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UM scientists to collect urine at UM, MSU game for fertilizer research
Who's No. 1? At UM-MSU game, it'll depend on urine output.
'Energy Switch' continues the discussion on the health of our oceans
In part 2 of this discussion, we talk about plastic pollution, fertilizer runoff and oil spills along with potential solutions.
In Wisconsin farm country, burden of high prices transcends politics
Wisconsin farmers are feeling the squeeze — and it could shake up one of the nation's most closely watched congressional races. With diesel topping $6 a gallon, fertilizer costs soaring and profits shrinking, even longtime Republican voters are questioning the direction of the country. Could frustration on the farm change the outcome in November?
How an Iowa farmer cut back as fuel, fertilizer and health care costs soared
Aaron Lehman, 58, has put off big purchases and stopped making retirement contributions to offset rising prices.
Arkansas farm bankruptcies on the rise, most in the nation
Recent reports point to a rise in Arkansas farmers struggling with finances following steep gains in fuel and fertilizer prices. The state led the nation in farm-related Chapter 12 bankruptcy...
Trump administration announces $8 billion farm relief plan as fuel, fertilizer costs bite
(CNN) — President Donald Trump announced at a Kansas rally on Monday that his administration is introducing an $8 billion aid package for farmers in the face of high diesel
Global banana business bruised as Iran war pressures producers
The war in Iran has rippled through the global economy in many ways, pushing up prices for oil, fertilizer and other products. It has also created challenges for America's most popular fruit: bananas.
Iowa's water quality and cancer rates forced into forefront of state politics
Chemical fertilizers and animal waste contain nitrates and phosphorus that can get washed with rain or snowmelt into the state’s rivers. That affects Iowa’s more liberal urban centers which rely on rivers and lakes for drinking water.
Converting Waste to Black Gold
CALS student Joy Camenisch, a double major in animal science and agroecology, spent the summer in Spain, where she researched how composted manure can replace synthetic fertilizer.
Democrat Hickenlooper takes aim at Iran war in 1st general election ad
U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper ties soaring fertilizer and fuel costs to what the Colorado Democrat calls President Donald Trump’s “illegal war” with Iran in the first general election TV ad, released on Tuesday by his campaign. In the 30-second spot, made available first to Colorado Politics, Hickenlooper links costs stemming from of the 31-week-old conflict […]
Mid-Atlantic Farmers Seek Early Fertilizer Price Protection Now
Mid-Atlantic farmers are locking in 2027 fertilizer contracts now, as nitrogen imports and market uncertainty make input-cost planning a key risk-management concern.
New soil test could reveal how soil microbes help feed plants
Scientists have streamlined a method for measuring DNA-bound phosphorus in soil, making it cheaper and easier while preserving its accuracy. The technique could reveal how soil microbes help recycle phosphorus and ultimately support more sustainable fertilizer and nutrient management.
Rising costs top concern at Ohio Farm Science Review
LONDON, Ohio — The high costs of diesel fuel, fertilizer, and health care are among the top concerns of farmers as the November election approaches, Ohio ...
In 2024, scientists dyed Michigan’s Peter Lake blue to block sunlight, then added fertilizer; despite the dye, rain washed pigment out and algae turned it green
In the summer of 2024, researchers dyed the water of Peter Lake, located in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, USA, with a non-toxic blue dye called Aquashade, then deliberately added fertilizer to the same lake. The experiment wasn't done for beautification.
Louisiana fertilizer plants lay off 200 as war with Iran drives up cost of key raw material
The company said it is reducing staffing at the plants in Convent and St. James, because of the availability and cost of sulfur, one of the key components of phosphate fertilizer production. Ammonia production at the Faustina plant in St. James will not be affected.
Louisiana fertilizer plant lays off 200 as war with Iran drives up cost of key raw material
The company said it is reducing staffing at the plants in Convent and St. James, because of the availability and cost of sulfur, one of the key components of phosphate fertilizer production. Ammonia production at the Faustina plant in St. James will not be affected.
More than 200 employees laid off at St. James Parish fertilizer plant
The company said it is reducing staffing at the plants in Convent and St. James, because of the availability and cost of sulfur, one of the key components of phosphate fertilizer production. Ammonia production at the Faustina plant in St. James will not be affected.
