Energy & Fuel

"The House Appropriations Committee approved a $34 billion spending bill for the Department of Energy (DOE) and Army Corps of Engineers Wednesday."

"Residents of a rural town east of New Orleans say they are being sickened by a nearby gas and petrochemical facility, and are reaching their third week of pleading with state officials to do something about it."

"A study of abandoned oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania finds that the hundreds of thousands of such wells in the state may be leaking methane, suggesting that abandoned wells across the country could be a bigger source of climate changing greenhouse gases than previously thought."

"Generators from nuclear reactors to coal-fired power plants will feel the brunt of the weather changes."

"Global coal consumption rose 3 percent in 2013, despite efforts in some places to scale back use of the carbon-heavy fuel. Why is it hard to stop depending on coal for energy?"

"RALEIGH, N.C. — Records subpoenaed by federal prosecutors show engineers working for Duke Energy warned the company nearly 30 years before a massive coal ash spill that a stormwater pipe running under an ash dump was made of corrugated metal and needed to be monitored for leaks."

"PINEDALE, Wyo. — The anticline is a tableland of nearly 200,000 acres, the Tetons visible in the distance and, in June, still covered with snow. The plateau is filled with sagebrush that barely reaches the knee, short grass, dirt roads and the occasional oil drill. Beneath its rocky surface are 25 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, one of the richest concentrations in the entire United States."

"BILLINGS, Mont. — U.S. transportation officials said Wednesday that details about volatile oil train shipments are not sensitive security information, after railroads sought to keep the material from the public following a string of fiery accidents."

"SPOKANE, Wash. — Numerous speakers told a state Senate committee Tuesday that they oppose the rapid increase in railcars carrying crude oil from the Bakken fields of North Dakota and Montana through the state."

"BAGHDAD — Sunni militants have hung their black banners on watch towers at Iraq's largest oil refinery, a witness said Thursday, suggesting the vital facility had fallen to the insurgents in control of vast territories across the country's north. A top Iraqi security official, however, said the government still held the facility."