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The Obama administration wants to reduce oil consumption, increase renewable energy supplies and cut carbon dioxide emissions in the most ambitious transformation of energy policy in a generation. But the world’s oil giants are not convinced that it will work. Even as Washington goes into a frenzy over energy, many of the oil companies are staying on the sidelines, balking at investing in new technologies favored by the president, or even straying from commitments they had already made. Royal Dutch Shell said last month that it would freeze its research and investments in wind, solar and hydrogen power, and focus...

A consortium of private investors that sought to build high-voltage electricity transmission lines to carry power from renewable sources upstate to New York City said on Friday that it was suspending its efforts. The consortium, New York Regional Interconnect, cited a ruling made on Tuesday by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in Washington upholding a review process that demands that each such project be subject to a cost-benefit analysis and receive the support of 80 percent of the beneficiaries. Regional Interconnect said it interpreted the decision as giving its main competitor, Con Edison, which purchases almost all of the electricity...

One of the defining features of the Obama administration so far is its almost pathological inability to make hard choices--or even to acknowledge that hard choices need to be made. A prime example is the administration's insistence that making energy more expensive will somehow benefit our economy. This proposition is so foolish as to be almost self-refuting: in my view, anyone who doesn't understand that you can't create wealth by subsidizing the inefficient production of energy shouldn't be voting. In particular, Barack Obama has trumpeted the creation of "green jobs" as somehow offsetting the obvious damage that will be done...

[A]s Congress begins debating new rules to restrict carbon dioxide emissions and promote electricity produced from renewable sources, an underlying question is how much more Americans will be willing to pay to harness the wind and the sun. ... [T]he Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit consortium financed by investor- and publicly-owned utilities, predicted in November that even for plants coming on line in 2015, wind energy would cost nearly one-third more than coal and about 14 percent more than natural gas. The cost of solar thermal electricity, made by using the sun’s heat to boil water and spin a...

“We know the right thing to do,” said President Barack Obama at his press conference on energy this afternoon. “We’ve known the right choice for a generation. The time has come to make that choice and act on what we know. . . . We have achieved more in two months for a clean energy economy than we have done in perhaps 30 years.” Thirty years, that would be . . . hmmm . . . 1979, right? Wasn’t that the year — yes, it was. That was the date when Jimmy Carter finally got his Grand Energy Plan through...

[Obama's stimulus plan includes a large government investment in green energy.] But the administration and Congress will have to forcibly change consumer habits, and spend billions of dollars more, if relatively expensive green energy is to become a viable alternative to less-expensive power sources such as coal and oil. They are about to try. The Environmental Protection Agency is drafting rules that will make it unprofitable for utilities to build new coal- and crude-fired plants, and for car makers to manufacture gas-swilling models like sport-utility vehicles and luxury sedans. Separately, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada has pledged to...

A substantial increase in the amount of electricity produced from renewable energy would require building a transmission system that would carry a price tag of up to $100 billion, according to a new study. The new system would be needed because the existing eastern grid couldn't handle the volume of power coming from the wind-producing states. In addition, the new grid would need to be able to handle the fluctuating nature of wind power, which can surge at some moments and drop sharply at others. There is strong political and public support for increasing production of renewable energy, and Congress...

As the wind and solar industries struggle amid the economic crisis, the new Congress is busy trying to find a solution. The core of the problem, experts say, lies in the tax structure for these industries. Banks invest large amounts of money in renewable energy through “tax equity” structures. What does that mean? In a nutshell, the huge tax credits that the wind and solar industries have received come with a catch: investors need adequate profits to take advantage of them, because the credit is used to offset tax liability. Developers generally don’t have large enough profits to take full...

HOUSTON — For all the support that the presidential candidates are expressing for renewable energy, alternative energies like wind and solar are facing big new challenges because of the credit freeze and the plunge in oil and natural gas prices. Shares of alternative energy companies have fallen even more sharply than the rest of the stock market in recent months. The struggles of financial institutions are raising fears that investment capital for big renewable energy projects is likely to get tighter. Advocates are concerned that if the prices for oil and gas keep falling, the incentive for utilities and consumers...

In his latest [book], "Hot, Flat, and Crowded," Thomas L. Friedman makes it clear that he wants to improve conditions for mankind. "I start from the bedrock principle," he writes, "that we as a global society need more and more growth." But because of climate change (hot), ever-more people (crowded) and higher material aspirations of all in a competitive global economy (flat), he believes that the world's growth is leading us toward catastrophe. Mr. Friedman, a columnist for the New York Times, describes this threat in the grimmest of terms. We should expect disasters "of a biblical scale," humans are...

