Energy Report

Energy is an issue that is critical across the nation, superseding competitive issues of cities and regions. As states — and as a nation — we may rise and fall on the way we innovate and build this essential part of our economic development foundation.

Next month, on Sept. 29, the the Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council will lead the first ever Green Apple Day of Service, which will call on green building professionals and volunteers from across the country and internationally to participate in a service project to green a school or campus in their community.

Algae are so simple they don’t even technically qualify as plants. But if a bipartisan U.S. Senate committee recommendation moves forward, algae-derived biofuels can now stand tall next to their biofuels counterparts in qualifying for tax credits.

To find people in North Dakota connected to the boom in the state’s oil patch, just stand still at an airport and they’ll walk by. That is, if they were able to find a parking space.

Piece by piece, composite materials have inched their way into products formerly monopolized by metals. But how is their performance from an energy efficiency and carbon footprint perspective? New results from United Parcel Service provide some guidance.

After a selection process pitting one area of the Land of Enchantment against another, the Center for Innovation, Testing & Evaluation (CITE), a 20-sq.-mile (52-sq.-km.) project from Pegasus Global Holdings, is destined for the EnergyPlex near Hobbs, N.M.

On June 7 a celebration took place in honor of St Marys Cement Inc.’s Bowmanville Plant in Ontario receiving North America's first International Organization for Standardization's ISO 50001 certification. St Marys was officially registered as the first North American recipient of ISO 50001, a new standard for industrial facilities seeking to manage their energy use, on November 15, 2011. The plant is located within the municipality of Clarington, located just northeast of Oshawa along the shoreline of Lake Ontario.

Approximately 70 percent of the nation’s goods are transported by truck, and the cost of this mode of transportation is heavily dependent on the price of oil ($80/bbl at this writing), increases in which quickly ripple through to the cost of gasoline or diesel fuel.
With the current cost of gasoline around $3.53/gallon and the cost of diesel fuel around $3.72/gallon (as reported by EIA), the cost of transporting products remains an important factor in many manufacturing location decisions. Transportation costs also play an important role in consumer, business and government budgets as well.

The U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) recently released a study of the 2010 lighting market, finding that lighting across all sectors became more energy-efficient since a study of the 2001 lighting market.

In April Dominion Energy said it is confident that its existing agreement with the Sierra Club and the Maryland Conservation Council permits the company to build a natural gas liquefaction plant proposed for its Cove Point facility in Lusby, Md.

To industry observers and participants alike, it is becoming increasingly clear that the U.S. military is taking an aggressive role in turning to renewable energy sources for a variety of reasons. And that bodes well for the solar industry.

Measured by its ability to weather acute and chronic stresses, Rochester, N.Y. was ranked 61st out of 361 U.S. metros last year by the Resilience Capacity Index (RCI), developed by Kathryn A. Foster, director of the Regional Institute, a research and public policy center of the University at Buffalo.

According to new research on clean energy financing in G-20 nations released by The Pew Charitable Trusts earlier this month, The United States attracted $48 billion in clean energy investment in 2011, a 42-percent increase over 2010, and just beating out China’s $45.5 billion to claim the No. 1 ranking.

While the short-term prospects for the renewable energy industry in terms of growth and expansion remain strong, longer-term prospects (beyond 24 months) face some major challenges, and as the new report uncovers, some less obvious investment location opportunities are being considered by executives within the industry.

Even as the solar industry trade war between China and the U.S. reaches a fever pitch, Ernst & Young's latest quarterly Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index (CAI), released in late February, finds that the U.S. has passed China in terms of investment in solar and wind technologies.

When you’re a US$68-billion company with more than 300,000 employees across multiple industries, it’s always possible for asset disposition to be an internal affair. It’s also possible to seek out sunnier climes when shadows are lurking at home.

Shell Chemical LP on March 15 signed a land option agreement with Horsehead Corporation to evaluate a site in western Pennsylvania for a potential $2-billion petrochemical complex. The complex would include an ethane cracker that would upgrade locally produced ethane from Marcellus Shale gas production. The site is located in Potter and Center Townships in Beaver County near Monaca, Pa.

It was no accident that Kevin Parker, global head of Deutsche Asset Management, delivered keynote remarks on climate change at the United Nations’ Investor Summit on Climate Risk and Energy Solutions in New York in January.

After the downturn in the oil industry of 1986, which sent occupancy rates in downtown Houston to 10 percent, oil companies and their suppliers closed many offices around the U.S. They have since concentrated their facilities, operations, and functions of all types in a few locations, chiefly Houston.

There are more than 560 federally recognized Native American tribes, residing on tribal land held in trust by the United States. The fee title to tribal land cannot be transferred without an Act of Congress and, with limited exceptions, grants of leases and permits are subject to federal oversight. Federal oversight on surface leasing of Indian lands is outlined in 25 C.F.R. Part 162.

President Barack Obama on Dec. 2 stood in a Transwestern property in the nation’s capital to announce nearly $4 billion in combined federal and private sector energy upgrades to buildings over the next two years.

A project in the East River snares the first license from FERC.

A decade ago all the buzz was about the need for more liquefied natural gas terminals in the United States to import all that LNG the rest of the world was going to send.

Canada’s oilsands are unique because the sand granules are surrounded by a skin of water, making the oil outside that layer that much easier to procure. The oil in those sands was first identified in the late 1700s, when it was used by First Nations natives in a mix with pine pitch on canoes.