2-25-12

Senators Thomas and Paskvan propose gas line: Cook Inlet to Fairbanks - Alaska Dispatch - According to a legislative press release, Senators Joe Thomas and Joe Paskvan have introduced legislation that would instruct the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation (AGDC) to build a natural gas pipeline from Cook Inlet to Fairbanks, with enough capacity to serve unnamed other communities along the route.
 
Keystone pipeline would create Bay Area jobs - San Francisco Chronicle, Joe Epstein - The $7 billion project would not only make the United States more energy independent, it would also generate an estimated 6,500 jobs across the country, including hundreds in the Bay Area.
 
‘Small victory’ over ‘dirty oil’ - Financial Post, Claudia Cataneo - After enduring years of bashing in the United States and Europe over the development of its vast oil sands, Canada scored a come-from-behind victory Thursday when a committee of experts at the European Union failed to reach agreement on a policy that would have stigmatized Canada’s oil as dirtier than conventional crude.
 
Obama's sour spot on energy – Washington Examiner, Michael Barone - Let’s get this straight. We’ve prohibited a pipeline, the safest way to transport oil, from Canada, but we’re aiding Mexico in offshore drilling, which is riskier, and by a firm that lacks the experience of the U.S. firms we have been trying to prevent drilling in the same body of water. Does this make any sense at all. “Obama has managed to find the sour spot on energy,” writes the usually judicious Walter Russell Mead, who concludes his blogpost with tart understatement: “his energy policy could use a bit more thinking through.” Ya think?
 
USGS releases first ANS shale oil, gas resource estimates - Oil & Gas Journal, Nick Snow - The US Geological Survey estimated that Alaska’s North Slope contains up to 2 billion bbl of crude oil and 80 tcf of natural gas, which are technically recoverable from tight shale formations using currently available technology and industry practices.