tasty emission cuts

Critique of auto standards misses how they save consumers money compared to gas taxes 1
Posted 1 month, 1 week ago
Robert Stavins thinks an increased gasoline tax or cap-and-trade would make Obama's tougher auto efficiency standards redundant. This offers an excellent illustration of how even economists who are not market fundamentalists can miss the way well-designed regulation improves economic efficiency.
Talkin' Bout Cogeneration

Two homeowners, one monster, and a cutting-edge power source 6
Posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago
There's a monster in the basement, but Peter and Edith are going to slay it. They're replacing their outdated furnace with a state-of-the-art micro-cogeneration system -- one of the first used in a residential setting.
Just the (industry-sponsored) facts

Chevron hires former CNN correspondent to spin report on Amazon destruction 0
Posted 1 month, 3 weeks ago
The New York Times has a great story about Chevron hiring a former CNN reporter to produce a "news" report to counter a 60 Minutes segment on the oil company's contamination of the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador.
$4 gas might be a lot more expensive than we realized

Oil prices and the recession 0
Posted 2 months, 1 week ago
Joe Blow

Joe Barton tries to stump Steven Chu with question about where oil comes from 3
Posted 2 months, 1 week ago
Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), a climate skeptic with some wacky theories of his own, tried to stump Energy Secretary Steven Chu at Wednesday's climate-bill hearing by asking, "How did all the oil and gas get to Alaska and under the Arctic Ocean?"
Ad hoch

Nearly $200 million spent on energy ads since Obama’s inauguration 7
Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago
Interest groups and corporations have spent $199.5 million on television ads on energy, the environment, and climate this year.
Postcard from Pipelineistan

The battle for control of Eurasia will shape the new world order 0
Posted 3 months, 1 week ago
What happens on the immense battlefield for the control of Eurasia will provide the ultimate plot line in the tumultuous rush towards a new, polycentric world order, also known as the New Great Game.

Our good ol' friend the nonsensical "Global War on Terror," which the Pentagon has slyly rebranded "the Long War," sports a far more important, if half-hidden, twin -- a global energy war. I like to think of it as the Liquid War, because its bloodstream is the pipelines that crisscross the potential imperial battlefields of the planet. Put another way, if its crucial embattled frontier these days is the Caspian Basin, the whole of Eurasia is its chessboard. Think of it, geographically, as Pipelineistan.
Lessons from the Exxon Valdez

Twenty years after the biggest oil spill in the U.S., we still have a lot to learn 0
Posted 3 months, 1 week ago
Tuesday marks 20 years since the Exxon Valdez dumped nearly 11 million of gallons of crude oil into Alaskan waters, resulting in the most severe impacts on the environment of any spill anywhere. I was there and will attest to the graveness of the situation then, and now -- my memories of that day are graphic. I boarded the tanker a few hours after the spill began to enforce clean-up standards. The pungent, toxic smell of the oil is still fresh in my memory today ...
Busted energy markets

Don’t make too much of current energy prices; they are disconnected from fundamentals 0
Posted 3 months, 2 weeks ago
There is a fair amount of hand-wringing over the recent collapse in energy prices, which is largely irrelevant to larger macro forces. This is critically important and horribly misunderstood throughout our current energy, environmental, and economic conversation.