March 01, 2010

When you think of the southeast United States, you don't usually think of renewables. NC GreenPower is working to change that, specifically in North Carolina.

NC GreenPower focuses on engaging the consumer and even supporting economic development in the renewables arena. Despite its renewables focus, NC GreenPower's approach could serve as a model for organizations tasked with engaging consumers in smart grid efforts and developing a more robust workforce to support smarter technologies. The group also shows that consumer engagement with energy doesn't always have to come from a utility.

February 26, 2010

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) has placed an unprecedented focus on state and local energy issues. With half of the approximately $580 billion in ARRA funding having been pegged for states and localities, those efforts that, over time, best pool and manage regional resources will charge ahead of the pack to fruition. That all-important word -- collaboration -- sets the stage for successful working relationships.

Earlier this year, prior to the first smart grid stimulus awards being granted, Carl Imhoff, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's manager of the electrical energy sector, spoke to Intelligent Utility about the importance of stimulus funding in the electricity sector. "It's going to be an important stimulus to help get the vendor community, the utilities, the regulators and the consumer engaged, and to pick up the pace in this transformation, and it will have some important, lasting benefits," he predicted.

February 24, 2010

Is the $787 billion stimulus plan living up to its promise? The measure, which passed largely along party lines more than a year ago, has sought to stem job losses and to create a new economic foundation.

Utilities are, in effect, at the epicenter of this transformation. To some, the industry is working hard to build such a future but to others, it is playing it too safe.

February 22, 2010

The passion surrounding nuclear power is engaging Washington as two issues have reentered the public domain: increasing loan guarantees to new projects and the casting aside of a permanent storage facility for nuclear waste.

While the nuclear industry has gotten a second wind, it is still getting sideswiped by opponents. As such, it may be too soon to pronounce its official revival. But the reality is that the energy source has earned bipartisan support. The Bush administration saw it as a way to increase the nation's energy independence while Obama's team mostly views it as a potential tool to combat climate change.

February 19, 2010

Advanced drilling and completion techniques are the critical means by which natural gas developers now hope to probe vast amounts of shale gas, considered by many to be able to fuel much of the country's electric generation for decades to come. But before that aspiration can be achieved, producers must solve the environmental complexities.

At issue is how to retrieve such vast resources without harming water quality. The problem is that the shale is a sedimentary rock that holds natural gas 2,000-12,000 feet deep in the earth. To get it out, developers use a process known as hydraulic fracturing whereby millions of gallons of water and chemicals are pumped into the ground, allowing the natural gas to flow to the wellbore.