Energy In Depth (EID), a leading national research and education initiative focused on promoting a fact-based dialogue on the safety, history and value of oil and gas development, announced today that it is expanding its effort to Michigan and bringing on a full-time, local resource to lead the program in the state.
Blame it on the heat. Or the Olympics. Or the ill-timed AP story about how anti-gas activists routinely distort science. Whatever the reasons, Saturday’s anti-shale rally in Washington didn’t quite generate the kind of attention or attendance its organizers hoped it would. But EID was there, and grabbed some pretty good pictures and video for our trouble.
Earlier this month, a group calling itself the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan announced its intention to do whatever it can to prevent Michigan from leveraging the development of the state’s oil and natural gas resources into jobs, tax revenue and millions of dollars in annual cost-savings for consumers.
From the draft report on water quality in Pavillion, Wyo., to a Cornell graduate student’s paper on public health, opponents of oil and gas development are displaying a troubling habit of leaping to conclusions before even basic scientific review can be completed. But if your job is to generate headlines, why let science get in the way?
You’re a New York filmmaker whose arguments about the supposed dangers of natural gas development have been slowly unraveling since the release of your film about hydraulic fracturing two years ago. And then, to top it all off, the Associated Press examines what you’ve said and finds it to be unsupported by the facts. What do you do?
In a first for our industry, the American Petroleum Institute (API) organized a film festival last Thursday night highlighting five new and upcoming films about the natural gas industry – and attracting more than 200 industry, policy and media attendees. Not bad for an opening night.
The only sources of information that the Carson City Council relied upon before calling for the state to ban a technology that’s been used safety since the 1940s were two websites, and both of them with clear anti-industry sentiments.
As a fuel source, natural gas represents a rare combination of benefits: Affordable, abundant, and clean. The Sierra Club is spending big bucks trying to deny these facts, but even some of their typical allies are distancing themselves from that effort.
Nationwide Insurance has made a decision not to underwrite risks associated with hydraulic fracturing. Immediately, press outlets picked up the story. Clearly this is news – except it isn’t. Nationwide has never been a significant player in the energy industry.
Besides doing our part to get the facts out about natural gas and correct the record on those occasions when folks opposed to responsible development re-write the narrative or distort the reality, EID tries to hold those who cover the issue to account as well.
A new paper from researchers at Duke Univ. confirms once again that solutions involved in the fracturing process aren’t getting in, near or anywhere close to shallow sources of drinking water in northeast Pennsylvania. But you’d never know that’s what the report actually says by looking at the press coverage.
As the U.S. Olympic team gets set to compete against the best athletes from around the world in London later this month, there’s at least one event for which the U.S.A. appears to have already won the gold: Cutting CO2 emissions, thanks largely to natural gas from shale.
