‘(Reuters) – The Department of Energy awarded First Solar conditional loan guarantees worth $4.5 billion for three of its biggest power plants in California, lifting the company’s shares 7 percent.’

via First Solar plants win DOE loan guarantees | Reuters.

‘(Reuters) – Developers of solar thermal power plants are scrapping plans to use steam technology in favor of ever-cheaper solar panels that are easier to finance and could help assuage concerns about the systems’ environmental impact.’

via Solar developers scrapping thermal for photovoltaic | Reuters.

‘(Reuters) – San Francisco is the greenest city in North America, followed by Vancouver and New York, according to the latest survey of green-city rankings.’

via Survey ranks San Francisco greenest U.S. city | Reuters.

‘Extreme weather events have become both more common and more intense. And increasingly, scientists have been able to pin at least part of the blame on humankind’s alteration of the climate. What’s more, the growing success of this nascent science of climate attribution finding the telltale fingerprints of climate change in extreme events means that researchers have more confidence in their climate models—which predict that the future will be even more extreme.’

via Our Extreme Future: Predicting and Coping with the Effects of a Changing Climate: Scientific American.

‘(Reuters) – Wind turbines that do not interfere with radar systems used by aircraft may soon become a commercially viable option for the wind energy industry, Danish turbine manufacturer Vestas said on Wednesday.’

via Next thing in wind energy: stealth turbines | Reuters.

‘From 2002 to 2006, we began to recognize how much the climate of this region was changing. The whole-country analysis of temperature records indicated that Mongolia has warmed 2.14 degrees Celsius, or 3.85 degrees Fahrenheit, since the 1940s. In contrast, total precipitation has changed very little.’

via Climate Change in Mongolia – NYTimes.com.

‘French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced a $1.43-billion investment in atomic power Monday, going against Europe’s antinuclear tide following the Fukushima disaster in Japan.’

via France announces $1.43-billion nuclear investment – latimes.com.

‘KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As record floodwaters along the Missouri River drench homes and businesses, concerns have grown about keeping a couple of notable structures dry: two riverside nuclear power plants in Nebraska.’

via Flooding Brings Worry About Nebraska Nuclear Plants – NYTimes.com.

‘AMSTERDAM — When a 43-foot gray whale was spotted off the Israeli town of Herzliya last year, scientists came to a startling conclusion: it must have wandered across the normally icebound route above Canada, where warm weather had briefly opened a clear channel three years earlier.’

via Whale’s odyssey sheds light on climate change – World news – World environment – msnbc.com.