Fatalities at the 6,400-MW Sayano Shushenskaya plant in southern Siberia rose to 71 on Tuesday after several bodies were recovered as water was drained from the turbine room that completely flooded following an explosion on Aug. 17 at the giant hydropower station in the Russian Federation. Four workers remain missing.

By Kennedy Maize There’s a new debate developing about the politics of  cap’n’trade v. health care: can the administration pass both health care legislation and climate legislation?  Alternatively, would failure of the administration’s health care initiative, whatever it ultimately looks like, make passage of energy legislation more likely? The proposition that health care defeat will […]

An explosion thought to have been caused by a pressure surge in water pipes at Russia’s largest hydroelectric power station, the 6,400-MW Sayano Shushenskaya plant in southern Siberia, on Monday killed at least 12 people and injured scores of others. Dozens more are feared dead as a result of the accident.

Australia’s parliament rejected a government-backed plan last week that would have forced the country’s worst 1,000 polluters to buy carbon dioxide permits covering 75% of national emissions to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5% to 25% by 2020. The government struck a deal with opponents today (Aug. 19), however, to mandate that 20% of the country’s energy will be produced from renewable sources by 2020.

An agreement reached between the City of San Francisco and Mirant Corp. could permanently shut down a controversial 50-year-old natural gas–fired power plant by the end of 2010 and force the Atlanta-based company to pay the city $1 million to address pediatric asthma in nearby communities.

Progress Energy Carolinas said on Tuesday that it would permanently shut down three coal-fired power plants near Goldsboro and seek state regulatory approval to build a new natural gas–fueled facility at the site. The decision will ensure compliance with North Carolina’s Clean Smokestacks Act, which establishes more stringent emission-reduction targets in 2013, the company said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on Monday issued final regulatory approval for Basin Electric Power Cooperative’s 77–wind turbine project with a nameplate capacity of 115.5 MW. The $250 million project, which will cover 30,000 acres about 15 miles south of Minot, N.D., could be the largest cooperative-owned wind farm in the nation when it is operational in early 2010.

Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens and media magnate Ted Turner have teamed up in calling for a utility sector “cash-for-clunkers” program, which they say could save money and reduce emissions right away.

By Kennedy Maize God, I love global warming. This spring and summer has been the coolest and wettest since we moved to our current western Maryland farm 20 years ago. My pastures are lush with clover, and we took our lambs to the butcher six-to-eight weeks earlier than normal. We raise 99% grass-fed lambs (a […]

By Kennedy Maize I’ve been reading a lot lately about “geoengineering,” aka “climate engineering,” as a way to deal with global warming, instead of a cumbersome, bureaucratic international command-and-control regime, or a cap-and-trade mechanism. This is intriguing. I suspect this engineering approach is another policy dead end, but it is worth contemplating and discussing. Ultimately, […]