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GE Energy Financial Services has released a study estimating that the federal production tax credit (PTC) for wind power that is set to expire December 31, 2008 more than pays for itself through tax revenues from the projects' income, vendors' profits and individual workers' wages.

Electrified transportation is the use of electrical power to run transportation vehicles and related facilities. Electricity has long been used to power transportation in the Seattle area where 150 King County Metro electric trolley buses serve 14 routes covering 115 miles. Now electrical power options are spreading to port facilities, medium-duty trucks, school buses and truck stops. Most importantly, electricity is emerging to power cars and light-duty vehicles in the form of gasoline-electric hybrids and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) which can use grid power and run longer on batteries than regular hybrids. These options are explored in the FAQ below. These questions and answers are derived from a 2007 ETWG Briefing Report written by Rich Feldman, Apollo Alliance and Patrick Mazza, Climate Solutions.

Our aim should not be total independence from foreign sources of petroleum. That is neither practical nor necessary in a world of interdependent economies. Instead, the objective should be developing a sufficient degree of resilience against disruptions in imports. Think of resilience as the ability to absorb a significant disruption, bigger than what could be managed by drawing down the strategic oil reserve. Our resilience can be strengthened by increasing diversity in the sources of our energy. Commercial, industrial, and home users of oil can already use other sources of energy. By contrast, transportation is totally dependent on petroleum. This is the root cause of our vulnerability. Our goal should be to increase the diversity of energy sources in transportation. The best alternative to oil? Electricity. The means? Convert petroleum-driven miles to electric ones.

That is, the energy in all the gasoline consumed is about 5,200 billion kilowatt-hours. So is that how much electricity we need? No! It turns out that electric vehicles are far more energy efficient! A gasoline-powered vehicle does good to average 15% energy efficiency. I know this from taking actual measurements while doing research for my first book. A plug-in electric car, however, can easily maintain 60% energy efficiency. Since the electric car is 4 times as efficient, it only needs 1/4 as much energy to go a mile. That means we can divide the total energy used by a gasoline-powered car to see how much electricity it would need to go the same distance.

The Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) of 1975 established an energy conservation program for major household appliances. The National Energy Conservation Policy Act of 1978 amended EPCA to add Part C of Title III, which established an energy conservation program for certain industrial equipment. The Energy Policy Act of 1992 (EPACT) also amended EPCA, and included amendments that expanded title III to include small electric motors. The Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Building Technologies Program conducts the program that develops equipment energy conservation standards and has overall responsibility for rulemaking activities for small electric motors in fulfillment of the law.

Water and energy providers say the issue of figuring out how to manage resources could dominate their work for the next 20 or 30 years. The seven Colorado River states have made the water-energy connection their focus at annual meetings in Las Vegas next week. Arizona utilities have turned their attention to finding a sustainable balance.

The commonly accepted wisdom in the energy industry is that the grid could only draw something like 20 percent of its power from wind and solar resources before encountering major reliability problems. But the new power flow simulation (.pdf), presented for the first time this week at the American Geophysical Union meeting, shows that, at least in California, the power grid might be able to handle three times that much renewable energy without encountering major trouble pushing electrons around the state.

A 12.6-megawatt system installed by First Solar (NSDQ: FSLR) for Sempra Generation showed that the system can produce electricity at below the price of conventional power in the United States, said Mark Bachman, an equity analyst at Pacific Crest, in a research note Tuesday.

Everyone contributes to carbon dioxide emissions, but some more than others. Reducing global CO2 emissions requires that we have a good understanding of the current picture. Serious progress can be made if we develop a renewable source of electricity that is cheaper than coal.

PUC Commissioner Paul Hudson boasted that this new initiative would have Texas—already the leader when it comes to most megawatts produced—generating more than the 14 next-highest states combined.

It's called New Urbanism, and Christopher Leinberger, an urban planning professor at the University of Michigan, visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution   and author of The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream  , says the movement is changing the American dream:

The federal government is moving forward with a proposed new set of regulations for "alternative energy production activities" on the Outer Continental Shelf, including offshore wind farms and wave energy projects.