Industrial electricity prices in Europe are double American costs, and 20 percent higher than what Chinese businesses pay. That’s the latest alarming news out of the European Commission, and it’s understandably got many on the continent worried about European industry’s ability to compete. The FT doesn’t like what it sees.

The decoupling of economic growth from energy consumption—the ability to produce more units of GDP from each unit of energy consumed—is one of the most important trends going for the environment. The environmental movement has been slow to embrace this phenomenon, but as BP writes in its annual Energy Outlook, the world is figuring out how to grow green.

Brick-and-mortar stores are struggling to compete with online retailers. The death of the Mall is giving way to a more personalized, more convenient way of shopping, but the Earth—not the consumer—may be the biggest winner in all of this.

Germany’s turn towards green energy—its energiewende—cost consumers nearly $30 billion last year without actually making the country any greener. The Economist explains how a green energy policy has produced a browner energy landscape.

For all of its bluster and expensive green energy policies, Europe is lagging behind the United States when it comes to going green. Thanks to the shale boom, America is outpacing supposedly green-minded Europe on reducing emissions.

Good evening, TAI readers! We hope you’ve had a great weekend so far. As you prepare for the week ahead, take the time to look back on what you may have missed over the past week.

Anemic economies and burgeoning immigrant populations are straining both the economic health of and political support for Europe’s welfare systems.

Russia began drilling a well in its Bazhenov shale formation in Siberia this week, tapping in to what may be the world’s largest single reserve of shale oil. Russia’s coming to the shale game very late; because Russia is already rich in conventional oil and gas, it’s felt little pressure to invest in unconventional reserves. But as its hydrocarbon production begins to stagnate, Moscow is realizing that shale energy might actually be worth looking in to. And no wonder: Russia has the world’s largest reserves of shale oil, and ninth-largest reserves of shale gas.

A Chinese company is mass producing cloned pigs at an unprecedented pace, hinting at what may be the future of how we source our meat and test our medical products. The Beijing Genomic Institute (BGI) is cloning 500 pigs a year at a facility in rural China, and these pigs could be very good for our health, for once.

Wikileaks struck again earlier this week, releasing a draft report of the Environment Chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The report was written in much the same style as the edicts issued after the annual meeting of the do-nothing UNFCCC: a lot of verbiage surrounding what countries should be doing to protect the environment and stave off climate change, but no binding resolutions to back up these suggestions. As predictable as this lack of enforcement mechanisms should have been, various green groups are shocked, shocked, that the enormously complex trade agreement didn’t include green provisions with any real bite.