"As the State Department drags out the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, it is more likely President Barack Obama's final decision on the project to help link Canada's oil sands to U.S. refineries will slip into 2014, experts said."
"A fast-moving wildfire ripped through rolling hills and ranch land in rural northern California on Tuesday, after destroying 30 homes overnight and prompting more than 500 area residents to evacuate, fire officials said."
"Hurricane Sandy and the havoc it wreaked on New York City and the rest of the Northeast in 2012 could prove to be a turning point in how people think about the way electricity is produced and distributed, particularly in storm-prone areas, with some states and cities starting to turn to what are known as microgrids."
"WASHINGTON — It’s electrifying. Iran and Venezuela want to destroy the United States, so they conspire with a rogue Russian spy to launch a cyberattack on the North American power grid, beginning by electrocuting a lineman in North Dakota. Their main obstacle is a small-town sheriff in the state’s badlands, Nate Osborne, a former Marine Corps lieutenant in Afghanistan whose titanium leg ultimately saves the day."
"There’s been a lot of excellent analysis of the mysterious storm-free first half of this year’s hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean and, more generally, tropical weather trends in the context of human-driven global warming. So rather than add to it, I’ll direct you to some highlights. This is how networked knowledge works."
"If the 50 dirtiest power plants in the United States were their own sovereign country, they would qualify as the seventh-biggest polluter in the world, according to a new report released on Tuesday. Those power plants alone emit more than all of South Korea or Canada."
"In the reality TV series 'Prospectors,' gem hunters on a peak in central Colorado face the dangers of high-altitude lightning, rock falls, cave-ins and whiteouts while digging for valuable rocks 'just like their predecessors 150 years ago.'"
"WASHINGTON -- House Republicans scouring for evidence of overreaching environmental regulations are taking aim at a two-decade-old, taxpayer-funded scientific study by Harvard researchers that linked air pollution to disease and death."
"Procter & Gamble is phasing out the use of two chemicals by 2014 from its beauty and personal care products. Activist groups have targeted P&G and other manufacturers of consumer products to end the use of phthalates and triclosan, chemicals that advocates say have been linked to birth defects and infertility."
"A meat inspection program that the Agriculture Department plans to roll out in pork plants nationwide has repeatedly failed to stop the production of contaminated meat at American and foreign plants that have already adopted the approach, documents and interviews show."
