oil

Earlier this year, the usual group of suspects, led by well-known anti-fracking activist Bill McKibben, planned a “global wave of resistance” called BreakFree2016—scheduled to take place from May 3-15—on six continents.

Energy has long lost media attention; so we no longer think about ways we use energy and its effect on national policy or our pocketbooks. However, problems of energy supply we deemed a crisis in the 1970’s are still with us. U. S. warships still protect Persian Gulf supply of Middle East oil which accounts for one-quarter world’s oil production.

This is a book about conspiracy, partially before our eyes and partially hidden from view. It is an attempt by hundreds of the world’s most elite power brokers to place the world beneath a single government which they pompously believe would make for a better life though one with little freedom or choice. He is of course speaking broadly of the infamous Trilateral Commission, a subject he covered in far greater detail in two previous books.

We are just now entering the age of industrialization, newly elected President Rodrigo Duterte said recently, explaining why the Philippines will not ratify the Paris climate accords. “Now that we’re developing, you will impose a limit? That’s absurd. It’s being imposed upon us by the industrialized countries. They think they can dictate our destiny.”

Although the May 23 New York Times article on hydraulic fracturing, “The Sand Mines That Ruin Farmland,” is an interesting read, it is by no means an accurate one. Author Nancy Loeb relies on unsubstantiated claims in order to push forth her own liberal agenda. Hydraulic fracturing is not the monster that Loeb makes it out to be.

In this edition of The Heartland Daily Podcast, Rob Lindberg of the group Bakken Backers tells stories about his experience in the oil-producing regions of North Dakota and the opportunities and challenges it has presented to these communities and gives the listeners a glimpse of what this part of North Dakota looks like now that the go-go days of the boom are over.

The Environmental Protection Agency has a new target in it’s sights…strippers. Now that we have your attention, In this edition of The Heartland Daily Podcast, research fellows Bette Grande and Isaac Orr discuss how the EPA is targeting oil and gas wells that produce less than 15 barrels of oil equivalent per day. These wells, also known as stripper wells, are under attack from new EPA methane regulations that inappropriately apply rules for new wells on these typically older, lower volume wells.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued its final methane rule on May 12. The 600-page rule is agenda-driven and backed by pseudoscience, emotions, and unicorn dust, and it’s important to note one specific change in the final rule amounts to a regulatory taking. The final rule imposes costly regulations on wells producing fewer than 15 barrels per day, effectively shutting down those businesses.

All of us loved paying less than $2 a gallon at the pump. AAA reports: “Americans paid cheapest quarterly gas prices in 12 years”—which resulted in savings of nearly $10 billion compared to the same period last year. However, oil (and, therefore gasoline) has been creeping upward since the February low—topping $45 a barrel, a high for the year. And that could be a good thing.

Why would a public research university boasting a top-100 geology program deliberately hide its work? Because, as lead researcher Amy Townsend-Small explained, “our funders, the groups that had given us funding in the past, were a little disappointed in our results. They feel that fracking is scary and so they were hoping our data could point to a reason to ban it.”

A new study published in Environment International indicates hydraulic fracturing, commonly called “fracking,” and the heavy truck traffic that is associated with it would have a negligible impact on air quality if fracking were to be used extensively in the United Kingdom. Interestingly, the authors of the study appear to be a little disappointed with their findings, which may be why they decided to emphasize maximum exposure in a shorter timeframe in their study, rather than exposures over more realistic scenarios.

Plummeting oil prices, which are largely the result of the U.S. hydraulic fracturing revolution that has nearly doubled oil production in the United States since 2008, have left many oil-exporting nations around the world reeling. The price drops have been particularly hard on nations in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Myriad OPEC governments are now stuck relying on dwindling oil revenues to fund large portions of their important social welfare programs, many of which are essential to maintaining national stability.

In today’s edition of the Heartland Daily Podcast, Heartland Science Director Jay Lehr joins host H. Sterling Burnett to talk about the abundant supply of oil and gas that exists due to fracking and in the future, Shale rock development and methane hydrates.