Clean Line would carry wind power across Iowa

Hans Detweiler, director of development for Clean Line Energy Partners, said the company is awaiting approval from regulators in Iowa and Illinois before it sets a timeline on construction, but he estimated the line to be in service in 2017 following about two years of construction.

“You’re seeing strong demand in state laws for renewable energy and you’re also seeing a very broad move away from coal,” Detweiler said. “You bundle those together and there’s a very strong demand for additional resources.

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Sioux City company to supply poles for wind energy power line

Detweiler says the line extends the availability of the Iowa power. “The purpose of the project is to allow the enormous untapped wind energy potential in the northwest Iowa and sort of great Siouxland region to be developed and to allow it to reach markets that are in Illinois and further east from there,” Detweiler says. State economic development director, Debbi Durham, says wind power is another product Iowa to sell. “We need to look at wind as any other export. That’s really our role at this point now — is to really explain to Iowans why we believe this is an important infrastructure project that needs to occur,” [ read more … ]

Sioux City manufacturer could see up to $200 million in business from Rock Island Clean Line project

Sabre Industries, which makes large transmission towers in Sioux City, could see up to $200 million in new business from a proposal to build a $2 billion transmission line across Iowa, designed to move wind energy from the Midwest to the eastern United States [ read more … ]

Seattle company gets OK to move ahead on offshore wind farm

The mighty winds that blow through Texas, Oklahoma and elsewhere in the United States aren’t as mighty or as consistent as the gusts out in the oceans. But 13 years after the nation’s first offshore wind park was envisioned in Nantucket Sound, this plentiful source of renewable energy has yet to produce a kilowatt of utility power. Now a Seattle company hopes to join that race by harnessing some of the fiercest winds off the Pacific Coast. Earlier this month, Principle Power got a nod from the U.S. Department of the Interior to proceed with its application to lease 15 square miles of federal waters near Coos Bay, Ore. [ read more … ]

Obama admin shifts strategy on battling warming

The Obama administration in recent days has increased its focus on the need to combat climate change, announcing new action plans both at home and abroad. President Obama said he will ask Congress for $1 billion in new spending for climate research and adaptation and tied warming temperatures to the drought in California, while Secretary of State John Kerry half a world away in Asia denounced climate deniers and revealed a new joint emissions plan with China. [ read more … ]