A panel of environmental lawyers with expertise in the Clean Air Act addressed major questions Thursday (July 7) about the Supreme Court’s recent 6-3 decision stripping the Environmental Protection Agency of the ability to impose major limits coal to achieve greenhouse gas emissions across the country. The Washington-based environmental think tank Resources for the Future… More Environmental lawyers weigh in on ‘major questions’
On Oct. 3, researchers saw something nobody had seen for a century. Chinook salmon were swimming freely along the Klamath River in California and Oregon. The arrival of the salmon signaled that the last and largest dam standing of the four hydroelectric dams on the river, the Iron Gate dam, was no more. The dam… More Salmon return to the dam free Klamath River
In Montana, local and national environmental and land use advocates are fighting a state-approved expansion of a controversial underground coal mine, the only underground mine in the state. Attorneys for Earthjustice, the national environmental law firm, have sued Montana’s Department of Environmental Quality for an Aug. 1 approval of an 12.7 million ton expansion of… More Montana underground coal mine faces deep court challenges
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission nominees are set to win approval on the Senate floor early next week (June11). The Senate last week (June 4) approved the nomination of Christopher Hanson for a second five-year term as NRC chairman. His term was set to expire June 30. Senate Majority leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said procedural floor… More FERC, NRC slots getting filled
Two new episodes in the long-running energy soap opera called the Mountain Valley Pipeline On Feb. 13, a federal appeals court again rebuffed local opponents of the natural gas pipeline being constructed 304 miles across West Virginia to Virginia and North Carolina, carrying gas from the Marcellus and Utica shale formations. The case has been… More Mountain Valley: As the pipeline turns
IEA: Coal Demand Grows While worldwide investment in “clean” energy – solar, wind, hydro, and by some definitions, nuclear – is growing faster than dollars spent on fossil fuels, according to the International Energy Agency’s “World Energy Investment 2023”, coal is far from down and out. The IEA report noted, “Global coal demand reached an… More Coal Collection: Dusky Diamonds’ Death Greatly Exaggerated
The once dominant U.S. coal industry appears to be in the end-of-life stage. But digging up the dusky diamonds* is still significant in the U.S. Coal’s problem is a vanishing electric generation market. According to the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration, “The amount of coal received by power plants in the United States has… More An Unpleasant Coal Retirement
NuScale’s small modular reactor project on federal land in Idaho, designed to provide electricity to Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, a joint action agency serving 50 municipal utilities in Utah, Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, and Wyoming, has survived another near-death experience. Facing a vote by the participants in its project for six light-water… More Small Stories about Modular Reactors
The sun rises in the East and sets in the West. And Georgia’s Southern Co. investor-owned utility announces further delays in startup of Vogtle Units 3 and 4, the only nuclear power plant under construction in the U.S. In its annual financial report issued yesterday (Feb. 16), the company said it will push the startup… More No Surprises Here: Further Vogtle Nuclear Delays
The most significant impact of this week’s 6-3 Supreme Court ruling in West Virginia v. the Environmental Protection Agency is to doom any international effort to significantly reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. That may be bad or good news depending on who you are, or where you live, or for whom you work. But to… More Commentary: 1.5 degrees? 2 degrees? Forget about it