Opening and operating the nation's first nuclear waste dump will cost more than $90 billion, an Energy Department official said. The price was $58 billion in 2001, the last time the administration released an estimate for the Yucca Mountain project in Nevada. The estimate includes $9 billion already spent and covers about 100 years of operation until the dump is sealed forever. Ward Sproat, the official in charge of the project, said at a Congressional hearing that the best-case situation would result in the Yucca Mountain site opening in 2020; originally it was supposed to open in 1998.

Hundreds of pounds of garbage has washed onto Lake Michigan shores in recent days, leading to an investigation by the Coast Guard and the temporary closing of a public beach. Trash was strewn along a 10-mile stretch in Mason and Manistee Counties in the northwestern Lower Peninsula. Piles up to eight inches high were reported at a beach in the city of Manistee. Garbage also washed onto private beaches in Holland, more than 100 miles south of Manistee. The trash in Mason and Manistee Counties included medical waste like prescription drug bottles and hypodermic syringes, the authorities said.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced on Tuesday a first draft of a rule that will govern injecting carbon dioxide into underground storage. Development of such a rule is essential before companies can build power plants that will capture and store their carbon dioxide to limit the buildup of global warming gases. The agency acted under the Clean Water Act because injecting carbon dioxide might push pollutants into underground drinking water supplies, according to Benjamin H. Grumbles, assistant administrator for water.

One week ahead of crucial talks on global trade, the European Union negotiator, Peter Mandelson, rejected on Monday sharp criticisms from the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and called for unity in advance of the discussions. Mr. Mandelson's comments underline the tensions on trade policy between the European Commission and Mr. Sarkozy, who has accused him of na

The Ontario provincial government said it would conserve a huge swath of the province's boreal forest to protect polar bears and other animals and help fight climate change. The plan would permanently protect an area that represents 43 percent of Ontario's land mass and is nearly the size of the United Kingdom. The goal is to make sure that forestry and mining do not destroy the northern forest's pristine ecosystems, and to protect polar bears, caribou, wolverines and other animals from climate change

A huge wildfire in the Los Padres National Forest continued spreading north and east, relieving the danger to the coastal town of Big Sur but forcing residents of another community to stay out of their homes for a third day. Evacuation orders remained in place for more than 200 homes in the rural community of Cachagua near the northern boundary of the forest. The blaze, which has charred 187 square miles and destroyed 27 homes, was about a mile and a half from the residential area, according to the Forest Service.

FOR most of its 271 years, an old lumber mill along the Rahway River in Cranford got its power from water spilling over the falls near its banks. The building is now used for office space, its old-fashioned waterwheel long ago displaced by electricity generated from a modern fossil fuel-burning plant.

HIGH gas prices are already getting us to cut back on driving, but do we really want to count on prices at the pump to solve our energy problems? A smarter approach is for the federal government to give us tax credits for driving less.

Hawaii has become the first state to require solar water heaters in new homes. Gov. Linda Lingle, a Republican, has signed into law a bill requiring the energy-saving systems in homes starting in 2010. The new law prohibits issuing building permits for single-family homes that do not have solar water heaters. Some exceptions will be allowed, like for houses in forested areas.

It has been getting ever harder to pretend that Antarctica is a pristine place. We like to think of it as being scoured clean by hostile winds and extreme cold. But more and more, Antarctica, like the Arctic, shows the lasting scars of human negligence. The effects of climate change are being felt far more strongly at the poles than elsewhere on the planet. Some of the most persistent and dangerous chemicals ever created have accumulated there and remain there.