California's two energy agencies Friday endorsed a plan that would require utilities to obtain a third of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. The California Energy Commission, a policy-and-planning agency, and the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates utilities, issued the joint recommendation that, if implemented, would be the most ambitious renewable-energy plan in the U.S. But the target raises questions about how much the goal could cost consumers. The plan's price tag is "the question of the hour," says Jackalyne Pfannenstiel, an economist who chairs the California Energy Commission. She endorses the goal but said it could be...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. Talking about renewable energy is nothing new in the Sunshine State, but the push for cleaner energy could soon become a legal mandate. For the first time, Florida is about to require that part of the state's power come from renewable sources. The state has been promoting that idea with grants and tax exemptions for several years, but renewable power makes up less than 3 percent of the total in Florida. Maine, by comparison, gets roughly 18 percent of its power from renewable sources, mostly hydroelectric, the state energy office says. But 100 percent of the power used...

Scientists Mimic Essence Of Plants' Energy Storage SystemScienceDaily (Aug. 1, 2008) — In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine. Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With today's announcement, MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy. Requiring nothing but abundant, non-toxic natural materials,...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California on Thursday took a major step forward on its global warming fight by unveiling an ambitious plan for clean cars, renewable energy and stringent caps on big polluting industries. The plan, which aims to reduce pollutants by 10 percent from current levels by 2020 while driving investment in new energy technologies that will benefit the state's economy, is the most comprehensive yet by any U.S. state. It could serve as a blueprint not only for the rest of the United States, ... "This is of tremendous importance, not only for California," Mary Nichols, chairman of...

Washington, DC - A new solar energy system will soon make it possible to produce electricity at a wholesale cost of 5-cents per kWh (kilowatt hour). This price is competitive with the wholesale cost of producing electricity using fossil fuels and a fraction of the current cost of solar energy. XCPV (Xtreme Concentrated Photovoltaics), a system that concentrates the equivalent of more than 1,600 times the sun's energy onto the world's most efficient solar cells, was announced today by SUNRGI, a solar energy system designer and developer, at the National Energy Marketers Association's 11th Annual Global Energy Forum in Washington,...

… Last year, 400-foot-tall wind turbines were erected near King City, some less than 2,000 feet from Charlie Porter’s house on his small acreage. Soon the sounds from the blades swooshing through the air and other noise were driving Porter and his family crazy, he said. “The sound gets in your head like a saw and you can’t get rid of it,” Porter said. “Some people compare it to a train that never arrived.” … Just how healthy is the noise from wind turbines? … One researcher calls it “wind turbine syndrome,” a collection of symptoms that include headaches, anxiety...

Ramping up the use of renewable energy would lead to the "rape of nature", meaning nuclear power should be developed instead. So argues noted conservation biologist and climate change researcher Jesse Ausubel in an opinion piece based on his and others' research. Ausubel (who New Scientist interviewed in 2006) says the key renewable energy sources, including sun, wind, and biomass, would all require vast amounts of land if developed up to large scale production – unlike nuclear power. That land would be far better left alone, he says. Renewables are "boutique fuels" says Ausubel, of Rockefeller University in New York,...

About 80 miles off of the coast of Louisiana lies a mostly submerged mountain, the top of which is known as Eugene Island. The portion underwater is an eerie-looking, sloping tower jutting up from the depths of the Gulf of Mexico, with deep fissures and perpendicular faults which spontaneously spew natural gas. A significant reservoir of crude oil was discovered nearby in the late '60s, and by 1970, a platform named Eugene 330 was busily producing about 15,000 barrels a day of high-quality crude oil. By the late '80s, the platform's production had slipped to less than 4,000 barrels per...

Wind Group Condemns ‘Unprecedented Effort to Strangle Clean Energy and Subvert Key Part of Global Warming Solution’ The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) today sharply criticized a provision in a new bill introduced by Chairman Nick Rahall (D-WV) in the House Natural Resources Committee that the group said would “essentially outlaw the generation of electricity from new wind power plants in the United States and even phase out power production from existing wind turbines.” The provision, Subtitle D of H.R. 2337, would: Bar any new wind power project until new Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) rules are issued – a...

Fusion future? Sandia researcher Bill Fowler tests circuits on a device designed to produce large electrical impulses rapidly and repeatedly. Groups of such devices could be used to initiate nuclear fusion. Each element of the system features a pair of large capacitors and a switch arranged in a configuration that minimizes current-slowing magnetic fields. Credit: Randy Montoya A new device could bring high-yield nuclear fusion for generating electricity a step closer to reality, according to researchers at Sandia National Laboratories, in Albuquerque, NM. The technology, developed by Sandia researchers in collaboration with the Institute of High Current Electronics, in Tomsk,...