Energy & Fuel

"A one-year extension of a key tax credit for the wind industry made it into the fiscal cliff deal the U.S. Senate and House passed on Tuesday."

"As I note in Friday’s paper, construction of new wind farms is going to grind to a halt with the end, at least temporarily, of the wind production tax credit. What’s next?"

"California Energy Commission staff on Friday said BrightSource Energy's proposed 500-megawatt Hidden Hills solar thermal power project would have 'significant' impact on the environment."

"LOS BANOS, Calif. — The Morning Star Company’s three plants in California emit roughly 200,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year — about the same amount as the Pacific Island nation of Palau — as they turn tomatoes into ketchup, spaghetti sauce and juice used by millions of consumers around the world."

"HONG KONG — China began service Wednesday morning on the world’s longest high-speed rail line, covering a distance in eight hours that is about equal to that from New York to Key West, Florida, or from London across Europe to Belgrade."

"Early next year, a sophisticated air quality monitor is expected to go into operation near O.D. Wyatt High School in Fort Worth, the 11th such device deployed to measure pollutants in the Barnett Shale."

"A forthcoming federal report on pipeline safety has found that members of the general public are more likely to identify oil and gas spills than the pipeline companies’ own leak detection systems."

"WASHINGTON — Coal took another serious hit Wednesday — in the heart of coal country. American Electric Power, or A.E.P., the nation’s biggest consumer of coal, announced that it would shut its coal-burning boilers at the Big Sandy electric power plant near Louisa, Ky., a 1,100-megawatt facility that since the early 1960s has been burning coal that was mined locally."

"The United States on Tuesday pressed forward with plans to slap steep punitive duties on wind turbine towers imported from China at prices deemed unfairly low, even as officials welcomed a high-level Chinese delegation for trade and economic talks."

"Wading into one of the hottest environmental debates in the nation, California on Tuesday released its first-ever regulations for hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," the increasingly common -- and controversial -- practice of freeing oil and gas from rock formations by injecting chemicals under high pressure into the ground."