Employees service a computer on Sept. 15, 2022 at Helios, a 125,000-square-foot Argo Blockchain facility in Dickens County, Texas. (Trace Thomas for The Texas Tribune) By Pam Radtke and Kristi Swartz for Floodlight. Also published in Energy News Network, Canary Media and the Louisiana Illuminator The United States is facing a new energy crisis — one that could make the climate crisis even worse. After more than 30 years of falling or flat demand for electricity, electric utilities are forecasting the nation will need the equivalent of about 34 new nuclear plants, or 38 gigawatts, over the nex ..read more

A coalition of environmental groups opposed to the expansion of the liquified natural gas export capacity along the Gulf Coast march on Jan. 19, 2024. (Julie Dermansky/For Floodlight) By Pam Radtke for Floodlight. Also published in Energy News Network, Louisiana Illuminator, Verite and WWNO During a summer’s afternoon in 2022, a 450-foot fireball exploded at a liquefied natural gas terminal south of Houston, rocking sunbathers on Quintana Beach, adjacent to the Freeport LNG terminal, and rattling homes for miles around.   Eighteen months later, residents around the plant have yet to ..read more

“The scariest part of this wave of utility scandals is what we don’t know: How many utilities have committed crimes that prosecutors haven’t noticed?” (Image: Generated by Open AI’s Dall E) By Mario Ariza and Kristi E. Swartz for Floodlight. Also published in Mother Jones At a press conference last month, flanked by sheriffs and attorneys, Ohio Attorney General David Yost announced the indictments of two utility executives who allegedly tried to “hijack” state electricity policy for their own corrupt ends by paying $4.3 million in bribes to Sam Randazzo, then chair of the state Publ ..read more

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry speaks at the start of the special session in the House Chamber on Jan. 15, 2024 in Baton Rouge, La. (Michael Johnson/The Advocate, Pool) By Terry L. Jones for Floodlight. Also published in the Louisiana Illuminator and Verite In his first four weeks in office, Louisiana Republican Gov. Jeff Landry has filled the ranks of state environmental posts with fossil fuel industry executives. Landry has taken aim at the state’s climate task force for possible elimination as part of a sweeping reorganization of Louisiana’s environmental bureaucracy. The goal, according to La ..read more

The methane leak in 2022 in the Rager Mountain storage facility in western Pennsylvania. The leak sent the equivalent of the annual emissions from 300,000 vehicles’ worth of the climate-damaging gas into the air.. (Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection) By Taylor Kate Brown for Inside Climate News, Energy News Network and the Allegheny FrontOn a November afternoon in 2022, a 57-year-old well tapped into an underground natural gas storage reservoir in western Pennsylvania started leaking, fast enough that people a few miles away heard a loud, jet engine-like noise.  By the t ..read more

Residents of this seventh poorest state have the most expensive monthly electric bills in the US. (Javier Palma/The Guardian) By ,Miranda Greene for Floodlight and the Guardian In the more than a decade since Alabama regulators allowed a landfill to take in tons of waste from coal-burning power plants around the US, neighbors in the majority-Black community of Uniontown frequently complain of thick air so pungent it makes their eyes burn. On some days, it can look like an eerily white Christmas in a place that rarely sees snow. “When the wind blows, all the trees in the area are totally gray ..read more

FPL is among the utilities in the South that have curried favor with civil rights groups through donations and lucrative contracts. (Adam Sacasa/South Florida Sun Sentinel) By ,Mario Alejandro Ariza and ,Kristi E Swartz for Floodlight and ,Adam Mahoney for Capital B Former Florida state representative Joe Gibbons sat in the library of the Faith Community Church in Greensboro, North Carolina, trying to convince its pastor to quit promoting rooftop solar. With a lobbyist’s charms Gibbons told the Rev Nelson Johnson that rooftop solar, which allows customers to generate their own renew ..read more

Sharon Lavigne, a leader of Rise St. James, a grassroots environmental advocacy group in her predominantly Black community, says her neighbors are mostly unaware of how carbon capture and sequestration works. (Photo courtesy of the Goldman Environmental Prize) By Terry L. Jones for The Lens and Capital B Communities of people across south Louisiana say that they want to protect themselves from what they consider to be a risky and possibly dangerous prospect of having tons of carbon dioxide injected underground to reduce the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.  A state legislative tas ..read more

Brionte´ McCorkle speaks out against a proposed rate hike from Georgia Power in September 2019. (Neil Sardana) By ,Kristi Swartz for Georgia Recorder Brionte´ McCorkle was “furious” when a federal appeals court ruled in late November that Georgia could keep its current method of electing its powerful utility regulators. She punched her kickboxing heavy bag so hard that it broke. “I busted the bag, I was that mad,” she said. But, McCorkle added, “We’re not going to let this go.” McCorkle and three other Black voters from Fulton County have filed a motion to stay the appellate court’s ruli ..read more

According to the US Geological Survey, suitable carbon storage space lies beneath about 130m acres of federal land, including that controlled by the Forest Service. (USDA Forest Service/Preston Keres) By ,Pam Radtke for The Guardian A proposal that would allow industries to permanently stash climate-polluting carbon dioxide beneath US Forest Service land puts those habitats and the people in or near them at risk, according to opponents of the measure. Chief among opponents’ concerns is that carbon dioxide could leak from storage wells or pipelines and injure or kill people and animals, as wel ..read more