sustainability

Scott Anderson, a researcher at the Idaho National Laboratory's Irradiated Materials Characterization Lab, works with materials in a "glovebox" as part of the lab's research into how exposure to radiation alters reactor components. The lab's research is aimed at understanding how materials and fuels respond to radiation, which is crucial data as licenses for existing nuclear reactors are extended. (Robert Zullo/ States Newsroom)

With decarbonization, advocates see a bright future for nuclear after decades of dormancy

BY: - April 24, 2023

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho — At the sprawling array of laboratories and test facilities in the southeastern Idaho desert where the U.S. nuclear power industry was born more than 70 years ago, past, present and future are converging. Not far from where the first reactor to ever produce usable electricity made history in 1951, Idaho National […]

COMMENTARY
Sioux Falls as seen from Falls Park, on the Big Sioux River. (Seth Tupper/South Dakota Searchlight)

Will the state’s biggest city be small-thinking or visionary on the climate?

BY: - April 8, 2023

Have Sioux Falls voters elected leaders with narrow minds and small thinking, or visionaries with strategic plans and goals for a better Sioux Falls?   In February, Mayor Paul TenHaken announced that the detailed, carefully considered, and widely vetted city Sustainability Plan with clear goals and objective measures was being replaced by a framework of phony […]

An oil pumpjack casts a shadow on a wall as it pulls oil from the Permian Basin oil field on March 14, 2022, in Odessa, Texas. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

States that limit business with banks that ‘boycott’ fossil fuels could pay high cost, study says

BY: - January 12, 2023

Republican state policymakers’ efforts to boost fossil fuels by prohibiting their governments from doing business with companies that take sustainability into consideration has the potential to cost states millions, according to a study released Thursday. Researchers looked specifically at the possible effects on Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma and West Virginia if they passed Texas-like […]