Oil rigs’ biggest risk: human error
Government and industry officials continue to wrestle with a problem investigators say was at the heart of the 2010 Gulf oil spill: human error.
5 years after BP spill, drillers push into riskier depths
Five years after the nation’s worst offshore oil spill, the industry is working on drilling even further into the risky depths beneath the Gulf of Mexico to tap massive deposits once thought unreachable. Opening this new frontier, miles below the bottom of the Gulf, requires engineering feats far beyond those used at BP’s much shallower Macondo well.
5 years after BP oil spill, effects linger and recovery is slow
Cynthia Sarthou, executive director of Gulf Restoration Network, says that after five years, there are more questions than answers about what the lingering impact of the spill means.
U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide emissions increased again last year
For the second year in a row, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in the United States have increased. However, unlike 2013, when emissions and gross domestic product grew at similar rates, 2014’s CO2 emissions growth rate of 0.7% was much smaller than the 2014 GDP growth rate of 2.4%.
Beneath the tar sands is even dirtier oil, and industry is salivating over it
The little-known bitumen carbonates are a far more difficult-to-mine, more unconventional form of the molasses-like bitumen that’s already being extracted from the tar sands.
Campaign aims to turn oil companies into climate allies
As unlikely as it might seem, a coalition of environmental groups and investors is trying to persuade coal, oil and gas companies to turn away from carbon-polluting sources of energy and invest in low-carbon alternatives.
Secrecy shrouds decade-old oil spill in Gulf of Mexico
It’s easy to see gas bubbles in the slick that mark the spot where an oil platform toppled during a 2004 hurricane, triggering what might be the longest-running commercial oil spill ever to pollute the Gulf of Mexico. Yet more than a decade after crude started leaking at the site formerly operated by Taylor Energy Company, few people even know of its existence.
The future of the electric car
Total global sales of EVs/PHEVs amounted to 320,000 units in 2014, an 80 percent rate of growth and on pace to easily exceed 500,000 in 2015. Cumulative sales reached 740,000 vehicles by the end of 2014 and will top 1 million by the middle of 2015. That is still less than 1 percent of the global auto market, but it shows that EVs and PHEVs are here to stay. (Photo: John Abella, via Flickr)
Gov. Brown orders mandatory water restrictions in California
Gov. Jerry Brown, standing on a patch of brown grass in the Sierra Nevada that is usually covered with several feet of snow, on Wednesday announced the first mandatory water restrictions in California history..
Obama’s UN climate vow needs court wins, cheap natural gas
President Barack Obama’s pledge to the United Nations Tuesday to sharply cut greenhouse-gas emissions relies on being able to rebuff legal and legislative challenges — and the continuing availability of cheap natural gas.
