Living in Peace and Wisdom on our Planet

Since September, when the Ontario Power Authority began its generous payment for rooftop solar power, Toronto's commercial roof acreage has become the site of a new renewable energy gold rush by solar developers now able to earn a steady income farming solar power to local utilities for 20 years.

Just as farmers in Texas or Iowa can now earn royalties from wind developers...  See entire blog item

Today, a European company put the finishing touches on a wind project in North Dakota which Americans have known for decades is "the Saudi Arabia of Wind."

Spain's Iberdrola Renovables, the parent company of Iberdrola Renewables Inc that built the project became a giant global wind company in the wake of the Kyoto Accord. The European renewable energy sector grew from the resulting renewable energy legislation in Europe.

The result is that it is European wind companies...  See entire blog item

The newest iteration of the climate bill in congress has just been scored by the non partisan congressional budget office and, as with the previous climate bill (Waxman-Markey in the House) the Senate bill would save money. It would cut carbon emissions too, potentially saving trillions in items like flood relief not paid out too, etc, but that is not a knowable sum, so the money saved by not destroying our climate doesn't come into the CBO scoring.

In scoring the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, the CBO included the effects of the many counteractions that would result throughout the economy in response to pollution costs entering the equation for the...  See entire news item

A once-in-a-generation shift in U.S. science is being spurred by the Obama administration's push to solve the nation's energy problems, in a massive federal program that rivals the Manhattan Project.

This summary comes, not from just another renewable energy blogger like myself, overwhelmed by the gushing hose of news out of Steven Chu's newly invigorated Department of Energy, but from a surprising source: The Wall Street Journal.

"The government's multi-billion-dollar push into energy research is reinvigorating 17 giant U.S.-funded research facilities, from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory here to the Lawrence Berkeley National...  See entire blog item

In a nearly unanimous vote just last summer, members of Maine's Fox Island Electric Cooperative decided to invest in wind to power the island.

Today the $14.5 million Fox Islands Wind project officially goes on line with a ribbon-cutting event, marking the completion of Maine's first island wind project; the largest community-owned wind project on the East Coast.

To be able to take advantage of the 30% Federal Tax Credits for any renewable power that does not emit greenhouse gases (like natural...  See entire news item

Pacific Gas & Electricity has won one of the Obama Administration's 16 advanced grid awards totaling $620 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds, aimed at making more renewable energy available to the grid. PG&E's $25 million award will fund initial work to see if California can store its excess night time wind – in air.

The utility planned...  See entire news item

The US paper industry is one of the three non-fossil-energy industries that will be affected under the Clean Energy Jobs & American Power Act; the climate bill being attempted in the Senate; to regulate the industries that emit over 25,000 tons/yr of carbon dioxide. Cement-making and steel production are the other two.

So it would be instructive to see how the European paper industry has fared under the Kyoto-triggered ...  See entire news item

Kyoto legislation worked. The EU is on track to meet - and actually exceed the carbon emissions target it set of 8% reductions below 1990 levels by 2012, the Commission's annual progress report on emissions shows. The EU-15 (the first fifteen signatories) will meet and exceed their initial target to get 8% below 1990 levels and 10 of the remaining 12...  See entire news item

Under the new Green FDR administration of President Obama, there has been such an increase in renewable technologies funding, that keeping up with qualifying and selecting the best of the best in innovative new renewable energy tech is overwhelming the Department of Energy.

So Nobel prize-winning scientist Steven Chu of the DOE has hired a professional venture capitalist to help run the DOE renewable energy...  See entire news item

In a win-wIn move for the US Army and the USA, a mutually beneficial financing arrangement was signed this week between the US Army and a new partnership ("Irwin Energy Security Partners LLC") comprising Clark Energy Group and multinational solar power giant Acciona. By using Enhanced Use Leasing they can now not only finance the solar project for Fort Irwin, but double the size to 1,000 megawatts.

The solution they came to this week provides a model for...  See entire news item