"THREE RIVERS, Tex. — The refinery business has long been the difficult stepchild of the oil industry, expensive to run, prone to accidents and a low-margin headache for executives who preferred drilling for gushers. But signs of the improving fortunes for the industry can be seen at Valero Energy's Three Rivers refinery here, about 70 miles south of San Antonio at the doorstep of a giant new shale oil field."
"After years of working to obtain permission from the state, Alberta-based U.S. Oil Sands Inc. was given the final go-ahead Wednesday to develop the first commercial oil sands project in the US."
The hour-long report on the fossil-industry and right-wing climate science denial movement broadcast on PBS Frontline Tuesday night raises a key issue. Did deniers win their fight to stop action on global warming by killing it in Congress and keeping it out of the presidential campaign?
"The hillside vineyards of New York's Finger Lakes region make money producing fine Rieslings and inviting tourists to sip white wine by the water's edge. Now winery owners are worried about the prospect of a grittier kind of economic development: gas drilling."
Fracking has brought economic boom times to some parts of the U.S. As the price of natural gas sinks, the question arises: what will happen when the boom is over?
President Obama, GOP contender Mitt Romney, and the U.S. news media moderators pointedly refused to mention climate change once during the series of four presidential debates.
"High-profile U.S. protesters against the Canadian oil sands are taking their activism north this week, as the battle over a pipeline that would send crude to Asia enters a critical regulatory stage."
"The Department of Energy has confirmed that its oldest double-shell tank is actively leaking radioactive and hazardous chemical waste from its inner shell."
"Solyndra, the solar panel maker that failed despite a $528 million federal loan, on Monday won court approval for its plan to repay creditors and end its politically charged bankruptcy, after a judge overruled objections by the U.S. government."
"NEW YORK -- Dozens of wells drilled this year across rural Ohio are quietly pumping out the answer to the U.S. energy industry's most loaded question: Is the Utica shale formation, touted as a potentially $500 billion frontier, a boom or a bust? Yet the answer is likely to remain concealed for some time."
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