Oregon
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Critical List: New rules for fracking’s air pollution; prehistoric microbes live
Natural gas companies have to work on sending less methane and other hazardous compounds into the air, according to new EPA rules. The House passed that new Keystone XL provision. Oregon towns on the coast are toying with the idea of becoming major coal export ports. But it’s maaaaybe not the best idea.
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The great oyster crash
When oyster larvae in the Pacific Northwest started dying by the millions, ocean acidification was discovered to be the culprit.
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The wind money windfall in Sherman County, Oregon
Residents of Oregon's Sherman County used to hate on the strong winds endemic to the area. But now they pull in $590 per year, per household, just for tolerating the wind and the many wind turbines marring their viewshed. It’s like the oil payout for living in Alaska, only it’s not blood money from cannibalizing […]
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Google invests $100 million in giant Oregon wind farm
Google is helping to create economies of scale for clean energy.Photo: T.J.Another day, another $100 million invested in clean energy. Google has been on a green tech investment roll of late. Last week, the search giant put $168 million into BrightSource Energy’s 370-megawatt solar thermal power plant, currently the world’s largest solar project, which is […]
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Koch-funded group mounts cut-and-paste attack on regional climate initiatives
Fresh off last year’s successful defeat of federal climate legislation in the U.S. Senate, the oil baron Koch brothers and their dirty-energy buddies are now bent on dismantling one of the nation’s last hopes for doing anything about climate change in the near term: regional climate accords. Today, a total of 32 states are active […]
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Portlandia to help wean Los Angeles from coal
Solar tech from Oregon is headed south to make California greener.Photo: SolarWorldPortlandia may not be the sunniest of places, but it’s exporting solar energy in the form of photovoltaic panels used to build carbon-free power plants. On Wednesday, SolarWorld — the German photovoltaic module maker that operates a big factory in Hillsboro, Ore. — announced […]
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Another Silicon Valley solar startup to build a factory in Oregon
A SolarWorld worker making panels. Photo: SolarWorldAnother Silicon Valley startup is planting a tree in Portlandia’s solar forest, thanks to a United States Department of Energy loan guarantee. SoloPower, a San Jose, Calif., company that makes thin-film photovoltaic models, on Thursday snagged a $197 million federal loan guarantee to build a factory in Wilson, Ore., […]
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How the West is winning against coal
The past month across the western U.S. has been filled with victories against coal.
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Regional cap-and-trade advances
Everyone is disappointed about climate policy prospects. I can't say that I'm thrilled, but we should take heart at what's happening on the state level