** A week after a train derailment and bridge collapse sent rail cars into the Yellowstone River, authorities say only two rail cars carrying molten sulfur and scrap metal remain in the water as cleanup continues near Columbus, Montana. Seventeen Montana Rail Link train cars derailed last Saturday morning in Stillwater County, causing a bridge across the Yellowstone River to buckle underneath it and send 10 train cars crashing into the water below, county officials have said.
** Denver just recorded its rainiest June ever. The National Weather Service at Boulder recorded 6.10 inches of rain and broke a 140-year old record for June rainfall.
** NASA announced it’s scrapping plans for the inaugural flight of an all-electric aircraft months ahead of the program’s scheduled end. Engineers were hoping to get in one test flight of the X-57 Maxwell before the program ends in September, but a mechanical issue with the motors made it impossible to meet its deadline.
** Consumer Reports is sending a warning to drivers — the electric vehicle in front of you might be slowing down, but you might not know until the last second. New tests show the brake lights on some EVs don’t come on early enough to warn other drivers the car is coming to a stop.
** Small businesses and manufacturers are warning that federal environmental regulations targeting certain chemicals will have a widespread negative impact on the economy. The regulations — proposed in April by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — would ban most uses of methylene chloride (MCL), a chemical that has various uses in adhesives, paint and coating products, pharmaceuticals, metal cleaning, chemical processing and aerosols.
** A White House report released late Friday indicates that the Biden administration is open to studying the possibility that altering sunlight might quickly cool the planet. But it added a degree of skepticism by noting that Congress has ordered the review, and the administration said it does not signal any new policy decisions related to a process that is sometimes referred to — or derided as — geoengineering.
World
** British-Dutch fossil fuel giant Shell, which promised to stop selling Russian fossil fuels on March 8, 2022, continues to sell Russian hydrocarbon products, according to a report by the monitoring NGO Global Witness on July 2.
** China’s coal buyers should slow purchases from abroad to avoid hurting domestic suppliers, the China Coal Transport and Distribution Association has recommended.
** Australian coal exports are set to rise for at least the next three years on growing demand for the dirtiest fossil fuel in India and Southeast Asia, according to a new report from Canberra.
** Environmental campaigners protested Monday outside the London-based International Maritime Organization, which is meeting to discuss curbing carbon dioxide emissions from the high-polluting shipping sector.
** Energy prices could spike this winter forcing governments to step in and subsidize bills again, the head of the International Energy Agency has said. If the Chinese economy strengthens quickly and there is a harsh winter, gas prices could rise, putting pressure on consumers, Fatih Birol said.
** Russia plans to cut crude export flows next month in an effort to keep the global market balanced, according to Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak.
** China is on a natural gas shopping spree, and officials are happy for importers to keep striking deals even after a global energy crisis has eased.
** Film stars and celebrities are calling on Wimbledon to end its new sponsorship deal with Barclays over the bank’s support for fossil fuel projects. Actress Emma Thompson and film director Richard Curtis are two of the campaigners who said Barclays was “profiting from climate chaos”.
