Advocates of renewable energy got the stimulus package of their dreams, packed with tax credits and grants and loan programs intended to restart their industry. Now they are turning their attention to the next item on the wish list: a national renewable portfolio standard. President Obama has called for 10 percent of the nation's electricity to come from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025. A national standard could enshrine those goals into law ...

The stimulus package, while welcome, may not be a quick fix for the struggling wind and solar industries, experts say. The package is loaded with tax credit provisions that both industries have long sought ...and an option of converting tax credits from both industries into direct cash. In theory, that means the federal government could end up footing the bill for 30 percent of the cost of a wind farm or solar array.

Chicago-based renewable energy company Invenergy LLC has made a concerted push into Canada, last month bagging one of six contracts from the Ontario Power Authority to build a total of 500 megawatts of wind capacity at a cost of $1.3-billion. But when Invenergy chairman Michael Polsky looks at Canadian renewable energy policy these days, he sees uncertainty that spells problems for a sector already battered by a global recession and credit crunch.

With concerns over climate change intensifying, electricity generation from coal, once reliably cheap, looks increasingly expensive in the face of the all-but-certain prospect of regulations that would impose significant costs on companies that emit large amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. As a result, utilities' plans for new coal plants are being turned down left and right. ...Some conservatives in Congress, and the coal industry itself, say the clean energy push is an affordable luxury - and a pet cause - for people in states that don't have to rely primarily on coal to produce electricity.

Just weeks into his presidency, President Barack Obama has moved right past the should-we-drill-offshore question and plunged into a new debate about how best to tap resources on the Outer Continental Shelf. With the lifting of the moratorium against offshore drilling last year, some offshore drilling almost certainly will occur. But now the conversation has changed. Democrats in power talk about a more complex set of energy programs, which could include wind farms or ways to capture wind currents. The results could have significant impact off the East Coast.

JCSP'08 estimates that incorporating 5% wind energy (the "Reference Scenario") will require the addition of approximately 10,000 miles of new extra-high voltage transmission at a cost of approximately $50 billion, in addition to nearly $700 billion in total generation capital costs by 2024. The 20% Wind Energy Scenario is estimated to require 15,000 miles of new extra-high voltage lines, at an estimated cost of $80 billion, in addition to $1.1 trillion in total generation capital costs by 2024.

The presence of prairie winds and rich soil makes Iowa literally fertile ground for developing alternative energy sources from wind turbines and biofuels. But the landscape is also a reminder that achieving energy independence is a formidable challenge and making an agricultural economy green is not easy. ...Phil Wyse, a state representative for 22 years, believes Iowa and America need nuclear power. "We need sources of power that are constant and don't rely on things like whether the wind's blowing or the sun's shining," he says.

But Somnath Baidya Roy, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois, points out that although wind energy use is growing quickly, fossil fuel use is growing even more quickly. Wind is growing at an estimated 20,000 megawatts per year while fossil fuel use is growing at an estimated 3,000,000 megawatts per year.

The wind energy fight has blossomed into more of a battle than many had expected - especially among Democrats. ...critics argue that this amounts to a cash entitlement for the producers and is too expensive for the public. "Developers are racing to build wind turbines in the middle of Nowhere, USA, requiring extensive and expensive new transmission development, and we are not assured that the power generated will meet our load demands, given that wind typically produces off peak, at night, and in the winter," said Lisa Linowes of the Industrial Wind Action Group.

President Obama is moving quickly to act on the environmental promises that were a centerpiece of his campaign. But tackling global warming will be far more difficult - and more costly - than the new emissions standards for automobiles he ordered with the stroke of a pen on Monday. Already, the Congressional Democrats Mr. Obama will need to carry out his mandate are feuding with one another.

President Obama says his $825 billion economic stimulus plan includes tens of billions of dollars to remake the country's electricity industry into a greener enterprise. Obama said Monday that the plan will put 460,000 Americans to work on energy projects and double the amount of alternative energy produced over the next three years.

Obama, more supportive of clean energy than George W. Bush, may struggle to shift quickly from coal-burning plants that spew global-warming gases. In Bush's last three years, solar and wind production doubled, helped by easier financing and tax breaks that attracted loans from Lehman, now bankrupt, and insurer American International Group Inc., later taken over by the government. ...Michael Morris, chief executive officer of American Electric Power Co., the biggest U.S. producer of electricity from coal, said "as a practical matter," Obama's target is too ambitious.

Opponents of the project, which include Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and other residents in the area, vowed to continue their fight. They maintain the 400-foot turbines would kill birds, threaten sea life, and hurt tourism and fishing. "I do not believe that this action by the Interior Department will be sustained," Kennedy said in a statement issued to the Associated Press. "By taking this action, the Interior Department has virtually assured years of continued public conflict and contentious litigation."

But republicans already are on offense, saying the democrats' plan is more of the same, failed policies of the past. "It's clear they're moving on this path along this flawed notion that we can borrow and spend our way back to prosperity," said Representative John Boehner. "And that we can mount a trillion dollars on the backs of our kids and their kids in an effort to revive our economy."

The green energy sector has a lot riding on 2009. Policymakers from Washington to Beijing have pledged billions of dollars in "cleantech" investment to jump-start the depressed global economy and create millions of new low-carbon jobs. ...As with the solar industry, wind power has been hit by a sudden slowdown in private sector investment as credit has dried up and the price of oil has fallen from its mid-2008 high. The industry hopes public spending will help fill the gap until the global economy gets back on its feet.

President-elect Barack Obama's pledge to double alternative-energy production over the next three years drew a skeptical response Thursday from the chief executive of Exxon Mobil Corp., Rex Tillerson, who told reporters during an appearance in Washington that rapid increases in alternative energy would be "very challenging." "Let's be realistic about time frames, let's don't fool ourselves," Mr. Tillerson said.

In a letter to U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthome dated Thursday, the congressman [Rahall D-WV] requests that the federal Minerals Management Service delay issuing its final environmental impact statement "until the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) has provided the public 60 days to review and comment on a third-party review of the radar study submitted by the Cape Wind project developers."

Royal Dutch Shell has become the second big energy company to abandon the UK wind-energy sector in the last month. ...Shell said: "The focus for new projects will be in North America where we can benefit from the availability of undeveloped wind resources to deliver wind energy at what we expect to be a competitive cost."

Falling prices for European carbon emissions permits could stunt investment in the renewable energy sector both within and outside Europe, but the credit crunch continues to have a greater impact. ...A falling carbon price could worsen the economics of renewable energy further, as falling demand for carbon emissions permits in a deepening recession pulls down carbon prices, benefiting fossil fuels.