It may seem ironic that the pioneer of projects that could lead to the sharpest increase in emissions-free electricity in the United States started in Wyoming, the state that leads U.S. production of coal, ranks in the top 10 for natural gas production and pumps 2 percent of the nation's oil. The project started with a 320,000-acre cattle ranch in Carbon County on Wyoming's southern border. In 2006, Philip Anschutz, the ranch's billionaire owner, put it up for sale. [node:read-more:link]

Making an electric car is easy. We’ve been doing it for more than a century. Charging them, however, is tough. It requires infrastructure—a grid on the grid—and presents a chicken-egg conundrum: Who wants a plug-in car when there’s nowhere to plug it in? Who wants to build car chargers, when there aren’t enough cars to charge?  Rest easy, Tesla-heads and Nissan Leaf geeks; we’re finally getting there. The number of charging stations in the U.S. has reached a critical mass. The U.S. [node:read-more:link]

One presidential candidate reportedly sought advice from a California agency of how to alter the national Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which sets mandates on the supply of ethanol in our gasoline. Meanwhile the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was called out in a federal report for failing to meet its statutory reporting requirements under the RFS. Both events in August add fuel to the flames of an already divisive topic pitting certain biofuel producers against consumers – such as boaters – who say ethanol is bad for their engines. [node:read-more:link]

The adoption of new technologies, including GM, may be crucial in making agriculture more sustainable, a leading food policy expert has claimed. Jack Bobo, chief communications officer for US biotech company Intrexon, said agriculture is having the most negative impact on the planet and yet there is nothing more critical to human survival. Resolving this contradiction was perhaps the greatest challenge of the age, he said. [node:read-more:link]

A farm group in northeastern Wisconsin announced plans on Wednesday to supply water to residents with tainted wells in Kewaunee County, where the practice of manure spreading — especially by large-scale farms with thousands of cattle — has been a contentious political topic.  In an unprecedented step, Peninsula Pride Farms will provide water and a subsidy for a system to treat it in selected cases — regardless of whether the source of contamination is from animal waste or another form of pollution. [node:read-more:link]

Not all the data are in just yet, but California is already banking on a lower gross value of its agricultural output for 2015. The California Department of Food and Agriculture collects reports from each of the county agricultural commissioners on crop output during the previous year. Several, but not all of the major crop-producing counties have submitted their reports. Of those that have, the numbers are disappointing and predictable. Citing U.S. [node:read-more:link]

At first, Sebastopol area resident Nancy Martin and her husband did not know what to make of the frequent booming noises they suddenly started hearing in mid-August.  Neither did their neighbors. “We were walking around the neighborhood and we’d run into people, and they’d say, ‘What’s that noise we’re hearing?’ ” Martin said. “And we would say, ‘I don’t know, maybe hunting.’ ” But the sounds were going off at very frequent intervals — sometimes as much as 20 per minute — and could last for 13 hours a day, Martin estimated. [node:read-more:link]

Researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology show catastrophic declines in wilderness areas around the world over the last 20 years. They demonstrate alarming losses comprising a tenth of global wilderness since the 1990s -- an area twice the size of Alaska and half the size of the Amazon. The Amazon and Central Africa have been hardest hit. [node:read-more:link]

While the U.S. egg industry surges toward what looks like a cage-free future, individual egg producers and the organization that represents more than 90 percent of them, the United Egg Producers (UEP), find themselves at a crossroads. [node:read-more:link]

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack noted that Iowa firms have an opportunity to make money by manufacturing equipment related to cage-free egg production. Vilsack said McDonald's and other large restaurant chains and other businesses have switched to cage-free eggs, and the demand is stacking up. This cage-free egg thing is going to be huge because all of these companies like McDonald's decided to announce at the same time they are going to use only cage-free eggs. "No one bothered to ask if we have enough cage-free eggs," he said. [node:read-more:link]