Companies looking to turn Australian coalseam gas into LNG for export are facing increasing resistance from environmental groups. In this week’s Regulation & Environment column in Oilgram News, Christine Forster discusses how producers are pushing back.
Archive for the ‘coal’ Category
Regulation & Environment: Australia’s coalseam-to-LNG companies stand up
By News Desk | May 20, 2013 12:01 AM Comments (0)
Petrodollars: the environmental battle over Keystone XL shows no signs of fading
By News Desk | March 18, 2013 12:01 AM Comments (0)
Supporters of the Keystone XL pipeline, including its developer, TransCanada, are finding they’ve got a fight on their hands from environmentalists that hasn’t lost a step in terms of creating energy among the green movement. Gary Park in Calgary has had a front row seat, and he writes about it in this week’s Oilgram News column, Petrodollars.
Tables turn again on Australia’s less-than-popular coalseam gas industry
By Christine Forster | March 13, 2013 12:01 AM Comments (1)
Nearly two years ago I wrote a blog entry for The Barrel discussing the fact that the Australian coalseam gas industry had averted a public relations disaster, after coming “within a blink” of being shut down by angry farmers and graziers.
Now it seems the tables have turned yet again, with the industry coming under heavy fire from environmental lobby groups and facing government-imposed restrictions on its activities.
MidAmerican deal on coal shows that it may be Bloomberg bucks, not Obama, that leads the fight against it
By Kathy Larsen | January 22, 2013 05:43 PM Comments (1)
On Tuesday, MidAmerican Energy said it would stop burning coal at five generating units in Iowa by 2016. Its settlement with the Sierra Club affects about 673 MW of capacity.
The announcement came a day after President Barack Obama devoted a surprisingly big part of his inaugural speech to the subject of climate change. It is unknown just what his administration will actually do about it. Read the rest of this entry »
China’s oil and natural gas sectors ready to roar in 2013
By Yen Ling Song | January 3, 2013 11:00 AM Comments (1)
The past year could arguably be labeled as “China’s year that wasn’t”. The Year of the Dragon, while considered the luckiest of the Chinese zodiac, did not herald particularly auspicious tidings. Instead, China was saddled with a slowing economy, political scandals that rocked the country and territorial squabbles with its neighbors in the South China Sea.
In the energy sphere, widespread speculation about major overhauls to oil and gas pricing did not materialize, nor was progress made on gas pipeline sales from Russia. Monthly measurements of apparent oil demand contracted for the first time last year — in June and August — but then skyrocketed to record volumes at the end of the year.
Budget busters: exploring Mars and preserving coal at Kemper
By Kathy Larsen | August 7, 2012 01:28 PM Comments (0)
One budget buster is fabulous and fascinating: OMG, we have an apparently robust explorer on Mars, and we can see what it’s doing more than a hundred million miles from here. A hard-fought triumph of brilliance and doggedness. But some wonder if the
The other budget buster, at Mississippi Power’s Kemper plant, is minus the glamour, though some believe the integrated gasification combined-cycle project represents a strong opportunity to save coal as a major source of electricity. Here, too, some wonder–with real material effect–about the wisdom of spending money on it.
Both projects have had cost overruns. Both cost more than $2 billion: Curiosity around $2.5 billion and Kemper maybe about $2.9 billion.
New Frontiers: celebrating natural gas’ new age…cautiously
By News Desk | July 2, 2012 12:45 PM Comments (0)
At the recent World Gas Conference in Malaysia, the bright prospects for developing new markets for natural gas was a major topic of discussion. But the road isn’t going to be without bumps, or plenty of cost issues. Thomas Hogue talks about them in this week’s Oilgram News column, New Frontiers.
A very large world thinks wind and solar take the easiest hit on a wallet
By Herman Wang | April 30, 2012 10:52 AM Comments (0)
Everybody knows that coal provides the cheapest electricity in the US and that renewables have a ways to go before they can be cost-competitive without subsidies.
Or do they?
Regulation & the Environment: Australian coalseam gas comes under scrutiny
By News Desk | April 30, 2012 10:19 AM Comments (0)
Coalseam gas has been a growing source of supply for Australia, but it’s about to come under a new level of scrutiny. It’s not just coalseam gas; the Australian government is looking at coal as well. Christine Forster writes about it in this week’s Oilgram News column, Regulation & the Environment.
Does EPA’s carbon rule make it easier or harder for utilities to plan?
By Kathy Larsen | April 1, 2012 09:31 AM Comments (1)
Now that the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a regulation describing just what new coal and natural gas power plants must be like with respect to carbon dioxide emissions, one might think utilities and plant developers would have an easier time with long-range planning. The rule might deliver the certainty that executives always say they’re looking for.
But it’s not necessarily so.