Products and Power

On March 21, the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), the American Trucking Associations (ATA), and the Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA), filed a petition for writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS). The LCFS came about in 2006, after the California Legislature passed and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed AB 32 , the Global Warming Solutions Act. AB 32 set a goal of reducing...
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U.S. oil production averaged 7.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2013, reaching the highest levels since 1989, according to new data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Domestic oil production hit 7.9 million bpd in December 2013, an 11 percent increase compared to December 2012. The following chart shows U.S. oil production between 1989 and 2013. Meanwhile, on the federal OCS, production again went down. Domestic oil output rose by 966,000 bpd—15 percent—between...
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The Institute for Energy Research (IER) has formally submitted its Comment  to the Office of Management and Budget on the Obama Administration’s use of the “social cost of carbon” as an input for federal regulatory action. This is a crucial topic that may significantly influence energy policy. Those who want the full details should click the link and read our full Comment, but in a series of posts I will walk IER readers through the most important points we raised. In our Comment, we...
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President Obama just released his fiscal 2015 budget[i]  that spends lavishly on his pet projects including his epically-misnamed “all of the above” energy program. But, instead of keeping miners in their coal jobs that historically supplied the nation with most of its electricity, he is putting his dollars on ‘clean coal and natural gas’; instead of opening more federal lands to oil and gas drilling, he is taking away standard tax deductions as applied to the oil industry and...
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On Monday, March 3, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its Tier 3 regulations requiring U.S. refineries to further reduce their sulfur emissions from 30 parts per million to 10 parts per million beginning in 2017. EPA claims that to further reduce sulfur emissions would only increase gasoline prices by a fraction of a cent, but gasoline prices in the real world and the refinery industry refutes that claim. EPA says this plan follows California—and California has the...
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A recent article in the LA Times by Jon Healey discusses the proposal by California State Senate President Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) to exempt fossil fuel producers from California’s cap-and-trade system, and instead impose a carbon tax on fuels. Even though this move (in theory) might make energy prices less volatile, it would still raise them, and thereby hurt California residents. Moreover, any carbon scheme (whether cap-and-trade or a straight tax) would do little to curb...
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Last summer I testified before a Senate subcommittee on the numerous problems with the estimates issued by the Administration’s Working Group on the Social Cost of Carbon. The Working Group’s estimates of the “social cost of carbon” were artificially inflated because of several modeling decisions that it made, including the very significant omission of a 7 percent discount rate as OMB (the regulatory overseers within the White House) requires (as I explain here ). In the current...
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What is Petroleum Coke?

Generally, people think of oil refineries as producing gasoline and diesel fuel, but refineries produce much more than just those two fuels. One important product produced by refineries is something called petroleum coke, or “petcoke.” Petcoke is used as a fuel and as a source of carbon for industrial processes.

How is Petcoke Produced?

Petcoke is produced after crude oil undergoes two processes. First, the oil is distilled into various products, separating out...
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By their very nature, government policies that artificially encourage the use of “biofuels” (such as ethanol) distort resource allocation and make consumers poorer than they otherwise would be. Of course, fans of the free market have been leveling such a criticism against biofuel mandates and subsidies from the beginning. Yet over the last few years, even many left-leaning groups have realized the harm of these programs. In particular, biofuels divert agricultural products and lands out...
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While the State Department’s latest report on the environmental impact of the Keystone XL pipeline released late last week is favorable to its construction, President Obama is still not so sure[i] and there are several steps to be undertaken before a decision will be made. First, is a comment period lasting 30 days  on the report’s findings from the public and a 90-day period for comments from other government agencies. That puts the next milestone into May, at the earliest, when...
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