The EPA started a firestorm this spring when it classified wood used in energy generation, often called woody biomass, the same as it classified coal. According to the pending EPA rule, EPA will count biomass carbon dioxide emissions the same as fossil fuel emissions in permitting programs under the Clean Air Act.

The biomass rule is still under development; EPA is collecting data before determining its final approach, said Cathy Milbourn, a spokesperson in the EPA's Kansas City office.

Missouri Department of Natural Resources

Division of Energy

P.O. Box 176

Jefferson City, MO 65102

Link to the rule: http://www.psc.mo.gov/rulemaking-worshop/rulemakings

The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant program will fund new and existing programs in states to promote home energy audits, weatherization, energy efficiency upgrades, replacement of outdated appliances and other similar initiatives.

At Graves-Chapple Farm in Atchison County, researchers are exploring the local potential of Miscanthus. So far, so good.

"It's everything as advertised so far," said Jim Crawford, farm coordinator at Graves-Chapple. The yields produced on the researchers' test plot align with "all the literature out there," he said.

The proposal, filed by Rep. Jerry Nolte, R-Gladstone, is an attempt to change the meaning of Proposition C, a voter initiative that passed in 2008 requiring utilities to obtain 15 percent of their power from renewable energy sources by 2021.

Nolte wants utilities to have the option of including nuclear power alongside wind, solar and biomass, but Democrats were quick to point out that nuclear energy, by definition, isn’t renewable.

Read the full report here...

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon unveiled another job-creation initiative Tuesday and revived a plan to borrow as much as $1 billion to finance state projects.

The task force was created by an executive order from former governor Matt Blunt.  It meets at the end of each year to review the progress toward meeting recommendations established in 2006.

            Specifically, the task force is charged with making recommendations in four broad areas: reducing dependence on fossil fuels, helping Missourians pay heating bills, promoting alternative fuels, and encouraging low-cost electricity generation.

            You can read the full report here: http://bit.ly/5gVSLe.

On Wednesday, December 16, the Missouri Public Service Commission selected APX, Inc. to provide an electronic renewable energy credit (REC) management system for Missouri Renewable Energy Standard compliance.  APX, Inc. has recommended utilization of the underlying infrastructure of the North American Renewables Registry.  The system will allow for origination, certification, tracking, transfer, and retirement of RECs.  The Staff of the Missouri Public Service Commission will be working with APX, Inc. to implement the REC management system, including scheduling training for potential system users.  The website for the North American Renewables Registry is: http://narenewables.apx.com/

Public Service Commission Chairman Robert Clayton III tells committee members they have drawn a tough assignment.

“You have chosen a title or the General Assembly selected a title on Missouri’s energy future, which frankly is clouded in a great deal of uncertainty right now,” Clayton tells the Joint Committee on Missouri’s Energy Future meeting at the Capitol.

An 800-square-foot house may not sound like much, but one recently built in Rolla, Mo., is special enough to take up residence near the Washington Monument.

The occasion is the Solar Decathlon, for which two Missouri universities have teamed up to compete against 19 other university groups. Each team has designed and built a renewable energy house that will be part of a “solar village” expected to draw 200,000 spectators on the National Mall.

White House officials arrived Tuesday in Kansas City, declaring the city’s green approach to revitalizing the urban core should be an example for the rest of the country.

“I’m thrilled to come to you on behalf of the president of the United States,” Adolfo Carrion, director of the White House Office of Urban Affairs, told a large crowd outside 4600 the Paseo.

That’s the site of an office that will open soon to coordinate day-to-day activities in the “Green Impact Zone.”

Also Tuesday, Kansas City Power & Light announced a plan to invest $24 million in new technologies in the area.

JEFFERSON CITY — Missouri has untapped reserves of wind power that could produce as much as 25,000 megawatts of electricity if the resource is fully developed, said an expert on renewable energy.

Larry Flowers of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory told electric power conference participants here yesterday that as much as 20 percent of the state’s power needs could be met by harnessing the wind.

“Wind is an infinite resource in our backyard,” Flowers said in an interview after a speech at a “state of the electric industry” conference sponsored by the Missouri Public Service Commission. “You have a very good resource here, and it’s spread diagonally across the northwest part of the state.”

Gov. Nixon announces joint state, Sho-Me initiative for rural Internet access

Gov. Jay Nixon made his first visit to Webster County since winning election in the 2008 gubernatorial election, teaming up Wednesday, Aug. 12, with a local business to announce plans that could greatly enhance access to the World Wide Web for rural areas of the Show-Me State.

