When hydrofracturing of a shale-gas well occurs, millions of gallons of water is injected deep underground at high pressure. Normally, only a fourth to a fifth of that volume flows back above ground. Where does the rest of it go?

That’s the topic of a free, Web-based seminar offered by Penn State Extension‘s Marcellus Education Team, now available on-demand.

The webinar, “The Fracking-Water Nexus: Issues Encountered by Industry,” features Terry Engelder, Penn State professor of geosciences and a leading authority on the shale-gas play. He discusses research on residual treatment water in shale-gas development and production.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

Gordon & Rees presents a free on-demand webinar on the nationwide trends and hot topics in prevailing wage and Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) claims; best practices for compliance; and practical strategies to reduce risks.

Government contractors often face unique employment issues, especially in the areas of wage and hour and safety. Things become more complicated with overlapping spheres of regulatory control on the local, state, and federal level, the firm says on its website.

The firm’s labor and employment attorneys provided a roundtable discussion on the nationwide trends and hot topics in prevailing wage and Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) claims; best practices for compliance; and practical strategies to reduce risks.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

Icertis Inc. and the International Association of Contract and Commercial Management present a free on-demand webinar  on the impact of collaboration on the effectiveness of contracting.

“Today, there is a significant focus on improving the quality and availability of information for managing contracts. IACCM research shows that the level of collaboration [internal and external] and visibility has a direct impact on the effectiveness of contracting, especially when things go wrong,” Icertis says on its website. “Addressing these organizational concerns, automation systems are increasingly providing analytics and collaboration functionalities that result in enhanced risk management capability versus being driven by terms and condition compliance.”

This webinar explores these characteristics and the extent to which an improved and holistic view of contract information can contribute to proactive compliance management and effective contract risk reduction.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

Emergency plans for natural disasters are not enough – businesses need to plan specifically for illness, says Allied Barton Security Services in a free on-demand webinar.

To reduce the impact of a viral outbreak on your business, it is important for organizations to begin continuity planning for infectious disease now, the company says.

The webinar can help participants develop widespread disease prevention strategies, build an illness management team, formalize your illness preparedness and response plans, and communicate your efforts internally and externally

Watch the on-demand webinar.

A free on-demand webinar posted by Frost & Sullivan highlights the key trends and challenges faced by the world energy sector in the coming years.

Vote Solar has posted a free on-demand webinar on utilities’ application of standby and fixed cost charges specific to solar PV for customers choosing to go solar through a billing practice called net energy metering (NEM) in an attempt to recover their costs.

Jim Kennerly of the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center Jim presented on his recent paper: Rethinking Standby and Fixed Cost Charges: Regulatory and Rate Design Pathways to Deeper Solar Cost Reductions.

“While solar PV’s impact on utilities has been a hot topic for the past year, little attention has been paid to the potentially damaging risks posed by these solar PV-specific rate designs (often informally referred to as solar ‘fees’ or ‘taxes’) upon the Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative’s efforts to reduce the non-hardware ‘soft’ costs of going solar,” Kennerly says.

View the presentation slides or the recorded webinar.

Lawyers from BakerHostetler’s Privacy and Data Protection team hosted an informative webinar providing an in-depth discussion of the issues raised in the firm’s recent blog post on “FAQs by Employers Regarding the Anthem Data Breach.” That webinar is now available for free viewing on-demand.

The webinar covers legal obligations under HIPAA, the duty to notify, obligations for employers offering group plans, responding to employees’ concerns, obligations of ERISA fiduciaries, ERISA preemption of state law obligations, and recommended next steps.

The firm has made both the PowerPoint presentation and the recorded webinar available.

PowerPoint presentation | recorded webinar

ESI International offers a complimentary on-demand webinar designed for contract managers, program managers and business analysts, and their professional duty to communicate effectively in a way that informs, persuades when appropriate, and always protects the interests of the organization.

The webinar can help provide an understanding of why effective communication is a critical skill in contract management, ESI says on its website.

