Climate Energy

Move over, Solyndra: There’s a new fake solar scandal

A misinformed editor claims SunPower is getting a $1.2 billion loan guarantee, equating it to Solyndra. Note to real reporters: SunPower isn’t even getting the loan guarantee -- it is simply building a 250-MW solar PV project for the global energy company NRG.

Perry's energy plan is a Big Oil wet dream

This is not a surprise or anything, but Rick Perry unveiled what we'll charitably call an "energy plan," and it's printed on oil-soaked paper with oil-based ink.

Can Rick Perry create 1.2 million energy jobs?

Perry and Romney both promised to create over a million jobs in the energy sector. A closer look at the numbers reveals them to be vastly overstated.

House members say Keystone XL approval process is tainted

Twenty members of the House of Representatives have signed a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asking her to reject the Keystone XL pipeline on the grounds that the approval process has been tainted by conflicts of interest. The legislators are worried about reports that the State Department hired a TransCanada-affiliated firm to do the pipeline's environmental evaluation. "These relationships alarmingly suggest that the process may not have been objective," they write, "and this decision is too important to be clouded by even the appearance of impropriety."

Here's what wind power looked like in 1951

This video of vintage wind turbines is super cool. EnergyNOW reports that the U.K. started supplementing its energy needs with wind power during World War II, then kept using wind for daily needs — like shop window lighting — after the war was over.

Coal ash regulations would create 28,000 jobs

Republicans have been arguing that environmental regulations kill jobs. But research keeps showing that it's just not true. An independent analysis of the coal ash industry, for instance, reveals that stricter safety regulations would create 28,000 jobs overall.
 

Critical List: Australia inches from passing a carbon tax; Rick Perry’s secret economic sauce

Australia's carbon tax bill passed its lower House by a thin majority; it should easily pass the Senate and make it into law.

An oil cleanup contest awarded $1 million to the winning Team Elastec/American Marine, which soaked up 4,670 gallons of oil per minute and got to 89.5 percent of the oil, on average.

China is going to tax the hell out of oil and gas and reinvest the money in nuclear reactors and wind farms.

Obama's jobs council hearts environmental destruction

The Fortune 500 CEOs who make up the president's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness are all about building Keystone XL, reinstating deepwater drilling in the Gulf, and fracking up West Virginia. The idea is that these projects will create jobs and economic growth, at least until there's a disaster of some sort that economically depresses […]

Where did Obama's mojo go?

Obama's fund-raising emails sound a little pathetic. Nixing the Keystone XL pipeline could be his last chance to prove himself to progressive voters.

Oil spill is New Zealand’s worst-ever environmental disaster at sea

It's bad when a tanker strikes a reef. It's worse when that tanker is carrying oil that starts tarring some of your country's nicest beaches. It's even worse when bad weather makes more oil leak from that tanker.

That's the series of increasingly problematic events that's been unfolding off the New Zealand coast, and the country's government is now calling it the worst maritime environmental disaster they've ever dealt with. The weather is keeping response crews from doing their thing, and birds and seals are both at risk. Plus, in addition to oil, the tanker was carrying smaller quantities of materials like ferrosilicon, which have the potential to wreak havoc in their own special way.