With escalating shale oil production putting the US on track to become the world’s largest oil producer, investors are challenging an increasingly common industry practice – burning off or ‘flaring’ associated natural gas from shale oil wells – as environmentally damaging, economically wasteful and a threat to the industry’s bottom line. (more…)

The fracturing of shale rock formations associated with the drilling process known as fracking might undermine future attempts to store carbon dioxide underground, according to a new study.

While many have called carbon storage a promising solution to reducing atmospheric levels of (more…)

Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson says that a drilling method that has made vast natural gas resources accessible across the U.S. has been unable to crack some shale rock formations in Europe and China.

Speaking to energy analysts, Tillerson said two attempts to tap gas-rich shale fields in Poland through (more…)

The sheer abundance of recently discovered natural gas resources in the U.S. could drive down gas and electricity prices in the next few decades, yield an overall increase in energy use, and stunt the nation’s still-emerging renewable energy sector, a new report says.

Using economic modeling, researchers at the (more…)

This is the second part of my blog on produced water (you can read the first part here) which will look at the market – the players and technologies – in some more detail.

Produced water is a term used to describe the wastewater that’s brought to the surface during the (more…)

Are we closer to having renewable natural gas using solar power, water and CO2? That’s what HyperSolar, a technology company based in Santa Barbara, CA, is hoping to achieve. The company has filed a patent application for clean, renewable gas which it hopes replaces traditional natural gas without having (more…)

A U.S. Energy Department advisory panel has issued a qualified endorsement of the controversial shale gas exploitation technique of hydraulic fracturing, but a group of scientists charges that the panel’s recommendations are tainted because six of its seven members have current financial ties to the (more…)

Natural gas has been getting a lot of bad press recently because of the fracking (‘hydraulic fracturing’) debacle. The problem is that this method of gas drilling is riddled with controversy and real environmental risks. Gasland, an Oscar-nominated documentary about fracking, brought to the world’s attention how people (more…)

Last week the French government was the first to enact a law forbidding hydraulic fracturing, also known as “fracking” (more…)

The U.S. could cut its carbon dioxide emissions by 8 percent, almost half of the country’s unofficial 2020 emissions reduction goal, by increasing use of natural gas plants, according to a new M.I.T. report.

The report, “The Future of Natural Gas,” found that (more…)