It also covers knowledge of specific areas in the contract management cycle where clear communication is vital to success, such as: requirements analysis, statement of work development, proposal preparation, price justifications and rationale for vendor selection. And it offers practical tips on developing and improving effective communication skills.

Download the on-demand webinar.

PwC presents a complimentary on-demand webinar looking at deal activity in the oil and gas sector and asking what this means for 2015 M&A activity.

2014 was a significant year for U.S. deal activity in the oil and gas sector, PwC says on its website. The U.S. oil and gas deals market experienced unprecedented growth resulting in total deal value increasing by 133% relative to the preceding four year average with 2014 total deal value reaching $322 billion. Additionally, 2014 was an active year in the U.S. capital markets for oil and gas companies. However after an active deals year, recent oil and gas price declines have reintroduced volatility to the oil and gas sector at levels not seen since the financial crisis. The question now is what does this mean for 2015 M&A activity?

This webcast focuses on key themes found in the PwC quarterly M&A analysis along with our insights on deals done in the past year and what the deal market for 2015 may hold.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

BrightTalk has posted a free on-demand webinar featuring speakers from Bitglass discussing how today’s hackers are getting through traditional security technologies and how to use breach discovery techniques to shrink the window between infection and detection in order to limit the damage.

Enterprises have invested millions in breach prevention technology, but hackers are still getting through, exfiltrating data undetected over many months, BrightTalk says on its website. Traditional approaches, which focus on breach prevention, have become increasingly ineffective with the rise of targeted attacks and persistent, ongoing events that may exfiltrate data over long periods of time.

A focus on prevention is no longer sufficient. The enterprise must also focusing on detecting breaches early, limiting damage before sensitive data is exfiltrated.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

The Enivronmental Law Institute recently sponsored sponsored a seminar taking a look a the critical energy and eivironmental issues that will shape 2015. That event is now available online as an on-demand webinar.

With the GOP now in control of Congress, President Obama forging ahead with his climate policies, environmental and energy issues will be grabbing lots of news headlines in 2015, the orginization says on its website.

ELI, the Society of Environmental Journalists and the Environmental Change and Security Program of the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars staged the third annual “Year Ahead on Environment and Energy” event, where leading reporters and editors discussed the critical issues that will shape 2015.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

AwareManager has posted a free on-demand webinar on how to achieve better service levels and gain greater transparency into vendors’ performance.

On its website, the company says the webinar can participants discover important takeaways:

— Improve your vendors’ performance.
— Save you money.
— Enhance tenant, employee and guest satisfaction.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

Ardent Partners has teamed up with Iasta, a Selectica Company, to offer a free webinar, Collaborative Contract Management: Procurement’s Role in Enhancing Compliance and Mitigating Risk, on Wednesday, Feb. 18 at 11 a.m. Eastern time.

This webinar looks at collaborative approaches chief procurement officers and their departments should consider for advancing contract management.

The webinar will cover:

• The shift in the criticality of contract management for procurement
• Best practices for improving collaboration in contract management
• Technology approaches for improving contract management collaboration
• Integrating contract management as part of supplier management

Register for the webinar.

The TASA Group Inc., in conjunction with transportation and traffic engineer Dr. Carl Berkowitz, PE, present a complimentary on-demand webinar examining the problem of railroad grade crossing accident, which occur in this country every two hours.

“There are approximately 220,000 railroad crossings in the United States, of which approximately 137,000 cross public roads. A collision between a train and a motorist at a grade crossing occurs approximately every two hours,” TASA says. “Half of the crossing accidents happen where there are active warning devices, and more than 60 percent of accidents occur where train speed is less than 40 mph. Approximately 20 percent of accidents involve cars running into trains.”

During the program, Dr. Berkowitz discussed:

* Components of a Grade Crossing
* Factors Influencing Highway-Railroad Grade Crossing Safety
* Reducing Highway-Railroad Crossing Incidents
* Future Directions in Railroad Crossing Safety

Watch the on-demand webinar.

