Yahoo! energy News

In an epic legal battle pitting Amazon rainforest tribes against energy giant Chevron, a former Ecuadorean judge claims another judge there took a $500,000 bribe. The second judge, however, says it's all ...

Gas prices in Rhode Island inched up a penny this week to an average of $3.40 a gallon. The weekly survey from AAA Southern New England released Monday found the average cost of a gallon of regular self-serve ...

The average price of gas in New Hampshire has risen 1.2 cents per gallon in the past week, averaging $3.25. The website Gasbuddy.com says that's 4 cents more than the national average. New Hampshire prices ...

Ohio gas prices have jumped back up after a week or so of flirting with the $3-a-gallon level. The state average was $3.18 for a gallon of regular gas in Monday's survey from auto club AAA, the Oil Price ...

A nuclear power plant worker allegedly inspired by the Ben Affleck movie "The Town" was extradited from Venezuela to the United States late last month to face charges related to the attempted hijacking of an armored car. But the alleged plot went much further than the film.

In a story Nov. 15 about a pipeline fire, The Associated Press reported erroneously that a Chevron spokesman said the continued evacuation was a precaution over concerns over air quality. Spokesman Gareth ...

By Joseph Ax NEW YORK (Reuters) - Steven Donziger, the lawyer accused by Chevron Corp of using bribery to secure a $19 billion judgment over pollution in Ecuador, has never been shy about his opinion of U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan. "What he's doing is not judging," Donziger said of Kaplan, who is presiding over a non-jury trial on Chevron's claims in a federal court in New York. His appearance will be a dramatic moment in the years-long legal battle that has pitted the vast resources of a global oil company against Donziger and the group of villagers in northeastern Ecuador that he advised. In a draft of his testimony provided to the press, Donziger accused Kaplan of bias while criticizing Chevron for "the most well-funded corporate retaliation campaign in history." "I challenge at the most fundamental level the legitimacy of this proceeding," he wrote.

New Mexico regulators have approved a utility's plan to establish wind-energy facilities across three states in a push to produce additional power but at a more affordable cost. Xcel Energy announced Friday ...

Some residents of a rural North Texas town were escorted to their homes Friday as a nearby Chevron pipeline continued to burn, according to sheriff's officials. Ellis County sheriff's Lt. James Saulter ...

A Chevron Corp worker was killed in a fire that broke out early Friday morning at a cracking unit at the U.S. oil company's 330,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Tonya Graddy, an "operator" with 5 years of service, was killed after a fire broke out at a furnace in a gasoline-making unit known as the "Cracking II area," Chevron said. All other workers were accounted for after the plant's emergency teams put out the fire that started at 2 a.m. CST (0800 GMT), the company and officials from Jackson County and Pascagoula said. The fire, which is under investigation, happened a day after a Chevron pipeline unrelated to the refinery exploded in rural Milford, Texas - shooting flames high into the air and prompting evacuations but causing no injuries.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration wants to reduce the amount of ethanol in the nation's fuel supply, acknowledging the biofuel law championed by both parties in 2007 is not working as well as expected.

Authorities are investigating the cause of an explosion and fire at a southern Mississippi refinery Friday that killed one worker. Chevron Mississippi general manager Tom Kovar said an operator in the ...

By Luke Swiderski NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Dow and the S&P 500 reached new highs on Friday a day after U.S. Federal Reserve Chair nominee Janet Yellen told a Senate Committee that the central bank's economic stimulus would continue and several key important investors disclosed stakes in companies like J.C. Penney and Exxon Mobil. A number of big hedge funds made bets on the turnaround of ailing department store J.C. Penney Co , sending its shares up 5.4 percent to $9.16. ...

Authorities are investigating the cause of an explosion and fire at a southern Mississippi refinery that killed one worker. Chevron Mississippi general manager Tom Kovar says an operator in the Cracking ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. Gulf Coast gasoline differentials spiked 3-4 cents a gallon on Friday but then quickly retreated again, traders said, following a fire at Chevron Corp's Mississippi refinery which killed one worker. The differentials for M4 conventional gasoline were bid at 13.00 cents under December RBOB gasoline futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange, around 3.50 cents higher. They then tumbled to 17.50/16.00 cents, close to flat. A4 gasoline, formulated for blending with 10 percent ethanol, traded at 14.00 cents under, 3.50 cents higher and was offered at 13.00 cents under. ...

The Environmental Protection Agency will propose, later on Friday, a new federal target for U.S. biofuel use in 2014, attempting to prevent a projected fuel-blending crunch next year. Market watchers will likely scan the proposal to see if it contains as deep a cut in the amount of ethanol that must be blended into U.S. gasoline next year as seen in an agency document leaked last month and seen by Reuters.

A Chevron Corp worker was killed in a fire that broke out early Friday morning at a cracking unit at the major U.S. oil company's 330,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi. The plant's emergency teams put out the fire, which started at 2 a.m. CST, Chevron and officials from Jackson County and Pascagoula said. The fire broke out at a furnace in a gasoline-making unit known as the "Cracking II area," Chevron said.

As you can see, energy prices rose strongly for several years prior to the financial crisis in 2008, fell precipitously during the crisis itself, and then started climbing again. Rising energy prices can have powerful and deep economic effects. If energy prices — which impact most goods and services due to transport, electricity, and fuel costs — rise faster than wages, consumers have less disposable income to spend. These effects exacerbated the 2008 crisis, and the relatively elevated energy prices ever since have been a drag on the recovery.

Authorities were investigating the cause of an early Friday explosion and fire at a southern Mississippi refinery that killed one worker and injured another. Allan Sudduth, spokesman for Chevron in Mississippi, ...