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Urgent letter to EPA and Interior Dept. from coalfield residents

As three million pounds of ammonium nitrate/fuel oil explosives continue to rip through the lush green Appalachian mountains and historic mountain communities every day, coalfield residents from West Virginia issued an extraordinary letter on Wednesday asking EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to assert primacy over the negligent West Virginia […]

Is China ready to act on climate? Part 2

Part 1 looked at the “Rise of the Green Dragon?“ Yet, even as China aggressively pursues world leadership in key clean technologies like solar and wind, it has also announced plans to keep expanding coal use at a pace so rapacious it would single-handedly finish off the climate no matter what we and the other […]

Obama and Biden press House Dems for fast action on climate bill

The Washington Post reported today: President Obama and Vice President Biden urged a group of House Democrats at a White House meeting this morning to move forward with climate-change legislation that has become a subject of controversy among some Democrats and threatened to stall health-care reform. At the same time, E&E News PM (subs. req’d) […]

The greening of Sarko

Think of Nicolas Sarkozy, and what springs to mind? Carla Bruni, of course. His platform heels, probably. A somewhat aggressive manner, naturellement. Napoleon Bonaparte, pourquoi non? Al Gore attended the October 2007 unveiling of the Sarkozy government’s green program, called “Grenelle de l’Environnment.”Courtesy Elysee.frIndeed the French president is often compared to the diminutive emperor with […]

House Republicans blow off biz leaders who want climate action

House Republicans are ramping up their campaign against the Democratic leadership’s climate and energy bill — and telling business leaders to get with the program or get out of the way. On Tuesday, a group of key Republicans hosted a summit on Capitol Hill to bash the Waxman-Markey bill as an “energy tax” that would […]

Ask Umbra on hydro power at home

Q. Dear Umbra, Please tell me you didn’t just imply that hydroelectric is a clean energy source. You didn’t just say that, did you? Brian K.Eugene, Ore. You’ve got the power in your hands.iStockA. Dearest Brian, In my recent column on living off the grid, I pledged to discuss micro-hydro as a power source for […]

Businesses struggle to profit from sewage sludge

Part 2 of Grist’s special series on poop. “We’re trying to get the pieces bigger — ideally the size of pencil erasers,” said John “Rus” Miller, handing me a plastic packet of a brown, dry, crumbly material with the texture of couscous and the odor of manure. That’s because it was manure — in the […]

The EPA holds corn ethanol accountable … sort of

In February 2008, a group of researchers led by Tim Searchinger of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School published a paper (PDF) in Science Express called, “Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land Use Change.” Their conclusion was startling: the government policy of supporting biofuel production, which had begun in the […]

U.S. pledges something or other on climate

Details aren’t in focus in this climate doc.Photo: circulating via FlickrToday U.S. negotiators promised “ambitious actions,” “robust targets,” and pretty much nada details in a proposal overdue to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The paper suggests a structure for the international climate treaty to be hashed out in Copenhagen this December—something the UNFCC […]

What do you get when you buy a nuke? You get a lot of delays and rate increases….

Progress Energy said Friday it has pushed back by 20 months its schedule for bringing on-line two planned new nuclear reactors in Florida, after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said its review of the plant site will take longer than expected. Progress also said it will spread out over five years certain early–stage costs for the […]