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Whir, whoosh atop wind farm
If you have acrophobia, kinetosis or ancraophobia, Whiskey Dick Mountain is not for you. Because this wind farm called Wild Horse in Kittitas County has 149 turbine towers gently swaying in almost constant winds, 23 stories up. [ read more … ]
A divided FERC advances Order 1000 plan by Southern grid operator
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rejected part of a plan yesterday floated by a Southern grid operator and utilities to comply with the agency’s landmark Order 1000 rule over objections from Republican commissioners. FERC voted 3-2 to approve a plan filed by Southwest Power Pool (SPP) to comply with the rule, which aims to revamp the planning and financing of power lines. SPP operates the grid in Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. [ read more … ]
New mandates fuel threats of secession in rural Colo.
A group of Colorado county commissioners are so miffed by the state’s new renewable energy requirements and other regulations that they are mulling a plan to secede. Commissioners from 10 counties in rural northeastern Colorado were irate when Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) last month exempted municipally owned utilities from a law that requires rural electric cooperatives with more than 100,000 customers to double their renewable energy standard to 20 percent by 2020 (Greenwire, June 5). [ read more … ]
Moniz outlines plans to overhaul department
Secretary Ernest Moniz outlined an ambitious effort to reorganize the Department of Energy in a memo and address to department staff yesterday, aiming to restructure the responsibilities of his top deputies and bringing in a cadre of senior advisers. The effort includes establishing a new undersecretary for management and performance, a position to which President Obama yesterday nominated NASA Chief Financial Officer Beth Robinson (E&E Daily, July 19). Moniz also will be combining the undersecretaries of science and energy into a single position, for which a nomination is expected soon. “Successful implementation of the President’s Climate Action Plan, ‘all of the above’ energy strategy and nuclear security agenda require the appropriate alignment of management functions and strengthened management throughout the agency,” Moniz wrote yesterday in a memo to DOE staff. [ read more … ]
Nebraska: Deal will give big boost to LES wind energy resources
“Our state continues to lag behind our neighbors in reaping the economic development benefits of wind energy, and this latest announcement makes it clear that there is still more to be done to make Nebraska wind projects competitive with states like Iowa, Kansas and Oklahoma,” Mello wrote. [ read more … ]
Note: News clips provided do not necessarily reflect the views of coalition or its member governors.