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    Did Canada Just Have the Largest Coal Slurry Spill in Its History?

    Did Canada Just Have the Largest Coal Slurry Spill in Its History?

    A scary thing happened on Halloween near Hinton, Alberta. Canada had what may be the largest coal slurry spill in its history when a dam failed at the Obed Mountain coal mine and 264 million gallons (1 billion litres) of waste water contaminated at least 25 kilometers of the Athabasca river. Ten municipalities located downstream […]

    Energy Experts Respond to Scientists’ Letter Advocating Nuclear Power

    Energy Experts Respond to Scientists’ Letter Advocating Nuclear Power

    By Dale Bryk Four distinguished atmospheric scientists, including Dr. James Hansen, have written an open letter encouraging those “opposed to nuclear power” to rethink their position in light of the urgent need to fight dangerous climate change. Hansen and his coauthors are right to underscore the dangers of climate disruption from the global addiction to fossil […]

    Big Oil, Big Profits, Big Tax Breaks

    Big Oil, Big Profits, Big Tax Breaks

    By Daniel J. Weiss and Tiffany Germain Once again, it’s been a good quarter for Big Oil. The big five oil companies—BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Shell—reported $23 billion in combined profits for their third quarter of 2013. That’s $175,000 per minute. Together, these five companies earn more in one minute than 95 percent of Americans earn in […]

    U.S. Signals End of Public Money for Coal-Fired Power

    U.S. Signals End of Public Money for Coal-Fired Power

    By Athena Ballesteros U.S. public financing for overseas coal-fired power is likely coming to an end. That’s the clear signal from the U.S. Department of Treasury’s announcement on Tuesday. The Treasury Department provided new guidance for multi-lateral development banks’ (MDBs) financing of coal-fired power. These investments will now need to meet the same greenhouse gas requirements […]

    North Dakota Fails to Disclose Hundreds of Oil Spills to the Public

    North Dakota Fails to Disclose Hundreds of Oil Spills to the Public

    A September oil pipeline spill is calling into question North Dakota’s lack of disclosure laws, which have allowed nearly 300 spills in the last few years to go unreported in the burgeoning oil state. In 2012 and 2013, roughly 300 pipeline spills in the state went unreported, according to an Associated Press (AP) report that […]

    Groups Petition BLM to Protect Fragile Wyoming Habitat From Oil and Gas Drilling

    Groups Petition BLM to Protect Fragile Wyoming Habitat From Oil and Gas Drilling

    Drilling in the Douglas Core Area undermines the efforts of local residents and ranchers to protect sage grouse habitat. The male sage grouse shown in its mating display. Today, conservation groups formally petitioned the federal government to halt all new wellpad and road construction inside the Douglas sage grouse Core Area of eastern Wyoming. Core […]

    Pepsi and Coke, Stop Using Tar Sands Oil

    Pepsi and Coke, Stop Using Tar Sands Oil

    Environmental groups Sierra Club and ForestEthics targeted Coke and Pepsi in two full page USA Today print ads yesterday for their use of oil from tar sands in corporate car and truck fleets. The ads are part of a national campaign to eliminate the use of oil from Canadian tar sands by corporate car and […]

    Internal Documents Reveal Coverup in North Dakota Oil Spill

    Internal Documents Reveal Coverup in North Dakota Oil Spill

    By Jesse Coleman North Dakota, long known for its cattle ranches and open spaces, has recently become one of the oil and gas industry’s most prized—and profitable—possessions, thanks to the advent of fracking. However, the price of oil and gas industry development is paid in destruction to the environment and strains to the regulatory framework […]