Energy & Fuel

"WASHINGTON -- Five years before a train loaded with crude oil derailed and exploded last year in Quebec, killing 47 people, another derailment in Oklahoma should have given federal regulators an early warning that the type of oil both trains carried was more flammable than authorities realized."

"Associated Press review of complaints casts doubt on industry view that it rarely happens."

"Three coal-fired generators that opened in the 1960s near Farmington, N.M., closed Monday as part of a $182 million plan for Arizona Public Service Co. to meet environmental regulations, the utility reported."

"For the past three decades, Oklahoma averaged about 50 earthquakes a year. But that number has skyrocketed in the past few years. In 2013 — the state's most seismically active year ever — there were almost 3,000."

"After three fiery accidents involving trains carrying crude oil out of North Dakota's Bakken Shale, regulators and industry officials are trying to figure out why the oil is exploding."

"Environmental activists warn that construction of a 21-mile natural gas pipeline through northern Baltimore and Harford counties could affect the region's drinking-water system, as the $180 million project cuts across more than three dozen streams feeding into Loch Raven Reservoir."

"ITUMBIARA, Brazil — This should be a golden era here on Brazil’s farming frontier, where some of the world’s biggest corporations have invested billions of dollars in land, equipment and mills to turn sugar cane into ethanol."

"January 1 is the end of the era of your standard, soft white Edison-designed incandescent bulb in the United States. Or at least, in theory."

"Scientists have found a more than 7,300-square-mile ring of land and water contaminated by mercury surrounding the tar sands in Alberta, where energy companies are producing oil and shipping it throughout Canada and the U.S."