Energy & Fuel

Portugal may be the first nation out of the blocks in the scramble for electric automobiles. Its motives may be more selfish than ecological.

"New-car shoppers appear to have already snapped up all the $1 billion that Congress appropriated for the 'cash for clunkers' program, leading the Transportation Department to tell auto dealers Thursday night to stop offering the rebates."

"The biggest opportunity to improve the nation’s energy situation is a major investment program to make homes and businesses more efficient, according to a study released Wednesday."

"The country's top regulator of commodity markets said Tuesday that the government should 'seriously consider' strict limits on the trades of purely financial investors in the futures markets for oil, natural gas and other energy products."

What will happen to all the "clunkers" traded in for gas-sipping new cars under a new federal rebate program?

"More than 20,000 old oil and gas wells across [Alberta] have been sitting abandoned or inactive for more than a decade without being cleaned up, worrying landowners and environmentalists who say the sites unnecessarily eat up and possibly contaminate valuable farm land."

Wood has been hailed as a renewable fuel and is being used in New England power plants. But it is not undergoing some serious scrutiny of its environmental consequences.

"Whenever solar power is mentioned, critics are quick to note -- when there's no sun, there's no power. Lester Graham talked with the author of a report who says one type of solar power can store energy."