Renewable Energy

A month ago, the manager of Luke paper mill in western Maryland pledged in writing to remain neutral on a bill in the state legislature that would curtail renewable energy payments to mills burning a residue called "black liquor. " This week, he changed his mind. The flip-flop irked key Maryland lawmakers, but the Luke mill manager was just one of a parade of people from the American Forest and Paper Association, the United Steelworkers and Dominion Resources who opposed the bill in hearings in Annapolis on Tuesday...

As Republican Ken Cuccinelli and Democrat Terry McAuliffe battle over undecided voters in the swing state of Virginia, each one is relying on his base for financial help. The latest fundraising totals in the gubernatorial contest show that McAuliffe's commanding cash lead was boosted by labor groups, significant out-of-state donors and his deep Democratic political donor base. In addition to a $1 million donation from the Republican Governors Association, Cuccinelli received money from energy...

CORRECTION: The article referred to Ned Farquhar as the head of the Bureau of Land Management. Farquhar is deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals management, in which capacity he oversees the BLM, as well as the Minerals Management Service and the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement. The SunZia transmission line that would link sun and wind power from central New Mexico with cities in Arizona is just the sort of energy project an environmentalist could love -- or hate.

Michael Stepp's April 5 op-ed, " Recognize the limits of renewables ," correctly asserted we need more energy innovation and research-and-development funding to make deep reductions in the amount of U.S. carbon emissions. But he greatly underestimated the role that renewable energy could play in achieving those cuts. Renewable energy is growing rapidly and is already providing a significant source of electricity in many states and countries. Wind and solar power increased nearly fourfold in the United States from 2007 to 2012...

President-elect Barack Obama wants the nation to derive 10 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2012, up from 2 percent today. That comes on top of the global push for green power, making wind and solar power companies a good bet. In such an environment, Vestas Wind Systems (symbol VWSYF), the world's leading supplier of wind turbines, stands to benefit. Vestas's American depository receipts, which trade on the pink sheets, have fallen about 60 percent this year because of fears that the credit crunch would stunt sales...

Michael Stepp's April 5 op-ed, " Recognize the limits of renewables ," correctly asserted we need more energy innovation and research-and-development funding to make deep reductions in the amount of U.S. carbon emissions. But he greatly underestimated the role that renewable energy could play in achieving those cuts. Renewable energy is growing rapidly and is already providing a significant source of electricity in many states and countries. Wind and solar power increased nearly fourfold in the United States from...

TOKYO — In the now-abandoned town of Futuba, inside the 12-mile evacuation zone around the Fukushima Daiichi plant, a sign that arches over the entrance to a main street reads: "Nuclear power is the energy of a bright tomorrow. " But today, as workers continue their struggle to contain radioactive leakage at the plant, resource-poor Japan has been forced to scale back that commitment to nuclear power and is scrambling to find alternatives. A new energy policy, which Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan began to outline this week ,...

PALERMO, Italy — Inside a midnight-blue BMW, a Sicilian entrepreneur delivered his pitch to the accused mafia boss. A new business was blowing into Italy that could spin wind and sunlight into gold, ensuring the future of the Earth as well as the Cosa Nostra: renewable energy. "Uncle Vincenzo," implored the businessman, Angelo Salvatore, using a term of affection for the alleged head of Sicily's Gimbellina crime family, 79-year-old Vincenzo Funari. According to a transcript of their wiretapped...

The Heartland Institute, a libertarian think tank skeptical of climate change science , has joined with the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council to write model legislation aimed at reversing state renewable energy mandates across the country. The Electricity Freedom Act , adopted by the council's board of directors in October, would repeal state standards requiring utilities to get a portion of their electricity from renewable power, calling it "essentially a tax on...

TOKYO — Two years ago, Japan's second-largest city launched a small-scale environmental experiment, encouraging residents to install solar panels on their roofs and buy pricey equipment to track how much energy they use. Yokohama officials' goal was simple: to save power and cut the city's carbon emissions. But since the nuclear disaster that transformed the way Japan thinks about both energy and the companies that supply it, Yokohama's "smart city project" has taken on...

