Officials with the utility, which serves 4 million residents, project it will have to pay $700 million a year in fees for burning coal under the cap-and-trade system being considered. That will divert money it now spends on expanding energy efficiency and renewable energy programs, said David Nahai, the DWP's general manager. ...Southern California Democrats, who are some of the most outspoken advocates for reducing greenhouse gases, are supporting their coal-dependent utility. They say Los Angeles can wean itself off coal faster if the city-run utility doesn't have to pay a price to pollute. Instead, they say it should be allowed to spend its money on programs that curb emissions, such as meeting energy efficiency and renewable energy goals.

LOS ANGELES The Los Angeles City Council has signed off on a 16-year contract to buy energy from a wind farm in Wyoming.

State Rep. Ken Tschumper, DFL-La Crescent, hosted a community forum last week featuring a panel of environmentalists. Tschumper and others question whether the project's estimates of demand are accurate. He also is concerned that ratepayers could end up financing a project that could harm the area's environment. Other worries include possible health effects and what the potentially 150-foot-high transmission towers would do to the region's scenery. "There are decisions being made here with this high-voltage transmission line ... that are going to impact people's lives for the next 30 or 40 years," Tschumper said.

A Chicago-based wind energy company has submitted its first permit applications to build a massive wind farm south of Marseilles. La Salle County Environmental Services and Land Use department on Tuesday received 66 wind turbine permit applications from Invenergy LLC, based in Chicago, for the first phase of a large wind farm development in La Salle County. The development is projected to have 233 turbines spanning parts of Brookfield, Grand Rapids and Allen townships when it is finished. For now, La Salle County's zoning ordinance only allows one 100 megawatt wind farm to be constructed at a time. Since each turbine will produce 1.5 mega-watts, Invenergy must break the project into phases. The first phase will be no more than 66 turbines.

A Louisiana company was awarded leases to four tracts Tuesday in Texas' first open bidding for offshore wind power in the Gulf of Mexico. Wind Energy Systems Technology, already developing a wind farm eight miles off of Galveston, was the only bidder for the tracts. ...Though it's not clear why more companies didn't bid on the offshore tracts, it may be that many are busy with wind power projects on land in Texas, said Christine Real de Azua, spokeswoman for the American Wind Energy Association.

The move follows a budget decision late last year to scrap the $11.7 million remaining in the $20 million Renewable Energy Fund. This fund was overseen by RenewablesSA, and industry said there were now no state funding support avenues available for renewable energy.

The State Government will roll out a series of renewable energy projects to prove its environmental credentials ...Development charges for wind power projects in NSW will be slashed and the approval process will be sped up. Until now such projects have come with an approval price tag of up to $3 million. This is to be cut to $50,000. Projects that have a capacity to generate more than 30 megawatts of electricity will be treated as ''critical infrastructure'', and so be eligible for the fast turnaround times previously given to 250-megawatt projects.

O'Malley, who failed to get a wind-power bill through the General Assembly last year, is expected to announce details of new legislation Monday. But this time around, O'Malley may have to take into account labor's demand to have its role guaranteed in the legislation. If not resolved, the issue could split the union-environmentalist coalition that backed the bill last year.

The Rudd government's showpiece renewable energy legislation has failed to spark a single major project in the six months since it was passed, prompting fresh claims Labor has failed to deliver on its environmental commitments. The failure of the 20 per cent renewable energy target is blamed on a poor design.

The Shetland Labour Party has contributed to the ongoing Viking Energy windfarm consultation by suggesting a referendum to decide if local people want to receive direct financial payments from the proposed windfarm or have profits looked after for them via a trust should the scheme go ahead. The party is also advocating transparency by the directors of Shetland Aerogenerators and Viking Energy regarding how much they stand to gain from their directorships and any other involvement in the industry.

Welsh Conservatives today called on the Labour Party to clear up growing confusion over whether it supports the controversial Gwynt y Môr wind farm off the North Wales coast.

EVERY person in Scotland is to be offered a green loyalty card which will reward them for making purchases that help the environment. The Scottish executive is behind the scheme, which ministers hope will offer an incentive to consumers to choose products that cut waste and reduce carbon emissions.

Ministers are planning a U-turn on Britain's pledges to combat climate change that "effectively abolishes" its targets to rapidly expand the use of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power. Leaked documents seen by the Guardian show that Gordon Brown will be advised today that the target Tony Blair signed up to this year for 20% of all European energy to come from renewable sources by 2020 is expensive and faces "severe practical difficulties". ...The shift in stance is due to be discussed at full cabinet next week. Last night a spokesman for the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform said: "We don't comment on ministerial meetings with the PM."

Blalack could not answer board member Barbara Vena's question on why Walmart wanted to add the wind turbines in addition to the solar panels. Smith said there was no further room on the store's roof for additional solar panels.

Lack of action on a tax abatement for a company looking to build a series of wind generators in western Cooke and eastern Montague counties could send the alternative energy project to other counties, a spokesman said Monday. The Cooke County Commissioners Court took no action in its Monday meeting to give or deny Florida Power and Light a tax abatement for a series of gargantuan wind-powered electric generators on about 10,000 acres in western Cooke County. ...“The lack of action will probably kill this deal, and we’ll now have to reconsider our investment in Cooke County,” Edwin Giraldo, project manager for Florida Power and Light, said in an interview following the meeting. ...“The bottom line is that there is opposition to the windfarm, regardless of the benefits it would provide,” he said.

Unlike in the Massachusetts pact, where NSTAR, based in Boston, agreed to buy more than one-quarter of the power generated by Cape Wind, Connecticut negotiators did not reach a deal for the companies to purchase locally generated alternative power. Connecticut officials said in response: Cape Wind's energy is renewable energy, but it's pricey, and they didn't see a value in locking ratepayers into higher generation rates.

Penn Wind CEO Justin Dunkelberger informed the Northumberland County commissioners Tuesday that he doesn't have the financing or the $50,000 land lease payment due April 20 to move a proposed $30 million wind turbine project forward.

As wind farms sprout across the country, they're kicking up a new quandary: how to zap the electricity to homes and businesses that need it. The USA's wind-power boom, especially in rural parts of Texas, the Midwest and California, is poised to outstrip the capacity of high-voltage lines to send the electricity hundreds of miles to population centers such as Dallas, Chicago and Los Angeles. ...Wind farms will have to compete to be among the lowest bidders to get on the grid, leaving others off. "Clearly we don't want to build wind farms and have them not run," says Horizon Wind Energy executive Denise Hill. ...A wind farm can be built in 18 months, while a transmission line can take five to 10 years.

Giant trucks are heading to Lewis County. They're transporting parts to the wind farm project. How they're getting there is causing some problems. The trucks travel from the port of Oswego into Lewis County.

Plans for the £1.5m turbines in Carsington were approved on Wednesday after Derbyshire Dales District Council's decision to reject proposals was overturned after a public inquiry. Although the plans have now been approved, it is unlikely the wind farm will be in place before spring 2010. Neil Exton, land development manager at West Coast Energy, whose subsidiary company Carsington Wind Energy was granted planning permission, said: "There is a massive worldwide demand for wind turbines. They aren't available from a shelf. They're manufactured to order."