News bites: Japanese power company head steps down, Shell to build ‘biggest floating man-made object ever’

The president of embattled Tokyo Electric Power is resigning in the wake of the nuclear reactor crisis, taking responsibility for an accident that he said “has undermined trust in nuclear safety and brought much grief and fear to society.” 

The New York Times has the story.

His announcement comes on the day the company posted a $15 billion annual loss, which The Wall Street Journal reports is the “biggest annual loss in Japanese corporate history outside the financial sector.”

Back in Washington, funding for a federal program that helps fund installation of ethanol pumps at gas stations is on the chopping block, The Des Moines Register reports.

One of the co-owners of BP’s ill-fated Macondo well that blew out last year has setlled with the oil giant, MarketWatch reports.

Royal Dutch Shell is building a massive floating liquefied natural-gas plant off Australia’s coast, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The facility to chill gas for export is really, really big. AP reports that it will be “the biggest floating man-made object ever,” longer than four football fields and “more massive than any aircraft carrier.”