Energy & Fuel

"Global consumption of coal reached an all-time high in 2023, the IEA energy watchdog said Friday, as Earth experienced its hottest recorded year."

"The Biden administration approved the smallest offshore oil program in U.S. history Friday, a move that’s already provoked both outrage from Republicans and disappointment from climate activists who had urged the president to take more dramatic action."

"New oil and natural gas leasing will be prohibited on state land surrounding Chaco Culture National Historical Park, an area sacred to Native Americans, for the next 20 years under an executive order by New Mexico Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard."

"Scientists with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory were flying a plane equipped with a visible-infrared imaging spectrometer over an oil field in California’s San Joaquin Valley when they made a worrisome discovery. Images produced by the device revealed a large plume of methane lingering in the air."

"California’s funding from gas taxes will drop by nearly $6 billion in the next decade due to the state’s electric car rules and other climate programs, “likely resulting in a decline in highway conditions for drivers,” according to a new state analysis released today."

"Decommissioning the dams is the first step toward restoring salmon runs and respecting Native treaties".

"County supervisors in northern Virginia approved one of the world’s largest data center projects after a public hearing that ran through the night and lasted more than 24 hours."

"The U.S. environment regulator does not sufficiently verify that carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects keep emissions trapped underground and should boost its requirements to ensure companies receiving CCS tax credits provide an actual environmental benefit, a watchdog group said on Thursday."

"On the western outskirts of Columbus, Ohio, two doors down from a Waffle House, is a truck stop that, as of last Friday, has the first electric vehicle charging station in the country to be financed in part by the 2021 federal infrastructure law."

"Going into overtime under the cover of a dark winter night in Dubai, climate negotiators at COP28 cooked up a weak sauce of climate half-measures that fail to adequately address the existential risk of global warming to millions of people around the globe, according to leading climate experts at the conference."