Oil Archives

Home Oil Page 10

Economics

Boom & Bust: How Big Oil Boomtowns Can Survive—and Thrive—for the Long Term

To kick off our week-long series on booms and busts, Jamie Wiebe looks to North Dakota, currently the fastest-growing state in the union, to see how local planners are preparing for what's widely considered to be an inevitable crash.

Jamie Wiebe

Environment

The Gross Society: We’re Entering an Age of Energy Impoverishment

It’s hard to overstate just how serious a threat our energy crisis is to every aspect of our current way of life. But the problem is hidden from view by oil and natural gas production numbers that look and feel just fine.

Richard Heinberg

Environment

An Accident Waiting to Happen

As oil trains derail across the United States, a windswept—and vulnerable—stretch of Montana’s Glacier National Park underscores the folly of transporting crude by rail.

Elizabeth Royte

Environment

Chesapeake Energy’s $5 Billion Shuffle

The energy giant raised the cash it needed to survive by slashing royalties it paid property owners to drill on their land.

Abrahm Lustgarten

Environment

How Farouk al Kasim Saved Norway From Its Oil

After growing up watching the benefits of Iraqi oil elude the Iraqi people, a young executive insisted that Norway do things differently.

Lisa Margonelli

Environment

How Oil and Gas Drillers Avoid Paying Royalties to Landowners

Income from oil and gas production doesn’t always trickle down to landowners, as companies find ways to minimize the share they pay in royalties.

Abrahm Lustgarten

Environment

Has the EPA Given Up on Trying to Monitor Fracking?

When the Environmental Protection Agency abruptly retreated on its investigation into water contamination in a central Wyoming natural gas field recently, it shocked environmentalists and energy industry supporters alike.

Abrahm Lustgarten

Environment

The Tagalong Metals

Inside the mining industry’s epic but surprisingly fragile push to keep pace with demand for the raw materials of modern life.

Tim Heffernan

Social Justice

The New Bronze Age

Worries about oil and gas hog the airwaves. But copper is also essential to keep the world running: It threads through your house, your computer, your eco-correct hybrid car. And it's getting just as difficult, expensive, and environmentally menacing as oil to extract. We have entered the era of tough ore.

Tim Heffernan

Economics

This Is Your Town on Fracking

Elizabeth Royte finds herself stranded in Williston, North Dakota, at the heart of a new oil boom in the United States.

Elizabeth Royte