Last Friday, as national attention turned to the massive Exxon Pegasus tar sands pipeline spill in Mayflower, Arkansas, another oil spill was occurring near Houston, Texas. Operators of a Royal Dutch Shell subsidiary’s West Columbia pipeline, a 15 mile long, 16 inch diameter line, received warnings from the US National Response Center of a potential 700 barrel release (nearly 30,000 gallons) of crude oil on Friday, March 29.
This week in Jetson Green Energy News, we’re celebrating the 13th birthday of LEED, reporting on renewable energy in Germany, Australia, and the United States, talking about why incandescent bulb sales are declining, and checking out a molten salt thermal plant (a what?) in Nevada. Plus, our calendar of upcoming green events keeps on growing, especially with Earth Day just around the corner.
BP’s request to block settlement payouts associated with the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill was rejected Friday by a federal judge. BP estimated a year ago that it would spend roughly $7.8 billion to resolve tens of thousands of claims by businesses and individuals covered by the settlement.
One week ago, residents of rural Mayflower, Ark., found a river of reeking, black oil flowing through their backyards and streets.
Fisker Automotive today announced that it was firing 75% of its workforce, leaving a skeleton crew of 53 senior managers and executives to save the it. And no, there were no severance packages.
VICE is probably best known to most for its Dos & Don’ts, but the characteristically “hipster” publication has been cementing its place as an important journalistic outlet recently with some hard hitting articles and documentaries produced by its ambitious, and somewhat quirky, team of reporters. Their latest foray into moving media is ‘VICE‘, a new HBO series of the same name, that “goes behind the news cycle” to cover stories that are often overlooked by mainstream media.
- GreenJoyment(Ally): I love Bill Maher and HBO so, needless to say, I’m optimistic about this show. As a communications professional, I’m also very supportive of small media outlets taking risks and speaking out.
As the ancient idiom says, “Waste not, want not.” Researchers at Lund University in Sweden are making it happen by turning ash from burned garbage into hydrogen.