Inside Energy (https://insideenergy.org/author/abarba/page/6/)
Inside Energy’s Leigh Paterson was a guest journalist this week at the US Senate and US House debates, hosted by Wyoming PBS. Candidates answered questions on education, foreign policy, same-sex marriage, Obamacare, and of course, on energy: oil exports, Wyoming wind power development, climate change in the classroom, and the EPA.
A new study of air emissions from oil and gas waste pits may yield information about public health hazards.
Inside Energy is looking forward to a new series of stories later this fall investigating the unexpected, unanticipated “sideline booms” that follow in the wake of increased oil and gas production. In our three states – Colorado, Wyoming, and North Dakota – the oil and gas boom is transforming economies from housing to service industries to road construction. The American Petroleum Institute, an industry trade group, commissioned PricewaterhouseCoopers to do some baseline research on the issue. In a transparent effort to prove the economic benefits of oil and gas production, API recently published a vendor survey which listed state by state – and congressional district by congressional district(!) – some 30,000 businesses that provided support services to the oil and gas industry across the country. In Colorado, for instance, the survey said oil and gas provided $25.8 billion to the local economy and supported 213,100 jobs.
Fracking has led to a huge upswing in oil production in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, according to a new report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The nation’s pipeline expansion is largely in “gathering lines,” 90 percent of which currently do not fall under federal safety and construction guidelines.
The Denver Post reveals how the historic compromise was brokered earlier this month that kept anti-fracking ballot initiatives from reaching voters this November.
I don’t usually care much about the etymology of phrases or words; my apologies to the word-obsessed out there. But I happened to be listening to the public radio show A Way With Words on a long drive the other day (through a region where my only other option was country rock), and I heard a fascinating explanation of the origins of the phrase, “cooking with gas.” Because we are Inside Energy, and because natural gas is very much our topic area, I have to share:
“Now we’re cooking with gas” originated in the late 1930’s or early 40s as a slogan thought up by the natural gas industry to convince people to use gas, rather than electricity, on their new-fangled stoves. This was the era where there was a widespread transition from wood-fueled stoves, and electric and natural gas stoves were in competition with each other. The gas industry wanted to imprint the idea in people’s minds that cooking with gas was the most effective way to get the hot food on the table.
A new report outlines the financial risks of unmitigated climate change. Report co-authors include Tom Steyner, former Treasury Secretary Hugh Paulson and former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
BNSF will allow Washington state to release information about crude rail routes.
