Energy Resources & Access

Electric utilities in the United States can expect an extra $12 billion a year in annual revenue by 2030 as heat waves increase the demand for air conditioning. Oil and gas companies may find it easier to drill in the Arctic, where sea ice is melting. But grocery manufacturers are shouldering hundreds of millions of dollars in unexpected costs as extreme weather disrupts their supply chains.

Solar panels glimmering in the sun are an icon of all that is green. But while generating electricity through photovoltaics is indeed better for the environment than burning fossil fuels, several incidents have linked the manufacture of these shining symbols of environmental virtue to a trail of chemical pollution. And it turns out that the time it takes to compensate for the energy used and the greenhouse gases emitted in photovoltaic panel production varies substantially by technology and geography.

Along Oakland’s coast, 19 inches would wash over runways at Oakland International Airport, railway lines and roads that lead to the Port of Oakland and some of the treatment facilities at the vast wastewater treatment plant in West Oakland.

America’s recovery from the Great Recession is slow but steady, President Barack Obama said in a recent speech, and the country is headed in the right direction, thanks in part to his energy initiatives. He told students at Pellissippi State Community College in Knoxville, Tenn., on Jan. 9, 2015, the United States is now the world’s No. 1 producer in oil and gas -- a statement we’ve researched in the past and rated True -- and touted a move to more renewable resources. "We’ve doubled the production of clean energy," Obama told the crowd.

“I would throw the markets out and start over with something different,” said Doreen Stabinsky, a professor of global environmental politics at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Me. “I think we can’t be sidetracked by playing around with a market, because this objective is so important, so pressing and so difficult.”

NRG Energy vowed on Wednesday (July 2014) to press ahead with a proposal to build a power plant in coastal Southern California even after a city council expressed opposition, citing fears it could be inundated by rising sea water. The City Council of Oxnard approved a non-binding moratorium on the plan to build a natural gas-fired power plant to replace two of its older facilities, which require major upgrades or face decommissioning in 2020.

The EPA's proposed Clean Power Plan drew praise from environmental advocates who have long hoped that Washington would finally take action to limit greenhouse gas emissions and address the threat of climate change. Criticism, perhaps predictably, came from a combination of climate change deniers, coal-reliant communities worried about potential job loss, and business interests bemoaning possible higher energy costs.

Two weeks ago, Pope Francis said: "if we destroy Creation, in the end it will destroy us." Following a Vatican summit on sustainability convened by one of us that discussed the dangers of climate change and global warming, the Pope's stern warning asked all of us to be better stewards of nature. But many people wonder what they can do to join the fight against global warming beyond buying a Prius and installing solar panels in their homes.

Will the U.S. shale boom turn out to be a bust? The recent decline in oil prices has left some questioning whether it can be sustained.