NETL has stated nothing of concern has thus far been found for preliminary results of its ongoing hydraulic fracturing study at Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale.

On July 19, 2013, the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) released a preliminary statement of its ongoing hydraulic fracturing study at two Pennsylvania drilling sites. NETL stated that it is far too early to make any firm claims. The first-of-its kind study involves a comprehensive assessment of environmental impacts of shale gas development at industry-provided test sites in southwestern Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale formation.

The NETL study monitors air, land, and water resources through different gas production phases. To this end, NETL has been collecting, analyzing, and validating data pertinent to air quality, fugitive methane, pressure variations, and water and gas chemistry, among others. NETL injected special fracturing fluid tracers to monitor migration through the shale formation.

Read more on Breaking Energy.

Global energy demands are at an unprecedented high and still growing. Global demand for electricity is projected to grow over 70 percent by 2035. And here in the US, the demand for electricity is projected to grow 22 percent by 2035.

Finding energy sources to power our growing population and economy and meet that demand cleanly and responsibly is part of an on-going debate. President Obama addressed these concerns in a recent speech at Georgetown University, outlining his climate change agenda, including executive actions aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

While proposed solutions to solving our energy demands differ, most Americans express a strong desire to minimize dependence on foreign fuels and believe that we must consider a balance of all forms of energy production with their environmental impact.

Read more on Breaking Energy.

Ron Wyden, Democratic Senator from Oregon and Chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, grilled oil market experts today on why US consumers are not benefiting from higher US oil production via lower gasoline prices at the pump. Those experts indicated that whether or not they are aware of it, US consumers may be benefiting more than they realize.

Wyden questioned why US consumers continue to pay high prices for gasoline despite a marked increase in US oil production.

“The US economy may be benefiting from declining US oil imports,” but “prices at the pump have remained consistently high”, said Wyden at a committee hearing today. “At the gasoline pump, it’s been pretty much business as usual.”

Read more on Breaking Energy.

As West Texas Intermediate crude prices surge on US fundamentals, geopolitical considerations and infrastructure bottleneck alleviation, the Brent-WTI spread is now razor thin. The US benchmark’s discount to Brent fell to less than $2 per barrel for the first time since 2010 – WTI’s price climbed to 15-month highs – as crude for August delivery broke above $106/bbl yesterday. [Bloomberg]

Russian gas giant Gazprom continues to defend oil-linked pricing for its European natural gas contracts, but one of its largest customers – German utility RWE – is fighting hard for gas-indexed contracts. Arbitration proceedings last month determined RWE overpaid for oil-indexed gas. This situation gets uglier every day. [Natural Gas Europe]

Read more on Breaking Energy.

“Incorporating the latest in parabolic trough technology, Shams 1 features more than 258,000 mirrors mounted on 768 tracking parabolic trough collectors. By concentrating heat from direct sunlight onto oil-filled pipes, Shams 1 produces steam, which drives a turbine and generates electricity,” according to Masdar statement.

Read more on Breaking Energy.

The large gap between domestic US natural gas prices and LNG prices in European and Asian markets that underlies the rationale for US LNG exports has raised the question: when US gas is sold abroad, who captures that spread?

The difference between low prices paid for gas produced in the US – currently trading at around $4.20 per million Btu on Nymex – and much higher prices paid for LNG imports in European and Asian markets – at more than twice US levels – is behind a push to open up export markets to US gas producers. As the debate rages over what impact exporting domestically-produced gas may have on the US economy, Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) asked experts who profits from that price spread at a hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday.

“If you’re not making big profits on the price spread, who’s getting the spread?” asked Wyden. Wyden has been outspoken in his concerns that US LNG exports, absent government-imposed volume limits, could lead to higher domestic natural gas prices.

Read more on Breaking Energy.

While New York is often referred to as the global energy finance center, it is not otherwise known as an energy industry focal point. That appears to be changing, however, as energy issues have recently shot towards the top of local and state political agendas and high-profile energy events – like New York Energy Week – are increasingly being held in the New York Metropolitan area.

Breaking Energy recently spoke with the New York Energy Week founders at energy policy research and data company Energy Solutions Forum about the initiative’s origin and goals. Energy Solutions Forum was created by a group of former banking analysts who found the need for a policy data service given the increasing Wall Street focus on regulations and policy that drive stock price movements.

Read more on Breaking Energy.

The ongoing debate over how and whether hydraulic fracturing poses a threat to the environment covers a whole host of issues – land use, earthquakes, drinking water contamination, methane emissions, and even the sustainability of fossil fuel use. While some issues remain mired in a lack of hard data or fundamental philosophical differences, companies all over the US are generating innovative solutions to those that can be addressed, such as methods to reduce water use and methane emissions during production.

Some of these technologies have already proven effective, while others are at the very early stages of commercial use. The following list provides a taste of some of the fracking clean-up technologies that companies have developed, or are in the process of developing, to address water use and methane emissions. We will be exploring them in more depth, looking at benefits as well as drawbacks, over the coming weeks.

Read more on Breaking Energy.

The Three Forks formation in North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana could hold more undiscovered, technically recoverable oil than the Bakken Shale that lies above it, according to the United States Geological Survey’s (USGS) latest assessment.

The mean of the estimate for the two formations’ combined undiscovered, technically recoverable oil is 7.38 billion barrels, effectively doubling the 2008 estimate for the Bakken shale alone. The mean estimate for Bakken oil, at 3.65 bn bbls – the same as in 2008 – is just shy of the Three Forks’ 3.73 bn bbl estimate.

At the time of the 2008 assessment, the Three Forks was considered unproductive, but subsequent drilling and production results showed that it warranted a closer look, said the Department of the Interior (DOI). The Three Forks and Bakken have produced a combined 450 million bbls of oil since the USGS’ 2008 Bakken assessment.

Read more on Breaking Energy.

An ongoing shift from coal to natural gas in electricity generation will require new pipelines to supply gas-fired plants, but social media is helping to galvanize increasingly vocal public opposition to new energy infrastructure projects.

Natural gas captured a substantial share of the electricity market from coal last year, thanks in large part to low prices caused by the shale gas boom and resulting domestic supply glut. “Gas has been winning the new generation battle,” said Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner Philip Moeller at the Platts Northeast Energy Markets Conference on 23 April.

While coal has recaptured some market share as natural gas prices have edged back up above $4.00 per million Btu (MMBtu), impending Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules are expected to further shift power generation from coal to gas, creating the need for new infrastructure that is better suited to a changing power sector.

Read more on Breaking Energy.