"WASHINGTON -- Critics want a halt to offshore Arctic drilling in the wake of Shell's latest mishap in the waters off Alaska but there's no sign the Obama administration and key members of Congress are backing off their support for drilling in the sensitive region."
California's Monterey Shale formation holds a vast reserve of oil -- on the verge of being tapped -- that could rain riches and controversy on the state.
"Duke Energy will close two of its oldest coal-fired power plants, Riverbend west of Charlotte and Buck in Rowan County in April, two years ahead of schedule."
"CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Long-term forecasts for coal production in West Virginia and the rest of Central Appalachia continue to show major declines are underway -- and still to come -- for the region's mining industry."
"U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, the Nobel Prize winner who shepherded an effort to help spur a clean energy U.S. economy, will step down after a tenure rocked by the failures of some costly government investments."
"The EPA found serious flaws in two earlier environmental reviews. Soon it will have another opportunity to weigh in, with climate impacts a major concern."
"One of the biggest unknowns in the unfolding Keystone XL debate is the role the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency might play."
"MEXICO CITY -- An explosion rocked the headquarters of Mexico's state-run oil monopoly Pemex, killing 25 people, injuring 101, and damaging three floors of Mexico's second tallest building before sending plumes of smoke into the Mexico City skyline."
"Chevron ignored potentially life-threatening dangers to workers at its Richmond refinery and should pay a record fine of nearly $1 million stemming from the fire there in August, state regulators said Wednesday."
The Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity filed suit in Alameda County Superior Court charging that the California Department of Conservation's Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources was not following the state's own law.
"Last month Fox News reported on the 'grizzly deaths' of 500 songbirds in West Virginia. Behind the fell deed: a wind farm, caught red-turbined. 'To date, the Obama administration... has not prosecuted a single case against the wind industry,' the Fox reporter laments. Opponents of renewable energy love to trot out the risk wind turbines pose to birds, and some engineering work has gone into making them more avian-friendly. But a new study released today in Nature shows that if you really want to protect birds, forget about wind: You need to lock up Kitty."
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