Billionaire activist Tom Steyer came under the microscope last week when the New York Times profiled his role in managing a fund that invested heavily in Australian coal. Now a climate change mitigation crusader and democratic funder, some have called Steyer’s former Wall Street activity his Achilles’ heel, but many in the environmental community rushed… Keep reading →
The growing controversy over the degree to which environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council influenced EPA’s new carbon emission regulations for existing power plants ratcheted up today. Coal lobby American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity blasted EPA for comments made in an internal memo – “obtained” by The Hill about the New York Times’ story that… Keep reading →
EPA Chief Gina McCarthy took umbrage with a New York Times article published earlier this week – and featured in one of our News Roundups – that claimed powerful environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council played “an influential role” in designing the agency’s high-profile carbon rule for existing power plants. In an internal memo McCarthy… Keep reading →
The New York Times came under fire from many directions for scaling back its environmental coverage earlier this year. The bastion of journalistic integrity did away with its Green Blog – which apparently paid approximately $40,000 annually in freelance expenses – and broke up its environmental reporting team. Climate change coverage in particular has suffered,… Keep reading →
In the debate over hydraulic fracturing – as in most debates – the most extreme views do not offer the most viable solutions. But while the oil and gas industry has, by and large, acknowledged that there are risks associated with fracking that must be managed, there are still many in the anti-fracking camp who… Keep reading →
US President Barack Obama said in a July 27 interview with the New York Times that construction of the Keystone XL pipeline would create around 2,000 jobs during construction – which he estimated would last one to two years – after which that number would fall off to 50-100. Oil and gas trade group API, unsurprisingly,… Keep reading →
On Saturday October 6th, the New York Times wrote an editorial that criticized the mission, effectiveness, and budget of the National Ignition Facility (NIF), an experimental laser at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. This editorial followed an article from the prior week noting scientific challenges in the NIF’s mission and airing division among scientists about the facility’s future.
The NIF consists of 192 lasers, each of which is among the largest and most energetic in the world. It was built between 1997 and 2009 for the purposes of conducting experiments with fusion energy. Keep reading →
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo
A reported plan by New York State government to allow natural gas drilling in a handful of counties may represent an effective lifting of the state’s moratorium on fracking but increases the chances that energy companies will run into local opposition, analysts said. Keep reading →
With a mix of nuclear, coal, natural gas, hydro and other renewable energy sources, the US electrical grid is energy independent, Chairman, President and CEO of Duke Energy Jim Rogers told the audience at the recent New York Times Energy for Tomorrow Conference.
Going back to the 1970’s US energy crisis, the idea of energy independence has been discussed, debated, shot down and resurrected countless times. When a panel of energy and environment experts gave the concept a fresh look, technology and natural gas were two key themes. Keep reading →
Although it rocked the industry, the recent New York Times series claiming that estimates of American domestic natural gas supply are overblown may itself have been overblown.
Two expert witnesses at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources this morning said their organizations had independently found the facts to be different than what was reported in theTimes article. Natural gas, they both said, is abundant, cheap and an energy game changer that is poised to replace coal-fired plants for electrical generation. Keep reading →
