California

"Local activists say national groups, focused on renewable energy, ignore projects' threat to the Mojave."

"Concern over the safety of the San Onofre nuclear power plant is growing among Orange County cities closest to the facility, which has been shut down since January because of system failures."

"Kelp off Southern California was contaminated with short-lived radioisotopes a month after Japan’s Fukushima accident, a sign that the spilled radiation reached the state's coastline, according to a new scientific study."

"California's long-running campaign to reduce air pollution has indirectly helped create a new problem: its oil refineries produce more greenhouse gas emissions than refineries anywhere else in the country."

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission lays out steps that Southern California Edison must take before the troubled San Onofre plant will be allowed to come back on line."

A recycling facility for contaminated soils and other hazardous waste in the California desert community of Mecca is causing major problems. The problems are made worse by the fact that the facility is on tribal land, making state and federal regulation more difficult.

"In January 2009, Riverside County fire Capt. Robert Fish ventured to the scrubby desert outpost of Mecca to check on the busy contaminated-soil recycling plant there.

He found something unusual, worrying enough to alert his superiors.

"The state spends a fraction of what countries like Mexico and Japan spend on their systems. One reason for the lack of interest, experts say, is that California has not experienced a catastrophic quake in more than a century."

"Customers Of San Diego Gas & Electric Co. and Southern California Edison May Be Able To Get Rid of Their Computerized "Smart" Meters as Soon as May, After a Utility Regulator Released a Proposed Decision on the Program Thursday."

"A nuclear reactor on the California coast will remain shut down indefinitely while a team of federal inspectors determines why several relatively new tubes became so frail that tests found they could rupture and release radioactive water, a federal official said Thursday."

"SACRAMENTO -- Energy companies across California are injecting a mysterious mix of chemicals into the ground to tap oil deposits while frustrating attempts to regulate the controversial process, known as hydraulic fracturing."