The 2021 Atlantic hurricane season officially ended Tuesday, going down in history as the first time that two consecutive seasons have exhausted the list of 21 English storm names.
The big picture: Above-average sea surface temperatures led to fierce storms that left their mark on the Gulf Coast as well as mid-Atlantic, when Category 4 Hurricane Ida swept ashore in coastal Louisiana on Aug. 29 and went on to kill more than two dozen people in the mid-Atlantic.
This may be cold comfort to anyone feeling the pinch of higher gasoline prices, but a new analysis explains why looking only at per-gallon costs tells an incomplete story.
How it works: University of California economist Severin Borenstein's commentary offers other metrics to look at prices nationwide and in his state, the nation's costliest.
The need to decarbonize heavy industries such as steel, aluminum and cement manufacturing is taking on new urgency as policymakers and financiers search for ways to speed up the transition to a low carbon future.
Driving the news: On the aluminum front, Sortera Alloys, a company that seeks to achieve 100% reuse of aluminum waste from end-of-life products, announced $10 million in funding from Bill Gates-affiliated Breakthrough Energy Ventures on Tuesday.
The latest data on lithium-ion battery prices shows the continued downward march that will help make electric cars and energy storage more competitive, but reveals storm clouds too.
Driving the news: Average battery pack prices fell another 6% from last year to $132 per kilowatt-hour, per the research firm BloombergNEF. That's an 89% decline since 2010 in inflation-adjusted dollars.
Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and seven other House Democrats are urging the Justice Department to release American environmental lawyer Steven Donziger, who helped Indigenous communities in Ecuador win a $9.5 billion lawsuit against Chevron.
Why it matters: Human rights groups say the charges against Donziger, who is serving a six-month prison term for contempt of court, violate international law and appear to be an act of retaliation against his work on behalf of Indigenous people and environmental advocates.
The pipeline of carbon capture projects worldwide is growing and there are signs that fewer plans will die on the vine than in the past, the International Energy Agency said.
Why it matters: Carbon capture, utilization and storage has the potential to curb emissions from heavy industries and power generation. But the long-hoped-for scale-up of commercial deployment has unfolded very slowly.
Oil prices have swung wildly in recent days as traders grapple with two uncertainties — the Omicron variant's impact and OPEC+ output plans.
Catch up fast: Oil plunged Friday on word of the new variant and travel restrictions, with U.S. prices falling 13% and the global benchmark Brent crude by just slightly less.
The latest ferocious storm system to hit the Pacific Northwest triggered fresh evacuation orders and at least one mudslide in flood-ravaged British Columbia, Canada, late Sunday.
Threat level: Flood sirens sounded in Washington state as the Nooksack River overflowed. Henry Braun, mayor of Abbotsford, B.C., told reporters the water flow was headed toward the Canadian border city later Sunday. "There's nothing to stop it," he said.
