Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for January, 2009

MendoCoastCurrent, January 31, 2009 On January 26, 2009, Lockheed Martin and Ocean Power Technologies agreed to work together to develop a commercial-scale wave energy project off the coasts of Oregon or California. OPT is providing their expertise in project and site development as they build the plant’s power take-off and control systems with their PowerBuoy [...]

Read Full Post »

RenewableEnergyWorld.com, January 30, 2009 Suzlon Gujarat Wind Park Ltd. (SGWPL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Suzlon Energy Ltd., has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the state government of Gujarat, India to develop up to 1.5 gigawatts (GW) of new wind capacity in the state. The MOU builds on the friendly investment climate for the [...]

Read Full Post »

MendoCoastCurrent, January 29, 2009 At his first White House press conference, President Obama declared “the days of Washington dragging its heels are over” and ordered an immediate review of the Bush administration’s refusal to give California authority to enforce tougher emission and fuel efficiency standards on gas and diesel automobiles. For more than two years [...]

Read Full Post »

Editors Note:  On May 11, 2009, PG&E pulled-out of Mendocino WaveConnect, read it here: http://tinyurl.com/qwlbg6 . The remains of the $6M are now solely allocated to Humboldt WaveConnect. MendoCoastCurrent, January 29, 2009 PG&E caught a major renewable energy wave today as the California Public Utilities Commission approved $4.8 million in funding their centerpiece wave energy [...]

Read Full Post »

Please Take Action By MONDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2009 before 2:00 pm! MendoCoastCurrent, January 29, 2009 Just a couple of weeks ago, Ann Miles, Director of Hydropower Licensing at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission visited the Mendocino coast.  The centerpiece of her presentation on January 13, 2009 at Fort Bragg Town Hall was to explain the [...]

Read Full Post »

MendoCoastCurrent, January 29, 2009 As the Monday, February 9, 2009 before 2 p.m. deadline for filing FERC Motion to Intervene papers regarding the Green Wave LLC wave energy preliminary permit off the Mendocino village coast approaches, locals, the City of Fort Bragg and fishing organization are participating and electronically filing their views with FERC. Here’s [...]

Read Full Post »

STEPHEN POWER, The Wall Street Journal, January 28, 2009 Interior Secretary Ken Salazar indicated Tuesday that the Obama Administration could be open to expanded offshore drilling and is considering doing away with a controversial program that allows oil companies to pay in kind for oil and natural gas taken from public lands. Salazar inherited a [...]

Read Full Post »

MendoCoastCurrent, January 28, 2009 To Keep Momentum, AWEA Calls for Quick Approval of the Obama Stimulus Package The massive growth in 2008 swelled the nation’s total wind power generating capacity by 50% and channeled an investment of some $17 billion into the economy, positioning wind power as one of the leading sources of new power [...]

Read Full Post »

RenewableEnergyWorld.com, January 27, 2009  A shortlist of proposed plans to generate electricity from the power of the tides in the Severn estuary has been unveiled by the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change. UK Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband has also announced £500,000 [US $702,000] of new funding to further develop early-stage technologies like [...]

Read Full Post »

Susan Chambers, The World, January 26, 2009 Coos Bay, Oregon – Ocean Power Technologies is feeling pressure as local groups, the state and even the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission urge the company to shrink its 200-buoy Coos Bay plan. Oregon Wave Energy Partners I, as Ocean Power Technologies, filed its notice of intent and preliminary [...]

Read Full Post »

KATE GALBRAITH, The New York Times, January 26, 2009 Almost lost amid President Barack Obama’s stream of appointments was that of Jon Wellinghoff as Acting Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The FERC’s duties include regulating interstate transmission of electricity, watching over the nation’s wholesale electricity markets and also licensing new hydropower projects. Mr. [...]

Read Full Post »

SCOTT DUKE HARRIS and MATT NAUMAN, San Jose Mercury News, January 27, 2009 As President Barack Obama and Congress hammer out an economic stimulus package expected to be in the $825 billion range, Silicon Valley clean tech leaders are heartened by an energy agenda that starts with an emphasis on “smart grid” technologies that encourage [...]

Read Full Post »

MendoCoastCurrent, January 27, 2009 Washington, D.C. — On January 23, 2009, President Barack Obama has named Jon Wellinghoff acting chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Wellinghoff responded that he looks forward to serving the president and the nation in this capacity. “I thank President Obama for the opportunity to lead FERC at a [...]

