Energy, Mining & Utilities

Today, the Union of Concerned Scientists released "Drilling in Detroit," an analysis conducted jointly with the Center for Auto Safety. The study finds that US automakers could produce a fleet of cars and trucks that get an average of 40 miles per gallon by 2012, and 55 mpg by 2020 (up from the current 24 mpg average), with no diminution of safety and performance. This increased fuel efficiency would save consumers billions of dollars each year, cut 273 million tons of annual GHG emissions by 2010 and 888 million tons by 2020, and create tens of thousands of new jobs in the auto industry. Read More

New evidence has surfaced in a Colombian government inquiry exposing active collaboration between security forces protecting oil operations of the Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum (OXY) and the notorious Colombian military in one of the country' deadliest attacks on civilians. Read More

A private intelligence firm with close links to MI6 spied on environmental campaign groups to collect information for oil companies, including Shell and BP. Read More

The Indigenous Environmental Network, the International Indian Treaty Council and Greenaction issue this call to action to stop George W. Bush's plan to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Read More

In a civil war that seems to be fueled by so much -- religion, for example, because one side is Muslim and the other side is not, and race, because one side is Arab and the other African -- nothing has supercharged the fighting in southern Sudan quite like Nile Blend crude. Read More

Oil companies are collecting record profits while consumers get drilled at the gas pumps, underscoring the iron grip the companies have over virtually every aspect of the oil market, a Public Citizen analysis shows. Read More

The chairman of Aceh's Student Movement for Reform, Radhi Darmansyah, on Wednesday, presented ExxonMobil shareholders with documentation challenging earlier claims by the corporation that it does not know about the widespread abuses by security forces in the Indonesian province of Aceh, including those providing security to its gas installations. Read More

The Award goes to the Nuclear Energy Institute for audaciously using a scooter riding teenage girl to claim that a polluting, highly dangerous, economically disastrous 20th century technology is our energy future. Read More

Citing "environmental disruption and corruption" in a letter to the government of Kenya, Japan's Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka indicated that suspension of funding for the Sondu Miriu hydropower dam project was ''a response to criticism from environmental campaigners and differences between Kenya and Japan over further funding.'' Read More

A leading advocacy group has taken the Bush administration to task for failing to include human rights considerations in its new national energy plan, according to a letter obtained by Reuters yesterday. Read More