President Obama exuberantly embraced America’s new oil and gas frontier this week in his State of the Union address. Clearly aiming to steal some Republican election thunder, he pledged to open 75% of potential oil and gas resources, and repeated claims that the US is sitting on enough natural gas to last for 100 years (see insightful commentary on the numbers behind this from Chris Nelder, and more on gas prospects from David Strahan.

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President Obama exuberantly embraced America’s new oil and gas frontier this week in his State of the Union address. Clearly aiming to steal some Republican election thunder, he pledged to open 75% of potential oil and gas resources, and repeated claims that the US is sitting on enough natural gas to last for 100 years (see insightful commentary on the numbers behind this from Chris Nelder, and more on gas prospects from David Strahan.

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Social scientists often cite the handicap that we are not permitted to conduct experiments on humans as an excuse for why social science advances more slowly than the physical sciences. But fracking provides an interesting social experiment playing out right before our eyes. In Pennsylvania, gas and natural resource companies have been sufficiently powerful to prevent passage of a statewide ban on fracking; as a result 8000 permits have been issued and 4000 wells dug since 2008. Just across the Delaware River, New York State has issued a temporary ban on fracking in Marcellus Shale pending release of a study and new regulations by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. The issue has become so controversial that the NYSDEC report may now be delayed until 2013.

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-Shale Gas a Bridge to More Global Warming
-REPORT: Venting and Leaking of Methane from Shale Gas Development:
Response to Cathles et al.
-Dueling Research: Fracked Shale Gas Worse For Climate Change Than Coal! Or, The Opposite!

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-Fossil fuels are sub-prime assets, Bank of England governor warned
-The real beneficiaries of energy subsidies
-Podcast: How Equity and Economics Will Drive Climate and Energy Stories in 2012
-Companies and tax authorities can all benefit if they work together

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A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-The Iranian confrontation
-The Euro crisis
-China
-Quote of the week
-Briefs

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A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-The Iranian confrontation
-The Euro crisis
-China
-Quote of the week
-Briefs

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This is a story about water, the land surrounding it, and the lives it sustains…But for once, this story isn’t about tragedy. It’s about a resistance movement that has arisen to challenge some of the most powerful corporations in history.

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This is a story about water, the land surrounding it, and the lives it sustains…But for once, this story isn’t about tragedy. It’s about a resistance movement that has arisen to challenge some of the most powerful corporations in history.

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Mark Twain is reported to have said: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” What most environmentalists think they know for sure is that oil, coal and natural gas are all abundant-so abundant, in fact, that many environmentalists believe they are forced to make a Hobson’s choice of natural gas as a so-called “bridge fuel” to a renewable energy future.

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