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  • Japan is not a nuclear conflagration right now. Would we be so lucky?

    Japan has declared a state of emergency at the Fukushima nuclear reactor -- but thanks to good engineering, there's been no radiation leak and there's no risk of one. With more than 50 nuclear plants in the earthquake-vulnerable country, things would have been way worse without earthquake precautions in place. Does U.S. infrastructure have that kind of protection?

    Jess Zimmerman Energy

  • Is the Bloom Box cheaper than solar?

    This is part of a series on distributed renewable energy posted to Grist. It originally appeared on Energy Self-Reliant States, a resource of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s New Rules Project. The Bloom Box has received a lot of media attention for its plug-and-play approach to electricity from fuel cells. The 100 kilowatt boxes generate electricity […]

    John Farrell Energy

  • Oil prices soar in spite of sharp increase in U.S. production under Obama

    U.S. oil production last year rose to its highest level in almost a decade … As a result, analysts believe the U.S. was the largest contributor to the increase in global oil supplies last year over 2009, and is on track to increase domestic production by 25 percent by the second half of the decade. […]

    Joseph Romm Energy

  • More drilling won’t help

    We have a problem we can’t drill our way out of.Photo: arbyreedCross-posted from the Center for American Progress. Unrest in Libya and Egypt is driving up oil prices, stirring concerns that gasoline could hit $5 a gallon by summer. Like a smoker’s persistent cough, it’s another warning to change our ways. America sends nearly $1 billion […]

    Daniel J. Weiss Energy

  • Wall Street Journal poll: Most popular spending cut is subsidies for new nuclear plants

    It is no big surprise that Americans don’t want cuts in Social Security, Medicare, or K-12 education. But the new WSJ/NBC poll does have some surprises: The survey found that the most popular potential spending cuts were subsidies to build new nuclear plants, with 57 percent support…. Of course, nuclear is absurdly over-subsidized (see “Nuclear […]

    Joseph Romm Energy

  • Fred Upton’s bizarre war on 24 million Americans with asthma

    Cross-posted from the Natural Resources Defense Council. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) is teaming up with House Energy and Commerce Chair Fred Upton (R-Mich.) to introduce a bill to allow America’s biggest polluters to continue dumping unlimited amounts of carbon emissions into the air. It’s not that surprising that Inhofe is pushing this in the Senate. […]

    Peter Altman Energy

  • Can states keep clean energy jobs at home?

    Photo: GreenforallCan a state with a renewable energy mandate require green jobs to stay at home? Litigation has made states into tepid defenders of their job rights, but states have the legal ground to go great lengths to keep more of the economic development from their renewable energy industry inside their borders. No renewable energy […]

    John Farrell Energy

  • Upcoming congressional hearings at which a fetus should testify

    Source photo: Lunar CausticThe Ohio state legislature is preparing to hear testimony from a 9-week-old fetus, which I assume will actually be a lawyer making a squeaky voice from behind a picture of an ultrasound. The fetus is testifying about whether it should be able to freeload off a woman’s organs while it’s waiting to […]

    Jess Zimmerman Energy

  • Pittsburgh’s drinking water is radioactive, thanks to fracking. Only question is, how much?

    The drinking water of tens of millions of Pennsylvanians is threatened by natural-gas fracking — including the 2.3 million who live in Pittsburgh.Photo: Via Tsuji Residents of Pittsburgh — as well as potentially tens of millions of other everyday citizens in the Northeast corridor who rely on their taps to deliver safe water — are […]

    Christopher Mims Energy

  • EPA lets natural gas industry brazenly pollute my state’s drinking water

    That’s some fracked up sh*t: a natural gas rig does its thing in Dimock, Pa. Photo: Helen Slottje, via arimooreIn a perfect world, everyone would read The New York Times’ frankly terrifying exposé on the EPA’s rather timid oversight of the natural gas industry in Pennsylvania — and public outrage would force the EPA to […]

    Tom Laskawy Energy