Business briefing: Anheuser-Busch teams with solar developer

Anheuser-Busch is making good on its pledge to be a more renewable brewer. The company said it is partnering with San Francisco-based solar developer Recurrent Energy, which will build and maintain a 2,000-acre solar farm in Pecos County, Texas. Once it is completed in 2021, Anheuser-Busch will buy credits based on the energy the facility is delivering to the grid. Those credits will offset the electricity the company uses at its 22 U.S. breweries. The new solar facility is the size of 1,500 football fields and will produce 650 gigawatt hours of energy each year— the equivalent of brewing 20 billion 12-ounce servings of beer. Anheuser-Busch said the facility will help the country's largest brewer meet its renewable energy goal for all its U.S. beers. Anheuser-Busch President and CEO Michel Doukeris wouldn't give financial details of the agreement, but says it's a smart investment.

A judge has approved an agreement for Exxon Mobil Corp. to pay $1.05 million to settle federal pollution violations over a 2011 pipeline break that sent oil into Montana's Yellowstone River. U.S. District Judge Susan Watters accepted the deal Monday. It resolves the last outstanding federal enforcement case against Exxon after 63,000 gallons of crude oil spilled into the river downstream from Yellowstone National Park. Flooding in 2011 scoured the river bottom and exposed the buried pipeline, causing it to break along a stretch of river popular with anglers and boaters. Exxon previously paid $12 million over natural resource damage and $2.6 million for pipeline safety and state pollution violations.

The Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to a Wisconsin company to repair five Mississippi River locks and dams in the region where western Wisconsin connects to southeastern Minnesota. The agency awarded the $17 million contract to Kraemer North America LLC, the La Crosse Tribune reported. The civil contractor will replace deteriorating rails at the locks and dams near La Crosse and Winona, Minn. "Safety is really one of the biggest reasons why we're doing this project," said Kimberly Warshaw, a project manager. The Corps installed tow rails in the 1960s, when commercial shipping embraced longer boats and tows, according to Warshaw. The rails anchor and guide unpowered barges through lock chambers.

Faced with growing consumer concern about the climate impact of flying, Scandinavian Airlines said Tuesday it will stop selling duty-free goods on planes to reduce weight and save fuel as part of a wider range of measures to cut emissions. While it's unclear how big an impact the halt to duty-free sales would have, the move reflects the pressure on airlines to become — or at least appear — more environmentally friendly. SAS, as the airline is known, aims to cut its emissions by at least 25% by 2030. Like other carriers, it is also using new, more fuel-efficient aircraft, but also turning more to biofuels and partnering with Airbus to develop electric and hybrid aircraft.