Energy Exchange

Why Falling Oil Prices Don’t Hurt Demand for Renewable Energy

By EDF Blogs / Published: January 5, 2015

By: Victor A. Rojas, Senior Manager, Financial Policy, and Paul Stinson, Program Coordinator

It’s understandable that many people would look at falling oil prices and wonder what it might mean for clean, renewable energy sources. Some recent headlines even suggest that cheaper crude might spell doom for the burgeoning clean energy economy.

Over the last six months, the price of crude oil has fallen by about 40 percent, currently trading below $60 a barrel, the lowest it’s been since 2009. Continuing global production and oversupply mean oil prices could remain low through the winter months and well into 2015.

While it’s true that stocks for some of the more trusted, clean energy investments are being dragged down by dipping oil prices, it doesn’t mean demand for clean energy is also suffering. In fact, as oil prices have tumbled, demand for energy efficiency and renewable energy only keeps growing.

Oil can mean energy, but energy doesn’t mean oil

The historic correlation between the price of oil and the demand for renewable energy has been increasingly weakened in today’s global markets. Like apples and oranges, we use oil and renewables to make completely different types of juice: oil primarily to produce transportation fuels, and renewables primarily to generate electricity. From an economics perspective, oil and renewables are not substitutes: when the price of one decreases, demand for the other does not decrease. Read More »

Also posted in Clean Energy, Energy Financing, Investor Confidence Project, Renewable Energy / Read 1 Response

We need strong national methane rules. Here’s how we get there.

By EDF Blogs / Published: December 22, 2014

By Karin Rives, EDF’s editorial manager and editor of the EDF Voices blog

New York’s statewide ban on fracking is a vindication for communities around the country that have been hit hard by unconventional natural gas production, writes Fred Krupp, Environmental Defense Fund’s president, in a Dec. 22 op-ed piece in The Washington Post.

It demonstrates what can happen when oil and gas producers erode public trust by brushing aside legitimate questions – and reinforces the urgent need for strong, sensible regulation.

The growing controversy surrounding our natural gas industry has created a decisive moment for President Obama.

As the administration prepares a policy to reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas sector, the president has an opportunity to cut both energy waste and climate pollution – in addition to protecting the ecosystem and public health.

In a second op-ed piece published Dec. 17 in The Hill, Fred lays out five principles that should guide the national methane standards the Obama administration is expected to announce soon: Read More »

Also posted in Climate, Methane / Read 1 Response

America Agrees That It’s Time to Act on Methane Pollution From Oil and Gas

By Jeremy Symons / Published: December 18, 2014

There’s not much in Washington these days that Americans can agree on. But a new poll released last week by the American Lung Association found that a large majority of voters would support EPA regulations requiring the oil and natural gas industry to cut methane pollution in half by 2020.

This comes as EPA nears a decision – likely in the coming weeks — on whether to tackle the growing problem of unregulated methane pollution from the oil and gas sector. It’s a big decision. Reducing methane pollution from the oil and gas sector by half would save close to $1 billion a year in wasted energy and, over a 20-year time frame, cut climate pollution equivalent to closing about 90 coal-fired power plants.

The new poll of 1,000 voters, conducted by a bipartisan team of pollsters, also shows that public support for the Environmental Protection Agency and for strong clean air laws are as high as ever. GOP leaders should take note as they take over in Congress: voters believe, by a 3-to-1 margin, that the EPA, not Congress, should be setting pollution standards. That includes a 2-to-1 margin among Republican voters. So while the polluter lobby clamors for more political interference from Congress, the public wants the non-partisan EPA to be left alone to do what it is supposed to do.

The reasons that Americans support these policies are not new. Read More »

Also posted in Air Quality, Methane / Read 1 Response

No Easy Answers When Disposing of Oil and Gas Wastewater

By Scott Anderson / Published: December 12, 2014

We all want easy answers. And often times the harder the question, the easier we want the answer to be.

Increased natural gas use, for example, can help decrease U.S. greenhouse gas emissions as it has a lower carbon content compared to coal or oil. Natural gas also can help transition our energy mix to more renewable energy sources. This is because properly designed, gas-fired generation can respond quickly to pick up the slack if the wind suddenly dies or clouds unexpectedly roll in. But, these benefits mean nothing if the communities where gas is produced suffer air and water pollution, or if methane – a powerful global warming pollutant that is the primary ingredient in natural gas – is allowed to leak into the atmosphere unchecked.

We all should be worried about global warming and the role that sloppy oil and gas production and distribution practices contribute to the problem. But communities where oil and gas development is taking place are also worried about how oil and gas drilling is impacting their water supplies. This is a key issue and one aspect of the groundwater contamination concerns, rightfully gaining attention in these communities, is how and where toxic wastewater is disposed of that is produced along with oil and gas. But here, too, the answers don’t come easy. Read More »

Also posted in Methane / Tagged produced water | Read 1 Response

Methane Emissions Just Like Oil Spills in the Sky

By Sean Wright / Published: December 11, 2014

Out of sight, out of mind. This certainly applies to methane emissions from the oil and gas sector.

That’s because methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas and the primary constituent of natural gas, is invisible to the naked eye.

And it’s one reason methane emissions, while a significant threat to our environment, don’t get the attention they should from policymakers or the public when compared to, say, conspicuous oil spills.

But we have the technology to make the invisible visible. As you’ll see in the video below, fugitive methane emissions look very much like an oil spill in the sky.

Also posted in Methane / Comments are closed

New Study Confirms the Need for National Methane Policy

By Mark Brownstein / Published: December 9, 2014

At a time when the oil and gas industry claims that methane emissions from their well sites are coming down, here’s a study that adds scientific weight to the argument that emissions may actually be HIGHER than they claim.

A new study by researchers at the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, published today in Environmental Science and Technology, took a look at two key processes in oil and gas production – pneumatic controllers and liquids unloading – and concluded that average methane emissions from pneumatic controllers are 17 percent higher than the estimates industry has been citing, and total emissions from these devices may be more than twice as high as they’ve been saying. According to the UT study, together, pneumatic controllers and liquids unloadings account for 40 percent of total methane emissions from oil and gas production.

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, over 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a global warming pollutant. Unnecessary venting and leaking of methane – the key ingredient in the natural gas that we use to heat our homes, cook our food, and power many of our industries – waste a precious national energy resource. Colorado and a few other states are already taking steps to reduce this waste through sensible regulations that cover oil and gas producers, and within two weeks the federal Environmental Protection Agency will announce what it intends to do about this problem. This latest UT study is further evidence that methane leakage is a national problem and national regulation is urgently needed to reduce this powerful pollutant and set a level playing field for the over 6,000 oil and gas production companies in business in the United States today. Read More »

Also posted in Methane, Texas / Comments are closed