Since rig counts follow oil prices, the current slump will hurt Western economies.
Energy & Industry
Posted inArticles
The 21st century’s Hoover Dam?
What a huge Wyoming wind and Utah storage project tell us about the West’s energy landscape.
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Will Wyoming companies get higher fines for workplace deaths?
When a worker died on the job, the company paid a $6,700 penalty, inciting new discussion on the issue.
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Extreme Makeover, the BLM episode
How a gigantic federal bureaucracy is positioning itself to manage resources at a “landscape” level.
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Can Hickenlooper get his middle-of-the-road magic back?
The Colorado governor has Democratic politicians calmed and fractivists pissed.
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Is Denver the Houston of the Rockies — again?
Even greenie hotspots get their economic mojo from fossil fuels.
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A plan for California desert conservation comes online
Will it stop more solar and wind projects from being built in the wrong places?
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War of the words
New oil and gas ‘codebook’ aims to help the public muddle through the fracking debate
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Manmade quakes shake the Southwest
Tremors in Colorado and New Mexico linked to coalbed methane extraction.
Posted inSeptember 15, 2014: Books & Essays
Tragedy, coincidence and patterns
Review of “Downwind: A People’s History of the Nuclear West” by Sarah Alisabeth Fox.
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Rural and small town employment still lags
Metro areas are bouncing back from the Great Recession more quickly.
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Hurdles mount for Northwest coal exports
How high are the stakes for Western coal producers?
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Nevada wins the Tesla battery factory giga-race
Massive incentive package raises questions about corporate welfare.
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Ruling green lights temporary nuclear waste storage
With no central underground depository, above-ground casks will have to do.
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Fracking Georgia O’Keeffe Country
Drill rigs pop up near Navajo communities, Chaco Canyon and the iconic Black Place.
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Two political elites prevail in Navajo primary melee
Shirley and Deschene pull ahead of 15 other candidates.
Posted inSeptember 1, 2014: Lost in the Woods
The Latest: Southern Utes make another energy investment
Backstory The Southern Ute Indian Tribe has suffered plenty of historical setbacks; today, however, its 1,400 members are collectively worth billions. In the 1970s, the tribe began taking control of energy profits from its southwestern Colorado reservation, home to one of the country’s richest gas fields. In the 1990s, it formed its own energy company, […]
Posted inSeptember 1, 2014: Lost in the Woods
The Latest: Ruptured tailings pond spills waste in Canada
Backstory In the remote northwestern corner of British Columbia, next to Alaska, plans for large mining and hydropower projects have sounded alarm bells on both sides of the border. Critics, mostly environmentalists and tribes, warned that Canada’s resource rush threatens rivers that support a vital wild salmon fishery in both countries, and that the race […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2014: Alaska's Uncertain Food Future
The Latest: EPA cuts pollution at the Navajo Generating Station
BackstoryBad air from coal-fired power plants not only causes health problems for the locals; it also ruins the scenery. In 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency began addressing the visual impacts of air pollution from power plants, developing plans to reduce haze around national parks and wilderness areas. (“Clean air regulations protect views by targeting coal […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2014: Alaska's Uncertain Food Future
Climate canary
Greenhouse gases are changing the way we talk about coal.