Jim Pierobon is Founder and principal writer of The Energy Fix. He is a policy, marketing and social media strategist who has reported on, testified and consulted about smarter grids, cyber-security as it affects the power grid, fossil fuel shortages, price spikes, energy efficiency and the rise and fall -- and the rise again of nuclear and renewable energy sources.Updated draft rules for hydraulic fracturing deserve the chance to work
Complaints by both sides over the Obama administration’s newly updated draft rules regulating the hydraulic fracturing of shale natural gas and oil on public and Indian lands signals the Interior Department has found enough common ground to raise the bar — albeit slightly — on drilling operations. Because the updated draft rules would only apply [...]
Center for Sustainable Shale Development – peeling back the packaging
Since its launch about one month ago (see The Energy Fix, March 22), the Center for Sustainable Shale Development has been met with accolades from entities such as The Washington Post to harsh rebukes by the likes of the Sierra Club. It’s not surprising that these and other parties differ on the Center’s potential for [...]
Collaborative set to forge workable rules for shale hydraulic fracturing shows promise
Led in part by Chevron, Shell, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Clean Air Task Force, these and seven other organizations are now on record having identified “shared values” in an intriguing effort to better manage the risks of hydraulic fracturing of natural gas and crude oil from shale developments throughout Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia [...]
Bloomberg to natural gas industry: stop resisting sensible regulations, join with renewables
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg used the 2013 ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit near Washington, DC to prod the oil and gas industry to stop resisting efforts to forge “sensible” regulations. “We need sound regulation and we need it soon,” he said. While he’s been on the bandwagon for enabling responsible hydraulic fracturing for natural [...]
Collaboration on Illinois legislation could achieve standards for regulating hydraulic fracturing
Illinois is on track to go where no push for hydraulic fracturing has gone before in the U.S.: a consensus on how to regulate the controversial practice of injecting chemicals and large amounts of water deep underground to flush out large quantities of natural gas and crude oil. As states such as New York and [...]
Spinning “Promised Land” to move the ‘needle’ for — or against — fracking
One thing Matt Damon and colleagues are accomplishing with the new movie “Promised Land” about hydraulic fracturing is to increase the public’s understanding — even if just a little bit — of the controversial drilling technique which flushes natural gas to the surface from shale rock formations deep underground. But that’s about it. Advocates of [...]
Lessons learned from transporting ‘dilbit’ oil & how they should apply to the Keystone XL pipeline
What happened near Marshall, Mich. in July 2010 illuminates the risks of building the controversial extension of the Keystone XL pipeline. That’s because a six-and-a-half foot tear in a 30-inch carbon steel pipeline operated by Enbridge Energy Partners spewed more than 1 million gallons of gooey crude oil mined from Canadian tar sands into the [...]
Purported smart meter fires: how power industry can get the facts, manage the risks
As dozens of U.S. utilities ramp up their deployment of smart grid programs and with them new digital / smart meters, a few meter installations reportedly are causing small fires that could undermine the trust utilities need to continue updating the nation’s 100+year-old electric system. It is not clear how many real fires have resulted [...]
Webinar Sept. 11 on risks of closing 25 gigawatts watts of coal-fired U.S. electric capacity by 2015
As a big ‘squeeze’ on coal-fired power plants in the U.S. continues to gather steam, questions abound whether natural gas can make up virtually all of the difference needed to keep electricity flowing reliably AND keep consumer prices from rising significantly. That is just one of the many questions that was addressed in a unique [...]
New sensible efforts are raising the bar for safer, more transparent hydraulic fracturing
The ‘voices’ in the moderate center that have been drowned out in the increasingly inflammatory debate over the hydraulic fracturing of shale natural gas are getting a growing cadre of credible allies. And with them may come a sensible way to prudently capitalize on the enormous deposits of shale gas throughout parts of the U.S. [...]