natural gas

A Boston judge on Tuesday sided with 13 climate activists who were arrested for protesting the West Roxbury Mass Lateral Pipeline. Judge Mary Ann Driscoll of West Roxbury District Court decided it was necessary for the protestors to engage in civil disobedience to block the construction of Spectra Energy’s high-pressure fracked gas pipeline and acquitted […]

By Jessica Corbett A team of researchers on Tuesday released a “blistering” report on the serious public health threats—from headaches to asthma to cancer—posed by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a process of injecting a mix of water and chemicals into rocks to release oil and natural gas. The study—described as “the most authoritative” of its […]

Even though Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke insisted “this is not about energy,” environmentalists and public lands advocates have long suspected the Trump administration’s cuts to national monuments were driven by its push for more drilling, mining and other development. Now, internal Interior Department documents obtained by the New York Times show that gaining access to […]

Renewable energy now makes up 18 percent of total electrical generation in the U.S., roughly double the amount a decade ago, a new report shows. According to the sixth annual Sustainable Energy in America Factbook, which outlines key U.S. energy trends, renewable energy output in the power sector soared to a record high last year […]

The alarming string of earthquakes that have shaken Oklahoma for years has long been tied to the large volume of fracking wastewater dumped into the state’s injection wells. And while state regulators have taken numerous measures to reduce wastewater disposal volumes to prevent such “induced” earthquakes, they might want to consider another measure—restricting how deep […]

The drilling company involved in Monday’s natural gas rig explosion in Pittsburg County, Oklahoma that killed five workers has a long record of deadly accidents and numerous safety violations. Ten workers have died within the past ten years at well sites linked to Houston-based Patterson-UTI Energy, the Associated Press reported, citing data from the Occupational […]

Germany has broken another renewable energy record, with clean power providing a third of of the country’s electricity in 2017. Preliminary data from the Association of Energy and Water Industries show that renewable electricity generation grew to a record 33 percent this year, up from 29 percent in 2016. “The figures show impressively that there […]

The Trump administration, which is trying to expand offshore oil drilling, has issued a stop-work order on an independent study aimed at making the process safer. The Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) ordered the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) to halt its study on Dec. 7. “The National […]