oil
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Critical List: The shortest day of the year; some grey wolves to come off endangered species list
Today marks the solstice: the shortest day of the year and the beginning of winter. Things will only get better from here on out, as long as by “things” you mean “the amount of daylight available in the Northern hemisphere.” Grey wolves in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin will be taken off the endangered species list. […]
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Feds approve Shell’s plan to spill oil in the Arctic
The Obama administration just approved Shell Oil's plan to drill for oil in the Arctic, and even though it got its way, the company is still whining about "unwarranted restrictions" attached to this approval (it can't drill when winter ice is present, boo fucking hoo). Drilling for oil is challenging even under "normal" circumstances, so […]
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Russia spills as much oil as Deepwater Horizon every two months
Russian oil spills come in drips and trickles, instead of dramatic explosions. But the Associated Press reports that oil companies there spill at least 1 percent of all oil produced every year — "equivalent to one Deepwater Horizon-scale leak about every two months," the AP says. Why have you never heard about this? Well, for […]
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The return of the Keystone XL pipeline
Keystone XL is back from the dead. After President Obama announced a delay in a final decision on the tar-sands pipeline, House Republicans’ first gambit was to try to speed up that process. But now, they have a more sinister plan: They are trying to force through wholesale approval of the pipeline project. They're doing […]
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Critical List: Congress does everything it can to screw the environment; fabric cleaned by sunlight
Congress voted to put sanctions on Iran, which would make it harder for Iran to sell oil, but potentially make oil sales more profitable for the regime overall. After all the work that the anti-Keystone coalition did, Republicans are trying to tack a measure to approve the pipeline onto a bill that extends the payroll […]
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Critical List: Jaczko reportedly a jerk; Gore flogs ‘sustainable capitalism’
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's commissioners are calling out their boss, Gregory Jaczko, for being a jerk. It's not exactly reassuring when the body that oversees nuclear power can't even get its own house in order. Other countries are taking way better care of endangered species than the United States is. Uh oh, there was a […]
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E. coli can now make three kinds of fuel out of grass
Switchgrass, Dubya’s favorite biofuel feedstock, is back in the news. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint BioEnergy Institute have engineered E. coli — the same bug that is spoiling the lives of raw cookie dough eaters everywhere — to transform switchgrass into gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. The secret sauce of their solution […]
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Oil companies have invested 50 times more in tar sands than in renewables
The oil industry talks a big game about looking toward the future and investing in renewable fuels. But a bit of number crunching from NRDC shows that oil's commitment to renewables isn't much more than talk. According to the enviro group's analysis, the oil industry has spent about 50 times more on tar-sands development alone […]
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Chevron admits that it hasn’t been able to stop the Brazil oil leak
Remember how last month Chevron spilled more than 100,000 gallons of oil off the coast of Brazil? The oil industry likes us to think that spills like this are no big deal: They'll clean that right up! But this spill's not following that script. The company tried to plug the offending well with cement, but […]