Minnesota company is tackling nitrogen pollution with ag science in volatile fertilizer market
Pivot Bio, a company selling farmers a self-sustaining, non-synthetic, bacterial source of nitrogen, aims to lower the nitrogen levels that are the source of significant water pollution in farm states.
Cornerstone fertilizer plant on Jefferson Parish campus to cost $450M, bring 60 permanent jobs
Industrial products maker Cornerstone Chemical said a planned project to build a fertilizer plant on its Waggaman campus will cost $450 million and bring several dozen permanent jobs to the
How soaring diesel prices squeeze American farmers
High fuel and fertilizer costs are a result of the Iran war.
Eastlake science students make district history
Three Eastlake High School students made Sweetwater Union High School District history this year when they became the first students from the district to qualify for the International Science and Engineering Fair, an international competition that brings together some of the top high school researchers from around the world. Ronald Wyatt, Giles Del Priore and Ihan Sung advanced to the competition after successful runs at regional and state science fairs. Sung went a step further, placing fourth in the chemistry category at ISEF. The students were recognized on Aug. 10 during a Sweetwater Union High School District board meeting at the district office in Chula Vista.For Wyatt and Del Priore, recent Eastlake graduates, the journey began with a shared concern about dementia and the challenges faced by families caring for loved ones with memory impairment. Their engineering project, “Design and Evaluation of a Behaviorally Grounded Caregiver-Governed AI Companion for Individuals with Memory Impairment,” earned the Sweepstakes Award at the Sweetwater District STEM Fair and first place in its division at the Greater San Diego Science and Engineering Fair. The project explored whether Artificial Intelligence could provide companionship and support while helping reduce stress for people with dementia and their caregivers. “Our inspiration came from personal experience. Both of us have seen family members and loved ones affected by dementia, and we’ve witnessed how overwhelming the caregiving process can be,” Wyatt said. Del Priore said the students also wanted to address the high cost of third-party health care services while creating something that could potentially help their own families as well as people elsewhere. The students developed an AI system designed with safeguards intended to prevent misinformation reinforcement, emotional escalation and unsafe responses. In 240 controlled trials involving memory, identity, agitation and neutral scenarios, they said the system consistently prevented harmful incorrect reinforcement while using context-aware silence, de-escalation and caregiver verification. The project required the students to combine Artificial Intelligence, psychology, neuroscience and human-computer interaction. For Del Priore, one of the biggest technical challenges was getting the AI companion to communicate verbally with a patient. Hardware limitations required the students to collaborate with multiple Python libraries for speech-to-text and text-to-speech functions while keeping the cost of the companion low. “For us, the biggest challenge was translating complex behavioral and cognitive care principles into a functioning AI system,” Wyatt said.Qualifying for ISEF was a milestone that student expected. The international competition proved to be another milestone. “Competing at ISEF was an incredible experience and unlike anything we’ve ever done before,” Del Priore said. “Being surrounded by some of the most talented young researchers from around the world was both inspiring and motivating.” He said the experience stood out because of the emphasis on collaboration, innovation and scientific discovery. “The most memorable part was seeing how people from completely different backgrounds and disciplines approached solving real-world problems with creativity and passion,” he said. The students also credited teachers and mentors who supported their work. Del Priore said his sophomore-year AP Physics teacher, Dr. Price, was particularly influential. “Through all of my personal and academic struggles, Dr. Price always believed in me,” Del Priore said. “All of his faith in me really molded me into the person I am today and helped create my love for science even through tough times.” Wyatt is continuing his education at UC Santa Cruz, where he plans to study biomolecular engineering and bioinformatics, with an interest in research involving Artificial Intelligence, biology and health care. Del Priore plans to double major in chemistry and accounting. Sung, a rising Eastlake senior, qualified for ISEF after winning first place in the Engineering: Energy, Materials & Transport category at the Greater San Diego Science and Engineering Fair and first place in chemistry at the California Science and Engineering Fair. His project, “Renewable Ammonia Electrochemical Synthesis by Glow Discharge with an Iron-Based Catalyst,” involved a device he designed and engineered to produce renewable ammonia, with potential applications in fertilizer production and energy storage. Sung became interested in the project after considering the relationship between food insecurity and fertilizer costs. His system uses plasma to break apart nitrogen molecules so they can interact with hydrogen and form ammonia. At ISEF, Sung competed against more than 1,700 students from 65 countries and earned fourth place in chemistry. “I am proud to become one of te first students in the district to qualify for ISEF because this milestone can inspire others in the district to attain similar goals,” Sung said.
