Green Options

Major power companies in Florida and New Mexico announced this week that they would start buying large amounts of energy from certain solar power producers soon.

In New Mexico, Southwestern Public Service Company (SPSC), a subsidiary of Xcel Energy, said that it would buy 50 MW of solar power from SunEdison. From the solar panels being installed on five 10-MW sites, the electricity generated will be able to power 10,000 homes.

In Florida, at practically the same time, Tampa Electric Company received approval from the Florida Public Service Commission to purchase solar power from Energy 5.0’s planned 25-MW plant in Polk County.

These solar power plants will be two of the biggest in the nation when completed. They are expected to offset carbon emissions by millions of tons.

A new report by Network for New Energy Choices (NNEC) — Freeing the Grid — shows which states make it easy for people to sell electricity to the grid and which make it difficult. In addition, the report compares the current situation with the situation in 2007.

Overall, there has been a lot of progress on this issue since 2007, but there are still several lagging states as well.

A new report by Environment North Carolina’s Research and Policy Center, “Growing Solar in North Carolina,” found that North Carolina (home of my UNC Tar Heels) could be a solar power giant soon.

The new report found that North Carolina has a lot of solar energy potential due to its “vast” solar energy intensity (which is nearly as much as Florida’s) combined with other economic, policy and technological factors.

It’s been said that all politics is local, but environmentalism works the same way: knowing that far-flung parts of the world face environmental problems is one thing, but seeing environmental problems in our own backyards makes us take things far more personally. It’s NIMBY in reverse.

In the U.S., every state in the Union — from California’s legal hassles with the feds over its greenhouse gas emissions standards to Georgia’s water struggles — faces its own unique [...]

It’s time to end Washington’s “We know what’s best for you” grip on this country. The latest incident is the Environmental Protection Agency’s denial of California’s bid for greenhouse gas limits on cars, trucks and SUV’s. The landmark regulations would have resulted in a 30 percent reduction in tailpipe greenhouse emissions in new cars and trucks by 2016, with cutbacks beginning in the 2009 model year. The EPA’s action was taken according to rules of the Clean Air Act, which says the state needed a federal waiver to implement the rules.

The EPA, in refusing the waiver, said the Bush administration was forging a national solution rather than accepting a patchwork of state regulations. At least 12 other states have adopted the California standards with four planning adoption. That, it appears, would qualify as a “patchwork” of standards.

But wait a minute. If the California standards were adopted, car makers could just go ahead and bring their product up to that level and sell the vehicles anywhere they wish. What’s the problem here? Everybody would win with less pollution and more fuel efficient cars and trucks nationwide. Sounds like some smoke and mirrors to me, and if they sell that kind of drivel to the public, we need a better system of education. But the feds are going to hold their ground, so I have a plan, and here’s the challenge.

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy recently released an energy efficiency scorecard for the states. In it, the ACEEE considered state-level policies, programs, and technologies and ranked the 50 states and the District of Columbia in eight categories:

1. Spending on Utility and Public Benefits Energy Efficiency Programs
2. Energy Efficiency Resource Standards
3. Combined Heat and Power
4. Building Energy Codes
5. Transportation Policies
6. Appliance and Equipment Efficiency Standards
7. Tax Incentives
8. State Lead by Example and Research

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I cover the renewable energy beat here at Green Options, and I particularly enjoy writing about the states, communities, and businesses that are showing great leadership on advancing a clean, efficient, and innovative energy system for the 21st century. Although I agree that global warming and the related energy problems do require a federal goals, it is heartening to see citizens around the country taking action in spite of Washington.

This week brings a lot of

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Editor's note: This week, Ecotality's Steve Caratzas takes a look at one of the big problems with cleaning up emissions from school buses: missing federal money promised to states.  This post was originally published on Monday, May 7.

Though lawmakers passed a measure in 2005 to replace diesel school bus engines nationwide, the results have been paltry. Thus school children nationwide are still traveling on antiquated buses that produce pollutants some believe to

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