Energy

…Green recycling policy is killing the oceans with plastic pollution…

…The New York Times recently reported that, unknown to most families who spend hours separating garbage into little recycling bins, much of the stuff ends up in a landfill anyway.

One big reason: China has essentially shut the door to U.S. recyclables.…

One of the stories about Venezuela that is darkly comic, out in the last couple of weeks, is that now thousands of oilfield workers, including almost all at the professional level, are fleeing the country with little more than the clothes on their backs. Reason? Maduro's answer to dropping oil production and problems in that sector was to arrest a lot of the people running it, and to place a General in charge who knew absolutely nothing about the oil industry. The General's answer to failing equipment and declining production was to bring his goon squads and threaten to shoot anyone who didn't make production go back up again. Surprise, surprise, everyone who has even the slightest bit of expertise is running away as fast as they can.

To run some of the refineries that don't have enough workers anymore, the General has sent in 20 year old illiterates with guns, and the only solution they know to something going wrong is to either yell at it or shoot it. Yep, that's a good way to stop that refinery from exploding.

WEATHERFORD, Okla. (KOKH) — A wind turbine caught fire, causing a grass fire… March 28… two miles south of Weatherford caught fire, throwing sparks to the ground. …caused a grass fire that was contained after growing to approximately five acres. Eight fire engines responded to the scene and were able to contain the fire.…

For OPEC, there are few enemies more fearsome than the tiny Oklahoma town of Cushing.…

…Four private security guards and police dogs were injured when they were confronted by hundreds of protesters outside of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. Tribal spokesman Sitting Bear reported that six protesters—including one child—had been bitten by security dogs. Sitting Bear also indicated that at least thirty protesters had been pepper-sprayed during the encounter. However, according to local law enforcement, no injuries of protesters had been reported, and no arrests were made.…

More than a decade after conservationists helped persuade Congress to require adding corn-based ethanol and other biofuels to gasoline, some groups regret the resulting agricultural runoff in waterways and conversion of prairies to cropland — improving the odds that lawmakers might seek changes to the program next year.…

Wanna see where the lithium for all the greenies electric cars comes from?…

…Because as ports struggle to cope with a global oil glut, huge queues of supertankers have formed in some of the world's busiest sea lanes, where some 200 million barrels of crude lies waiting to be loaded or delivered, Reuters reports today.

The vessels, filled with oil worth around $7.5 billion at current market prices, would stretch for almost 40 km (25 miles) if formed up in one straight line.…

…a solar energy project in Nevada is creating a lethal solar flux that singes, blinds, and even vaporizes birds.… Video shows that in early 2015, at least 115 birds disintegrated as they flew into the project’s solar flux during a testing period…

…"The notion that the governor and commission aren't doing anything isn't accurate. It's not fair," said Chad Warmington, president of the Oklahoma Oil and Gas Association.

Warmington said, for some time, they have been cooperating with the state in an effort to slow down the quakes.

"There's nothing to hide, and there's nothing we can hide. We report it daily. The commission has it all," Warmington said. "They requested it because, again, they're trying to get their arms around okay, if we have seismic activity in a certain area, let's go back and see if we can't have a correlation to certain injection activity at certain wells to certain distances."…

"What we've learned in this study is that the fluid injection responsible for most of the recent quakes in Oklahoma is due to production and subsequent injection of massive amounts of wastewater, and is unrelated to hydraulic fracturing," said Zoback, the Benjamin M. Page Professor in the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences.

The Oklahoma Senate has given unanimous approval to a pair of bills that will end two separate tax subsidies for the wind industry in Oklahoma.…

…“My heart goes out to the people of Boston,” Levin, who is also president of the Landmark Legal Foundation, told the Washington Examiner Thursday. “It’s obvious their political leaders don’t care that they have been suffering so much this winter. They want to make energy more expensive and keep people freezing and miserable. I am hoping to start this movement in the coldest areas, the bluest areas. I want to encourage people to drive their cars more often, keep their lights on, and use more energy, which is what gives us life.”…