"WESTLAKE, La. -- In an ambitious bet that the glut of cheap natural gas in the United States will last for many years, a South African energy company announced on Monday that it would build America’s first commercial plant to convert natural gas to diesel and other liquid fuels."
"For years, the controversy over natural gas drilling has focused on the water and air quality problems linked to hydraulic fracturing, the process where chemicals are blasted deep underground to release tightly bound natural gas deposits."
"Scientists have designed an energy-efficient light of plastic packed with nanomaterials that glow. The shatterproof FIPEL technology can be molded into almost any shape, but still needs to prove it's commercially viable."
"French utility EDF has raised the cost of the construction of its next-generation nuclear reactor by more than 2 billion euros on Monday, the latest in a series of overruns for the first EPR reactor built in France."
"DOHA, Qatar -- Hassan al-Kubaisi considers it a gift from above that drivers in oil- and gas-rich Qatar only have to pay $1 per gallon at the pump."
"The Interior Department [Friday] proposed Endangered Species Act protection for the lesser prairie chicken, a grayish-brown grouse whose native grasslands and prairie habitat in Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas has declined by about 84 percent."
"During the fall campaign, California's attention was focused on the presidential race and Gov. Jerry Brown's tax measure. But in a historic, largely overlooked environmental shift, the state's voters also triggered a multibillion-dollar tidal wave of new green spending."
Shell Oil and federal regulators have been tight-lipped about a failed test of the energy giant's Arctic oil-spill equipment, currently under construction in Washington state. But a freedom-of-information request by KUOW reveals what went wrong beneath the surface of Puget Sound.
"YADKINVILLE -- Google, of all companies, last year got into the business of hog poop."
"A subsidiary of Nabors Industries Ltd. pumped a mixture of chemicals identified only as “EXP- F0173-11” into a half-dozen oil wells in rural Karnes County, Texas, in July. Few people outside Nabors, the largest onshore drilling contractor by revenue, know exactly what’s in that blend. This much is clear: One ingredient, an unidentified solvent, can cause damage to the kidney and liver, according to safety information about the product that Michigan state regulators have on file."
