Visit our Filed page for categories. To browse by specific topic, see our Inside page. For a list of companies covered on this site, visit our Companies page.
The 2013 Ford Taurus. (Ford Motor Co.)
Ford Motor Co. unveiled a more fuel-efficient version of its flagship sedan, the Taurus, aimed at attracting consumers sensitive to rising fuel prices.
The 2013 Ford Taurus is expected to get at least 31 miles per gallon on the highway and can be outfitted with two different types of engines, Ford executives said at an event linked to the New York auto show. Get the full story »
A Chevy Volt being charged at a public electric vehicle charging station in Detroit, Oct. 12, 2010. Google will help electric vehicle owners find charging stations. (Jeff Kowalsky/Bloomberg)
Soon electric vehicle owners looking for somewhere to charge up will need little more than Google.
The U.S. Department of Energy said Tuesday that a new partnership will draw on Google Maps to create an online network of all the charging stations in the country and will serve as a primary data source for GPS and mapping services to track electric vehicle charging locations. Get the full story »
The fund established to compensate Gulf Coast residents in the aftermath of last year’s massive BP oil spill said Monday it has paid out $3.8 billion so far. Get the full story »
Energy Secretary Steven Chu said on Thursday high oil prices posed a threat to the global economy. “The oil producer countries and the oil consuming countries are concerned because it does have an impact on a very fragile economic recovery. There is great concern,” Chu told a news conference while attending a clean energy conference. Get the full story »
General Electric says it’s going to build the nation’s largest solar panel factory, part of a $600 million dollar bet on the future of solar power in the United States. The new plant will employ 400 people and produce enough solar panels to power 80,000 homes per year, GE said Thursday. The company isn’t saying where the plant will be located, but it does say that there are multiple locations being scouted. Get the full story »
Declaring 2010 “the best year in safety performance in our company’s history,“ Transocean Ltd., owner of the Gulf of Mexico oil rig that exploded, killing 11 workers, has awarded its top executives hefty bonuses and raises, according to a recent filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Get the full story »
If a nuclear reactor were to melt down in Illinois, the state has enough potassium iodide on hand to distribute to residents living within 10 miles of a nuclear power plant, the Illinois Emergency Management Agency said Friday.
A top official with the agency had said earlier at a public forum hosted by U.S. Senators Mark Kirk and Dick Durbin that there weren’t enough tablets on hand.
An IEMA spokeswoman clarified Friday, saying that the agency has 90,000 tablets on hand for first responders and 175,000 tablets on-hand to distribute to the public. She said about 180,000 people total live within 10 miles of a nuclear reactor in Illinois. Joseph Klinger, the assistant director of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency misspoke when he said 180,000 people on average live within 10 miles of each nuclear plant in Illinois. Get the full story »
The U.S. nuclear industry will see a “significant” increase in operating and regulatory costs following the Japanese nuclear emergency, but the magnitude won’t be known for several months, the head of the largest fleet of U.S. nuclear reactors said on Thursday. Get the full story »
PepsiCo Inc has developed a bottle made from plant-based, renewable resources that is fully recyclable, and will start using it in a test program next year.
The company’s new “green” bottle is currently being made from materials such as switch grass, pine bark and corn husks. In the future, components for the bottle may include orange and potato peels, oat hulls and other byproducts left over from the company’s food business. Get the full story »
Residents of Chicago’s Southeast Side descended on the Thompson Center Wednesday morning to urge Gov. Pat Quinn to veto a bill that would pave the way for a coal-to-gas plant to be built in their neighborhood.
The deadline for the governor to sign or veto the legislation is March 14, and he has not said whether he plans to sign the bill, which would require utilities to purchase the synthetic natural gas the $3 billion plant would produce for the next 30 years. Get the full story »
John W. Rowe. (Chuck Berman/Chicago Tribune)
Natural gas will remain cheaper than other sources of electricity generation for “a long time,” Exelon Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive John W. Rowe said Tuesday.
“I have never seen a time, not once, where one fuel source seems to be so dominant for so long,” said Rowe, one of the senior utility executives in the U.S. and former head of two utility trade organizations in Washington. “The supply-demand equations for gas are very powerful and I believe they are real for a long time.”
As a result of those economics, Rowe said, the U.S. Congress should “do nothing” on energy policy and allow the market to replace aging coal generating plants with natural gas, which releases less carbon than coal when burned. Get the full story »
The U.S. Green Building Council reported that Illinois has 3.09 square feet of LEED-certified commercial and institutional green buildings per capita — ranking it eighth in the nation. Get the full story »
Businesses that emit greenhouse gases will have more time to report their emissions after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency extended a deadline Tuesday.
The EPA announced that it would extend the deadline, originally March 31, saying it would take more time to test the online system to collect data. The agency said it expected reporting to begin in late summer but did not set a new deadline. Get the full story »
Hasbro's latest version of the Easy Bake Oven. (Hasbro)
Collateral damage in the war on energy waste is none other than the classic children’s toy Easy-Bake Oven, introduced in 1963 and an inductee in the National Toy Hall of Fame.
Millions of young chefs have used the toy to make tasty baked treats. It was made possible by the oven’s heating element, a common 100-watt incandescent light bulb. Get the full story »
Standing in front of a fast-charging station at the Chicago Auto Show, Gov. Pat Quinn called on automakers to bring electric vehicles to the state in light of charging infrastructure planned for the Chicago area.
“We’re going to have electric vehicles galore in the state of Illinois,” he said. “We want to be the nation’s capital for electric vehicles.”
In announcing that Chicago has signed a contract to have 280 charging stations installed in the area, Quinn said the infrastructure will go a long way toward making the state’s environmental goals a reality. Get the full story »
