Green Options

The Australian government’s ruling coalition has come to terms on an agreement that would quadruple the renewable energy target set by the previous government in 2001

The Department of Energy on Thursday released the details of a new $2.3 billion manufacturing tax credit, enacted earlier this year as part of President Obama’s stimulus package.

Whatever the relative merits and drawbacks of biomass are, they are preferable to continuing to mine and burn coal. Until we start to bring large-scale base loading renewable capacity online, we continue inexorably on the same business as usual curve.

Texas start-up Baryonyx awarded two offshore wind energy leases

Which state’s waters will be the home of the United States’ first offshore wind farm? Will it be Massachusetts, where an eight-year battle for a wind farm near Cape Cod seems like it may never end? How about a little further south, in Rhode Island or New Jersey? Will it be Delaware, where Bluewater Wind hopes to develop a project that would provide almost 1/3 of the energy needed by Delmarva Power? What about other Mid-Atlantic states like North Carolina or Virginia, where the Department of Interior says sites with easily-developed shallow water wind resources dot the coastline?

Well, if you answered none of the above, you may be on to something.

Texas General Land Office last week awarded leases to Baryonyx, authorizing the company to develop wind farms on three sites, two of which are offshore, with a total potential capacity of 3,000 megawatts.

Shortly after winning approval from the California State Senate, a controversial deal that would have allowed the first new offshore oil leases in California state waters in forty years, was rejected by the California State Assembly by a vote of 43-30.

Energy didn’t get a sniff in last night’s Obama press conference. That wasn’t really a surprise given the way that health care has elbowed its way into the political spotlight. You can count climate change among the “priorities” now in the shadows.

In addition to a sub-par resource, political opposition based largely on aesthetics have prevented wind power from taking off in the western part of the North Carolina.

The same state budget crisis that could shutter 220 of California’s state parks and beaches, may also open the door for the first new offshore oil leases in state waters in forty years.

A coalition of environmental groups have sued the federal government over the creation of transmission corridors that will perpetuate the use of coal-fired power throughout the West.

Ethanol and biodiesel industry groups reacted quite differently to EPA’s decision to extend public comment period on the Renewable Fuel Standard.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday said it was extending the comment period on a draft rule that aims to cut the greenhouse gases emitted by biofuels. The proposed changes to the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard, known as RFS-2, are an attempt to make the production of corn-based ethanol more efficient and increase the output of advanced biofuels.

In a plan released on Tuesday, federal agencies will work with western leaders to designate tracts of U.S. public lands in the West as prime zones for utility-scale solar energy development, fund environmental studies, open new solar energy permitting offices and speed reviews of industry proposals.