"The drilling processes of hydraulic fracturing – or 'fracking' — and horizontal drilling have made it possible to access previously unreachable deposits of fossil fuels, creating a surge in domestic oil and natural gas production. So why are prices at the gas pump still relatively high? (Last week, the average national gas price was $3.68 per gallon.)"
Here's more evidence of why documents should be leaked to reporters: a Powerpoint obtained by LA Times' Neela Banerjee shows EPA's Region 3 staff argued a year ago for continuing its investigation of fracking pollution around Dimock, PA — as EPA HQ announced it was ending its study of Dimock wells. Now there's an echo in Pavillion, WY.
Journalists who worried about a cover-up during the April 2010 blowout of BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico got some vindication this month when Halliburton admitted to destroying evidence. The company agreed to pay $200,000 in fines and donate $55 million to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
"NEW YORK -- JPMorgan Chase & Co. has agreed to pay $410 million to settle allegations it manipulated energy markets in California and the Midwest."
"BRUSSELS — The European Union’s trade chief said on Saturday that a deal had been reached with China to settle a dispute over exports of low-cost solar panels that had threatened to set off a wider trade war between two of the world’s largest economies."
"Methane gas released from the melting Arctic ice could accelerate global warming and tack on an extra $60 trillion to the cost the world is expected to incur from climate change."
"The European investment bank (EIB), the EU's main lending arm, said it would stop financing most coal-fired power stations to help the 28-nation bloc reduce pollution and meet its climate targets."
"VANCOUVER, Wash. -- Port of Vancouver commissioners voted Tuesday to approve a lease for a Columbia River terminal that would take in crude oil by train from North Dakota and ship it to West Coast refineries."
"The U.S. program that pays farmers to idle fragile cropland soon will protect the smallest amount of land in a quarter-century, the government said on Monday, the result of several years of sky-high commodity prices that have encouraged farmers to plant as much as possible."
"OAK HARBOR, Ohio — Davis-Besse is identified in a new economic report as one of a dozen U.S. nuclear reactors most likely to be closed by their utilities before their licenses expire because of changing energy markets, including falling natural gas prices, rising costs of nuclear operations, repairs, and post-Fukushima retrofits."
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