National Grid customers will experience sticker shock after the giant utility negotiates a long-term electric contract with Cape Wind developers, energy experts warn. Business groups worry that a National Grid contract with Cape Wind, which needs a long-term deal to secure money to build a wind farm off Cape Cod, could add tens of millions of dollars per year to electric bills.

Impact on Economy Massachusetts

National Grid customers will experience sticker shock after the giant utility negotiates a long-term electric contract with Cape Wind developers, energy experts warn. Business groups worry that a National Grid contract with Cape Wind, which needs a long-term deal to secure funds to build a giant wind farm off Cape Cod, could add tens of millions of dollars per year to electric bills.

Impact on Economy Massachusetts

Electricity from wind farms off the Maine coast is likely to cost more than what customers now pay, experts say, and a power purchase deal for a proposed offshore wind project in Rhode Island is raising questions about how much.

Energy Policy Impact on Economy USA Maine

Electricity from wind farms off the Maine coast is likely to cost more than what customers now pay, experts say, and a power purchase deal for a proposed offshore wind project in Rhode Island is raising questions about how much.

Impact on Economy Energy Policy Maine USA

Local fishermen have raised a number of concerns about the state's plans to use Boon Island as a demonstration site for offshore wind turbine testing. The turbines would take away prime fishing, lobstering and shrimping areas, according to lobsterman Pat White of York, who initiated two recent meetings on the issue at the York Senior Center. At least a dozen fishermen and lobstermen attended each.

Energy Policy Impact on Economy Maine

During the housing bubble, politicians of both parties cheered every uptick in the rate of home ownership, heedless of the fragile and unsustainable financing methods behind it. Today, government policymakers can't conceive of any limit to the benefits of switching to green energy. ...When the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, our government geniuses "solved" the problem of the resulting recession by creating a housing bubble. Now that this plan has exploded to disastrous effect, the planners have come up with their next great project - creating a "green" economy.

Energy Policy Impact on Economy USA

Local fishermen have raised a number of concerns about the state's plans to use Boon Island as a demonstration site for offshore wind turbine testing. The turbines would take away prime fishing, lobstering and shrimping areas, according to lobsterman Pat White of York, who initiated two recent meetings on the issue at the York Senior Center.

Impact on Economy Maine

The first off-shore utility-scale wind farm proposed for this side of Lake Michigan was presented Tuesday night. The massive 100- to 200-turbine project was outlined by a Norwegian wind development company Havgul Clean Energy AS for the waters off northern Oceana and southern Mason counties. ...The more than 150 people at the first public presentation on the project were overwhelmingly opposed to the plan.

Impact on Landscape Impact on Economy Michigan

The program, launched this month by Larkin Enterprises, an electrical contractor and worker placement company in Lincoln, gives the students initial training for jobs in an industry that promises great things, but one many concede is still young and undeveloped. ...Catherine Renault, director of Maine's Office of Innovation, voices caution. She says it's hard to prepare a work force when it's not clear what type of jobs are needed, or when it will be necessary to fill them. "To me it's a balance," she says.

Impact on Economy Maine

The news that Cape Wind and National Grid, a regional power distributor, will soon negotiate the cost of power from the proposed 130-turbine wind farm in Nantucket Sound sounds like the last act is near. Perhaps, but it's likely to be a dramatic one. Consider, if you will, the difficulties of calculating the costs of producing power over let's say 20 years if you are unsure of the cost and source of capital, the cost and speed of construction, the unknown difficulties of maintaining offshore power production, the uncertainties of the consumer market.

General Impact on Economy Massachusetts

I noticed the other week that Deepwater Wind is looking to renegotiate its contract to supply power from its proposed phase one offshore-wind project. As a veteran developer of wind projects and one who worked on an alternative bid to the Deepwater project, all I want to say is I told you so.

Energy Policy Impact on Economy Rhode Island

In the darkening recession, Gov. Deval Patrick and the Legislature have dialed back funding for education, social services and local aid. But energy efficiency and renewable energy development - promised as a salvation for economic growth - have been spared. ...Wind power is far from becoming an everyday reality, despite the state's tax incentives. It would take 15 years for a small business owner who constructs a wind turbine to realize the $40,000 investment for a 10 kilowatt installation, according to the American Wind Energy Association.

