Energy

Ohio Governor John Kasich rejected a bill to extend a freeze on a law that requires utilities in the state to buy more electricity from renewable sources including wind and solar power.  The bill would have extended for two years a delay on the state’s requirement that utilities get 12.5 percent of their power from renewables by 2027, slowing development of the clean energy technologies and threatening investment and jobs, Kasich said Tuesday in a statement. [node:read-more:link]

In the waning hours of the Michigan legislature’s 2016 lame-duck session, Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration played a key role in ensuring that major energy reforms that were two years in the making crossed the finish line. In fact, Snyder helped broker a deal which initially might have narrowly passed in his view, but ended up gaining widespread support in the Republican-controlled legislature. “This was one of the finest illustrations of good, bipartisan and broad-based work I’ve seen in my time as governor,” Snyder, also a Republican, said [node:read-more:link]

A research study has found junior groundwater users on Idaho’s Eastern Snake Plain could reduce the financial sting of a settlement agreement by strategically idling marginal land and selling credits to other groundwater users. [node:read-more:link]

Utility regulators in New York this week signaled their continued support for a clean energy plan that would subsidize three nuclear power plants for twelve years as a "bridge to renewables." The New York Public Service Commission rejected or delayed 17 petitions to reconsider aspects of its Clean Energy Standard, which contains the nuke-friendly zero emission credits, reports RTO Insider. The energy standard requires New York to acquire 50 percent of its energy from low-carbon resources by 2030. [node:read-more:link]

An Allegheny County solar developer is challenging the state Public Utility Commission’s authority to adopt new alternative energy regulations in a complaint filed this week in Commonwealth Court.  David Hommrich of Green Tree, who is representing himself in the case, wants the court to declare that the agency has no authority to put limits on a clean energy incentive granted by the Legislature in 2007. The PUC’s regulations, which took effect on Nov. [node:read-more:link]

Motorists in nine states will see changes in gas taxes at the pump on New Year’s Day, and more than a dozen states will examine adjustments in 2017. Pennsylvania has the largest gas tax in the country, at 50.4 cents per gallon, according to the Tax Foundation. The rate will rise 7.9 cents per gallon in the new year, based on a 2013 law. The other big increase is in Michigan, where the gas tax is 30.54 cents per gallon, according to the foundation. That rate will rise 7.3 cents per gallon, based on a 2015 law. [node:read-more:link]

Before many of the approximately 3,700 turbines dotting Iowa's fields and prairies went up, Des Moines real estate attorney Kathleen Law drafted those documents, sometimes working the phones to answer questions from farmers about the effects wind farms might have on their crops and livestock.  She works behind the scenes on behalf of wind-energy developers. But some credit the Iowa native who grew up on a family farm south of Lohrville with playing a significant role in the development of around 40 percent of Iowa’s overall wind capacity — more than 6,300 megawatts. [node:read-more:link]

Iowa's 43 ethanol plants produced a record 4.1 billion gallons of ethanol in 2016, according to a state trade group. The Iowa Renewable Fuels Association credits increases in gasoline demand, E10 blending and ethanol export opportunities for the slight uptick in production over 2015's 4 billion gallons. [node:read-more:link]

New 30-year permits that will be issued next month by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service will quadruple the number of bald eagles that wind farms will collectively be allowed to kill per year and avoid prosecution under the 1940 Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. Under the new $36,000 “incidental take permits” - which are to be reviewed every five years by an independent third party – the number of bald eagles that can be killed by permit holders will increase from 1,100 currently allowed under 2009 regulations to 4,200 when the Final Rule goes into effect on Jan. 17, 2017. [node:read-more:link]

the Energy Department announced Wednesday that it was conditionally prepared to guarantee as much as $2 billion in loans to the Lake Charles Methanol project, which represents a different variant on carbon capture and storage. [node:read-more:link]