Winston & Strawn presented “Recent Trends and Legal Developments You Should Consider in 2015: Part I – Mergers & Acquisitions,” as part of the Real Deal Webinar series. The webinar now is available for free viewing on-demand.

The event covers current trends, challenges, and legal topics pertinent to M&A and securities professionals.

On its website, the firm says the 2014 market for M&A deals in the U.S. was robust, with the year having the most active deal flow since the 2008 financial collapse. And 2015 seems to be off to an equally strong start. Winston & Strawn corporate partners Oscar David, Rob Rawn, and Mitch Moetell led this webinar series and provided a look back at important developments in 2014 and an overview of possible M&A trends in 2015.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

The Network for Public Health Law has posted a complimentary webinar that looks at the structure and essential functions of the state and federal court systems, including administrative courts; explores the Tribal court system; and examines the role of court watch programs in addressing public health issues.

This webinar is first in a three-part series focused on the judiciary and public health. Upcoming webinars in the series include Public Health in the Courts, and the Court and Public Health Emergencies.

“The judicial system plays an important role in advancing public health goals, and it is critical that public health practitioners, legal counsel, and other partners understand how the court system works and how courts are involved in public health matters,” the Network says on its website.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

Compliancy Group will present a free webinar about the terms and conditions of business associate agreements that require your attention, and which ones you shouldn’t lose any sleep over.

The 90-minute webinar will be Thursday, Feb. 19, at 2 p.m. Eastern time

At some point, nearly all HIPAA covered entities and business associates must enter into business associate agreements (BAAs). Far too often though, entities commit one of two errors when doing so – they either sign a BAA “as is” without careful consideration of its terms or they negotiate each and every item in the agreement, Compliancy Group says on its website.

The first error may result in significant costs and liability, and the second wastes time and money. This webinar will address the terms and conditions of BAAs that require your attention, and which ones you shouldn’t lose worry about. The webinar will give both covered entities and business associates the tools they need to identify and address BAA risks, while protecting their business and saving time and money.

Register for the webinar.

ICF International experts discuss the polar vortex and its effects on the natural gas industry in a free on-demand webinar.

On its website, ICF says last winter’s polar vortex illuminated ongoing concerns regarding dependence on gas-fired power generation and natural gas infrastructure limitations, particularly in New England. The region experienced high gas and power prices during last winter’s cold snaps; and, because the conditions were not record-breaking, the price impacts further underscored issues associated with the region’s growing infrastructure issues.

The identification of solutions to address these limitations requires a thorough understanding of the full scope of these issues and a detailed understanding of gas deliverability issues. This requires a comprehensive view of the natural gas industry and a nuanced understanding of the portfolio of infrastructure expansion opportunities. The gas market dynamics in New England also raises critical questions for utilities, pipelines, natural gas shippers, and policymakers, the company says.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

Data Science Central has posted a complimentary on-demand webinar about using the large amounts of data from sensors, logistics and business operations in oil and gas exploration and production activities.

Given the data volume, variety and velocity, gaining actionable and relevant insights from the data is challenging, Data Science Central says on its website.

The webinar explores approaches for predicting drilling equipment function and failure, a key step towards zero unplanned downtime. In the process of drilling wells, non-productive time due to drilling equipment failure can be expensive. It also highlights how the Pivotal Data Labs team uses big data technologies to build models for predicting drilling equipment function and failure.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

World Oil has scheduled a free webinar presenting its projections of spending and activity relating to the global petroleum exploration and production industry.

The webinar will be Tuesday, Feb. 24, at 10 a.m. Central time.

During the 50-minute event (including a Q-and-A period), the editors will discuss:

• U.S. drilling forecast for 2015 versus 2014 well totals, including an analysis of activity
• A global drilling forecast for 2015, featuring a breakout of global offshore activity
• U.S. and worldwide oil production figures for 2014 versus 2013
• Estimates for U.S., Canadian and worldwide upstream capital expenditures during 2014, and projections of planned capital expenditures for 2015
• Various geopolitical factors affecting upstream activity

Register for the webinar.