Energy & Fuel

"Frackers in America’s largest oil field are letting massive amounts of natural gas spill into the atmosphere. Scientists and activists are trying to find the leaks and get them plugged before they cook the planet further."

"House Democrats are preparing to take the first steps Monday toward adopting a roughly $3.5 trillion spending plan that would enable sweeping changes to the nation’s health care, education and tax laws, but new rifts among party lawmakers threaten to stall the package’s swift advance."

"U.S. officials launched a review Thursday of climate damage and other impacts from coal mining on public lands as the Biden administration expands its scrutiny of government fossil fuel sales that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions."

"A new analysis from Earthworks suggests that oil and gas producers in the Permian Basin in Texas, one of the largest oilfields in the world, are routinely emitting carbon dioxide and methane without the correct permits, with offenders including big names like Shell and Exxon."

"Lynn Rigsbee was sitting on her couch on a Tuesday morning last year when an explosion knocked her to the floor. The blast came from a hydrogen plant a few hundred feet from her house in Long View, N.C., northwest of Charlotte. It broke doors loose from deadbolts, shattered windows and blasted a hole through her roof."

"The Energy Department on Wednesday proposed reversing a Trump-era rule that was expected to undermine its ability to regulate efficiency of both residential furnaces and commercial water heaters."

"A federal judge in Alaska on Wednesday blocked construction permits for an expansive oil drilling project on the state’s North Slope that was designed to produce more than 100,000 barrels of oil a day for the next 30 years."

"Scientists have come tantalizingly close to reproducing the power of the sun — albeit only in a speck of hydrogen for a fraction of a second."

"ExxonMobil’s huge new Guyana project faces charges of a disregard for safety from experts who claim the company has failed to adequately prepare for possible disaster, the Guardian and Floodlight have found."

"Over the last year, energy companies, electrical utilities and other industrial sectors have been quietly pushing through a suite of policies to support a technology that stands to yield tens of billions of dollars for corporate polluters, but may do little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."