Climate Energy
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Tar-sands pipeline 'safety conditions' are smoke and mirrors
Hillary Clinton gives TransCanada props for agreeing to 57 conditions, which are really just a hodgepodge of current regulations and red herrings.
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Teenage genius improves solar panels using math and trees
You gotta heart teenage geniuses: this one, Aidan Dwyer, age 13, figured out a way to make solar panel arrays more efficient after taking a walk in the woods. Here is his basic thought-process, broken down for us non-geniuses:
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Solar PV makes most sense at modest size
Benefits of smaller-scale solar operations far outweigh any potential savings from building bigger.
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TransCanada says Keystone XL will be ‘safest pipeline in the U.S.’
The existing pipeline has seen 12 spills in one year, but the company reassures citizens that Keystone XL will operate with a "high degree of safety."
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Bachmann promises $2 gas, unicorns
When I was in the fourth grade I took a lot of crap for not voting for Ty for class president, because he said he would give us double recess and free ice cream. I found those claims doubtful, and also Ty was kind of a dick, so I didn't vote for him, but everyone else did and they made fun of me. What I'm saying is, if you believe Michele Bachmann's claim that she can get gas back under $2 a gallon, then you should break out your Bieber tee and your juice box, because you are essentially an eight-year-old with a peer pressure problem. And you're going to be waiting a long time for that ice cream.
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Critical List: Exxon could lose a big Gulf oil lease; alligator fat makes good biofuel
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.) -
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Obama administration moves against Alaska oil drilling
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is moving to grant increased protection to areas within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
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Mythbusters: debunking the claim that fuel economy standards ‘kill people’
Opponents of fuel-efficiency standards say the push toward smaller cars increases traffic fatalities, but it could be big cars that pose a danger.
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Animated film from 1957 predicts explosion in energy use
The only thing about this 1950s educational cartoon that’s more remarkable than its stylishness is how badly it botches its core prediction. It projects that between 1957 and 1975, electricity use in the U.S. would increase four-fold. But America's electricity consumption didn't quadruple from 1950 levels until 1989. Cartoons, we trusted you! How could you get it so wrong?
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Rick Perry wants to frack Iowa
At an Iowa campaign stop, Rick Perry told voters that he's not aware of any instances when fracking contaminated groundwater.