Nixon joined officials from Sho-Me Technologies at the Sho-Me Power headquarters in Marshfield for the announcement of a joint partnership toward a federal application to bring $142.3 million to Missouri, which would lay 2,500 miles of broadband fiber optic cable and construct 200 new towers for broadband access.

(Photo courtesy Marshfield Mail)

Call for Best Practices in Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency

Submit your organization’s successful renewable energy and energy efficiency practices to the American Council On Renewable Energy by August 31, 2009 to be included in a publication supported by REEEP and the U.S. Department of State.

Your organization could be included among the nation’s most innovative and effective energy programs in the Compendium of Best Practices -- to be published in early 2010 -- a key tool for the United States' energy efforts in China, India, and other developing countries.

More information...

It’s a 98-degree August day. Air conditioners along Prospect Avenue near 42nd Street are running at full bore.

Suddenly the whirring stops, all at once, without anyone touching a thermostat.

Someone miles away at Kansas City Power & Light decided residents on this block could stand a slightly warmer home for a while to save energy.

That’s the future, and it’s called the smart grid. Someday it could be in your own home and in millions more nationwide.

Join a Kansas City engineering firm and see the world.

In the spirit of the old Navy recruiting slogan, engineers at major local companies have opportunities to do projects around the world and throughout the United States.

GOLDEN, Colo. | Dreams of renewable energy riches have set off a scramble not seen since miners rushed into these surrounding hills in search of shiny nuggets.

“This is like a land rush with a whole bunch of people running side by side,” said David Christensen, one of the gurus of new electricity technology at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the Colorado foothills.

The winners, he said, will find “huge pots of gold at the end.”

Kansas and Missouri leaders are joining many other states scurrying to stake claims in the energy gold rush.

After years of inaction, Missouri has finally moved forward on an ambitious energy agenda.

It should help consumers use less electricity and save money, spur utilities to produce more renewable power and better control harmful emissions from coal-fired power plants.

Voters last November jumpstarted the push by endorsing the Missouri Clean Energy Initiative, which requires utilities to provide more electricity from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power.

This month, the Missouri General Assembly followed up by sending a solid energy efficiency bill to Gov. Jay Nixon. He should sign it, and then utilities ought to push ahead with new plans to save energy.

See it on YouTube...

KCK house goes off the grid

In a neighborhood of modest homes and rentals, situated between KU Medical Center and the Rosedale Arch, is a sleek, two-story house clad in Brazilian hardwood that stands to become the most energy-efficient house in Kansas.

It’s the latest project from the design-build, sustainable architecture program at the University of Kansas known as Studio 804, and it’s open to the public today.

Boasting what may be the first solar-panel residential setup in Wyandotte County, 3716 Springfield will be off the grid, generating all of its power from the wind and sun.

A high-voltage power line unlike any seen this side of the Mississippi River soon could be striding across southwestern Kansas.

Cable bundles as thick as pickup tires and bearing 765,000 volts would bind the ever-more-productive wind fields of Kansas to outside markets.

The project, estimated to be worth up to $800 million, is still up for grabs between two competing groups that could get the lines up and humming by 2013.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Cars, power plants and factories could all soon face much tougher pollution limits after a government declaration Friday setting the stage for the first federal regulation of gases blamed for global warming.

The Environmental Protection Agency took a big step in that direction, concluding that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases are a major hazard to Americans' health. That was a reversal from the Bush administration, which resisted such a conclusion and said it would be costly for companies to meet new emission limits and therefore could harm the national economy.

Steve Isirk is a dairy farmer, a former county commissioner in western Kansas — and a big supporter of renewable energy and wind farms.

Near Garden City, he says, most landowners embrace the idea that utilities will pay thousands of dollars a year to place wind turbines on their properties. The towers “take up only a small piece of property, and all you have to do is go down to the mail office and pick up your check. It’s kind of like a mini oil well.”

Without the pollution that oil wells cause.

During the next year, Missouri National Guard facilities have been asked to reduce energy use by 10 percent.

Maintenance crews at the 200 sites across the state have been coordinating with Bruce Lehmen, the Guard's civilian energy management specialist, to take energy-reducing steps for the last six years.

“The best energy program you can have is something people don't notice,” Lehmen said of the impact on occupants' comfort. For most facilities, the main energy users are the environmental controls and lighting.

Missouri Guard spends about $3 million a year on utilities. That averages about $1.07 per square foot.

“That's not too bad,” Lehmen said, especially considering the average for state buildings is $1.50 per square foot.

The Senate's top Democrat is proposing special power lines to carry renewable energy—like solar and wind power—from remote places.

The Federal government would be able override states and direct where the lines would go and who would pay for them.