Dirty Energy Money Seeps into Academia

Dirty Energy Money Seeps into Academia

Just as the oil and gas industry buys influence on Capitol Hill and in state capitals across the country, so too can it buy friends at major universities who support its agenda. A recent Bloomberg article highlights just how close, and influential, these ties can actually be. The article details how the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a consortium … Read More

Bye, Bye Peak Oil

Bye, Bye Peak Oil

Contrary to what most people believe, oil supply capacity is growing at such an unprecedented level that it might soon outpace consumption. This could lead to overproduction and a steep dip in oil prices. That is the startling conclusion from Leonardo Maugeri, a former senior executive with Italian oil giant ENI, who is currently a … Read More

Subsidised “Green Gas” No Better than Coal

Subsidised “Green Gas” No Better than Coal

Sometimes all you have to do is join the dots. Let’s take three different headlines from yesterday, which are all from the Guardian newspaper in the UK. Headline number one: “’Golden age of gas’ threatens renewable energy, IEA warns” The article went on to state: “A ‘golden age of gas’ spurred by a tripling of … Read More

Frac-Sand Nation

Frac-Sand Nation

It is not so long ago that “fracking” moved from a term used by the oil industry to enter the mainstream collective consciousness, as the technique spread like a cancer across America. Fracking is the process by which oil companies pump a mixture of sand, water and chemicals under high pressure to release gas. It … Read More

Dirty Energy Money pouring into Congress faster than ever before

Dirty Energy Money pouring into Congress faster than ever before

Members of Congress have taken almost $16 million from the oil, gas and coal industries so far in this 112th Congress. That puts this Congress on track to be the dirtiest ever. The information comes to light as part of the latest update of DirtyEnergyMoney.com, a project of Oil Change International which uniquely refines and … Read More

Beware the Oil Industry’s Voldemort

Beware the Oil Industry’s Voldemort

And so it goes on. Any regular reader of this blog will know that the good old boys at the American Petroleum Institute (API) often pluck magic figures out of the air to over-inflate the importance of the oil and gas industry to the economy. They also often distort key debates on offshore drilling and … Read More

IEA’s “golden rules for the golden age of gas”

IEA’s “golden rules for the golden age of gas”

The respected chief economist of the IEA, Fatih Birol, has warned that the world will become increasingly reliant on shale gas and oil from Iraq in the coming decades. In part to help stave off the growing public backlash against shale gas, the IEA is preparing, along with a number of governments, a set of “best … Read More

US Oil Boom “Increases Energy Vulnerability”

US Oil Boom “Increases Energy Vulnerability”

As the International Energy Agency warns that world oil markets face a “bumpy ride” in the months ahead, Barack Obama has being trying to defend his energy policies. His defence comes at a time when rising gas and energy production prices look increasingly likely to be become a key election issue in November, with his … Read More