"Several large solar power plants under construction in the United States have in the past few months promised to do something that none has done before: offer prices equal to or lesser than that of a natural gas-fired power plant, even as gas is abundant and cheap."

"Oil, the lifeblood of many countries that produce and sell it, appears to be rapidly turning into an ever-cheaper economic curse. A year ago, the international price per barrel of oil was about $103. By Monday, the price was about $42, roughly 6 percent lower than on Friday."

"President Obama came to Las Vegas Monday to throw his weight behind the booming solar energy industry in its recent political struggles, and to announce a bevy of initiatives to promote clean-energy growth in America’s homes and on its rooftops. It was the first stop in a climate and energy-focused tour that will also take the president to New Orleans and Arctic Alaska this month."

"On a remote Utah ridge covered in sagebrush, pines and wild grasses, a Canadian company is about to embark on something never before done commercially in the United States: digging sticky, black, tar-soaked sand from the ground and extracting the petroleum."

"President Barack Obama and Nevada's U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, two of the most powerful Democrats in the nation, are playing key roles in the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas on Monday."

"Scientists may have been overestimating China’s emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas driving global warming, by more than 10 percent, because of inaccurate assumptions about the country’s coal-burning, according to a study published on Wednesday."

"Recently released testing results in western Pennsylvania, upstream from Pittsburgh, reveal evidence of radioactive contamination in water flowing from an abandoned mine. Experts say that the radioactive materials may have come from illegal dumping of shale fracking wastewater."

"The 585 earthquakes that Oklahoma had in 2014 was a lot. But this year, Oklahoma has had more than that in less than nine months."

"HOUSTON — With oil prices collapsing and companies in retrenchment, a federal auction in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday attracted the lowest interest from producers since 1986."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday proposed new standards to cut greenhouse gas emissions and volatile organic compounds from oil and gas facilities, a key part of a broader strategy to cut methane emissions in the sector by 40 to 45 percent below 2012 levels in the next ten years."