Coal comeback? Trump plan would breathe new life into aging power plants
Ledyard King, USA Today, June 19, 2019
Aging coal-fired power plants would get a new lease on life under the industry-friendly proposal known as the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) Rule, under the initial rule unveiled in August. Presented as a change to the decades-old Clean Air Act, the Trump proposal would replace the Clean Power Plan, former President Barack Obama’s signature plan to confront climate change. That plan never took effect after the Supreme Court prevented its implementation in 2015. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler is scheduled to unveil the final rule of the Trump administration during a news conference Wednesday morning.
Related: Trump EPA rolls back Obama rule on coal-fired power plants
Also related: Arch, Peabody Aim to Keep Utility Coal Competitive With New Venture
Rocket hits ExxonMobil, other oil firms in Iraq
Reuters, NBC News, June 18, 2019
A rocket landed at a residential and operations headquarters of several global major oil companies, including U.S. giant ExxonMobil, near Iraq’s southern city of Basra early on Wednesday, wounding three Iraqi workers, police said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. It came after two separate attacks in as many days on bases housing U.S. military personnel in Iraq, as tension increases between the United States and Iran.
With an on-the-ground seismic survey delayed, a new plan emerges to study Arctic refuge oil potential from the sky
Yereth Rosen, ArcticToday, June 14, 2019
CGG Canada Services Inc., a unit of Paris-based CGG, has informed the U.S. Department of the Interior of its intent to fly over the refuge’s 1.6 million-acre coastal plain to collect geophysical data in the area where the Trump administration is planning a lease sale by year’s end.
CGG uses gravity gradiometry technology, which measures minute changes of surface gravitational qualities to use as clues to subsurface structures.
The company may proceed with its plans without getting any federal permits, Interior officials said.
“DOI does not have the authority to require a permit for airborne geophysical data collection that have no ground component on federal lands,” Molly Block, Interior’s press secretary, said in an email.
Our take: Leave it to the environmental extremists to find something wrong with every plan, even those that disturb the area even less: ‘a coalition of environmental groups criticized the plan, saying the “noisy, low-altitude, high-density aerial surveys” would likely disrupt seals and polar bears…The company should reconsider the whole plan, [they] said.’ Shaking our heads.
Crude prices finally see relief with inventories decline
Jordan Blum, Houston Chronicle, June 19, 2019
Crude inventories dipped by 3.1 million barrels while gasoline stockpiles fell by 1.7 million barrels. U.S. oil output fell to 12.2 million barrels a day, down from an estimated record high of 12.4 million barrels daily set in late May. Crude exports are also near a record high of more than 3.4 million barrels per day. After flirting with the danger zone threshold of $50 per barrel, the U.S. oil benchmark jumped back above $54 a barrel Wednesday morning.