Op-Ed | A New Future for Farming, Food, and Health
Regenerative farming systems focused on building soil health offer the potential to chart a new path toward a sustainable future.
Scientists Unearth Mechanism That Helps Plants “Feel Full”
NYU researchers determine how plants sense nitrogen sufficiency—and what this means for addressing global challenges related to fertilizers
Fertilizer scarcity as a failure of global health governance
Nature Medicine - Fertilizer scarcity as a failure of global health governance
Single-Atom Catalysis research earns science award
As the invisible engines of modern chemistry, catalysts help produce the gasoline that powers cars, the fertilizers that promote food cultivation and the polymers used to make clothing, making them indispensable to modern life.
Warner says Iran war is driving up Virginia costs, warns Trump is playing politics with intelligence post
Senator points to higher fertilizer and energy prices, touts housing bill and warns of risks to elections and kids online
Trump visits Wisconsin in bid to reassure farmers squeezed by surging costs
Besides higher fertilizer and fuel prices, the president also talked at length about D.C.’s fountains and his border policies.
Now What? With Carbon Pricing Eroded and Pipeline Politics Advancing, Here Are the Pathways for Climate Success
At the end of a whirlwind week of news on carbon pricing and electricity strategy, capping a madcap year of pretty much non-stop, dramatic change, the word across much of Canada’s climate and energy transition community is that climate policy in this country has been shredded. Eviscerated. Hit with a sledgehammer by policy rollbacks that have pushed the country’s 2050 net zero target “well out of reach”. That means it’s never been more important to look for the rays of hope and glimmers of possibility. To glimpse the seeds of the next set of strategies to get Canada’s climate pollution under control and the country into the accelerating global dash away from fossil fuels. And then, once we’ve spotted those possibilities, get on with the hard, day-to-day slog of trying to make them a reality. Nothing takes away from the frustration and the deep disappointment so many climate and energy hawks are expressing, the sense of betrayal by the author of Value(s) and the former UN special envoy for climate action and finance. But we knew two things as the week drew to a close. We’re looking at the world as it most definitely is. And we don’t get to give up finding the pathways to confront climate change and deliver faster, deeper carbon cuts that leave no one else behind. So really, the first question we all have to ask ourselves is: What’s next? Subscribe All the Oxygen in the Room The outpouring of anger and grief over the carbon pricing deal between Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has been absolutely understandable. So much of the climate community poured years, more than a decade, into dragging the current federal pricing regime across the finish line, then defending it from a deluge of three-syllable rhymes after the Trudeau government proved utterly incapable of delivering its own message. The policy foisted on us by neo-classical economists took up all the oxygen in the room, burned through years of climate response time that we won’t get back, while cornering climate hawks into the position that the best response to the crisis of our lifetimes is a new tax…in an era of historic anti-tax sentiment. I mean, really—what could possibly have gone wrong? Against that history, let’s appreciate columnist Max Fawcett’s point that even a modest carbon pricing agreement with a government as off-the-wall libertarian/conspiracist as Danielle Smith’s—those adjectives are mine, not Max’s—is a win worth savouring (as long as Smith keeps her promises for a change). But part of living in the world as it is (no, I’m not letting that go) is to be clear-headed about what we can and can’t control. And one thing we get to decide, after seeing this week’s carbon price festivities take up all the oxygen yet again, is whether we want to keep letting that happen. Particularly when success down that road depends on a factor that no one with a climate agenda can control or influence—a provincial carbon pricing mechanism that has been manipulated and eroded beyond its lowest possible denominator. Thankfully, that’s not the way it has to go. Not when we have so many other powerful, practical tools at our disposal, including the ones still available to us through this abominable Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Canada and Alberta. Tools In Our Toolbox When I started roughing out this list, I didn’t expect it to grow to nearly a dozen bullet points. It’s probably still incomplete. Some of the greatest hits in today’s climate solutions toolbox include: • No Carbon Capture, No Pipeline: On Friday, Prime Minister Mark Carney explicitly stated that there’s been no change to the MOU provision that there will be no West Coast pipeline without an industry commitment to build its massive, $16.5-billion carbon capture and storage (CCUS) hub in Northern Alberta, and vice versa. The two megaprojects were joined at the hip when the MOU was signed Nov. 27, and the implementation agreement this week affirmed that they still are. A parade of independent analysts have spent years pointing to the economic and technical flaws in CCUS, while