Read Full Post »

SIOBHAN HUGHES, Dow Jones News, January 26, 2009 U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to consider allowing California to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from automobiles, a policy that could spur the development of new vehicles. “The federal government must work with, not against, states to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions,” Obama said at a press [...]

Read Full Post »

CASSANDRA PROFITA, The Daily Astorian, January 26, 2009 In a move eagerly anticipated by liquefied natural gas opponents on the North Coast of Oregon, President Barack Obama has named Jon Wellinghoff acting chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. “The move, together with likely changes to the board’s makeup in the coming months and pending [...]

Read Full Post »

Let Your Voice Be Heard by March 23, 2009 by MendoCoastCurrent and pointarenabasin Beginning January 22, 2009 and ending on March 23, 2009, a 60-day Public Comment Period opened regarding new offshore oil and gas exploration and drilling in the pristine waters off northern California. And while this is a multi-step process and before things are cast [...]

Read Full Post »

MendoCoastCurrent, January 23, 2009 Marine Current Turbines Ltd, the Bristol based UK tidal energy company, in now in partnership Canada’s Minas Basin Pulp and Power Company Ltd to demonstrate and develop tidal power technology and facilities in Canada’s Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia. Minas Basin Pulp and Power Company Limited (MBPP) of Hantsport, Nova Scotia [...]

Read Full Post »

BBC News, January 22, 2009 One of the world’s largest wave stations is to be constructed in Scotland off the Isle of Lewis in the Western Isles. The station will create up to 70 jobs and advance Scotland’s bid to lead the world in renewable energy, First Minister Alex Salmond said. Ministers have granted consent [...]

Read Full Post »

MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press, January 22, 2009 La Ventosa, Mexico — On January 22, 2009 Mexico inaugurated one of the world’s largest wind farm projects as the nation looks for alternative energy, in part to compensate for falling oil production.    Mexico is trying to exploit its rich wind and solar potential after relying almost exclusively [...]

Read Full Post »

PRESTON GRALLA, GreenerComputing.com, January 22, 2009 In a briefing to the Obama transition team in December, IBM CEO Samuel J. Palmisano recommended that Obama require that all federal data centers go green in three years. According to the Wall Street Journal, Obama advisers had asked IBM shortly after the election to give a briefing about [...]

Read Full Post »

MendoCoastCurrent, January 15, 2008 Lt. Governor Barbara Lawton today launched the Business, Environment and Social Responsibility (BESR) Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business, offering “Sustainability Meets Entrepreneurship,” a new Friday forum series designed to provide UW students and members of the community access to experts on clean technology and alternative energy. “This [...]

Read Full Post »

JANE KAY, San Francisco Chronicle, January 17, 2009 The U.S. Interior Department, acting in President Bush’s final days in office, proposed on Friday opening up 130 million acres off of California’s coast to drilling for oil and natural gas, including areas off Humboldt and Mendocino counties and from San Luis Obispo south to San Diego. [...]

Read Full Post »

MendoCoastCurrent, January 17, 2009 Here’s the post from MendoCoastCurrent in the Citizen’s Briefing Book at President-elect Barack Obama’s change.gov site: Renewable Energy Development (RED) federal task force Immediately establish and staff a Renewable Energy Development (RED) federal task force chartered with exploring and fast-tracking the development, exploration and commercialization of environmentally-sensitive renewable energy solutions in solar, wind, [...]

Read Full Post »

MendoCoastCurrent, January 17, 2009 Today at the Citizen’s Briefing Book at President-elect Barack Obama’s change.gov site, I shared this: Renewable Energy Development (RED) federal task force Immediately establish and staff a Renewable Energy Development (RED) federal task force chartered with exploring and fast-tracking the development, exploration and commercialization of environmentally-sensitive renewable energy solutions in solar, [...]

Read Full Post »

MICHAEL FALCONE, The New York Times, January 16, 2009 On January 15, 2009, Senator Ken Salazar pledged to “clean up the mess” at the Interior Department if he is confirmed as the next chief of the department, which has been plagued by ethics scandals. Mr. Salazar, Democrat of Colorado, also said he shared President Obama’s commitment to ending [...]

