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.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 [...]
Boone Pickens: focus energy innovation more on cheap, plentiful natural gas made in the U.S.
You may have heard it before from Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens about the potential for natural gas produced in the U.S. But featuring him at this year’s ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit Tuesday near Washington, DC put a new spin on the benefits of America becoming more energy self-sufficient on the backs of the lower-emitting [...]
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 [...]
Risks loom from closure of 25 gigawatts of U.S. coal power plants by 2015 = 8% of capacity
Is there enough natural gas that is findable and deliverable to plug most of the gap created by the projected closure of 25.5 gigawatts (GW) of U.S. generating capacity from coal between now and year-end 2015? That is an increasingly urgent question facing U.S. utilities, power marketers and regulators. The risks of brownouts and perhaps [...]
How a company fracks for natural gas determines its corporate social responsibility
As energy producers find more natural gas from shale formations throughout the U.S. and the price of natural gas continues to fall it should be no surprise that a debate looms over how a company fracks for natural gas and whether it is socially responsible. On its face, with sufficient operational and risk controls in [...]
The opportunity lost with the Sierra Club’s admitting $25 million in natural gas industry donations
In a perfect world, there would be a quickly scalable source of electricity that would help with transition the world off of old, “dirty,” coal-fired power plants to renewables and other cleaner sources. Natural gas is such a fuel. But it does not come without some serious risks. Take for example the debate over “fracking.” [...]
New Jersey Gov. Christie says he has a better way than RGGI to cut carbon emissions
That’s the conclusion one could reach after New Jersey Governor Chris Christie announced the Garden State is withdrawing from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI. If he’s right, he may be on to something because he asserted there are better ways to fight global warming, which he says is real and caused by humans. [...]
Better at reducing carbon emissions? Wind energy outguns natural gas in Economist poll
Some leaders in the natural gas and the renewable energy industries might be thinking of collaborating in a new effort to reduce carbon emissions. But The Economist wanted its its readers to choose between the natural gas and wind energy and did so with a poll that ended Thursday night. The Economist asked: Will natural [...]
Natural gas and renewable energy firms in pact targeting lower carbon energy
Natural Gas Supply Association President (NGSA) R. Skip Horvath and Michael T. Eckhart, President of the American Council On Renewable Energy(ACORE), today told conference goers in Washington, DC their Boards of Directors have verbally agreed to explore how their members can push hard for lower U.S. carbon energy portfolio. “We have a verbal agreement to [...]