Environmental News

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Getting to Green: Minnesota’s energy future

Getting to Green is an MPR News series that shares stories about Minnesota’s clean energy transition, including what needs to be done to get there.

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Giant pumice raft floating toward Australia could help replenish Great Barrier Reef
An underwater volcano is thought to have produced a sheet of pumice that stretches 58 square miles. It’s carrying marine organisms that scientists say could help replenish Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
Utility regulators approve oil pipeline replacement across northern Minn. reservation
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission has unanimously approved the replacement of a 10-mile section of the Line 4 oil pipeline across the reservation of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.
The Amazon rainforest, ablaze in Brazil
There have been 74,155 fires in Brazil so far this year, mostly in the Amazon, and about half of which have ignited in just the past month. Some world leaders are raising the alarm.
North Dakota's Health Department disregarded its own policy in updating the volume of a 2015 pipeline spill at a natural gas processing plant, and it remains unclear whether promised quarterly inspections of the site have been done in the past two years as cleanup continued.
Chemical fingerprints point to fracking as culprit behind new methane emissions
Scientists have been debating what’s behind a recent spike in methane emissions. A new study ties the spike to shale gas emitted through fracking, and sounds the alarm for reducing natural gas use.