November 18, 2009

Green technologies will soon get greater export assistance. The U.S. Export-Import Bank is touting its newfound policy, although it is the direct result of a lawsuit filed more than six years ago by environmentalists and cities.

At this point, the agency has provided few details as to how it would achieve its aims. It is now setting up a $250 million lending facility to back green exports as well as to improve the bank's transparency in the tracking and reporting of carbon emissions from projects that it supports. The move, which is part of the settlement reached in February, is not enough, say environmental and civic activists, who add that it does nothing to limit the institution's activities in the area of fossil fuels.

November 15, 2009

A $19 million biomass fuel production plant will rise near Marquette, as the board of directors of Cleveland-based Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. (NYSE: CLF) approved the construction for its RenewaFuel LLC subsidiary.

The plant will be built at the Telkite Technology Park, which is located at Sawyer Airport near Marquette.

RenewaFuel intends to move forward with a lease agreement for the use of two large aircraft hangars, which formerly housed B-52 aircraft when the facility was part of K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base. RenewaFuel's lease of the hangars is subject to the final approval of the Marquette County Board of Commissioners and the Federal Aviation Administration. Once begun, construction and renovation is expected to take about nine months.

November 16, 2009

It's a revolution that began in South Africa and which has spread to China. Now, it's come to the United States where coal-rich states are trying to find new markets for their product and namely in the transportation sector.

Coal liquefaction has the potential to replace some oil imports. But the technologies to perform that transformation are expensive. Some enterprises have sputtered. Others, though, are getting their legs. Despite the struggles, the ideas are valid ones and are winning respect.

November 13, 2009

Recession is over and recovery is here. And while there's an economic lag, it isn't expected to permanently weigh down the utility industry.

In recent years, power companies have paid increasingly higher building costs that have been largely predicated on volatile fuel prices as well as escalating raw material and skilled labor costs. Bleaker economic times, however, have blunted the trauma and led to a relative decline in construction-related expenses.

November 11, 2009

It's not the ideal way to curb electricity usage. But the preponderance of energy sources saved in the last year is because of the economic recession. The rest is because of conservation and demand response.

That's just part of what the North American Electric Reliability Corporation shared with reporters during its annual assessment of the electricity sector. While projections are not as rosy as they were a year ago, the group that oversees reliability of the bulk power system in the United States and Canada, is forecasting future growth at about 1.5 percent a year -- down from the 2 percent acceleration it predicted four years ago.