Energy & Fuel

"The debate over making post-Fukushima Daichi improvements to American reactors is getting down into the details, and one focus is pressure relief vents."

"More than 1 million homes and businesses in a swath from Indiana to Virginia remained without power on Wednesday, five days after deadly storms tore through the region."

"A U.S. Navy oiler slipped away from a fuel depot on the Puget Sound in Washington state one recent day, headed toward the central Pacific and into the storm over the Pentagon's controversial green fuels initiative."

"Republicans successfully overrode [NC] Gov. Bev Perdue’s veto of a fracking bill during a dramatic vote taken just after 11 p.m. Monday."

"Natural gas is causing angst and excitement in local communities across the country, but the rise of fracking will have an impact on an issue that affects everyone on the planet: climate change. Gas Planet, a special hour of radio, explores whether unconventional natural gas can help or hinder efforts to solve climate change."

"Nearly two years after the pipeline explosion that killed eight people and devastated a neighborhood in San Bruno, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. considers 239 of its natural-gas transmission lines to be at risk of a similar failure, according to a company assessment obtained by The Chronicle."

"The Obama administration's Bureau of Land Management auctioned a major tract of Wyoming coal to Peabody Energy at a bargain-basement price of $1.10 per ton yesterday."

"Alpha Natural Resources announced Wednesday it’s permanently closing two mines and a coal preparation plant in Logan County [WV], and scaling back operations at two other southern West Virginia operations."

"Abound Solar, a solar panel maker that received a $400 million loan guarantee from the federal government, announced on Thursday that it would file for bankruptcy amid plummeting prices and intense competition from Chinese manufacturers in the solar equipment market."

"U.S. oil companies will be allowed to drill in more areas of the Gulf of Mexico but won only limited access to the Arctic under the final version of the Obama Administration's five year drilling plan that was slammed by industry and some environmentalists."