2011

BP Holds Gulf Spill Assessment 'Financially Captive'

BP has been able to delay and deny efforts to assess the damage caused by its 2010 oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico because it controls the funding for those efforts, a Louisiana state official told senators today.
"The current statutory and…

Texas Clean Coal Power Plant Finds A Customer

A coal-burning power plant that will capture a record volume of carbon will supply electricity to San Antonio, the Department of Energy announced.
DOE's Office of Fossil Energy provided $350 million to develop Summit Energy's Texas Clean Energy…

How To Get Rid Of Ants Without Poisons

With the unofficial start of summer, the never-ending war resumes—as millions of armored and armed invaders break into our homes and endure devastating chemical counterattacks.
“Endure” is just the right verb, scientists say, for the long-term…

"The training wheels are off!" promised the admiral at the helm of a Tennessee company that has resumed production of nuclear fuel for the Navy after two incidents in 2009 shut the plant down.
Subsequent inspections turned up falsified inspection…

Prius Engineer Takes Spin In Driverless Car And Sees The Future
Toyota Builds Tiny Car to Partner With Zipcar—Or Someone—On Car Sharing
It’s not a new idea—the automated car—but it’s not everyday that it’s embraced by an engineer who has already…

Sharpening its focus on drillers that use hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas from deep shale formations, the Environmental Protection Agency directed six firms drilling in Pennsylvania to disclose what they do with contaminated water…

After suffering a punishing year because of low natural gas prices, the wind power industry is keeping close watch on the prospect that water pollution from hydraulic fracturing may lead to regulation of shale gas drilling.
"That is, I think, the big…

You've heard the bad news: that scientists have linked hydraulic fracturing of shale—a method crucial to the extraction of vast reserves of natural gas in the United States—to increased levels of methane in adjacent drinking water wells.
Now the good…

Media, Sensationalism and Media Sensationalism

Lauren Berlant speaking on media sensationalism? I couldn’ t miss that. So I found my way to the University of Chicago’s Gleacher Center to have a listen. Only to find out I’d overlooked the comma between media and sensationalism.
Lauren Berlant is…