Powering the Planet

Sign in Subscribe

Justin Mikulka

The US Oil and Gas Industry's Methane Problem Is Catching up With It

The US Oil and Gas Industry's Methane Problem Is Catching up With It

The acknowledgement by many larger oil and gas producers that methane emisssions are causing an industry image problem appears to be directly linked to new satellite technology, which no longer allows the industry to hide the true scale of its methane emissions

The Bakken Boom Goes Bust With No Money to Clean up the Mess

The Bakken Boom Goes Bust With No Money to Clean up the Mess

More than a decade ago, fracking took off in the Bakken shale of North Dakota and Montana, but the oil rush that followed has resulted in major environmental damage, risky oil transportation without regulation, pipeline permitting issues, and failure to produce profits. Now, after all of that, the Bakken oil

Bankers and Investors Finding Fracking Industry’s Underlying Models Prove Overly Optimistic

Bankers and Investors Finding Fracking Industry’s Underlying Models Prove Overly Optimistic

Bloomberg recently reported that Mike Lister, a JP Morgan energy banker, estimated that banks wrote off approximately $1 billion in reserve based loans for shale companies in 2019, exceeding their total losses for the past 30 years, and that trend is expected to continue.

New Satellite Data Reveals Dangerous Methane Emissions in Permian Region

New Satellite Data Reveals Dangerous Methane Emissions in Permian Region

New research based on satellite data confirms that the oil and gas industry in the Permian region of Texas and New Mexico is leaking record amounts of methane.

Exxon Now Wants to Write the Rules for Regulating Methane Emissions

Exxon Now Wants to Write the Rules for Regulating Methane Emissions

ExxonMobil is a company capable of contradictions. It has been lobbying against government efforts to address climate change while running ads touting its own efforts to do so.

Is the U.S. Fracking Boom Based on Fraud?

Is the U.S. Fracking Boom Based on Fraud?

In a 2016 interview with Fraud Magazine, former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow explained what he thought made him so successful while at the former energy corporation that’s now infamous for financial scandal. “I think my ability to do structured financing, to finance things off-balance sheet and to find ways

The Fracking Industry's Methane Problem Is a Climate Problem

The Fracking Industry's Methane Problem Is a Climate Problem

Methane is shorter-lived in the atmosphere but 85 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20 year period.