2012 brought into stark relief the ways in which energy influences U.S. foreign policy. Decisions on trade sanctions in Iran, natural gas exports, and drilling for oil in the arctic are good examples of scenarios in which domestic policy goals and U.S. foreign interests were deliberated by the current administration, and a course for the country’s energy and foreign policy future was laid out. Hillary Clinton, in speaking recently at Georgetown University, highlighted the ways in which energy development and consumption will continue to be an issue facing the U.S. and its foreign policy efforts, even as the… [read more]

In the second presidential debate of 2012 an attendee asked President Obama, “Your energy secretary, Steven Chu, has now been on record three times stating ‘It’s not policy of this department to help lower gas prices.’ Do you agree with Secretary Chu, that this is not the job of the Energy Department?” The question went essentially unanswered as both candidates took the opportunity instead to promote their energy platforms.

The answer to this question may be simple, as OurEnergyPolicy.org Expert Joel Brown explains in a tweet: “The unanswered question answered: the DOE does NOT have… [read more]

The rapid proliferation of natural gas development has led to a variety of environmental concerns, such as air and water pollution, increased geological activity, and greenhouse gas emissions. A new paper from John Bistline, a doctoral candidate in Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University, investigates how “uncertainties in future natural gas prices, upstream methane emissions, the global-warming potential of methane, and the stringency of federal climate policy will influence optimal (GHG) abatement efforts” and the “future deployment of energy technologies.”

Generating capacity decisions are made along long and largely uncertain planning horizons, and plants often come online into very… [read more]

Denbury, a small energy resources firm focused on oil and natural gas, sees a bright future in enhanced oil recovery (EOR), a process that pumps CO2 into oil wells to release hard-to-reach oil. EOR has been promoted as a way to simultaneously address climate change and improve recoverable oil reserves. The company surprised many recently after it traded its Bakken Shale assets – some of the most productive in the country – to Exxon Mobil in exchange for $1.6 billion in cash and parts of Exxon Mobil’s Texas and Wyoming stakes. Denbury will instead focus on utilizing EOR in… [read more]

A new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency mandate under the Renewable Fuel Standard will require a minimum four-gallon purchase of the E10 ethanol-gasoline blend at service station pumps selling both E10 and E15 fuel from the same hose. E15 is an 85% gasoline, 15% ethanol fuel blend, and has only been approved for use in vehicles manufactured after 2001.

Roughly two-thirds of gasoline pumps in U.S. gas stations use one hose to dispense different blends of fuel. This has lead to concerns that residual E15 could end up in the engines of vehicles not designed to run on the higher… [read more]