Maley's Energy Blog

From EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook 2012:

http://blog.nola.com/2010_gulf_oil_spill/print.html?entry=/2012/06/bp_agrees_to_54_million_settle.html

BP Exploration and Production Inc. and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced Thursday that they have entered into a voluntary resolution of an EEOC investigation of allegations that the companies participated in discriminatory practices in hiring women as temporary laborers during the 2010 response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Under the agreement, BP and its contractors will pay up to $5.4 million to a yet-to-be determined class of women who had applied for jobs.

View full sizeDavid Grunfeld, The Times-PicayuneGulf of Mexico oil spill cleanup workers line up along Louisiana 1 in Grand Isle as the motorcade of President Barack Obama passes on May 28, 2010.

…

BP Gulf Coast Restoration Organization President Mike Utsler said the company is committed to nondiscriminatory hiring “even in the most extreme and time-sensitive situations.”

In reaching the agreement, the EEOC had not determined that BP violated anti-discrimination laws, and the company denied it engaged in any wrongdoing.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/new-disability-regs-limit-slope-mini-golf-holes-require-businesses-admit-mini-horses

The 2010 ADA standards for Accessible Design require that at least 50 percent of golf holes on miniature golf courses be “accessible” – with a ground space that is “48 inches minimum by 60 inches minimum with slopes not steeper than 1:48 at the start of play.”

Amusement parks – any new or altered ride must provide at least one seat for a person in a wheelchair.

A section of the guidelines regulating commercial facilities states that, “a public accommodation shall make reasonable modifications in policies, practices, or procedures to permit the use of a miniature horse by an individual with a disability if the miniature horse has been individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of the individual with a disability.” …

“Miniature horses were suggested by some commenters as viable alternatives to dogs for individuals with allergies, or for those whose religious beliefs preclude the use of dogs,” the rules state. Also mentioned as a reason to include the animals is the longer life span of miniature horses – providing approximately 25 years of service as opposed to seven years for dogs.

The President says:

“With only 2% of the world’s oil reserves, we can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices,… Not when we consume 20% of the world’s oil.”

The Energy Information Administration of the Department of Energy says:

By 2020, nearly half of the crude oil America consumes will be produced at home, while 82 percent will come from this side of the Atlantic, according to the US Energy Information Administration. By 2035, oil shipments from the Middle East to North America “could almost be nonexistent,” the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries recently predicted, partly because more efficient car engines and a growing supply of renewable fuel will help curb demand.

 

The change achieves a long-sought goal of US policymaking — to draw more oil from nearby, stable sources and less from a volatile region half a world away.

We need to separate two issues – energy price and energy supply. I rate energy supply as a bigger strategic issue, and in part higher energy prices have made the domestic supply picture better. Price has always been somehwat self-regulating. Price spikes lure new capital to the market, which means more wells get drilled. Price rewards new technology and innovation, which lead to lower prices.

http://www.upstreamonline.com/live/article1250349.ece

US shale plays such as the Bakken in North Dakota will more than double output in the next two decades, according to the first official forecast for booming tight-oil production, published by the US government on Monday.

The projections, one small part of the Energy Information Administration’s updated long-term forecasts, shed light on the agency’s take on the role of the oil found in low-permeability reservoirs such as shale and chalk formations, the largest new source of US supply since offshore Gulf of Mexico.

US output from eight tight-oil prospects covered by the report will more than double to 1.23 million barrels per day by 2035 from 2011 levels, the EIA said, breaking out specific data on tight oil production for the first time in its 2012 Annual Energy Outlook, according to Reuters. …

The report considers output from the Bakken, the Eagle Ford in Texas, the Niorbrara in Colorado and Wyoming, the tight-oil plays such as the Spraberry and Avalon-Bone Springs in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico, and the Monterey shale in California, among others.

Output from the Bakken and Three Forks shale in North Dakota, the most prolific tight oil prospect in the US, reached 545,000 bpd in April, according to data from the North Dakota Industrial Commision.

Eagle Ford output is on its way to match Bakken’s, after output reached 520,000 bpd in April, according to research firm Bentek Energy.

Energy companies have also set their sights on burgeoning oil plays like the Utica shale in Ohio, whose oil output is yet unknown. The EIA’s latest report does not include projected Utica production.

http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/234801-epa-dems-cheer-climate-ruling

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson is applauding the new federal court ruling that rejected several challenges to the agency’s climate change regulations.

“Today’s ruling is a strong validation of, in the court’s own words, the ‘unambiguously correct’ approach we have taken in responding to the 2007 Supreme Court decision,” Jackson said, referring to the high court’s 2007 ruling that paved the way for greenhouse gas regulations. …

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) seized on the portion of the decision that upheld EPA’s “endangerment finding” that greenhouse gases are a threat to human health and welfare. …

“Today’s ruling is a message to Congress that it’s time to stop denying science. Extreme events like the wildfires in Colorado and the floods in Florida are going to get worse unless the Republican-controlled Congress changes course soon,” Waxman said in a statement.