Two days after a devastating spill of fly ash and water at an east Tennessee power plant, state and federal regulators are still assessing damages as reports surface about fish kills and other environmental problems in and near the Emory River.

Tennessee Valley Authority officials, meanwhile, are trying to assure people who live near the Kingston Fossil Plant that the utility has done all it could to contain 1.7 million cubic yards of coal sludge that breached a containment dike early Monday morning and unleashed a wave of potentially hazardous waste.

Site surveys showed sludge accumulations of between 4 and 6 feet over as much as 400 acres near the plant. The spill enveloped more than a dozen homes and threatened water supplies.

To an energy provider, methane means natural gas. To environmentalists, it is a potent source of global warming. And to coal miners, it is both an explosive hazard and a breathing hazard — the reason why they used to carry canaries.

With the adoption of new and old technologies fueled by a future carbon emissions market, methane’s three faces could converge.

The logic at first seems familiar: Companies mine for carbon-heavy coal and then must offset the greenhouse gas emissions it creates.

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Any increased risk that El Niño conditions, the periodic warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean that can have a serious impact on climate across much of the world,

The head of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today appealed to donor nations to supply the funds needed to feed Haitians and repair infrastructure in the Caribbean nation,

A number of key components of the earth’s climate system could pass their ‘tipping point’ this century,

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Chinese government regulators had clearer skies and easier breathing in mind in the summer of 2008 when they temporarily shuttered some factories and banished many cars in a pre-Olympic sprint to clean up Beijing’s air. And that’s what they got.

They were not necessarily planning for something else: an unprecedented experiment using satellites to measure the impact of air pollution controls. Taking advantage of the opportunity, NASA researchers have since analyzed data from NASA’s Aura and Terra satellites that show how key pollutants responded to the Olympic restrictions.

EU ministers have agreed to a 30% increase in next year’s fishing quota for North Sea cod, but will reduce catches for several other species.

The quotas are a compromise between environmental groups, who say some fish stocks are on the verge of collapse, and fishermen who fear for their jobs.

Quotas have been increased for cod and plaice in the North Sea, for mackerel, and for west of Scotland monkfish.

President-elect Barack Obama has chosen Jane Lubchenco, a prominent marine biologist at Oregon State University, to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He has also selected Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.) as his secretary of Labor, and campaign sources say that John Holdren, a Harvard University physicist, is likely to be announced as the White House science adviser.

Lubchenco has built an international reputation for her scientific work on marine conservation and climate change — and for her ongoing efforts to help scientists participate in public policy debates and communicate their work to the general public.

Solis was the sponsor of the 2007 “Green Jobs Act,” which authorizes up to $125 million to establish national and state job training programs in areas such as construction of energy-efficient buildings, a stated Obama priority.