Really awful news…a Rail World Inc train carrying crude oil through Quebec derailed this weekend, causing multiple explosions in the middle of the town of Lac Megantic, resulting in multiple fatalities and destroying dozens of buildings. Oil spilled into Lac Megantic itself, and into a nearby river. “The derailment is the latest in a string of railroad mishaps involving crude oil shipments in Canada and the US, amid a boom in North American crude production and crude shipments by rail.” [Wall Street Journal]

Andy Revkin at the New York Times noticed something while in the Hamptons for a screening and discussion of “Gasland II”, a follow-up to the 2010 anti-hydraulic fracturing film. “I couldn’t help noticing something that illustrates the mismatch between attitudes and actions on energy in this country: on a 90-degree day, door after door was wide open, meaning that air conditioners were, in essence, straining to cool the planet. (Physics says this doesn’t work.)” [New York Times]

On the lighter side, Fuel Fix has published a neat NASA photo of Texas at night, which shows that  Eagle Ford shale wells are visible from space. [Fuel Fix]