the industry kept postponing its investment decision until it could arm-twist the government for more “clarity” (by which it meant even more lavish taxpayer subsidies) on the project. Now the industry itself is running away from the CCUS hub and insisting the pipeline should proceed without it, but Carney doesn’t seem to be budging from a central tenet of the MOU to which Smith has signed on. • No Subsidies, No Investors: Climate analysts and advocates have quite rightly been hammering away at Carney and his team, insisting that any new capacity the industry wants to build must proceed without new subsidies. The government has responded with a growing collection of funding and financing mechanisms for the very wide menu of industrial development and nation-building projects they say they want to take on, and that menu always includes fossil fuel infrastructure. But it’s hard to see how even the combined fiscal clout of the federal and supportive provincial governments will deliver the financial backing private investors would need when the business case for new fossil fuel development is evaporating before their eyes. Particularly when… • No Market, No Demand, No Investors: As our friend Markham Hislop at Energi Media (our apparently sleepless friend, given the massive volume of great material he’s been churning out) points out this morning, the biggest vulnerability in any pipeline deal is the assumption that Asian buyers will want the oil or liquefied natural ga that our fossil industry is so keen to send them. Hislop writes in part: Ottawa and Alberta are effectively betting that countries like China and India will continue increasing oil imports for decades as their economies grow and energy consumption rises. That assumption underpins the entire economic rationale for expanding oil sands production and building billions of dollars in new export infrastructure. But Asian energy systems are changing rapidly… China, India, South Korea, and other major hydrocarbon importers are now investing hundreds of billions of dollars into electricity systems built around wind, solar, batteries, nuclear, hydro, and expanded transmission infrastructure. Domestic “energy sovereignty” is increasingly replacing the old energy-security model based on stable oil and gas imports. Those investments are expected to sharply slow oil demand growth and eventually reverse it, even as overall energy consumption continues rising. There are also refining constraints. Many Asian refineries and petrochemical complexes are already optimized to process discounted heavy crude from the Middle East and Latin America. That raises serious questions about how much additional Canadian bitumen Asian markets can absorb at profitable prices. Small wonder that there’s still no private sector investor for the project, despite Smith’s government desperately beating the bushes to put together a deal. For now, Alberta is acting as proponent and covering early start-up costs for a pitch to the federal Major Projects Office, which could actually turn into the next tough hurdle for Smith and her pipeline to jump. • Canada Day Looms: How ironic that Canada’s birthday this year could become a major chokepoint for the provincial premier who’s been working so diligently to tear the country apart! The July 1 target date for Alberta’s pipeline proposal is baked into the MOU, was reaffirmed by the implementation plan, but it hadn’t dawned on me that it cuts both ways. As one very smart colleague wrote in an email yesterday, “they’ve thrown the ball into Alberta’s court to get the project proposal on the table really quickly and to have to do a whole pile of work to put together a massive, complicated project that would typically take years to assemble, and they’ve given them weeks to do it.” That makes July 1 a looming deadline that Smith won’t be able to run away from politically, especially with the separatists in her party and her caucus breathing down her neck. (See previous ref to off-the-wall.) But if Alberta comes in with a sloppy, incomplete submission, even after Carney bent over backwards to simplify the application process and the rules that govern it, it may be harder for the province or the industry to blame Ottawa and insist on the faster process they claim their investors are demanding. (Oh, wait—which investors would those be??) • We’ll See You In Court (Then We’ll See You Again): If Carney did cave, that would be just one more reason for Indigenous and other affected communities to take the government and the process to court—Just as Alberta First Nations did, successfully, in response to Smith’s half-baked separation referendum. Veterans of the Harper era have been warning that a shoddy process around fossil fuel infrastructure or other major projects will be a recipe for the very delays that process seeks to avoid. And now more than ever, with renewable energy and energy storage eating fossil fuels’ lunch in import markets around the world, a delayed pipeline or LNG terminal may be as good as a cancelled one. • Charged Up, Ready to Go: With its goal of doubling Canada’s electricity supply to meet a doubling of demand by 2050, the national electricity strategy that Carney unveiled Thursday has a lot to like. With its explicit language about speeding the shift from fuels to more efficient and affordable electricity, global investment and deployment patterns that already