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Foreign investors selling their stakes in Canada’s oil industry

Foreign investors selling their stakes in Canada’s...

Capital keeps marching out of Canada’s oil industry, with Kinder Morgan Inc.’s sale of its remaining holdings in the country on Wednesday adding to more than $30 billion of foreign-company divestitures in the past three years. Pembina Pipeline Corp., based in Calgary, is snapping up Kinder’s Canadian assets and a cross-border pipeline in a $3.3 billion deal. For Houston-based Kinder, the deal completes an exit from a country...
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States move to pass laws that would criminalize pipeline protests

States move to pass laws that would criminalize pi...

As a growing number of states move to pass laws that would criminalize pipeline protests and hit demonstrators with years in prison, an audio recording obtained by The Intercept showed a representative of a powerful oil and gas lobbying group bragging about the industry’s success in crafting anti-protest legislation behind closed doors.                        ...
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The Energy Transition in 4 Charts

The Energy Transition in 4 Charts

There is little debate that the energy transition is underway. However, the speed at which it is happening is very much in flux. Wood Mackenzie recently compiled some of its latest power and renewables forecasts into a presentation (available here) that shows its most recent outlooks across sectors. Here are a few of the highlights. Carbon emissions WoodMac’s analysts modeled a few different emissions scenarios in...
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New cause for concern over weedkiller glyphosate

New cause for concern over weedkiller glyphosate

New research from McGill University reveals an overlooked impact that the widely used herbicide glyphosate may be having on the environment. First commercialized by Monsanto under the name Roundup, glyphosate has come under scrutiny in the past, mostly in relation to its potential toxicity. This new research, published recently in the Ecological Society of America’s Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, focuses not on...
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This mayor puts the “Conserve” back in Conservative

This mayor puts the “Conserve” back in Conservativ...

Indianan Jim Brainard has been making the post-partisan case for building sustainable, resilient cities for more than 20 years. I met Jim Brainard recently on a sunny summer afternoon in Bryant Park, a grassy oasis roughly the size of one square block nestled among the skyscrapers of midtown Manhattan. The stately New York Public Library—one of the city’s most famous cultural institutions—defines the park’s perimeter on one...
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Rethinking the Good City: Vallejo’s Bold Vision

Rethinking the Good City: Vallejo’s Bold Vision

What Americans Want in Cities What makes a good city? I’ve been thinking a lot about this. What makes for a city people are happy living in, and want to stay in? One answer comes from the Gallup polling organization, with support from the Knight Foundation. A few years ago, Gallup published a thorough study called “Soul of the Community,” involving all 26 cities where Knight-Ridder newspapers are the primary print news...
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Solar Panels on Farmland Have Huge Electricity-Generating Potential

Solar Panels on Farmland Have Huge Electricity-Gen...

Putting solar panels on less than 1 percent of the world’s agricultural land could produce enough energy to fulfill global electricity demand, according to a recent study published in the journal Scientific Reports. The research also concludes that solar panels perform more efficiently in cool, breezy, and dry conditions — findings that defy the common practice of installing large solar arrays in deserts. “Our results...
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Clean Energy Produces Billions in Health Benefits, Study Finds

Clean Energy Produces Billions in Health Benefits,...

States that invest heavily in renewable energy will generate billions of dollars in health benefits in the next decade instead of spending billions to take care of people getting sick from air pollution caused by burning fossil fuels, according to a new study from MIT and reported on by The Verge. In fact, 10 states across the Midwest could see massive savings. Ohio stands to gain $4.7 billion in health benefits by 2030 if...
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Economic and environmental cost of Trump’s auto rollback could be staggering, new research shows

Economic and environmental cost of Trump’s auto ro...

The administration’s war with California could cost the U.S. economy $400 billion by mid-century Rolling back California’s robust vehicle emissions requirements will cost the U.S. economy $400 billion through 2050, an analysis from the environmental policy group Energy Innovation found. President Donald Trump’s efforts to undo Obama-era rules will also increase U.S. gasoline consumption by up to 7.6 billion barrels,...
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Energy Experts, Environmental Advocates Urge Pumping Brakes On Ethanol

Energy Experts, Environmental Advocates Urge Pumpi...

Nebraska ranks second in the nation for ethanol production. But Nebraskans disagree on whether ethanol is an environmentally-friendly option at the gas pump.   Andy Hinton points to his car at a gas station outside Omaha, showing the modifications he’s made to his Subaru. (Picture at bottom of page.) “The fuel injectors, it’s connected to this clip right here,” he says, pointing down at his car. “It...
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‘Coal is over’: the miners rooting for the Green New Deal

‘Coal is over’: the miners rooting for...

Appalachia’s main industry is dying and some workers are looking to a new economic promise after Trump’s proves empty. Set in a wooded valley between the Tug Fork river and the Mate creek, Matewan, West Virginia, was the site of the 1920 Matewan massacre, a shootout between pro-union coalminers and coal company agents that left 10 people dead and triggered one of the most brutal fights over the future of the coal industry in...
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Greenhouse Gases Reach Unprecedented Level

Greenhouse Gases Reach Unprecedented Level

A bleak new federal report found that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose to levels the world has not seen in at least 800,000 years, highlighting the irreversible and mounting deleterious effects of human activity on the planet, as ABC News reported. Global carbon dioxide concentrations reached a record of 407.4 parts per million during 2018, the study found. That is 2.4 ppm greater than 2017 and “the highest in the...
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Green Turtles Are Mistaking Plastic for the Sea Grass They Normally Eat

Green Turtles Are Mistaking Plastic for the Sea Gr...

Endangered green turtles are having a problem. They’re mistaking plastic pollution for the seaweed they survive on, according to new research from the University of Exeter in the UK and the Society for the Protection of Turtles in Cyprus, as Newsweek reported. Green sea turtles use their eyesight to find food, so long, thin bits of green, black or clear plastic that resemble sea grass deceived many turtles. And, the...
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The wheels come off shale oil

The wheels come off shale oil

  A flurry of coverage about the gloom and outright calamity in the shale oil business appeared last week. Low prices continue to dog the industry. But so does lack of investor interest in financing loss-making operations for yet another season. Plunging stock prices portend more bankruptcies if circumstances don’t change. I received considerable pushback last January when I asked whether U.S. shale oil had entered a...
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Proposal would reduce water samples monitored in Ohio’s rivers, streams

Proposal would reduce water samples monitored in O...

For 40 years, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has had one of the top biological water quality monitoring programs in the country. But testing frequency has lapsed in recent years, and it has sometimes taken 20 or more years for researchers to get back out to some of the state’s 98 watersheds. The agency has proposed moving to a new monitoring program that would funnel the watersheds into 37 “project areas” to reduce the...
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