The Nuclear Safety and Security Commission also delayed the start of operations at two other reactors, but said there was no public safety threat. Read more here.

The 43rd  anniversary of Earth Day coincides with a dramatic time in the history of American energy. Energy independence is being predicted seriously for the first time in decades.

This prompts an essential question: Will expanding production of U.S. oil be disastrous for the climate?

CFR Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment Michael Levi writes that while climate change is an urgent problem, the connection to U.S. oil production is weak in large part “because what matters isn’t how much oil is in the ground but how much will be burned in the coming years.”

“It would take 3,000 years to extract all the fuel from the Canadian oil sands at today’s pace, and it would take even longer to tap out U.S. oil. The future course of climate change will be determined long before then,” he maintains.

In a Bloomberg View op-ed adapted from his upcoming book The Power Surge: Energy, Opportunity, and the Battle for America’s Future (to be published May 2), Levi explains how much more carbon dioxide would be produced if U.S. oil production surged. He concludes that the impact would be real but relatively small.

It just never stops. Another radiation leak from a tank has now been discovered at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan.

Fifty-eight percent of Americans believe in global warming and 52 percent believe that the climate change phenomenon has already begun, according to a Gallup poll released Monday.