Energy Exchange: Oil and Gas

Two high profile studies released this week by the National Petroleum Council paint a portrait of an industry asserting a positive role in the energy transition but struggling to act on what good science demands of it. The studies — one on natural gas, the other on hydrogen — were produced at the request of […]

The Biden administration paused approval of new facilities that would export liquified natural gas in order to study the impact of these projects on the climate. The Natural Gas Act charges the U.S Department of Energy with determining whether gas exports to certain countries are in the public interest. With the damage caused by climate […]

By Ari Pottens and Maureen Lackner New research confirms that cutting methane emissions from the oil and gas sector is one of the fastest and most affordable steps Canada can take to help address the climate crisis. According to the report by Dunsky Energy + Climate Advisors, Canada’s upstream oil and gas companies can eliminate […]

Texans know better than to believe the lies. But, whenever severe weather strikes the state and the isolated electric grid is imperiled, they’re always fed them: “Green energy” is offered up as the ultimate scapegoat, facts be damned. Why doesn’t the Wall Street Journal editorial board know better? Last week, they ran a piece blaming […]

Two New Jersey gas utilities owned by South Jersey Industries, SJI,— South Jersey Gas and Elizabethtown Gas — are petitioning the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, BPU, for approval to be acquired by JP Morgan-backed investment firm IIF. The companies’ proposal relies on a business model of continued expansion of the natural gas distribution […]

By Erin Murphy and Jevan Yu Methane emissions from natural gas gathering pipelines in the U.S. Permian Basin are at least 14 times greater than Environmental Protection Agency national inventory estimates, according to new peer-reviewed research from EDF, Stanford University and the University of Arizona. Gathering lines transport unprocessed gas from well sites to processing […]

The last two months have seen encouraging momentum in the effort to tackle emissions of methane — a greenhouse gas that drives over a quarter of current warming — and the practice of flaring, which is a major source of energy waste and methane pollution. Starting with last month’s Major Economies Forum, one of the […]

The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent climate change ruling has unfortunately restricted the tools available to EPA in its effort to address climate pollution from power plants. However, it’s also important to recognize that the ruling in no way changed EPA’s longstanding authority and duty to address climate pollution under the Clean Air Act to address […]

By Jeremy Proville and Kate Roberts This week we published a new study that combines locations of active oil and gas wells with census tract data in a way that helps us better understand the characteristics of the communities living near them. Our findings support what environmental justice groups have been voicing for years: in […]

By Ted Kelly The need to replace South Jersey’s leaking and leak-prone pipelines while planning to move New Jersey’s energy system away from fossil fuels became major news today when the Board of Public Utilities approved a settlement for the utility to address leaks in the gas system. South Jersey Gas is now one of […]

An ongoing methane leak involving several long-term idle wells in Southern California is raising safety concerns for nearby residents and highlights an important climate issue. Southern California has some of the worst air quality in the country, and leaks like these compound the negative impacts on some of the country’s most vulnerable populations. Both in […]

By Andrew Howell, CFA It’s annual general meeting season in the U.S. — when shareholders hold companies to account and press management to do better. A record 71 climate-related resolutions will be presented this year at public companies, more than double the number last year. But with a more ambitious suite of resolutions, fewer are […]

By Dan Grossman and Maureen Lackner Getting a comprehensive and accurate picture of the extent of methane emissions from the oil and gas industry is hard. Our scientists have spent much of the last decade detailing deficiencies and inaccuracies in the way companies — and even regulators — estimate emissions, which result in dangerous understatements […]

The New York Public Service Commission is taking decisive action to orient the state’s utilities towards a clean energy future, consistent with the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. In two new orders, the commission established a collaborative long-term planning process for gas utilities, put in place a framework for greenhouse gas emissions reporting for […]

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is alarming and wrong — recognized by governments across the political spectrum as a dangerous assault on peace and stability. How sad, then, that some columnists here in the United States are using it as an opportunity to spin up a partisan attack on the Biden administration’s energy policy. Instead of […]

By Jon Goldstein and Grace Weatherall Reducing the amount of methane emitted from oil and gas infrastructure is among the cheapest and simplest solutions we have to reduce global warming quickly while protecting public health. The Environmental Protection Agency is in the midst of developing rules to curb these emissions from oil and gas producers […]

The public comment period for the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed oil and gas methane rules generated more than 400,000 individual submissions, including many from energy and financial companies that support Biden administration efforts to reduce emissions of this powerful greenhouse gas. However, our analysis of comments from energy and investment companies shows a troubling divide […]

By Jon Goldstein and Ben Tettlebaum With responsibility over one-eighth of the nation’s landmass, the Bureau of Land Management has a lot of important jobs. Chief among them is ensuring federal and tribal lands — and the minerals beneath them — are wisely and responsibly managed on behalf of the public, including U.S. taxpayers and […]

Last week, at the United Nations annual climate conference, Canada joined over 100 other countries pledging to reduce 30% of global methane emissions by the year 2030. Methane is a fast-acting greenhouse gas responsible for over a quarter of human-caused global warming. Reducing methane emissions, along with carbon dioxide, is absolutely critical to limiting global […]

One of the biggest accomplishments from COP26 is the global consensus around the urgent need to reduce methane emissions. More than 100 countries representing more than two-thirds of the global economy promised to collectively reduce 30% of man-made methane emissions by 2030. The agreement follows recent analysis from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which […]