November 01, 2010 - The road to the clean energy economy is getting a little bumpy as one of its most prominent champions said China is using illegal subsidies to export solar panels and wind turbines. The United Steelworkers of America wants the government to file a trade case before an international body and has a 5,800-page document to bolster its claims.

If the United States doesn't build a clean energy economy, the Chinese gladly will. That's treated like gospel in the Obama administration, and among renewable energy trade groups. Take one look at the plummeting cost of solar panels and increased Chinese market share, for instance, and you can see why.

October 29, 2010

America is becoming less reliant on its long-time mainstay, coal-fired electric power generation. Total coal consumption in the electric power sector this year is expected to reach 998.8 million tons, according to a U.S. Energy Information Administration report this month.

In 2011, that figure will slip to 992.3 million tons, the government predicts.

The drop in coal-burning for generation reflects the steep decline in electricity demand faced by utilities, a direct outgrowth of the recession. Total electricity production last year fell 3.7 percent, the steepest one year decline in 72 years, according to federal figures.

GRIDWEEK COVERAGE - Businesses Will Be Totally Transformed

October 25, 2010

A revolution has been launched as utilities build up an armory of smart grid weaponry. Their businesses will be totally transformed.

That was the view of a panel of industry experts at GridWeek in Washington yesterday that I moderated.

Joseph Rigby, Pepco Holdings chairman, president and chief executive officer, said that utility capabilities are expanding dramatically.

October 21, 2010

Call it the case of Texas v. California. Or call it the case the Big Oil v Big Green. One or the other is going to win come election day, in California.

At this point, it looks like the greenies are going to stand their ground against the backers of a movement to toss out the state's trend-setting global warming law - one that requires that the state reduce its greenhouse gas emission to 1990 levels by 2020. The proposition, funded by two Texas-based oil refineries, aims to put that requirement on hold until California is able to gets its unemployment down to 5.5 percent for one year.

October 20, 2010

Google is kicking up quite a wind storm. It is doing it along with some co-investors that would eventually ante up a total of $5 billion to build a 350 mile under-water transmission off the Atlantic coastline to harness the wind there.

Boosting the country's off-shore wind potential is the central issue here. To that end, this project, which would take place over at least 10 years, would have the potential of delivering 6,000 megawatts of wind energy to residents along the East coast while possibly displacing some of the region's fossil-fuel usage. That would increase the venture's attraction despite being more expensive than on-land generation.