Energy & Fuel

"TransCanada, the company behind the disputed Keystone XL pipeline, submitted a new application for the project to the State Department on Friday, as expected. The company will route the pipeline around the environmentally sensitive Sand Hills region of Nebraska, and the revised proposal starts a fresh clock on the environmental review process."

"HARTLEY BAY, B.C. -- The Gitga'at Nation of Hartley Bay has reported an oil spill between two and five miles long in the Grenville Channel, not far from the tanker route for the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline."

"A trial to assign blame and damages that could total tens of billions of dollars for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill has been put off until January, in a setback for the U.S. government, which wanted to try its case this summer."

"Japan shuts down its last working nuclear power reactor this weekend just over a year after a tsunami scarred the nation and if it survives the summer without major electricity shortages, producers fear the plants will stay offline for good."

"Climate change and oil dependence are issues of national security, and the Pentagon will take a lead role in shifting the way the country uses energy, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said [Wednesday] night."

"WASHINGTON — The Department of Energy has successfully completed an unprecedented test of harvesting the vast storehouse on Alaska’s North Slope of methane hydrate, essentially natural gas locked in ice crystals under the permafrost.

"With Asia's energy demands pulling more U.S. coal to West Coast ports, rail-line communities across Montana fear the effects: More train traffic, health problems, noise and congestion."

"Edison International announced Wednesday that Midwest Generation will shutter Chicago's Fisk and Crawford coal plants in September, ahead of schedule and years before a state-imposed deadline to clean up or shut down the plants.

"A new study has raised fresh concerns about the safety of gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, concluding that fracking chemicals injected into the ground could migrate toward drinking water supplies far more quickly than experts have previously predicted."