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Utah is the latest state to announce that it will not participate in the Western Climate Initiative (WCI) when the regional cap-and-trade program begins in January 2012. Republican governor Gary Herbert’s office told reporters that the state would not entirely quit the initiative, even though the governor disagreed with some principles favored by it.

The Australian government has reportedly shelved controversial plans for a national carbon trading program until at least 2013, citing political and public opposition to the proposal. The world’s biggest coal exporter was proposing to reduce greenhouse gases by 5% to 15% of 2000 levels via a carbon trading system similar to Europe’s within the next decade.

Last week brought news of several more proposed coal-fired plant closures from Canada, Georgia, Colorado, and Washington State.

The Department of Energy on Earth Day last week announced it would invest more than $200 million over five years to accelerate the development and commercialization of solar and water power technologies. Investments include initiatives to spur photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing, to develop the PV supply chain, and to accelerate marine and hydrokinetic technologies.

The Department of the Interior (DOI) today gave its approval to the first U.S. offshore wind farm, a long-disputed and much-delayed project on federal submerged lands in Nantucket Sound. The approval comes with conditions, however, including requiring the developer of the $1 billion wind farm to agree to additional binding measures to minimize the potential adverse impact of construction and operation of the facility.

Demand for electricity in the U.S. dropped by 4.2% in 2009—the greatest decline in a single year in at least 60 years, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) found in its annual State of the Markets Report, released last week.

The scale and complexity of Duke Energy’s Edwardsport coal gasification plant under construction in southwest Indiana has added about $530 million to project costs—a 23% increase—company officials told state regulators last week. The integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plant slated to begin operation in 2012 is now estimated to cost $2.88 billion. The total project, […]

Last week, as news emerged that the Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman draft bill is expected to be released on April 26—and it could hit Senate floor before July 4—the Institute for Policy Integrity hailed the Cantwell-Collins CLEAR Act. Meanwhile, the EPA received a two-week extension to a legally imposed deadline for proposing boiler standards.

Tenaska on Monday signed an agreement with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to limit water use and capture at least 85% of carbon dioxide produced by a proposed advanced coal plant under development near Sweetwater, Texas, if the environmental group drops legal opposition to the plant.

Despite the recession, reports from U.S. renewable industry groups show that the nation’s solar energy industry enjoyed a 36% increase in revenue and overall 5% increase in installations in 2009, while geothermal projects under development grew more than 26%.