Britain has dropped resistance to a mandatory European Union target of drawing 20 percent of power from renewable sources by 2020 and expects EU leaders to set that goal next week, a British official said on Wednesday. Britain was one of several countries, including prominently France, which opposed making legally binding the objective for low-polluting energy sources such as solar and wind power when EU energy ministers debated the issue on February 15.

Some lawmakers want residents to go green - energywise, that is. They’ve proposed giving residents who buy renewable energy an annual $100 tax break.

Spain’s wind power industry said on Monday new government regulations would knock its growth on the head, while the industry minister accused the sector of defending oversized profits. Spain has almost 12,000 megawatts (MW) of wind generation and the government wants to reach 20,000 MW by 2010 as part of its renewable energy plan. Boosting renewable generation is key to Spain’s efforts to curb its greenhouse gas emissions, which have swollen by 50 percent since 1990, the base year for the Kyoto agreement on global warming. But the Industry Ministry wants to curb the premiums paid to wind generators and argues that these will be a burden on the consumer in future years.

The state Public Service Commission should take potential taxes on emissions of greenhouse gases into account when considering whether to approve new power plants, the agency’s chairman said Thursday. The PSC will meet today to adopt a seven-year energy plan that is designed in part to help implement Gov. Jim Doyle’s global warming and renewable energy agenda, PSC Chairman Dan Ebert said. The plan, known as the Strategic Energy Assessment, calls for the agency to take steps in the area of global warming and boost the supply of renewable energy in the state. By 2015, state law requires that 10% of the state’s electricity must be supplied by wind turbines, solar panels and waste-to-energy systems and other renewable energy sources.

Utilities would turn increasingly to wind, water and other renewable-energy sources for their electricity under a pace-setting bill that cleared the Minnesota House tonight. After almost three hours of debate, the House voted 123-10 to join the Senate in requiring utilities to meet ambitious new requirements. The bill now goes to Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who is expected to sign it. Earlier this month, the Senate voted 63-3 to adopt it. “It will be the strongest, most aggressive renewable-energy standard in the country,'’ said Rep. Aaron Peterson, DFL-Appleton, the bill’s chief sponsor.

The Montana Public Service Commission voted 4-1 Jan. 29 to oppose a Montana Senate bill that would allow a renewable energy cooperative to move forward with plans to create two wind power generation sites, the PSC chairman told the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee. In a note of explanation, the author of SB337, Russ Doty, wrote, “This legislation is needed to allow the Green Electricity Buying Co-op (GEBCO) to own the windmills that it has received authorization to finance with zero interest Clean Renewable Energy Bonds (CREBs). Without this legislation the $31.7 million in CREBs authorizations will be forfeited and likely reassigned to other states.” Mr. Doty is the executive director of the Billings-based co-op. The co-op plans to use the bonds to build two 20-megawatt wind farms in Montana. One site would be south of Fort Peck on the Towe Farm in McCone County. The other facility would sit near Molt Road in Yellowstone County, a press release said.

Since the oil shocks of the 1970s, governments around the world have paid plenty of lip service to renewable energies such as wind and solar power. But only a few governments have been able to engineer policies that have begun to bring alternative energies into wider use. Renewable fuels provided 18% of the world’s total electricity supply in 2004, according to figures from the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based intergovernmental organization. Almost all of that, though, came from hydropower, a source with limited growth potential because of geographic constraints. The use of wind and solar power is growing, but they still generated only 1% of global electricity production in 2004, the latest year for which figures are available.

New legislation that would require many U.S. utilities to generate 20 percent of their electricity from renewable energy resources by 2020 was introduced yesterday by Congressman Tom Udall of New Mexico. House bill 969 proposes to “amend title VI of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 to establish a Federal renewable energy portfolio standard for certain retail electric utilities and for other purposes.” The bill defines a renewable energy resource as solar (including solar water heating), wind, ocean, tidal, geothermal energy, biomass, landfill gas or incremental hydropower.

The Minnesota state Senate passed a new renewable energy standard Friday under which the utilities would be required to generate 25 percent renewable energy by 2025. Initially, consumers may pay a slightly increased rate for their power, but the bill includes measures to protect consumers if costs get too high, The Fergus Falls Daily reported. In the long run, Sen. Dan Skogen believes the hike will power research into affordable alternatives. “Utility rates will pick up because the cost of renewables is more expensive right now, so energy bills will go up,” he said. “But maybe that will be an incentive to do further research on renewables to improve the costs.” This legislation has been in the pipeline for a while and since before that Minnesota Power was already requiring a minimum percentage of renewable generation, said representative for Minnesota Power at the 2007 Wind Power Finance and Investment Summit in San Diego. Minnesota has historically been a major player in wind; it has one of the top five capacity potentials in the United States along the same lines of Texas and Washington. The first phase of Fenton, a major wind farm near Pipestone, was recently completed and the second phase is now under way and is expected to be operational by 2008.

Members of a group campaigning against a windfarm are urging people to sign a petition calling on Tony Blair to withdraw subsidies for onshore turbine developments in “valued landscapes”. Members of Den Brook Valley Action Group (DBVAG), which has been fighting plans to build nine 394ft tall wind turbines in the valley between North Tawton and Bow, are awaiting the outcome of a public inquiry into the plan, which was held in November. In the meantime, the group is calling on people to sign an online petition set up by anti-windfarm campaigner Bill Short, from the North of England.

