Energy & Fuel

"TERIBERKA, Russia — The warming Arctic should already have transformed this impoverished fishing village on the coast of the Barents Sea."

"Regional air quality officials have tightened rules on odors and fumes coming from thousands of wells at hundreds of urban oil fields in Southern California. The move comes after coordinated campaigns by people living near oil operations in Huntington Beach, Whittier, and South Los Angeles."

"High levels of radioactive contaminants have been found in coal ash in major coal-producing regions of the United States, raising concern about the dangers of this unregulated waste, researchers said Wednesday."

"They rumble past schools, homes and businesses in dozens of cities around the country — 100-car trains loaded with crude oil from the Upper Midwest. While railroads have long carried hazardous materials through congested urban areas, cities are now scrambling to formulate emergency plans and to train firefighters amid the latest safety threat: a fiftyfold increase in crude shipments that critics say has put millions of people living or working near the tracks at heightened risk of derailment, fire and explosion."

"Global plans to curb carbon dioxide are well below what's needed to keep temperatures from rising above 2 degrees according to a new analysis."

"Railroad tank cars equipped with defective valves still will be allowed to transport crude oil and other hazardous materials through the end of the year, despite a March directive from federal regulators requiring their replacement within 60 days."

"The top executives at the largest publicly held fossil fuel companies in the United States have made nearly $6 billion in the last five years -- enough to double the U.S. commitment to addressing climate change abroad."

"Lifting the ban on exporting crude oil would not raise domestic gasoline prices and could even reduce them, a new report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicted on Tuesday."

"After three days of spiking oil prices, a barrel of crude tumbled back nearly 8 percent on Tuesday, renewing despair in the oil patch. At the same time, ConocoPhillips announced it was cutting its global work force by 10 percent."

"Newly released documents reveal the extent of problems with anti-pollution equipment on a Shell-contracted Arctic drillship earlier this year."