Energy & Fuel

"A massive fire broke out at a suburban chemical plant on Monday morning, sending a towering plume of smoke into the air and forcing evacuations of residents who live near the plant."

"In Houston and Corpus Christi, the impacted communities are predominantly Black and Latino. Scientists say the dangers of benzene, a carcinogen, are not well understood."

"Capturing and burying CO2 is heralded as the technological fix to mitigate climate change. But many oil and gas majors are using the technology to produce more fossil fuels."

"The Electric Reliability Council of Texas says a large number of power plants are offline, but it could not provide details as to what may be causing the “very concerning” number of outages. At the same time, the state is experiencing near-record demand for electricity in June."

"A heatwave already punishing parts of the U.S. Southwest on Monday was expected to move into California this week, prompting the forecasters to warn of health and fire dangers."

"The Minnesota Court of Appeals on Monday affirmed state regulators’ key approvals of Enbridge Energy’s Line 3 oil pipeline replacement project, in a dispute that drew over 1,000 protesters to northern Minnesota last week."

"When the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power was hacked in 2018, it took a mere six hours. Early this year, an intruder lurked in hundreds of computers related to water systems across the U.S. In Portland, Oregon, burglars installed malicious computers onto a grid providing power to a chunk of the Northwest."

"The dominant narrative about labor unions and climate change is that fossil fuel workers are a major roadblock to action. ... So it’s worth slowing down to examine a groundbreaking new report — endorsed by 19 unions, including two representing thousands of California oil workers — that offers a preview of what the path forward might look like."

"To compete with clean firm generation, long-duration storage needs to come down massively in price."