"What a difference a year makes. In late 2010, solar panel makers were sold out, Germany was gobbling up record numbers of the clean energy systems, and new markets were steadily growing."
The Keystone XL pipeline that would bring petroleum from Canada's tar sands to US terminals in Houston is proving a political headache for President Obama. It pits many of his erstwhile allies -- such as unions and environmentalists -- against each other.
EPA has charged a Maryland man with fraud in an alleged biofuels credit scheme, signalling a federal crackdown on fraud and abuse of the Renewable Fuels Standard.
"Energy Department career employees admonished and occasionally ignored the Obama fundraiser who managed DOE’s public rollout of Solyndra's loan guarantee, according to internal Obama administration emails that POLITICO reviewed on Wednesday."
"BP will be allowed to participate in an upcoming U.S. offshore oil and gas lease sale despite its role in the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history, a top government regulator said on Thursday."
EPA's official investigation of a massive 2009 fish kill in West Virginia's Dunkard Creek ended by blaming the pollution squarely on Consol Energy's Blacksville No. 2 mine. But an EPA biologist said that coal mine drainage alone was not enough to explain the problem -- and that contamination of mine pools by methane and water from the Marcellus Shale formation was possibly an additional cause.
"America must stop promoting the production of biofuels if there is to be any real progress in addressing spiking global food prices and famine, such as seen in the Horn of Africa, an authoritative thinktank has warned."
"The controversial proposed path of the TransCanada Keystone XL oil pipeline across Nebraska is unlikely to change, company officials said Tuesday."
"BRUSSELS -- Opportunities in oil and natural gas have rarely been so bountiful. New finds and technological advances and fresh access to some countries are pushing exploration and production into areas once considered peripheral.
Some of the most promising new fields are in deep water off the coast of Brazil. Experts say they could yield as much oil as the North Sea. There have been significant strikes off the coast of French Guiana, north of Brazil, and off Ghana in West Africa.
"WASHINGTON — A senior Energy Department official pushed hard for the government’s $535 million loan to the now-bankrupt California solar energy company Solyndra even after he had disclosed that his wife’s law firm represented the company and he had promised to recuse himself from matters related to the loan application, according to e-mails provided to Congressional investigators by the administration.
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