** The body of the last missing construction worker killed in the collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge in March has been recovered, officials announced Tuesday as demolition crews prepared to use explosives in the ongoing cleanup effort.
** The nation’s largest public utility is moving ahead with a plan for a new natural gas plant in Tennessee despite warnings that its environmental review of the project doesn’t comply with federal law. The Tennessee Valley Authority announced in April that it would replace the aging coal-burning Kingston Fossil Plant with gas amid growing calls for the agency’s new board of directors to invest in renewables.
** US imports of used cooking oil, an ingredient to make renewable diesel, more than tripled in 2023 from a year earlier, with more than 50% coming from China, according to the US International Trade Commission.
** Vermont lawmakers passed a bill this week that is designed to make big fossil fuel companies pay for damage from weather disasters fueled by climate change. The legislation is modeled after the Environmental Protection Agency’s superfund program.
** Exxon Mobil Corp. plans to establish a single North American research and technology hub at its Houston headquarters, resulting in the closure of campuses in Clinton, New Jersey, and Sarnia in Ontario.
** ExxonMobil (XOM) will still be producing oil and gas in 2050, the energy company’s CEO told Yahoo Finance on Monday, but fossil fuels will likely be a smaller part of the business. Darren Woods told Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi and Akiko Fujita in an interview that the energy giant will “still be producing oil and gas depending on how quickly the world transitions” to green technologies.
World
** Russian forces unleashed a nighttime barrage of more than 50 cruise missiles and explosive drones at Ukraine’s power grid Wednesday, targeting a wide area in what President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called a “massive” attack on the day the country celebrates the defeat of Nazism in World War II.
** According to the Global Wind Energy Council report, capacity installation of wind energy was 50% higher in 2023 than the year before, Reuters noted. That means that if capacity installation continues at its current pace, we will fall short of the goal laid out at COP28 — but if it continues to grow exponentially, we have a shot.
** The Chinese state-owned company at the center of a dispute over operations of a megaport it is building on Peru’s Pacific coast insisted on Tuesday on terms agreed with the government, as some local officials have sought to backtrack on the deal.
** Sri Lanka has entered into a 20-year power purchase agreement with India’s Adani Green Energy Ltd for two wind power stations developed by the company, a cabinet statement said on Tuesday.
