European climate policy moves and the Ukraine crisis together show why environmentalist campaigns against natural gas face headwinds on both sides of the Atlantic.
Driving the news: The European Commission on Wednesday included certain forms of gas and nuclear power in the "taxonomy for sustainable activities" meant to guide private investment.
Frigid air has once again moved into Texas, with freezing rain, sleet and snow falling in parts of the state, including the Dallas-Ft. Worth metro area.
Shell reported $6.4 billion in Q4 net earnings and a full-year 2021 profit of $19.3 billion today.
Why it matters: The big quarter and year is the latest sign of Big Oil's financial recovery from COVID-19 on the strength of higher commodity prices and demand.
Near Space Labs, a Brooklyn-based Earth observing company, is making images of the U.S. available at the ultra-high, 10-centimeter resolution for commercial use beginning this week, the company tells Axios.
The big picture: This makes Near Space Labs the only company to offer imagery this detailed on the commercial market right now.
The National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas, said Wednesday that it will shut down "for the immediate future" after facing ongoing harassment rooted in right-wing conspiracy theories.
Why it matters: The nonprofit nature reserve, one of the most popular tourist destinations in the Rio Grande Valley, became a target after it sued the Trump administration in 2017 disputing its planned U.S.-Mexico border wall.
More than 109 million people are under winter precipitation alerts and over 3.6 million are subject to cold temperature alerts as the U.S. faces its second major winter storm in a week. Compared to last weekend's New England blizzard, this has a much larger real estate footprint, with the National Weather Service (NWS) describing its scope as "massive."
The latest: About a third of the continental 48 states are feeling its impact, with temperatures dropping 20 to 40 degrees below average in some areas, according to the NWS. It's due to hit the hardest in the Ohio Valley and parts of the South, where icy roads and power outages could lead to blackouts.
The electric vehicle market is poised for both rapid growth and fundamental reshaping as a tsunami of new models start reaching drivers.
The big picture: Global EV sales — battery-electric and plug-in hybrid combined — more than doubled last year to around 6.6 million vehicles. They accounted for 8.6% of the global light-duty vehicle market, compared to about 2.5% in 2019, per a new International Energy Agency commentary.
Energy Vault,one of a few startups looking to commercialize gravity-based storage tech using solid materials, has reached a deal to develop projects in China.
Driving the news: The company on Tuesday announced a $50 million licensing agreement with Atlas Renewable, which is majority-owned by the Chinese company China Tianying.
A trend toward rapidly intensifying, powerful hurricanes in recent years is spurring experts to examine more closely how to prepare communities to better withstand such violent weather.
Driving the news: The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) recently awarded about $13 million over four years to Florida International University's (FIU) Extreme Events Institute to support the design of what is essentially a "Category 6" storm simulator.
