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Today the Department of Energy (DOE) announced the award of 16 new Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) Energy Savings Performance Contracts (ESPCs) that could result in up to $80 billion in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and water conservation projects at federally-owned buildings and facilities. ESPCs help to meet the federal government's energy efficiency, water conservation, and renewable energy goals. The federal government is the largest single user of energy in the United States and these awards demonstrate a commitment to sound government stewardship by recognizing efforts to save energy, reduce federal energy costs, cut greenhouse gas emissions, bring more cutting-edge technologies to use, strengthen national security, and create a stronger economy.

The Bureau of Land Management said it will suspend all new solar energy projects on federal land for the next two years until it completes an environmental impact review. As discussed briefly in the preceding post, the BLM holds the country's most valuable sites in terms of solar energy potential, which are heavily concentrated in the southwest. The federal government owns roughly 650 million acres of land - nearly 30% of its total territory. The vast majority of those lands are located in the Western states and the vast majority of federal lands in the Western states are owned by the Bureau of Land Management. Here's a state by state breakdown of government land ownership.

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The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) last week announced plans to allow geothermal drilling in more than 190 million acres of federal land, spanning 12 Western states. Dirk Kempthorne, secretary of the interior, said that the proposed initiative could increase geothermal power production in the U.S. tenfold. "Geothermal energy will play a key role in powering America's energy future, and 90 percent of our nation's geothermal resources are found on Federal lands," Kempthorne said. "Facilitating their leasing and development under environmentally sound regulations is crucial to supplying the secure, clean energy American homes and businesses need."

The Interior Department announced yesterday that is making 190 million acres of federal land available for lease by private interests for development of geothermal energy projects. The Federal and state governments will share in the proceeds of any projects developed on the leased lands. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said it is estimated that the available leases could produce enough energy to generate 5,540 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 5.5 million homes.

A Seattle company is hoping to convert the motion of the ocean into electricity. Grays Harbor Ocean Energy Company has asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for permits to harness energy from waves off the coastline of six states. In all, the company would build seven harnessing sites - in federal waters off California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island - each covering about 100 square miles.

WASHINGTON (April 23, 2008) - An investigation of the Environmental Protection Agency released today found that 889 of nearly 1,600 staff scientists reported that they experienced political interference in their work over the last five years. The study, by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), follows previous UCS investigations of the Food and Drug Administration, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and climate scientists at seven federal agencies, which also found significant administration manipulation of federal science.

I read U.S. opens way for wind power off coast and wondered "what's in it for me"? The federal government has cleared the way for developers to plant wind farms in offshore waters on the Outer Continental Shelf, a move that could have a significant impact for North Carolina. ... Eventually, the regulations could help shape energy production in North Carolina, where the Outer Banks jut sharply into the Atlantic. The area has some of the strongest and steadiest winds on the East Coast, according to a report from the U.S. Department of the Interior. ... In a scheme similar to some offshore oil and gas drilling leases, states would get about 27 percent of the revenue sent to the federal government from offshore wind and hydrokinetics leases.

AP reports that Californian voters passed a measure to build a high speed rail network in the state - Calif. voters approve $10B bond for bullet trains. Hopefully they can find the money for it California voters are green-lighting the nation's most ambitious high-speed rail system, approving a nearly $10 billion bond to put speeding bullet trains capable of topping 200 mph between the state's major metropolitan areas. The measure, which passed with 52 percent support Tuesday, will fund the first phase of what is projected to be a $45 billion, 800-mile project built with state, federal, local and private money. Backers sold the proposal as an innovative alternative to soaring airfares and gas prices. In the closing weeks of the campaign, they touted estimates that it would create nearly 160,000 construction-related jobs and 450,000 permanent jobs.

The ABC recently had a report on plans to power north-west Queensland with low temperature geothermal power using hot water from the Great Artesian Basin. A Brisbane-based company says it could supply geothermal power to all of north-west Queensland. Clean Energy Australasia wants to build a $50 million geothermal power station near Longreach. But it has now also revealed plans to build a pilot geothermal project near BHP's Cannington mine at McKinlay, south of Cloncurry. The company's Joe Reichman says the Mount Isa region needs about 500 megawatts of power a year and geothermal resources could easily provide that. "It'll change the region into a powerhouse," he said. Mr Reichman says the company has applied for federal and state government grants and has support from the major mining companies in the region. If the projects proceed they would be the first geothermal power plants in Australia.

