The appeal of telework for small businesses is readily apparent: office space is an expense many can’t afford, so teams coordinate remotely from houses and coffee shops. It also allows firms to pursue the best talent available, without regard to spatial limitations (something the TAI team takes advantage of). But large enterprises are getting on board with telework as well. Small or large, public or private, the economic, social, and even health rationale for telework are manifest.

A Saudi Prince isn’t hiding his fear of the rising North American energy juggernaut, and is publicly calling for his country to start working on diversifying its economy away from a near-total dependence on crude. This isn’t the first time that billionaire Prince al-Waleed bin Talal has aired these concerns, and this persistence underscores his belief that the House of Saud is ignoring American shale at its own peril.

France’s oil behemoth Total will reveal a sizable $50 million investment in British shale tomorrow, in what the FT is calling a “vote of confidence” on the UK’s shale prospects. Total is keen on tapping some of the UK’s estimated 1.3 quadrillion cubic feet of shale gas and will explore two areas in east England for natural gas trapped in shale.

China is officially setting targets to reduce air pollution across its provinces. The central government outlined the expectations, which vary by region, as part of its push to clear its smoggy skies. Unfortunately, this naming and shaming strategy is unlikely to work as intended. Local Chinese politicians have a strong incentive to encourage economic (and more often than not that means industrial) growth as a path for political advancement; there will still remain a desire to fudge the numbers.

Residents of a northwestern suburb of London will be riding electric buses about town for the next few years—vehicles that will use the same technology used in electronic toothbrushes to recharge wirelessly. The experiment in Milton Keynes is expected to help prove the viability—or folly—of electric buses as a form of public transportation.

Ukraine will enjoy discount Russian natural gas for the first quarter of 2014. Kiev relies heavily on Moscow to keep the lights on, but until now was saddled with some of the highest prices in Europe for the privilege. Ukraine, teetering on the edge of a financial crisis, has been chafing at those prices, and the long-term, take-or-pay contracts they’re tied to, for some time. That dissatisfaction was one of the main drivers of its courtship of the European Union—a saga that came to an abrupt end back in November—and the cheap gas is Ukrainian President Yanukovych’s reward for choosing Russia over its Western suitors.

Boosters of the shale boom like to highlight is the idea of energy independence—that, thanks to fracking, the US won’t need to rely on foreign sources of oil for much longer. It’s a nice-sounding story, but unfortunately it’s a myth. Even if the US produced all of the oil it consumed, the price we pay for oil will still be vulnerable to shocks from supply disruptions abroad. Barring a kind of oil isolationism—a difficult undertaking that would alienate our allies—or a complete transition away from oil as an energy source, that’s the reality we have to live with. But while energy independence is fantasy, there’s no question that fracking has improved America’s energy security, and that’s being borne out in the global price for oil.

Germany produced more energy more coal last year than the ostensibly green-minded country has in nearly a quarter century. King Coal’s return comes courtesy of Germany’s reactionary energiewende—its turn towards green energy—put in place following the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The plan was to phase out the country’s numerous nuclear reactors and jump-start its fledgling renewable energy industry, but coal is having to fill the gap.

For companies in the West, going “green” is at least as much a PR move as it is an effort to help save the planet, but in the developing world, firms are making environmentally friendly decisions based on a more immediately practical concern: their bottom line.

America’s is presently sitting pretty when it comes to domestic energy production, and a new report suggests our near future will be even better. In its January Short-Term Energy Outlook, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) bumped up its forecasts for US oil and gas production. Oil output is set to hit a 43 year high next year, while annual natural gas production is expected to rise to an all-time high for the fifth straight year in 2015. Thanks to fracking, America’s energy position continues to strengthen.