Utah’s solar generation eclipsed all other electricity sources for the first time ever in May, the culmination of a slow but steady years-long shift away from coal. Energy experts are calling it a win for the environment and the state’s economy. Photovoltaic panels in Utah produced nearly 1 terawatt hour...
Inside the nearly 5-month labor lockout at an Indiana refinery
Jessica Skalka, 37, rounded the corner of a homemade bar in her dad’s garage, passing a framed collage of cutout newspaper clips marking the end of the 99-day strike at British Petroleum’s Whiting, Indiana, refinery in 2015. A row of championship banners for the Chicago Cubs, Bears and White Sox...
Your gas car works fine. Consider an EV anyway, scientists say.
A few years ago, environmental scientist Elliot Campbell went around asking people why they would, or would not, switch to an electric vehicle. A surprising number of them asked him a question in return: Because building an EV generates emissions, isn’t it better for the planet just to keep my...
Wildfire season is changing. Spokane is showing how.
Betsy Robertson was standing in the center of the Spokane Convention Center on Monday afternoon, but she wasn’t there for a gala or a conference. Instead, the event space in the middle of Washington state’s second-largest city had been transformed into a Red Cross emergency shelter as a trio of...
Michigan winemakers have a new climate worry: More wildfire smoke
When wildfire smoke blanketed northern Michigan skies last month, Kasey Wierzba thought the vineyard at Shady Lane Cellars in Suttons Bay looked like a different planet. “That kind of pinky, peachy haze really was filtering through the whole vineyard. The visibility was really minimal,” said Wierzba, the general manager and...
What another Texas flood revealed about the state’s warning system
When torrential rain doused the Texas Hill Country last month, Paul Welch stayed up past his bedtime checking radar and rain gauges on RiverHub, the Upper Guadalupe River Authority’s new tracking website. At midnight, comforted by what he saw, he went to bed. Four hours later, his phone rang. It...
A controversial plan to update Line 5 just suffered a major loss at the Michigan Supreme Court
In a win for opponents of Enbridge Energy’s Line 5 pipeline, the Michigan Supreme Court vacated a key permit last week for a proposed project that would replace a segment of the pipeline running underneath an environmentally-sensitive area of the Great Lakes, finding that a state commission did not examine...
This Texas coal mine will soon be home to a 1.2GW solar farm
Construction is underway on a $1.7 billion solar and battery storage project in Texas that will turn existing coal mining land into a hub of clean energy generation. Panamint Capital announced last week that it broke ground on the 1.2-gigawatt Big Rooter Power solar farm in Bremond, about halfway between Dallas and Houston. The project will...
Is the recycling symbol free speech? A judge just ruled it could be.
A pioneering California law meant to sharply limit use of the familiar “chasing arrows” recycling symbol has been blocked by a federal judge who said it probably violates the First Amendment. In a preliminary injunction issued earlier this month, U.S. District Judge William Hayes halted enforcement of SB 343 after...
How wildfire smoke is reshaping childhood
For generations, summer in Montana has meant long days outdoors. Children spent afternoons riding bicycles through quiet neighborhoods, swimming in lakes and rivers, hiking forest trails, and playing baseball past sunset. Families planned camping trips months in advance, double-checking that they had all the fishing, paddling, and tenting gear they...