Energy Policy Impact on Economy Massachusetts

The state Public Service Commission will meet Tuesday to decide whether to authorize a price increase for customers of Wisconsin Power & Light Co. The Madison utility, which serves portions of eastern Wisconsin, is seeking to raise electricity prices by $98.9 million, or 10.8%, and to raise local natural gas charges by $8 million. ...In addition to recouping the utility for lost sales, prices would rise because of a proposed wind farm in Minnesota, higher pension costs and transmission line costs.

Taxes & Subsidies Impact on Economy Wisconsin

Throughout this dismal year, President Obama has promised that upwards of 5 million jobs would result from a huge injection of investment in alternative energy technology. The green jobs proposal was also the lynchpin of the European Union's alternative energy legislation, dubbed the "Community Strategy and Action Plan: Energy for the Future." Its goal: create a job boom by funding massive new investments in renewable energy. So far, we're left with sizable handouts, no coherent vision, few concrete results, and lots of speeches.

Impact on Economy USA

The rush to America of foreign wind-turbine manufacturers shows that the Obama administration's plan for stimulating the creation of green-energy jobs is going in an odd direction. Two weeks ago, U.S. Renewable Energy Group, led by Dallas investor Cappy McGarr, announced plans to build a $1.5 billion wind energy farm in West Texas. About a third of the money would come from federal stimulus funds. ...There would be perhaps 330 jobs created in Texas. Most would be temporary construction jobs. Meanwhile, thousands of Chinese workers in the northeastern industrial city Shenyang would build the labor-intensive turbines.

Impact on Economy USA Texas

The rush to America of foreign wind-turbine manufacturers shows that the Obama administration's plan for stimulating the creation of green-energy jobs is going in an odd direction. Two weeks ago, U.S. Renewable Energy Group, led by Dallas investor Cappy McGarr, announced plans to build a $1.5 billion wind energy farm in West Texas. About a third of the money would come from federal stimulus funds. ...There would be perhaps 330 jobs created in Texas. Most would be temporary construction jobs. Meanwhile, thousands of Chinese workers in the northeastern industrial city Shenyang would build the labor-intensive turbines.

Impact on Economy Texas USA

After two months of talks, National Grid Plc said Wednesday it still has not agreed on a contract to purchase electricity from the first of Deepwater Wind LLC's two proposed offshore wind farms. Although it was the second time in recent weeks the state's dominant utility rejected an offer from Hoboken, N.J.-based Deepwater, an executive with the company said the filing with the R.I. Public Utilities Commission (PUC) may not stop the project from moving forward.

Impact on Economy Rhode Island

A major selling point for the green jobs movement has been the near guarantee that renewable energy and green tech sector jobs will be tied to U.S. soil -- wind farm technicians and solar panel installers in China or India can't service turbines in Iowa and roofs in California. The resulting theology of the green energy movement is that investments in alternative energy will yield millions of new U.S. jobs that cannot be shipped overseas. But Sen. Charles Schumer's, D-N.Y., recent irritation over a proposed Texas wind project eligible to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in stimulus funding has shown just how erroneous this thinking is.

Impact on Economy USA

While Massachusetts recipients of federal stimulus money collectively report 12,374 jobs saved or created, a Globe review shows that number is wildly exaggerated. Organizations that received stimulus money miscounted jobs, filed erroneous figures, or claimed jobs for work that has not yet started. The Globe's finding is based on the federal government's just-released accounts of stimulus spending at the end of October. ...But in interviews with recipients, the Globe found that several openly acknowledged creating far fewer jobs than they have been credited for.

Impact on Economy USA Massachusetts

While Massachusetts recipients of federal stimulus money collectively report 12,374 jobs saved or created, a Globe review shows that number is wildly exaggerated. Organizations that received stimulus money miscounted jobs, filed erroneous figures, or claimed jobs for work that has not yet started. The Globe's finding is based on the federal government's just-released accounts of stimulus spending at the end of October. ...But in interviews with recipients, the Globe found that several openly acknowledged creating far fewer jobs than they have been credited for.

Impact on Economy Massachusetts USA