Exxon could lose its lease on one of its biggest oil finds ever. Bill McKibben explains why Keystone XL protesters will wear Obama '08 buttons. Isn’t there some place to put a big wind farm that won't threaten endangered species of birds? (Spoiler: No. Or anyway, not South Texas.) Oil and gas companies are looking for a bounty in Greenland. Fifteen million pounds of leftover fat from alligator meat gets thrown away each year (really! People apparently eat that many alligators!), but it could be processed into biofuels.

In London, two bicycle parking lots are now equipped with beautiful, shining new public bike pumps. They work just like the hand pump generally native to the dusty garage, except they’re bolted to the ground. The pumps’ gauges also can deal with any tire they might be asked to handle. Pumps are a sadly neglected part of bicycle infrastructure. Biking with saggy tires is depressing; biking with newly pumped tires is delicious. More like this, please!

The Navy, USDA, and Energy Department are investing in biofuels that come from plants we don't eat. As Shell fought an oil leak in the North Sea, Norway's biggest oil company announced it had found a huge oil field there. Oh awesome, nothing can go wrong with this! Shell's also helping Iraq to double its capacity to produce natural gas. U.S. solar manufacturers say it's hard to compete against China's low-priced workers. Even the lead-up to drilling in the Arctic has frightened off whales. Who says green living's not self-centered? BMW's electric and hybrid line is called Project I. A …

How big is natural gas in Pennsylvania? This big, according to the Associated Press: More than half of the interstate natural-gas pipeline projects proposed to federal energy regulators since the beginning of 2010 involve Pennsylvania — at a cost estimated at more than $2 billion. That's hundreds of miles of pipelines that can move more than 4 billion cubic feet of natural gas each day. The new pipeline projects also bring the risk of explosions, which have been a particular problem for natural gas systems lately. Congress is supposed to take a new look at pipeline safety rules, last updated …

Canned tuna, a "magical wonder fish," is sooooo cheap. Just ignore that "shadowy multinational corporation" behind the curtain, and the bloodlust of Chicken of the Sea's creepy mermaid mascot: The "dirty little secret" that Greenpeace unveils in the video is the problem of innocent bystanders … uh, byswimmers. Basically, tuna fleets use fish aggregating devices to attract tons of tuna. But the devices also attract other fish, which get caught and sacrificed to the bottom line.

A second leak at the Shell oil platform in the North Sea is proving harder to stop than the first. A Chinese protest against a chemical factory was one of the largest in three years -- at least 12,000 people -- and may herald a shift towards more public action in the country. Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter is exchanging ideas with leaders in Rio about greening their cities. How our tricksy brains are keeping us from drinking cleaned wastewater: "It is quite difficult to get the cognitive sewage out of the water, even after the real sewage is gone," says …

While lobster fishermen in the Long Island Sound are stubbornly — but just barely — hanging on, people who depended on the fishing stock in the Great Lakes for their livelihood can no longer make it. Lake Michigan is a "liquid desert," reports Dan Egan in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Even the most devoted fishing family Egan can find is sending one of its own up to Alaska, because "he can catch more fish in one day in Alaska than he can catch all winter off Milwaukee." Although overfishing played a role here in decimating fish populations, the real culprits …

Companies are on board with reporting their carbon usage, but what about the amount of plastic they produce? It's a different sort of problem than carbon emissions, but although the negative impacts of humanity's plastic habit have been known for years, the amount being used is only increasing. This fall, the Hong Kong-based Ocean Recovery Alliance  (ORA) is moving forward with its Plastic Disclosure Project, which will ask companies to calculate and disclose their "plastic footprints," just as they report their carbon footprints. The ultimate goal is decreasing the amount that gets into the oceans and messes with marine environments, …

A Shell oil platform in the Arctic is leaking oil. The company won't say how much but will say that the spill is under control. The Interior Department is looking into treatment of Arctic scientist Charles Monnett, who is under investigation for his work on polar bears. Why real world fuel efficiency is so much lower than fuel efficiency standards. Melting Arctic ice means that the Northwest Passage is opening up. Ships only have charts for about 10 percent of it, which means it's less than totally safe to navigate. These lights on bike wheel rims make biking at night …

The 600 or so miles of fence splitting the U.S. from Mexico hasn't stopped immigrants from moving northward, but the fence has kept a few (non-human) endangered species from crossing the border. According to a new study, some species have had their range cut by 75 percent. But the affected species, which include the Arroyo toad, California red-legged frog, black-spotted newt, and Pacific pond turtle, aren't the type that tend to incite widespread indignation on their behalf — that is, they’re reptiles and amphibians, which usually aren’t considered cute enough to worry about. There is one largish cat, the jaguarundi, …