In August 2016, fewer coal miners were employed in the US than anytime in modern history: just 48,600. A year later, little more than 50,000 miners are working, but the industry is still in dire straits—layoffs and mine shutdowns have led to rampant unemployment in West Virginia, Kentucky and Montana. President Trump…
Contrary to what conventional beauty standards may lead us to believe, naked mole rats are good. They’re highly social animals who live communally. They’re ruled by a loyal queen. They’re also seemingly impervious to cancer and don’t age. But still, these little subterraneans get a bad rap for not looking like puppies…
On Thursday, EPA head Scott Pruitt visited the Harvey Mine, a coal mine in western Pennsylvania, to regurgitate some of his favorite talking points—that the EPA is an unhinged, anti-coal agency that he’s reining in through systematic self-destruction. Pruitt promised the “regulatory assault” on coal was over, saying…
On Tuesday, President Trump is expected to begin the process of dismantling Obama’s environmental legacy, including his signature climate action policy, the Clean Power Plan. According to Reuters, Trump will sign an executive order compelling the Environmental Protection Agency to review and rewrite the plan, which…
As expected, President Trump’s proposed budget is a nightmare for science, the environment, and parts of the technology industry. Welcome to the future, where our long national nightmare may not even have the funds to keep chugging along.
America’s coal mining industry has cooled down in recent years. It lost over 200,000 jobs between 2014 and 2016; the latest sorry statistic to cap what’s been a massive downward trend for decades. Expounding on his plan to restore the industry in the “America First Energy Plan,” Trump has promised increased fossil…
An alarming new study has identified 6,600 chemical spills related to hydraulic fracturing in just four US states over a ten year period. The finding shows that fracking is far messier than previously assumed, and that stricter safety measures need to be established and enforced.
On Thursday, President Trump signed legislation blocking the Stream Protection Rule, a key Obama regulation that limited mining companies from dumping excess spoil into waterways. Waste from mining operations can contain sulfur-bearing minerals which, mixed with water, create what the EPA calls “acid mine drainage.”…
A remotely-controlled robot sent to inspect and clean a damaged reactor at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant had to be pulled early when its onboard camera went dark, the result of excess radiation. The abbreviated mission suggests that radiation levels inside the reactor are even higher than was reported last week—and…
Radiation levels inside a damaged reactor at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant have hit a record high, and are the worst since the plant suffered a triple meltdown nearly six years ago. The latest readings now pose a serious challenge as officials prepare to dismantle the stricken facility.
A 720-foot-tall wind turbine featuring 35 ton blades has just set a new world record, producing a whopping 216,000 kWh of energy over a span of 24 hours. That’s enough to power an average American household for twenty years.
It’s been a rough week for environmentalists in America, but buried amidst a torrent of reports detailing the Trump administration’s war on climate science, one uplifting energy story has garnered comparably little attention: the United States may be getting a second offshore wind farm.
The hits just keep on coming for the environmental community. On Tuesday, President Trump signed executive memoranda aimed at advancing construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, projects heavily protested by climate activists and members of Native American and Aboriginal tribes as potentially…
For the second time this month and the third time over the past year, President Obama has penned a policy commentary in a leading scientific journal. This time, he’s not defending his signature health care law, but rather, making the case that a clean energy future is inevitable—no matter what Trump does.
In the fall of 1917, a severe coal shortage hit the United States. Riots even broke out over the lack of energy as the nation went into the winter months. Some people were calling for conservation, but one snarky newspaper article insisted that conserving was for suckers. Why? People of the future—specifically, the…
On the climate and energy front, 2016 was a year of contradictions. Again and again, our planet smashed global temperature records. The fingerprints of climate change were visible in extreme weather from the North Pole to Louisiana. But the clean energy sector also hit some major milestones. Wind and solar power…
The government of Japan has decided to decommission the experimental Monju nuclear reactor, which worked for just 250 days out of its total 22-year lifespan.
While seeking the 2012 Republican nomination, Governor Rick Perry famously proposed abolishing the Department of Energy before forgetting what it was called on live TV, naming it as “Oops” during the GOP debates. As luck would have it, however, Perry will be nominated as Secretary of Oops under President Donald Trump, …
If Donald Trump is trying to make good on his promise to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency, he’s picked the right man to get the job done.
An estimated 20 billion barrels of oil valued at up to $900 billion has been discovered in a West Texan shale formation, the US Geological Survey announced this week. Three times the size of the Bakken oilfields in North Dakota, it could be the largest such deposit ever assessed in the United States.
