Hands

The fate of the northern portion of the multi-billion-dollar Keystone XL oil pipeline from western Canada to the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) in the hands of the Obama administration will be the bellwether this coming year, determining if the U.S. technology-driven abundance of hydrocarbons is going to be cashed in as part of a North American-wide energy transformation, according to a former private equity energy star and now senior think tank fellow.

The volume of natural gas pipeline capacity changing hands among the 20 leading trading companies during 2012 was up 123% over the 2011 level, exceeding 14.8 Bcf/d and marking the third consecutive annual increase, Capacity Center said last week.

The volume of natural gas pipeline capacity changing hands among the 20 leading trading companies during 2012 was up 123% over the 2011 level, exceeding 14.8 Bcf/d and marking the third consecutive annual increase, Capacity Center said Monday.

America’s energy security risk is bad and getting worse under current policy and regulatory framework, according to a report by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy.

Taking matters into his own hands after the U.S. Congress failed to pass the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 this summer, President Obama appears to be preparing an executive order aimed at protecting critical national infrastructure, including power plants, and natural gas and crude pipelines, from cyber attacks.

Taking matters into his own hands after the U.S. Congress failed to pass the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 this summer, President Obama appears to be preparing an executive order aimed at protecting critical national infrastructure, including power plants, and natural gas and crude pipelines, from cyber attacks.

December natural gas suffered a bruising double-digit loss Tuesday in what observers noted was at least a temporary joining of hands with free-falling petroleum and Greece-centric equity markets. At the close December had fallen 15.3 cents to $3.781 and January had retreated 13.6 cents to $3.920. December crude oil dropped $1.00 to $92.19/bbl; the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 297 points to 11,658, and the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index shed a whopping 35 points to 1,218.

A cap-and-trade system to curtail greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that hands out credits to polluters for free would be worse than doing nothing as it would subsidize the dirtiest coal-fired generators, a Rice University researcher has warned.

A cap-and-trade system to curtail greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that hands out credits to polluters for free would be worse than doing nothing as it would subsidize the dirtiest coal-fired generators, a Rice University researcher has warned.