Top executives of Solyndra, a bankrupt solar-energy company, have declined to testify in a congressional hearing Friday, invoking their Fifth Amendment rights. The company is under investigation for a half-billion dollar government loan guarantee it received.

Jack Rickard and Brian Noto have developed something of a cult following on their webcast in which they talk in soul-crushing detail about the intricacies of how to gut a gas-guzzling road warrior and convert it into an all-electric vehicle. On Wednesday, they host the Electric Vehicle Conversion Convention at the Cape Girardeau airport.

In his new book, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and energy expert looks at how the need for energy is shaping the world. He joins NPR's David Greene to discuss the global implications of natural gas production in the U.S.

While carbon dioxide streams into the atmosphere from tailpipes and smokestacks around the world, one man is building a machine to suck it back out. And some heavy-hitting investors are betting that it's going to work.

The Environmental Protection Agency has decided to delay new rules that would limit emissions of climate-warming gases from power plants. It's the second time this month the EPA has either withdrawn or postponed new pollution rules that industry didn't like.

Work crews Thursday begin dismantling the two dams on the Elwha River, on Washington's Olympic Peninsula. By some measures, this is the largest dam-removal project ever — and, at 210 feet, one of the dams is certainly the tallest dam ever taken down. The process is an extremely tricky one — in terms of engineering, ecology and politics — but environmentalists hope this project heralds the beginning of the end of the age of big dams in the American West. Those who like big dams, for economic reasons, worry about the same thing. Michele Norris talks with NPR's Martin Kaste.

Solyndra is just one of several American solar companies that have gone bankrupt this year. To get a sense of how the industry is doing overall — and whether it can hope to compete with Chinese solar companies — Melissa Block talks with David Baker, who covers energy for the San Francisco Chronicle.