The Federal Government will provide $50 million to the geothermal industry to help it begin making the technology viable for baseload energy production. Speaking to Alexandra Kirk on ABC Radio's AM program, the Minister for Resources and Energy, Martin Ferguson, said there was huge potential for geothermal energy in Australia.

The U.S. government will spend tens of millions of dollars to assess and clean up uranium contamination across the vast Navajo Reservation, but the effort is unlikely to erase decades of frustration over what has been characterized as a slow and sporadic federal response. The new five-year plan is the first coordinated push to measure and fix the environmental damage that resulted from a Cold War hard-rock mining boom in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

All Incentives for this State DSIRE Home Pennsylvania Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency See Federal Incentives See All Summaries See Homeowner Incentive Summaries Only Financial Incentives Local Grant Program * Metropolitan Edison Company SEF Grants (FirstEnergy Territory) * Penelec SEF of the Community Foundation for the Alleghenies Grant Program (FirstEnergy Territory) * Sustainable Development Fund Grant Program (PECO Territory) * West Penn Power SEF Grant Program Local Loan Program * Metropolitan Edison Company SEF Loans (FirstEnergy Territory) * Penelec SEF of the Community Foundation for the Alleghenies Loan Program (FirstEnergy Territory) * SEF of Central Eastern Pennsylvania Loan Program (PP&L Territory) * Sustainable Development Fund Commercial Financing Program (PECO Territory) * West Penn Power SEF Commercial Loan Program Property Tax Assessment * Wind-Energy System Exemption State Grant Program * High Performance Green Schools Planning Grants * Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority (PEDA) - Grants * Pennsylvania Energy Harvest Grant Program State Loan Program * Keystone Home Energy Loan Program * Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority (PEDA) - Loans and Loan Guarantees * Small Business Pollution Prevention Assistance Account Loan Program Utility Loan Program * Adams Electric Cooperative - Energy Resource Conservation (ERC) and Supplemental Loan Program Alternative Fuel and Vehicle Incentives * U.S. Department of Energy's Alternative Fuels Data Center Rules, Regulations & Policies Building Energy Code * Pennsylvania Building Energy Codes Generation Disclosure * Fuel Mix Disclosure Green Power Purchasing/Aggregation * Montgomery County - Wind Power Purchasing * Pennsylvania - Green Power Purchasi

The disconnect between peak oil concerns and the presidential race is almost total. As prices at the pump rise, each candidate is now talking about their so-called solutions to the problem. Despite clear new warning signs from Russia, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and Nigeria that peak oil is nigh, the candidates remain unwaveringly oblivious to the true causes of rising fuel prices, preferring instead to dwell on irrelevant-actually, counterproductive-measures like suspending the federal gas tax during the summer months or taxing Big Oil. This is akin to putting a band-aid on a melanoma.

A new lobbying firm for the group opposing a wind farm off Cape Cod filed a federal document last month reporting that its work for the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound is partially funded and shaped by an international energy conglomerate.

BPA - Elliot Mainzer takes the key role in developing energy agency policy on climate change, planning and renewables As renewable energy becomes a bigger slice of the Northwest's energy pie, few institutions have as important a role to play as the Bonneville Power Administration, the federal agency that markets electricity generated at 31 dams and a nuclear plant in the region. BPA's regionwide web of transmission lines delivers electrons generated at wind farms east of the Cascades to power-hungry consumers in the Willamette Valley. The agency's flexibility to modulate electricity production at dams on the Columbia allows utilities to safely feed their spiky supply of wind energy onto the grid.

Federal policy-makers have taken few of the steps necessary if greenhouse emissions from coal-fired power plants are to be captured and stored underground, according to a new government report. Coal industry backers are banking that "carbon capture and storage" will allow the industry to survive efforts to control global climate change. But the U.S. Government Accountability Office report, released this week, adds to growing concerns that the technology isn't ready now - and might not be for a long time.

An unusual combination of economic and environmental forces have created a "perfect storm" that could help geothermal shed its back-seat status to its renewable cousins wind and solar energy, experts said at an international conference. One after another, state and federal regulators, oil company executives, investor-owned utility officials and private developers on Monday recited the conditions in play to an overflow crowd of more than 1,000.