Read Full Post »

FRANK HARTZELL’s article with MendoCoastCurrent edits, January 15, 2009 After nearly two years of local pleas for specifics on the WaveConnect project, PG&E representatives surprised Fort Bragg and Mendocino County representatives with many new details. Those included the promise by PG&E that all environmental studies would be public, not private information. In the recent past, [...]

Read Full Post »

GREEN BIZ, January 14, 2009 Stanford University is establishing a $100 million research institute to focus on energy issues and work toward development of more affordable and efficient ways to capture the power of the sun and store, deliver and use energy in addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. University President John Hennessy announced the launch [...]

Read Full Post »

JIM TANKERSLEY, LA Times, January 13, 2009 Senators celebrated Steven Chu today as a scientist, administrator and Nobel Prize winner. But in the hearing on his nomination as President-elect Barack Obama’s Energy secretary, Chu was cast in a new role: politician. Under gentle questioning from the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the physicist and [...]

Read Full Post »

RENAY SAN MIGUEL, TechNewsWorld, January 12, 2009 A Harvard researcher spent much of Monday setting the record straight about his research and how it relates to Google’s energy consumption. A Sunday Times of London story reported that conducting two Google searches generates as much carbon dioxide as boiling water, though the researcher denies singling out [...]

Read Full Post »

NANEA KALANI, Pacific Business News, January 12, 2009 Honolulu-based Sopogy announced last week that it will build a 50-megawatt system in Toledo, Spain, using its proprietary technology in partnership with a German energy financier and a Spanish project developer. The system could generate enough electricity to power 15,000 homes. Sopogy founder and CEO Darren Kimura [...]

Read Full Post »

NEIL KING, The Wall Street Journal, January 9, 2009 Dallas billionaire T. Boone Pickens and FedEx Corp. chief executive Fred Smith are now duking it out—over, of all things, the virtues of natural gas as a transportation fuel. Since announcing the Pickens Plan in July, the oilman-cum-wind power booster has spent over $60 million, along with [...]

Read Full Post »

CBS 5 with MendoCoastCurrent edits, January 8, 2009 New legislation may prevent oil drilling off the California coast in Sonoma, Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte counties. Growing concern about the nation’s reliance on foreign oil has led to rekindled enthusiasm in some quarters for coastal oil drilling, and renewed efforts to protect the Northern California [...]

Read Full Post »

MendoCoastCurrent, January 8, 2009 Key President-elect Barack Obama renewable energy quotes from his January 8, 2009 speech to the U.S. Congress and citizens, on his top economic priorities as he takes office. “. . .the first question that each of us asks isn’t ‘what’s good for me?’ but ‘what’s good for the country my children [...]

Read Full Post »

PHILIPPE NAUGHTON, TimesOnline UK, January 8, 2009 An investigation was under way today into how a 65 ft. blade was mysteriously torn off a wind turbine amid reports of “strange lights” in the sky. The 300 ft. turbine at Conisholme in Lincolnshire was left wrecked after the incident. Local residents speculate that the damage could [...]

Read Full Post »

MendoCoastCurrent, January 7, 2009 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Joseph T. Kelliher today issued the following statement: Today I announce my intention to step down as chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), effective January 20, 2009. Although my term as commissioner does not end until 2012, I will also immediately begin to recuse [...]

Read Full Post »

DAVID EHRLICH, Earth2Tech/GigaOm, December 23, 2008 Ocean energy could have a big part to play under President-elect Barack Obama’s environmentally friendly administration, but a coalition that’s pushing for more wave and tidal power says change is needed to expand the number of projects in the U.S. Right now, there are only a handful of ocean energy [...]

Read Full Post »

ALOK JHA, Guardian UK, January 5, 2009 Propellers on ships have been tried and tested for centuries in the rough and unforgiving environment of the sea: now this long-proven technology will be used in reverse to harness clean energy from the UK’s powerful tides. The tides that surge around the UK’s coasts could provide up [...]

Read Full Post »

MendoCoastCurrent, January 1, 2009  Toyota Motor is developing a vehicle that will be powered solely by solar energy in an effort to turn around its struggling business with a futuristic ecological car, a top Japanese business daily reported. The Nikkei newspaper, however, said it will be years before the planned vehicle will be available on [...]

Read Full Post »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.