favour that shift, an emerging bidirectional power grid, the role of front-line options like rooftop solar and heat pumps, the emergence of electric vehicles as behind-the-meter energy storage, and the domestic jobs and manufacturing to make it all happen, the document doubles down on the essential cornerstone of a faster shift off fossil fuels. The strategy envisions a more prominent role for gas and nuclear power. But some of those provisions were already in the Clean Electricity Regulations that climate hawks are now fighting so hard to defend, inserted as a compromise in a futile attempt to mollify the industry and its political representatives in Alberta and Saskatchewan. But once again, gas will be a tougher sell when it’s more expensive and now so much more unpredictable than the clean alternatives. The new nuclear technologies are still speculative and deeply vulnerable to cost overruns. Increasingly, utilities, developers, and investors know it. Carney declared Thursday that “it doesn’t do us good to be sitting in court all the time with provinces. It doesn’t do us good to be talking past each other. What does do us good is to come together with specific projects.” There are no guarantees, but so much of the language and narrative-building in the electricity strategy suggests the lion’s share of those projects will be renewable. • The Party Has Already Started: The electricity strategy only rarely digs down to specific projects, but provinces representing three-quarters of Canada’s population are already embracing a faster transition. Hydro-Québec is working on a 10-year, $185-billion renewable energy and grid buildout by 2035. Ontario recently brought 10 provinces and territories together in a National Energy Corridor Agreement to boost interprovincial and -territorial transmission infrastructure. And the MOU implementation agreement commits Alberta to facilitate investment in renewable energy projects, a big step back from its continuing, punitive restrictions on renewables development. The electricity strategy envisions much of the financing and infrastructure that will be needed to pull those advances together into an integrated whole. • Delivering on Affordability: The MOU implementation plan has little or nothing to say about affordability (are you surprised?), but the electricity strategy does, with a top-line pledge to reduce home energy costs for seven out of 10 Canadian households by 2050, a total saving of $15 billion across the board. It’s just a start, but it puts affordability on the government’s narrative map. If they’re serious and deliberate about patching together a least-cost energy strategy, it’ll have little if any room for oil, gas, or nuclear—not with powerful evidence, for example, that electricity prices are higher when those prices are set by gas. • Smith Proves that Canada Works: By signing a deal that makes it harder to claim the federal government is blocking a new pipeline, Smith has helped prove Carney’s constant anti-separatist refrain that “Canada works”—incurring the rage, no doubt, of her own political base. Canada also needs to work for anyone who depends on a clean environment, healthy and thriving ecosystems, and safe, stable climate. But with Smith and her separatist constituents setting up as a fifth column for annexation by Donald Trump’s United States, let’s set aside any notion that 51st state status for Canada is a recipe for anything other than climate disaster (and so much else). Resisting and withstanding Trump (just 170 more sleeps until mid-term elections, which is a damn sight better than the 730 we started with) doesn’t mean a free pass for a pipeline, but we can still appreciate it that keeping Canada whole and sovereign is still Carney’s Job One. • The Words Not Spoken: Apart from a commitment to export a million barrels of “low-emission” Alberta bitumen per day (memo to Smith and Carney: You realize that that’s less than the industry is already exporting??), the MOU implementation plan says nothing about the international trade and economic sovereignty deals that Carney has been travelling the world to negotiate. It didn’t have to. Carney doesn’t need permission from Danielle Smith, her American enablers, or her separatist allies to continue building the alliances that will ratchet down our economic dependency on our unstable, unreliable neighbour to the south. But every connection he builds with countries outside North America helps align our economy and our future with a faster shift off fossil fuels. Little if any of this was on our bingo cards a year or two ago. But it’s the pathway that has opened up to us. And if it gives Canada any climate or energy gains at all in an era still dominated by Trump and his increasingly ridiculous tariffs, his loutish trade negotiations and his continuing annexation threats, we have to take the wins. Not least because they’ll be the point of departure for what we can achieve in 2027, 2029, and beyond, as Trump’s grip and this era begin to loosen and then fade. What is Carney Doing? If this line of thought is right—and it’s a possibility, not a prediction—it means that Carney’s actions and decisions are largely about buying time. Time for Trump’s power to wane. Time for Alberta’s separatist/conspiracist virus to spread, mutate, die out, or at least die back, with help from a vaccine of federal steadiness and calm (appropriate enough, for