[posted on BankWatch, March 16th, 2018] Multilateral development banks have supported no fewer than 82 hydropower projects across southeast Europe, including in protected areas, according to a study by CEE Bankwatch Network released today. The study finds that the number of hydropower projects in the region that enjoy financial support from multilateral development banks and commercial banks, is even greater than previously known....

[posted by Tom Tuite on The Irish Times, March 26th, 2018] Court hears ‘glitch’ caused breach during Dublin waste plant’s first week in operation. The operator of the Poolbeg incinerator has been fined €1,000 and ordered to pay €14,000 in costs after a “glitch” led to breaking its environmental protection licence during its first week. The power plant at Pigeon House Road, Poolbeg, Dublin 4, which began operations in June last year,...

[posted by Mark Olalde on Climate Home News, March 14th, 2018] Schemes that favour coal companies in Appalachia have left a national shortfall experts said was ‘one of the biggest public failures that has gone under the radar’. As the US coal industry winds down, does it have enough money set aside to clean up the vast pits, walls and broken mountains left behind? A Climate Home News investigation has found the answer is no....

[posted by Kathiann M. Kowalski on EnergyNews, March 15th, 2018] Natural gas burns cleaner, but two recent explosions in Ohio show how accidental and “fugitive” emissions compromise some climate benefits. An explosion at a well pad in eastern Ohio last month forced nearby residents to evacuate for three weeks while crews worked to cap a gas leak. Just two weeks earlier, a gas pipeline in an adjacent county ruptured and caused several...

[posted by Bashir Goth on Gulf News, March 16th, 2017] We often hear the platitude “water is precious” while we carry around bottles of water we can drink anytime. We bathe with it several times a day, wash our cars with it, flood our lawns and gardens with gallons of it, and waste it in every conceivable way. On rare occasions, when we wake up in the morning and we don’t find readily available water in the faucet we go crazy, frantic...

[posted by Todd C. Frankel on The Washington Post, February 28th, 2018] In Congo’s sun-scorched and dusty south, thousands of miners scour underground tunnels hunting for cobalt. Many of them work by hand. That’s why they are known as creuseurs — French for diggers. They don’t use power tools. They don’t wear face masks and often no gloves. They do it because they live in one of the poorest countries in the world, and cobalt is...