Energy & Fuel

"The largest solar power plant of its kind is about to turn on in California's Mojave Desert."

"BRUSSELS — The European Union’s trade chief said on Saturday that a deal had been reached with China to settle a dispute over exports of low-cost solar panels that had threatened to set off a wider trade war between two of the world’s largest economies."

"An EPA staff report suggests methane from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, contaminated wells near Dimock, Pa., but the agency says the water's safe to drink."

"Once black with oil, the Kalamazoo River runs clear now. But EPA orders dredging and says it will be years before the spill's long-term effects are known."

"Environmental experts who remain unimpressed with President Barack Obama's war-on-carbon rhetoric point to one key reason for concern that's off most Americans' radar: U.S. coal exports."

"The fire that severely damaged a drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico subsided Thursday as sand and mud stopped up a natural gas well that blew out earlier this week, federal regulators said."

"Oil field services firm Halliburton will plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of destroying evidence related to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill in exchange for a fine and probation, the Justice Department said Thursday."

"WASHINGTON -- Rep. Marsha Blackburn is not a fan. The Tennessee Republican says new regulations on energy efficiency will overly burden businesses in her district."

"Emboldened by the recent exuberance over fracking in the United States, ... pundits now claim that the only thing that has peaked 'was the ability to argue that the era of oil, and hydrocarbons, was over.' Not one of them said a single word about the global rate of oil production, which is the essence of the peak oil question."

"The European investment bank (EIB), the EU's main lending arm, said it would stop financing most coal-fired power stations to help the 28-nation bloc reduce pollution and meet its climate targets."