a movement populated largely by vaccine deniers) that no conspiracy theory can dismiss. And time for the government’s trade and investment agenda to deliver results—even knowing that some of those results will bring impacts that front-line communities will not and should not accept. In the immediate moment, none of this changes the way the wider climate community has to respond, from campaigners to investors to front-line practitioners. All of our voices are still essential. But those voices will be stronger and more confident if we have a clearer sense of the brutal game we’ve been pulled into, and a plausible path (or two it three) for playing it to the win we need. This conversation also underscores our biggest task for the remaining years of what was supposed to be the “decisive” decade for climate response: if we can shift the energy narrative in Canada, make it a mainstream view that the country’s preoccupation with oil and gas has us falling farther behind a changing world, we’ll see far better results in the 2030s and beyond. For many veteran climate advocates, taking on that part of the fight will begin with recognizing that most of our friends and family, neighbours and colleagues already understand that climate change is real and right in front of us: they’re looking away and staying silent because they don’t have what climate communicator Katharine Hayhoe calls “efficacy”. As Hayhoe recently pointed out in a feature interview with The Energy Mix, it amounts to science denial to keep hammering away at the dire news about global warming without also helping audiences understand what they can do about it, with multiple studies telling us why that won’t work. Far better to open those conversations with the dominant crises like energy security, food security, emergency preparedness and business continuity, affordability, and financial security that have knocked climate change far lower on the list of public priorities, and will likely keep it there. We Knew This Would Happen Climate hawks have always known this day would come. For decades, we warned that everyone had to pay attention to climate change right now, because it would be much tougher to respond once the crisis itself started affecting our daily lives. We were right, and here we are. But now, thanks to decades of hard work, communities and countries have an alternative to doubling down on fossil fuels. “In 10 years everyone will have ‘always known’ that solar and batteries were going to win,” Morgan Solar Executive Chair Mike Andrade writes on LinkedIn. With the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz roiling energy priorities around the world, Canada and the United States are among the shrinking number of countries that are still very keen on fossil fuel development. Understanding that gap is a first, essential step in spotting the opportunities ahead, and averting the deep economic as well as environmental and social risk we face if we don’t seize them. Thanks for reading The Energy Mix Weekender! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work. Subscribe Mitchell Beer traces his background in renewable energy and energy efficiency back to 1977, in climate change to 1997. Now he and the rest of the Energy Mix team scan 1,200 news headlines a week to pull together The Energy Mix and The Energy Mix Weekender. Chart of the Week BYD Eyes 20 Dealership Locations After Canada Greenlights Chinese EV Imports ‘Sledgehammer’ Carbon Price Deal Boosts Emissions by 230Mt, Aims for Fall 2027 Pipeline Approval ‘Worse Than Harper’: Regulatory Rollback Would Stop Canada from Assessing Project Impacts, Critics Warn Electricity Strategy Aims for Doubling by 2050, Allows ‘Flexibility’ for Gas Power Plants Opposition Mounts as O’Leary’s Data Centre Approved in Drought-Stricken Utah Diluted Carbon Price Misses ‘Reality of the World We’re In’, Could Impede Diversified Trade: Climate Institute $200B in Clean Energy Investment Will Need On-Time Delivery, Reliable Policies, Trade Association Says ‘Sovereign Pipeline’: CEO Pitches to Keep Trans Mountain in Government Hands What a Supercharged El Niño Could Mean for Canada Canada’s future is electric, and here’s how a power grid superhighway would get us there (Toronto Star) The Perilous Waters of Hecate Strait (Globe and Mail) Saudi Aramco profits jump despite conflict in Middle East (The Guardian) Farmers confront rising cost of fertilizer and fuel as spring seeding under way (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Clarkson forecasts 24% decline in offshore oil, gas capital expenditures (Oil & Gas Journal) Pipe Dreams: How Oil and Gas Fail to Deliver Economic Development in Africa (Oil Change International) Developing countries must hold the pen to script the fossil fuel transition (Climate Home News) Iran war threatens the dream of a post-oil economy in the Gulf (Washington Post) U.S. Oil, Gas Work Force Hits Lowest Level Since 2022 (Rigzone) Why Polestar Is Doubling Down on Net Zero as Rivals Pull Back on EVs (Bloomberg) Why this Michigan utility plans to sell its hydro dams for $13 (E&E News/Politico) Levees can no longer save New Orleans (Vox)
Business owners impacted by Winston Weaver fire learn about filing claims for compensation
Business owners affected by the Winston Weaver fertilizer plant fire attended a meeting to discuss filing claims for compensation from a $4.5 million class action settlement.