Gov. Brian Schweitzer wants property tax breaks as big as 75 percent for “clean and green” energy development and transmission, part of his effort to develop energy resources in the state. Schweitzer unveiled details on the tax breaks Wednesday, which he hinted at during his State of the State Address last week. A leading Republican in the Legislature said he thought the incentive package would receive bipartisan support.

Ontario’s energy minister pledged yesterday to do what he can to solve the issues that led an Alberta company to shelve a $300-million Huron County wind turbine project. “We were obviously disappointed to hear it is being shelved,” said Energy Minister Dwight Duncan. Citing uncertainties about government approvals, Edmonton-based Epcor Utilities Inc., announced last week it would indefinitely delay plans for Kingsbridge II, a project that would have seen construction of 69 wind turbines in Ashfield-Colborne-Wawanosh Township.

The government’s plan to increase the nation’s reliance on green power could expand a black hole that already sucks nearly two billion kroner out of consumers’ pockets annually. In order to promote construction of wind turbines, the government has agreed to purchase the electricity they generate at a minimum price. The guaranteed prices have had the desired effect: some 5300 wind turbines dot the Danish countryside, producing 18.5 percent of all electricity generated. The practice has its downside, however. The guaranteed prices for wind power results in an overproduction that cost the state an excess DKK 21.6 billion between 2001 and 2005, according to figures from the National Audit Agency. Due to the uncertainty of whether the wind will blow, Energinet.dk, the organisation responsible for ensuring that the country can meet its electricity demand, has to keep a reserve of conventionally produced electricity in case the wind dies down. The extra cost is typically passed on to consumers in the form of higher electric bills.

Because the subsidy is the same for all forms of renewable energy, whatever their costs, it is hardly surprising that the cheapest enterprises, such as onshore wind, have attracted all the investment. As John Constable, the policy and research director of the Renewable Energy Foundation, says, this "one size fits all" approach has suppressed the development of more efficient capacity. "The Renewables Obligation scheme has been a catastrophe and offers undeserved hyper-profits," he says. "Consequently, speculators have simply picked the least capital-intensive form of renewable generation just to get on the gravy train. It has even encouraged wind farm companies to build onshore at low-wind sites, as opposed to offshore. "Worse still, the emissions savings delivered are small and almost unbelievably expensive."

Developers of renewable energy schemes such as wind farms are profiteering from the Government’s drive to curb carbon emissions by making customers pay more for their electricity than is necessary, the energy regulator Ofgem warned yesterday. Publishing figures which reveal that the cost of the so-called “renewables obligation” is at least eight times greater than other schemes designed to combat climate change, Ofgem called for a wholesale shake-up of the current arrangements. The obligation works by requiring energy suppliers to buy a certain proportion of their electricity from renewable sources or buy certificates to cover the shortfall. The cost of this is then passed on to the end customer.

Massachusetts power plant owners will have to pay a penalty for every pound of emissions that contribute to global warming under an agreement signed by Governor Deval Patrick yesterday that is expected to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for an ambitious energy conservation and renewable energy program. Patrick agreed to rejoin the seven-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which aims to gradually reduce the production of greenhouse gases in the Northeast. Reversing his predecessor Mitt Romney, who pulled out of the pact over concerns that the emissions fee would drive up the already-high price of electricity, Patrick predicted that electricity costs would ultimately drop because the penalties would generate up to $125 million a year to spend on conservation.

Democrats said the legislation could produce as much as $15 billion in revenue. Most of that money would pay to promote renewable fuels such as solar and wind power, alternative fuels including ethanol and biodiesel and incentives for conservation.

They are the schemes that big business, governments and celebrities including the film star Leonardo DiCaprio employ to prove their commitment to the environmental cause and salve their first-world conscience. But fresh controversy broke out yesterday over “carbon off-setting” projects after the government announced it was considering introducing an industry gold standard in an attempt to prevent cowboy operations taking advantage of people’s best intentions. Just four out of more than 60 charities and private companies that offer UK consumers ways of cancelling carbon emissions from flights abroad, the daily commute and rich western lifestyles currently meet the government’s planned guideline. But despite the attempt to introduce a semblance of order, anyone thinking about offsetting their emissions faced a confusing picture yesterday, with claims the regulations were too strict or not good enough. And some environmentalists questioned the whole concept of offsetting, saying it was used as a “smokescreen” that allowed businesses and people in the developed world to carry on polluting while paying lip-service to fighting climate change. They said cutting carbon emissions was far more important, and Greenpeace, among others, welcomed the announcement last night that Tesco had pledged to cut its emissions by at least 50 per cent by 2020.

The federal Conservative government is to announce today a subsidy for electricity generated by wind, solar and other forms of renewable energy. The aid – called the EcoEnergy Renewable Power Initiative – will amount to less than a similar Liberal plan the Conservatives scrapped nearly a year ago, the Toronto Star has learned. On Sunday, sources say, the federal government will unveil a revised version of the program that paid part of the cost when homeowners make their house more energy efficient. Today’s announcement on renewable energy is to be made in British Columbia by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn. The program will pay 1 cent per kilowatt-hour for electricity from large-scale renewable sources. A kilowatt-hour is enough to run ten 100-watt light bulbs for an hour. The subsidy will be available for generation that goes into operation during the next four years. The government is budgeting $300 million for that period – enough to support projects with a total generating capacity of 4,000 megawatts.

Despite a short-term spike in the cost of wind power, data from a recent Emerging Energy Research study shows wind energy is nearly cost-competitive. The Comparative Costs of Energy report focuses on the European market but can be applied to the U.S. market as well, said William Ambrose, president of EER. Much of the study was based on global trends in the industry, he said.