Electricity demand on the Midwest's grid is expected to be strong this summer, with hot weather and a growing economy sucking plenty of juice. At the same time, electricity supplies are tightening.
President Donald Trump's vow to save the coal industry will be tested this week when a utility board he appoints weighs whether to close a coal-fired power plant in Kentucky whose suppliers include a mine owned by one of his campaign donors.
Declines in coal power plant construction in China, India and the U.S. are projected to push the heavily-polluting fuel over the edge— but not fast enough to meet international climate change goals, environmental groups said Wednesday.
A company may resume construction of a crude oil pipeline in a Louisiana swamp, a project that has been on hold for nearly three weeks, an appeals court ruled Thursday.
Petroleum coke, the bottom-of-the-barrel leftover from refining Canadian tar sands crude and other heavy oils, is cheaper and burns hotter than coal. But it also contains more planet-warming carbon and far more heart- and lung-damaging sulfur.