Matthew Stepp is a senior policy analyst at the nonpartisan Information Technology & Innovation Foundation . We're losing the race against global warming. Worldwide coal production increased about eight times faster than solar- and wind-power generation last year. China added more new coal plants in 2011 than are running in Texas and Ohio, even as it leads the world in wind-power capacity. Meanwhile, the United States is only modestly cutting carbon emissions by transitioning from coal to natural gas, which is still a carbon-rich fuel.

A month ago, the manager of Luke paper mill in western Maryland pledged in writing to remain neutral on a bill in the state legislature that would curtail renewable energy payments to mills burning a residue called "black liquor. " This week, he changed his mind. The flip-flop irked key Maryland lawmakers, but the Luke mill manager was just one of a parade of people from the American Forest and Paper Association, the United Steelworkers and Dominion Resources who opposed the bill in hearings in...

It's tempting to think that President Obama picked Ernest Moniz on Monday to be his next energy secretary because Moniz's long wavy mop of mostly-white hair might distract people who have been obsessed with Michelle Obama's bangs. But Moniz, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also lends Obama's Cabinet scientific heft and brings prior Washington experience. At MIT, he has directed the school's Energy Initiative, where he oversaw reports on almost every aspect of energy.

Regarding the Feb. 24 editorial " The green city ": It was great to read The Post's support for many of the green initiatives D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) announced last week. From reducing energy consumption and implementing green building codes to expanding Capital Bikeshare and improving the tree canopy, there is much to be excited about with the mayor's Sustainable DC plan. Yet we are compelled to address the unfounded comments about the economics of a potential wind-power deal for our government buildings.

Correction: An earlier version of this story included a photo from a paper mill near Port Angeles Harbor in Port Angeles, Wash. That plant, a recycling facility, does not generate the paper-making byproduct known as "black liquor" or use it to generate power. W hen Maryland and the District set floors requiring electric utilities to use increasing amounts of renewable energy, environmentalists cheered the prospect of money going to new solar and wind projects.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu resigned Friday after a four-year tenure during which he handed out tens of billions of dollars of grants and loans to foster renewable energy technologies — and ended up fostering controversy over whether the money was well spent. The Nobel Prize-winning physicist, who was brought to Washington by President Obama because of Chu's deep concern about climate change, found himself embroiled in controversy over a half-billion-dollar loan to solar-panel-maker Solyndra, which went bankrupt.

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) and a state environmental group have found rare common ground on Virginia's renewable energy law, though the two parties differ on how to solve the problem. Last month, Cuccinelli released a report that studied the costs and benefits of incentives given to the state's two largest electric utilities aimed at expanding renewable energy in Virginia. The incentives started in 2007, when Virginia's electric utility system was revamped. Cuccinelli said the...

An environmental group reports that Dominion Virginia Power has reached a tentative agreement with Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli on the state's renewable energy law. Cuccinelli (R) and the Chesapeake Climate Action Network found themselves on the same side of the issue last month. The attorney general released a report in November studying the costs and benefits of incentives aimed at expanding renewable energy in Virginia given to Dominion and Appalachian Power since 2007. Both...

The Jan. 24 editorial "Keystone XL is coming back" was notable for not even mentioning climate change, the reason this project has become the biggest flashpoint for environmentalists in a generation. The Post is free to disagree with the 18 top climate scientists who sent the president a letter this month explaining that Keystone was a climate disaster, but not free, it seems to me, to simply ignore them. Bill McKibben , Ripton, Vt. The writer is co-founder and chairman of the board of the environmental group 350.org.

Maryland runs on ... chicken litter? Waste from expansive poultry farms that line Maryland's Chesapeake Bay has long been the source of much consternation: pollution, lawsuits, and, oh, the smell. But Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) on Friday said it's about to become part of the solution — at least to help Maryland meet its goals to get more energy from renewable resources. Maryland and its university system have joined forces to purchase at least 10 megawatts of power from a plant that will run...