Investigation reveals regulator let firms off the hook on cleanup bonds despite backlog that will take decades to clear
When Christiaan van Woudenberg moved to Erie, Colorado, in 2007, he never imagined he would become an anti-fracking activist. He simply thought he was buying his dream home – a four-bedroom with a panoramic mountain view, 30 minutes north of downtown Denver.
Then, in 2014, the drilling started. Oil and gas rigs sprang up, some just 800ft (240m) from his bedroom window. The dream turned to nightmare: loud noises rumbled all night long, and the air stank like exhaust. Neighbors started getting headaches and nosebleeds, and Van Woudenberg developed new respiratory issues. He kept his windows shut and worried about his daughters going outside.
Continue reading...
© Composite: Rita Liu/The Guardian/Getty Images/Civitas/Chevron/OXY
© Composite: Rita Liu/The Guardian/Getty Images/Civitas/Chevron/OXY
© Composite: Rita Liu/The Guardian/Getty Images/Civitas/Chevron/OXY
Federal energy efficiency rebate programs will no longer cover a switch from fossil fuels to electricity for heating, according to long-awaited guidance from the Department of Energy.
The department published an update on how it will implement consumer programs with $8.8 billion in funding. The new provisions include eliminating use of diversity, equity and inclusion considerations, among other changes.
This follows legal challenges after President Donald Trump issued an executive order last year, upon returning to office, canceling the release of funds from Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, including rebates for home energy efficiency. A coalition of states successfully sued to restore the funding, obtaining an injunction in March 2025.
© Prathan Chorruangsak/Getty
Federal energy efficiency rebate programs will no longer cover a switch from fossil fuels to electricity for heating, according to long-awaited guidance from the Department of Energy.
The department published an update on how it will implement consumer programs with $8.8 billion in funding. The new provisions include eliminating use of diversity, equity and inclusion considerations, among other changes.
This follows legal challenges after President Donald Trump issued an executive order last year, upon returning to office, canceling the release of funds from Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, including rebates for home energy efficiency. A coalition of states successfully sued to restore the funding, obtaining an injunction in March 2025.
© Prathan Chorruangsak/Getty
Nour Haydar speaks with Christopher Knaus about the BHP files – the cache of internal documents leaked to the Guardian and the ABC’s Four Corners – which show that the world’s biggest miner has war-gamed ways to massively delay decarbonisation
Additional audio in this episode was sourced by Financial Times Live
Read more:
Continue reading...
© Composite: Victoria Hart/Guardian
© Composite: Victoria Hart/Guardian
© Composite: Victoria Hart/Guardian
There are over 283 million cars cruising the United States, and over 90 percent of them are still guzzling gas. Apart from the obvious environmental problems, fuel prices also continue to skyrocket thanks to the ongoing war in Iran. The average price for gas is currently around 33 percent higher than it was before the crisis, and there is little sign that those numbers are going down anytime soon.
The strain is forcing many drives to reconsider how they get around—and they’re getting creative with it. In Georgia, a 30-year-old handyman is showing everyone how to properly adapt to uncertain times. According to a recent Reuters profile, Mali Hightower has retrofitted a discarded, bright pink Power Wheels Barbie Dream Camper with a two-gallon, one-piston engine for his shorter commuting needs.
“I drive this when I can,” Hightower said on May 19.
To get it going, a driver simply pulls the rip cord that’s attached to the former power washer engine. At less than four-feet-tall, the Dream Camper may not be the most comfortable ride for a full-grown adult,but it’s definitely cheaper. Hightower likely still prefers driving his 1996 Mercedes-Benz convertible, but with a full tank costing him around $90 right now, he’s more than willing to use his Power Wheels alternative for errands like grocery runs.
While somewhat surreal to see at a gas pump, the DIY solution underscores a more important issue: the need for more people to divest from fossil fuel rides in favor of public transportation and electric vehicles (EVs). Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done for many people. The U.S. is dramatically underfunded when it comes to options like commuter bus routes and trains, while EVs are still out of many people’s price ranges. The Dream Barbie Camper may be one-of-a-kind right now, but there’s a good chance that similar, intentionally constructed alternatives are on the way. At least those will be able to comfortably fit the driver.
The post Handyman adapts Barbie Dream Camper to handle soaring gas prices appeared first on Popular Science.
Grattan Institute calls on Labor to set policies that will further reduce the use of gas in order to meet net zero targets
After more than a half a century of growth, the use of gas in Australia has peaked in all sectors and entered a “structural decline”. But use will need to fall fast to meet climate targets, according to new research from an influential thinktank.
The Grattan Institute warned the government had failed to acknowledge the decline and instead needed policies to further reduce gas use and avoid the need for expensive carbon capture technologies to meet net zero targets.
Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Manfred Gottschalk/Getty Images
© Photograph: Manfred Gottschalk/Getty Images
© Photograph: Manfred Gottschalk/Getty Images
Clean power remains essential. But until it arrives, Britain must stop LNG made scarce by the Iran war setting gas and electricity prices
The US-Israel war on Iran will drive household energy costs in Britain to their highest level in two years over the summer. This has given fresh impetus to calls for the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, to change course. The cabinet minister is vulnerable because he promised cheaper bills if Britain embraced his clean, green power plan.
Critics, including Labour’s former prime minister Sir Tony Blair, are circling. Yet Mr Miliband ought to ignore the naysayers. Until global carbon emissions, including Britain’s, are reduced to net zero, the planet will continue to fry and temperature records will continue to be broken.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Loop Images Ltd/Alamy
© Photograph: Loop Images Ltd/Alamy
© Photograph: Loop Images Ltd/Alamy
Datacentres used 22% of country’s electricity last year, pushing up household bills, study suggests
Energy demand by datacentres in Ireland has added hundreds of euros to household electricity bills in a pattern that could be replicated across Europe, according to a report.
Ireland’s growing number of datacentres last year used 22% of the country’s electricity, more than all urban homes combined, according to the Central Statistics Office. The equivalent figure in the US and UK is 6%.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Sergio Azenha/Alamy
© Photograph: Sergio Azenha/Alamy
© Photograph: Sergio Azenha/Alamy
Datacentres used 22% of country’s electricity last year, pushing up household bills, study suggests
Energy demand by datacentres in Ireland has added hundreds of euros to household electricity bills in a pattern that could be replicated across Europe, according to a report.
Ireland’s growing number of datacentres last year used 22% of the country’s electricity, more than all urban homes combined, according to the Central Statistics Office. The equivalent figure in the US and UK is 6%.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Sergio Azenha/Alamy
© Photograph: Sergio Azenha/Alamy
© Photograph: Sergio Azenha/Alamy
Energy specialists say abandoning net zero and increasing oil and gas drilling would cause more instability for Britons
Abandoning net zero and drilling for more oil and gas in the North Sea would be a massive setback for the UK and would not help the economy, leading experts have said in response to claims by the former prime minister Tony Blair.
“This is a bizarre intervention to make during the worst May heatwave on record and when the Iran crisis is providing yet more evidence of the enormous costs of oil and gas,” said Ed Matthew, the UK programme director at the E3G thinktank. “Clean energy is cheaper energy – it protects our bills from prices skyrocketing, its running costs are virtually zero, and it doesn’t cause climate change which threatens economic collapse ... The government should ignore Blair’s ideological nonsense and focus on what works.”
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
© Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
© Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
With early tests suggesting the presence of crude oil, the Caribbean island has begun to debate whether it could justify becoming a producer
Jamaica is closer than ever to drilling for oil. Tests on samples from the seabed off the Caribbean island’s south coast earlier this year identified hydrocarbons, which suggest the presence of crude oil below ground.
Jamaica imports all its fuel, which costs about $1.5-2bn (£1.1bn-1.5bn) annually, depending on global oil prices. It is a persistent drag on an economy that generated $4.3bn from tourism, its biggest earner, in 2024.
Continue reading...
© Illustration: Eleanor Shakespeare
© Illustration: Eleanor Shakespeare
© Illustration: Eleanor Shakespeare
Outrage as leaked documents reveal mining giant’s backsliding on commitments to slash emissions
Read more from the BHP files investigation here
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
The independent senator David Pocock says leaked BHP documents show that the mining giant is “laughing” at Australia’s key climate policy while pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars through a generous diesel tax break.
An exclusive investigation based on documents leaked to by the Guardian and the ABC show BHP has scrapped a project to significantly reduce global emissions, delayed vast renewables projects in the Pilbara and war-gamed options to push the electrification of its polluting diesel truck and train fleets into the next two decades.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP
© Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP
© Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP
Exclusive: Cache of internal documents leaked to the Guardian and the ABC’s Four Corners show multinational has war-gamed ways to massively delay decarbonisation
Revealed: the internal BHP memo that slammed the brakes on world’s biggest miner’s climate push
Read more from the BHP files investigation here
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
The world’s biggest miner has halted or delayed projects to cut vast amounts of emissions and has quietly war-gamed options to push major climate investments in its Western Australian iron ore operations into the next two decades, internal documents show.
An exclusive investigation based on documents leaked to the Guardian and the ABC’s Four Corners can reveal that BHP, one of Australia’s biggest historic emitters, has dumped plans for a facility that could have significantly reduced emissions and has put on ice renewable projects designed to power its iron ore operations in the vast, resource-rich Pilbara region.
Continue reading...
© Illustration: Guardian Design
© Illustration: Guardian Design
© Illustration: Guardian Design
Exclusive: BHP once dubbed climate change an ‘existential’ threat. But leaked documents show it has backtracked on decarbonisation at a vast network of mines
Read more from the BHP files investigation here
In the middle of 2019, London was sweltering through a heatwave.
Temperature records tumbled. Frail, ill and elderly people died in their hundreds.
Continue reading...
© Composite: Guardian
© Composite: Guardian
© Composite: Guardian
Login
