oil
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Critical List: Gas prices drop; Mount Fuji’s on top of an active fault
Gas prices are falling. Americans are willing to deal with a 13 percent hike in electricity bills if it means more of their power will come from clean energy. Twenty-six states are fighting for schools to teach evolution and climate change — a welcome change from school reformers who want to tear down those ideas. […]
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Critical List: Peru’s mysterious animal deaths; wolf puppies
Pelicans and dolphins are dying in droves in Peru — 1,200 birds and 800 dolphins have washed up dead on the coast — and the government is warning people away from the beaches until it figures out why. Dinosaurs might have passed enough gas (i.e. methane) to match current levels of greenhouse-gas emissions. The Crawford […]
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Upsetting photos of oil-slicked turtles from Deepwater Horizon
Back in 2010, Greenpeace filed a Freedom of Information request covering endangered species affected by the Deepwater Horizon spill. They just received a response from NOAA, and it included more than 100 photos. They're disturbing.
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Critical List: TransCanada reapplies for Keystone XL permit; Japan’s last nuclear reactor
TransCanada put in a new permit application for the Keystone XL pipeline. Japan switched off its last nuclear reactor. Fights over endangered species are about to get wild, as the Fish and Wildlife Service has to rule on protections for species that live in oil country.
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Critical List: EPA official resigns; skeptics think clouds will save us
Al Armendariz, the EPA official who said he’d crucify environmental lawbreakers, resigned. Two of the last few northern white rhinos on earth have done it. (You know, IT.) No word yet if the pair’s expecting a little rhino, but there’s a video, if you want to see what rhino sex looks like. The National Zoo’s […]
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Oil shale: An environmental disaster waiting to happen?
It used to be that oil came from a hole drilled in the ground. But as oil has become more scarce, the ways of getting at it have become more numerous — so much so that it’s getting hard to keep track. Oil sands, shale oil, oil shale: These are all different sources of oil. […]
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Critical List: Nigeria oil spill 60 times bigger than reported; Arctic Ocean methane
Amnesty International found documents showing that a 2008 Shell oil spill in Nigeria was 60 times bigger than the company claimed. And in Russia, 2,000 tons of oil spilled from a well over two days. But, really, who knows how much oil it was? The thawing Arctic Ocean is releasing gobs of methane into the atmosphere. Figuring out how […]
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287 coastal energy facilities at risk from sea-level rise
Sea levels are rising, which means that there’s a greater risk of floods that reach well over the high tide mark. By 2030, the risk that coastal floods will go four feet or more over high tide will have doubled, Climate Central reports. And in that zone lie 287 energy facilities — power plants, natural […]
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A tire fire so big it can be seen from space
Tire fires are a nasty business, and in Kuwait yesterday, a fire broke out at a dump that held more than 5 million tires. The fire was so big that the smoke plume was visible from space: A tire fire this big is an environmental disaster. It won’t just pollute the air with hazardous materials […]