Archives for March 2011

Proposal Aims to Gut DOE Loan Program

By NAUREEN S. MALIK AND CASSANDRA SWEET  |  Wall Street Journal  |  Link to article About $41 billion in loan guarantees for renewable-energy projects are caught up in the bipartisan wrangling over the federal budget, which could derail dozens of projects and eliminate tens of thousands of jobs. Even established companies are concerned, underscoring the […]

California Assembly OKs increased renewable energy requirement

By Patrick McGreevy  |  Los Angeles Times  |  Link to article The mandate, now headed for governor’s desk, would require utilities to increase renewable energy sources to 33% by 2020. A mandate that California utilities increase their use of renewable energy sailed through the state Assembly on Tuesday and is headed for the governor’s desk. […]

County supervisors approve solar project

By JAMES BURGER, Californian staff writer  |  The Bakersfield Californian  |  Link to article Kern County supervisors blessed a 6,047-acre solar project between Taft and Interstate 5 on Tuesday. The 700-megawatt project will place photovoltaic solar panels on 4,868 of those 6,047 acres, converting the land from agricultural uses to industrial power generation. Developer Maricopa […]

U.S. Power Companies May Face Financing Hurdles

By TENNILLE TRACY And NAUREEN S. MALIK  |  Wall Street Journal  |  Link to article The ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan could make it harder and more expensive for U.S. power companies to finance the construction of new nuclear reactors, threatening to further complicate a process that is already challenging. Nuclear experts are warning of […]

Calif. cap-and-trade plan suffers legal setback

By Bob Egelko  |  SFGate / San Francisco Chronicle  |  Link to article California’s attempt to implement its landmark global warming law with a market-oriented “cap-and-trade” system of pollution credits hit a snag Monday with a judge’s ruling that the state had not looked hard enough at alternatives. The ruling by Judge Ernest Goldsmith of […]

Battle-proof Wind Farms Survive Japan’s Trial by Fire

By Kelly Rigg Executive Director, GCCA  |  TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.  |  Link to article As the world collectively holds its breath to see how the Fukushima crisis plays out (the quote of the day has got to be: “The worst-case scenario doesn’t bear mentioning and the best-case scenario keeps getting worse…”) there’s a positive story which […]

Crisis Revives Doubts on Regulation

By NORIHIKO SHIROUZU in Tokyo and ALISON TUDOR in Hong Kong  |  Wall Street Journal  |  Link to article Japan’s nuclear-power crisis is reviving long-held doubts about the strength of the nation’s nuclear regulatory system and its independence from government efforts to sell nuclear technology abroad. There aren’t indications that any government regulatory failures contributed […]

House GOP targets state’s tough emission standards

By Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau  |  SFGate / San Francisco Chronicle  |  Link to article Taking advantage of a spike in gasoline prices, House Republicans are moving rapidly to gut California’s landmark controls on greenhouse-gas emissions from cars as a way to prevent the tougher state standards from spreading nationwide. The legislation, HR910, the […]

Will Fukushima Disaster Spell the End for a U.S. Nuclear Revival?

By Peter Behr and ClimateWire  |  Scientific American  |  Link to article Tokyo Electric Co. crews prepared Monday to pump seawater into a third reactor at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in order to prevent or halt a meltdown of its fuel assemblies, hours after a second explosion of leaked hydrogen gas rocked another […]