Energy & Fuel

The vaunted "free market" is a fairy tale when energy industries are begging for subsidies from the federal government.

"COEBURN, Va. — Wearing helmets, headlamps and uniforms streaked with grime, the workers at Paramont Coal sound weary of fighting. They are in the middle of what they call a long-running 'war on coal' that is threatening their livelihood and stoking fury directed at the federal government."

"PHILADELPHIA -- Demonstrators in the United States and other countries protested Saturday against the natural gas drilling process known as fracking that they say threatens public health and the environment."

"The wind industry’s main trade association is predicting that new installations will fall to zero without a renewal of the production tax credit, which applies only to projects finished by New Year’s Eve. Since renewal is iffy, some wind machine factories are already shutting down, as my colleague Diane Cardwell reported on Friday."

"Port Arthur, Tex. -- The Valero oil refinery looms over the small streets of this blighted port city. A vast maze of pipes and vats and boilers, the refinery traces its rootsback 111 years, to just months after the historic Spindletop gusher that triggered the Texas oil rush."

"SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Jeff Rothschild’s machines at Facebook had a problem he knew he had to solve immediately. They were about to melt."

"Recent action by Koch Oil Sands pulls the curtain back further on the Koch family's deep but quiet involvement in Canada's oil sands industry."

"A coal-fired power plant in Billings, Montana, will be mothballed starting in April 2015 because it will cost too much to comply with new emissions reductions required by the government, plant owner and operator PPL Montana said on Wednesday."

"America's hydraulic fracturing gold rush portends the greatest environmental disaster of a generation. ... The natural gas industry has spent $747 million lobbying state and federal officials over the past decade, allowing it to continue drilling in 34 states. Few Americans are any richer. But a whole lot more have horror stories to tell."