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Phil McKenna

Reporter, Boston

Phil McKenna is a Boston-based reporter for Inside Climate News. Before joining ICN in 2016, he was a freelance writer covering energy and the environment for publications including The New York Times, Smithsonian, Audubon and WIRED. Uprising, a story he wrote about gas leaks under U.S. cities, won the AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award and the 2014 NASW Science in Society Award. Phil has a master’s degree in science writing from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was an Environmental Journalism Fellow at Middlebury College.

  • @mckennapr.bsky.social
  • @mckennapr
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West Union, Iowa, relies on geothermal energy to provide high-efficiency, fossil-free heating and cooling for a dozen buildings in its downtown. Credit: Phil McKenna/Inside Climate News

This Town Was One of the First in the Nation to Install a Geothermal Network. Now Others Are Warming Up to the Idea.

By Phil McKenna

Eshaan Vakil (left), an organizer with Climate Defiance, and Barbara Sheehan, with Sunrise Movement, are two of the activists who disrupted a panel discussion with Occidental Petroleum CEO Vicki Hollub at a Harvard climate symposium on Friday. Credit: Phil McKenna/Inside Climate News

Climate Activists Disrupt Fossil Fuel Executive at Harvard University Symposium

By Phil McKenna

A thick haze blankets New York City as smoke from Canadian wildfires impacts air quality on August 5. Credit: Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images

Smoke From Wildfires Caused by Climate Change Will Fuel Many More Premature Deaths in the U.S., a New Study Warns

By Phil McKenna

Commercial shrimper Ray Mallet aboard his boat, Cajun Memories, on the Calcasieu River near Cameron, La. Credit: Phil McKenna/Inside Climate News

Fishermen in Southwest Louisiana Say LNG Terminals Are to Blame for Shrimp Harvest Decline

By Phil McKenna

Bedrock Energy CTO Silviu Livescu (right) and Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) talk in front of a drill rig on Wednesday at the Northwest Colorado Business District in Hayden, Colo. Credit: Emily Goldfield

A Geothermal Network in Colorado Could Help A Rural Town Diversify Its Economy

By Phil McKenna, Jake Bolster

A newly laid natural gas main is seen in Andover, Mass. Credit: Gabe Souza/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Massachusetts Seeks to End Ratepayer-Funded Subsidy for New Natural Gas Connections

By Phil McKenna

An aerial view of a Cheniere Energy liquefied natural gas plant, showing white storage tanks with the company's logo

The Biggest US LNG Exporter Is Claiming a Massive Tax Credit for Using Its Cargo as an ‘Alternative’ Fuel

By Phil McKenna, Peter Aldhous

Bitcoin mining machines are seen at a facility in Houston on Nov. 14, 2022. Credit: Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images

Bipartisan Cryptocurrency Legislation Will Fuel Further Environmental Destruction, Environmental Advocates Say 

By Phil McKenna

A draft budget bill would eliminate the residential clean energy credit that helps offset that cost of installing geothermal heating and cooling systems. Credit: Marius Becker/picture alliance via Getty Images

Ground Source Heat Pump Manufacturers Urge Senators to Preserve Geothermal Tax Credits

By Phil McKenna

Rev. Nathan Ives of the St. Peter’s-San Pedro Episcopal Church in Salem, Mass., stands next to an aging gas-fired, steam boiler in the church basement. Credit: Jonathan Wiggs/Boston Globe

Can Solar and Geothermal Energy Help a Church and Its Neighbors Wean Off Fossil Fuels?

By Phil McKenna

A small compressor station for an LNG pipeline is seen in Spanish Valley near Moab, Utah. Credit: Jon G. Fuller/VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

The Massive Pipeline Buildout in the U.S. Is Mostly for Gas Going Overseas

By Phil McKenna

A chemical plant in Jiujiang, China. Chemical plants in eastern China, including one in Jiujiang, are likely the primary source of 40 percent of the world’s trifluoromethane (HFC-23) emissions. Credit: Feature China/Future Publishing via Getty Images

A Restricted Climate Super Pollutant Is Pumped Out at Far Higher Levels Than Countries Admit. What Happens Next?

By Phil McKenna, Lili Pike

Engineers walk through Emirates Global Aluminum’s Al Taweelah smelter in the United Arab Emirates. Credit: Emirates Global Aluminum

Global Aluminum Producer Announces $4 Billion Smelter for Wind-Rich Oklahoma

By Phil McKenna

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin speaks with reporters on Feb. 18 at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. Credit: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images

As EPA Rolls Back Regulations for Large Industrial Polluters, It Finds a New Target: A Two-Person Geoengineering Startup

By Phil McKenna

Energy Intelligence, a liquefied natural gas tanker, docks at Venture Global's Calcasieu Pass LNG export terminal in Cameron, La. on Feb. 26 to refill its cargo holds before departing for Eemshaven in the Netherlands. Credit: Phil McKenna/Inside Climate News

The Hidden Climate Costs of Exporting US Liquefied Natural Gas

By Phil McKenna, Peter Aldhous

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is seen before President Donald Trump's address to a joint session of Congress in the U.S. Capitol on March 4. Credit: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Trump Administration Launches All-Out Assault on Environmental Protection

By Marianne Lavelle, Phil McKenna

More than 1 million people skated on the Rideau Canal Skateway, the world's largest ice rink, in Ottawa this winter. Credit: Phil McKenna/Inside Climate News

Can the World’s Largest Ice Rink Survive a Warming Planet?

By Phil McKenna

Hot steam rises as workers cool mud extracted from a drilling well at a geothermal energy and lithium plant on the south side of the Salton Sea in Calipatria, Calif. Credit: Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

A Third Generation Driller Transitions from Oil and Gas to Geothermal

By Phil McKenna

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