Fracking - Inside Climate News

Petrochemicals Are Killing Us, a New Report Warns in the New England Journal of Medicine

By Liza Gross — Mon, 18 Mar 2024 18:45:00 +0000

It’s well known that fossil fuels are the primary driver of climate change. A dirty secret is that they’re also the source of toxic chemicals linked to rising rates of chronic and deadly diseases.

By Liza Gross

Use of petroleum-based chemicals skyrocketed during the postwar era, most of them entering the market with little concern for safety. Now, mounting evidence links petrochemicals to the rapidly rising prevalence of a slew of chronic and deadly conditions, a review published in the New England Journal of Medicine warned earlier this month.

New Lake Will Fuel Petrochemical Expansion on Texas Coast

By Dylan Baddour — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 10:00:00 +0000

Blocked in Louisiana, Formosa Plastics looks to grow around Lavaca Bay instead. But it and other interested industrial plants are waiting for more water.

By Dylan Baddour

Texas regulators last month approved water rights for a new, 2,500-acre reservoir to meet the growing needs of chemical plants, refineries and other industries on the Gulf Coast.

LNG Exports From Mexico in Limbo While Pipeline Project Plows Ahead

By Martha Pskowski — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 10:10:00 +0000

The Biden administration’s pause impacts LNG development in Mexico, where companies eye shorter routes to Asia.

By Martha Pskowski

Leer en Espanol.

Wyoming Considers Relaxing Its Carbon Capture Standards for Electric Utilities, Scrambling Political Alliances on Climate Change and Energy

By Jake Bolster — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 10:05:00 +0000

A bill lowering the amount of CO2 a utility must capture at its power plants has drawn opposition from two groups usually diametrically opposed to each other’s priorities—environmentalists and climate change skeptics.

By Jake Bolster

As Wyoming nears the end of its 2024 legislative session, clean energy advocates and climate change skeptics find themselves in an uneasy situation: an alliance. Both groups oppose legislation that would weaken and delay the state’s carbon capture requirements, albeit for wildly different reasons.

West Virginia Families Pleaded for Help With Health Issues After Fracking Started Nearby. None Came

By Quinn Glabicki, PublicSource — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 11:00:00 +0000

How Pittsburgh-based EQT’s expansion set four families reeling, while state regulators trusted the company to answer their complaints.

By Quinn Glabicki, PublicSource

This article was originally published by PublicSource, a nonprofit newsroom serving the Pittsburgh region. Sign up for its free weekly newsletters at publicsource.org.

A Firm Planning a Drilling Spree in New York’s Southern Tier Goes Silent as Lawmakers Seek to Ban Use of CO2 in Quest for Gas

By Peter Mantius — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 10:00:00 +0000

A Texas entrepreneur has proposed an end run around the state’s ban on hydraulic fracturing by using carbon dioxide instead of water to extract methane from shale formations. New York’s anti-fracking coalition has coalesced to make sure the project fails.

By Peter Mantius

This article previously appeared in WaterFront.

‘Nobody Really Knows What You’re Supposed to Do’: Leaking, Abandoned Wells Wreak Havoc in West Texas

By Martha Pskowski, Inside Climate News and Carlos Nogueras, Texas Tribune — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 10:30:00 +0000

A recent well blow-out in West Texas highlights the challenges of finding and plugging thousands of wells across the state.

By Martha Pskowski, Inside Climate News and Carlos Nogueras, Texas Tribune

IMPERIAL, Texas—Mounds of dirt towered over Bill Wight, who stared helplessly at the piles that had once been pasture for his cattle.

Railroad Commission Approves Toxic Waste Ponds Next to Baptist Camp

By Martha Pskowski — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 11:00:00 +0000

Martin Water is building an oil and gas waste recycling facility next to the Circle 6 Baptist Camp in the Permian Basin despite concerns of water and air pollution.

By Martha Pskowski

State of Denial: A continuing series about Texas’ environmental regulators.

New Demands to Measure Emissions Raise Cautious Hopes in Pennsylvania Among Environmental Sleuths Who Monitor Fracking Sites

By Jake Bolster — Sun, 25 Feb 2024 10:00:00 +0000

The new EPA rules govern wells as well as wastewater tanks, which can emit substantial amounts of methane and volatile organic compounds.

By Jake Bolster

For the first time, Pennsylvania fracking companies are facing real-time scrutiny from federal and state regulators over emissions of methane and other harmful air pollutants at drilling sites and storage facilities for toxic wastewater left over from oil and gas extractions.

California’s Oil Country Hopes Carbon Management Will Provide Jobs. It May Be Disappointed

By Emma Foehringer Merchant, Joshua Yeager — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 10:00:00 +0000

The first carbon storage facility will only produce a handful of permanent positions.

By Emma Foehringer Merchant, Joshua Yeager

On a recent Tuesday evening, several oil workers in Kern County, California, spoke out in support of a project that they hope will create much-needed jobs.