Oregon’s Governor Ted Kulongoski told the State Sustainability Board recently that he wants new renewable electricity in Oregon to supply 100 percent of state government’s electrical needs by 2010.
The carbohydrate economy could transform agriculture as well as energy, reviving producer co-ops, and giving farmers a hedge against voilatile commodity prices. For the first time in 60 years, the carbohydrate economy is back on the public-policy agenda. It is an exciting historical opportunity, but one we should approach with deliberation and foresight.
On Tuesday, voters in the small town of Damariscotta, Maine, overwhelmingly approved a local law barring stores over 35,000 square feet (about the size of a medium grocery store). The vote puts an end to Wal-Mart’s plans to build a 187,000-square-foot supercenter in this village of just 2,000 people. Continue reading
By a wide margin, the Vermont Senate endorsed a bill that would require any proposed big-box store in the state to undergo an economic and community impact analysis. Continue reading
The media are abuzz with a new high-tech phrase: “net neutrality”. It may sound complicated, but the concept is quite simple. Right now, the Internet treats all traffic equally. Companies that own the connections from your home and business to the Internet now want to start giving some traffic priority over others, for a fee.
Somecompare this proposal to an express toll road. Users pay extra for faster service. But Internet service subscribers already pay a monthly toll based on the speed of service. You pay more for speeds of 3 Mbps than 750 Kbps.
Taking an important step towards making ethanol production more reliant on renewable energy, the Central Minnesota Ethanol Cooperative is nearing completion of a biomass-fueled energy system at its ethanol plant near Little Falls, MN.
The Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) has adopted rules to implement a new renewable energy standard requiring 15 percent renewables by 2025. The ACC voted to require that 30% of the renewable requirement in years 2011 and beyond must be met by local on-site renewable energy projects installed by homes and businesses.
Audio from the second in a series of national teleconferences on the Clean Renewable Energy Bond (CREB) program is now available. The CREB program authorizes the issuance of up to $800 million in “tax credit” bonds by electric cooperatives, public power authorities, units of state and local government and tribal authorities for financing renewable energy projects.
Extended producer responsibility (EPR), based on the “polluter pays” principle, entails making manufacturers responsible for the entire lifecycle of the products and packaging they produce. These are some of the tools being employed by EPR advocates. Continue reading
In the last 15 years, recycling has come of age. The number of curbside recycling programs has climbed to 9,349 and the national recycling rate for municipal discards has reached 28%. At the local level, many communities are setting new records, surpassing 50%, and even 60% waste diversion levels. Continue reading
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