The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "solar" ...
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Green Energy Going Red
In this series of original and exclusive investigations, CBS documented the fate of $90 billion dollars in green energy stimulus tax spending and dug in to find out why it did not produced the promised results: a boom in green energy technology and products accompanied by a burst in employment. In Solar Scorching, we identified eleven green energy companies besides Solyndra that together got billions of tax dollars, only to declare bankruptcy or suffer other serious financial issues. Since our initial report, the number of failures has risen dramatically. CBS exposed the fact that the government secretly knew what a poor investment some of these companies were, even before it committed taxpayer billions. We obtained exclusive documents showing one project had confidentially been rated as a “junk bond,” but the government committed $43 million tax dollars anyway. It went bankrupt.
Tags: Taxes; green energy; Solyndra; taxpayers
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Green Grants: Tracking the Energy Stimulants
The 2009 stimulus bill created a program that was supposed to drive development of wind, solar and other renewable energy projects. But when reporter Anne C. Mulkern dug into the grants in lieu of tax credits effort, she uncovered that in many cases, federal money did little to stimulate new business investments.
Tags: stimulus; green power grants; taxpayer money; grants; green grants
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CPS Must DIe
City-owned utility CPS Energy plans to double the size of its South Texas Nuclear Project bye adding two nuclear reactors without knowing how much the new plants will cost. A reports by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy shows that the state's future energy needs don't include the need for new power plants to be constructed.
Tags: natural gas; resource; electricity; solar; coal; Mike Kotera
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The Need for Nuclear Power
Rhodes and Beller find that solar-energy systems, wind farms and geothermal sources would only waste resources. Instead, they write, nuclear energy is the cleanest solution to the world's increasing energy demands. "The massive investment in renewables could have been better spent making coal plants and cars cleaner."
Tags: power plants; toxic waste; environment; pollution; fuel; oil; solid waste
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Prodigal Sun
Solar energy was once a promising alternative to fossil fuel. Once the Regan Administration got into power this progress was erased. Solar power was predicted to meet 28 percent of the nation's power by 2000. This is the story of how it went backwards.
Tags: environment; solar power
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Rocky Flats: From Cold War to Hot Property
Westword examines what has happened to Rocky Flats after the Atomic Energy Commission built a nuclear-weapons plant near the Denver area in the 1950s. The disposal of more than 1,500 kinds of chemicals and radioactive plutonium. Dow Chemical undertook only the slightest precautions in getting rid of the waste. It attempted solar evaporation ponds and mixing the toxic, often radioactive sludge with cement that never hardened. Over the years, materials left unprotected outside in second-hand barrels and other careless containers seeped into the prairies and groundwater. In 1974, Rockwell International took over and continued the pollution. In 1989, the plant was raided by the FBI and Colorado's first ever grand jury convened. Indictments and a $18.5 million fine were levied at Rockwell, the contractor and DOE employees. Today, an ambitious goal of cleaning up the land by 2006 is set but few have faith that the environmental damage sustained at Rocky Flats can be undone.
Tags: Bombs; contamination; uranium; plutonium; beryllium; Atomic Energy Commission; Dept. of Energy; Rockwell; Dow Chemical; Nuclear; groundwater; pollution
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The wrong stuff: The space program's nuclear threat to our planet
Grossman looks at the use of nuclear power systems on space systems and the danger they represent.
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Risking the World Nuclear Proliferation in Space
CovertAction Quarterly reports that despite enormous danger, huge expense and the alternative of solar power, the U.S. is pushing ahead with using nuclear power in space. The article especially examines NASA's Cassini mission in which the space probe Cassini will receive its electric power from three radioisotope thermal generators with a total of 72.3 pounds of plutonium fuel. (Summer 1996)
Tags: Allen Risking the world nuclear proliferation in space Contest entry 12 pgs.
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No title (id: 10499)
The Nation describes how the nuclear power industry may become extinct because of its high risk and cost; it has been supplying less and less U.S. power while technology for wind and solar power have become cheaper and cheaper, March 7, 1994.
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No title (id: 6569)
Alternet (Washington, D.C.) distributes two stories examining the dangers and unnecessary use of plutonium in space; a report obtained through a FOIA request showed solar energy as a viable alternative, despite NASA claims to the contrary, Oct. 6 and Dec. 8, 1989.
Tags: DC Pasadena Weekly City Paper Challenger Galileo Christic Institute #