'I was worried about other people who needed their paychecks' | Business owners get more information on Weaver Fertilizer plant fire settlement
This week in Santa Cruz County business: Tourism saw growth in ’25 despite tariff, immigration concerns; farmers fear fertilizer, fuel hikes as growing season kicks off
A fifth consecutive year of growth for area tourism and the impact of the war in Iran on Santa Cruz County agriculture lead off Jessica M. Pasko's weekly survey of local business.
Vance Campaigns in Iowa as G.O.P. Fears Rise Ahead of Midterms
The vice president acknowledged economic headwinds, including rising energy and fertilizer costs. “We got a little — a little blip in the Middle East,” he said, referring to the war in Iran.
UN resolution proposal would hit Iran with sanctions for halting freedom of navigation
The draft resolution, co-sponsored by the United States and Gulf nations and obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, also demands that Iran “immediately participate in and enable” United Nations efforts to establish a humanitarian corridor in the strait to enable the delivery of vital aid, fertilizer and other goods.
Beck’s and MFA make moves to grow business in Missouri
Major investments have been announced in seed processing, grain storage and fertilizer distribution for Missouri farmers.
Unusual airborne toxin detected in the U.S. for the first time
Scientists searching for air pollution clues stumbled onto something unexpected: toxic MCCPs drifting through the air for the first time in the Western Hemisphere. The likely source—fertilizer made from sewage sludge—points to a hidden route for contamination.
California farmers were already struggling. Then came the Iran war
The war's disruption of exports and rise in fertilizer prices are hurting California farmers.
Fertilizer prices bring more pain for American farmers amid war in Iran
The war in Iran is pushing up prices for already-strained farmers, with higher costs for fertilizer and energy on top of last year’s tariffs. And the increasing pressure on American agriculture could lead to even bigger price tags at the grocery store.
Value investors see mispriced opportunities from sports to fertilizer
Value investors pitched a mix of stock ideas in disparate corners of the market at the Value Invest conference in New York on Thursday.
WATCH: Rollins says U.S. working on solutions to keep fertilizer costs down for farmers amid Iran war
Iran war deprives US farmers of affordable fertilizer as spring planting looms
Farmers in the U.S. and Canada, who were already worried about prospects for another year of low profits or losses, now could have spring planting disrupted as they struggle to find fertilizer, and prices for any available supplies have spiked more than a third since the war in Iran paralyzed global trade.
Remembering Elaine Ingham, whose soil science research informed the modern gardener
Dr. Elaine led the movement to replace the use of salt-based fertilizers with a microbiological based system.
Scientists trace fertilizer microplastics from fields to beaches
Plastic-coated fertilizers used on farms are emerging as a major but hidden source of ocean microplastics. A new study found that only a tiny fraction reaches beaches through rivers, while direct drainage from fields to the sea sends far more plastic back onto shore. Once there, waves and tides briefly trap the particles on beaches before many vanish again. This helps explain why so much plastic pollution seems to disappear after reaching the ocean.
Scientists found the soil secret that doubles forest regrowth
New research shows tropical forests can recover twice as fast after deforestation when their soils contain enough nitrogen. Scientists followed forest regrowth across Central America for decades and found that nitrogen plays a decisive role in how quickly trees return. Faster regrowth also means more carbon captured from the atmosphere. The study points to smarter reforestation strategies that work with nature rather than relying on fertilizers.