Chesapeake's Gas-Powered News

by Diane Farsetta — September 9, 2008 - 11:41am
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Image from CleanSkies.tvFaced with "public complaints about its new drilling in an urban area" -- Fort Worth, Texas -- the natural gas company Chesapeake Energy is about to launch its own "brand-new media source," Shale.tv. The online video channel will be produced by "three Dallas-area former journalists," and is named after the Barnett Shale natural gas formation in North Texas. In response to questions about Shale.tv's objectivity, Chesapeake spokesperson Julie Wilson pointed out, "We pay those journalists -- whether on Channel 8 or Channel 11 or the [Fort Worth] Star-Telegram -- in terms of advertising support. ... Instead of running ads on the program, we're just writing the check direct." Chesapeake has also hired actor Tommy Lee Jones, "to help deliver its point of view." And, since April, the Chesapeake-funded group American Clean Skies Foundation has run CleanSkies.tv. The online video channel "has applied for press credentials that would place its reporters and crew inside the U.S. Capitol," reports Dow Jones. The CleanSkies.tv program "Clean Skies Sunday," which is anchored by former CBS Morning News host Susan McGinnis, is also broadcast on WJLA-7, the ABC affiliate in Washington DC. A recent show featured Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McClendon discussing a Clean Skies Foundation report that concluded that "natural gas supplies are vast enough to meet current demand for more than 100 years, a key talking point by the natural gas industry in its congressional lobbying efforts."

Main Source: 
Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media, September 4, 2008

Comments

Demand for natural gas has

Submitted by Anonymous on April 7, 2009 - 5:34am.

Demand for natural gas has grown substantially. The public utilities have captured their regulators and no one seems to be holding their feet to the fire

demand for natural gas

Submitted by Blogger on November 29, 2008 - 2:02pm.

In recent years, demand for natural gas has grown substantially. However, as the natural gas industry in the United States becomes more mature, domestically available resources become harder to find and produce.

As large, conventional natural gas deposits are extracted, the natural gas left in the ground is commonly found in less conventional deposits, which are harder to discover and produce than has historically been the case.Webmaster Forum

However, the natural gas industry has been able to keep pace with demand, and produce greater amounts of natural gas despite the increasingly unconventional and elusive nature. The ability of the industry to increase production in this manner has been a direct result of technological innovations.

Natural Gas

Submitted by tlapis on September 20, 2008 - 12:05pm.

The Navigant Consulting Inc. report that was commissioned by Chesapeake Energy on the amount of domestic natural gas reserves is important because it shows that the US has 10x more methane than the official Energy Information Agency acknowledges. The amount of gas from shale should be enough to be pushing down gas cost estimates, leading to lower gas & electric bills. But this time of year, the northern gas & electric utilities are all lined up to present their rate estimates to their regulators, and no one is paying attention. The public utilities have captured their regulators and no one seems to be holding their feet to the fire. NCI's natural gas reserve's report caused the Oil & Gas Journal to suggest that it would have unintended consequences. The only consequence so far has been to prove that the American public is asleep at the switch.