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Illinois utilities begin to design community solar programs under new energy law

Midwest Energy News | Posted on September 14, 2017

Illinois utilities and regulators are putting into motion plans for community solar programs under the state’s Future Energy Jobs Act that passed last year. In filings with the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) last month, ComEd outlined proposed terms and conditions for “Community Supply,” also referred to as community solar. Ameren Illinois has also recently filed paperwork with the ICC outlining changes to net metering policies as the state moves to implement community solar.So far, the filings are relatively narrow in scope, setting the table for bigger debates over how community solar and other aspects of Illinois’ changing energy landscape impact ratepayers. Both utilities are essentially defining the terms of how consumers will be credited in a community solar arrangement, and a decision by the ICC is expected by the end of the month.


New Indiana law limits amount energy companies pay for solar energy, increases demand

Indiana Public Media | Posted on September 14, 2017

n a news release, officials from SIREN announced that six weeks into a second phase of solar panel installations, they were already oversubscribed. The group credits the increased interest to several factors including a new law that passed earlier this year.The law decreases the amount utility companies are required to pay for excess energy being produced by sources like rooftop solar panels.If the panels are installed before December 31, they maintain their eligibility for higher reimbursement rates for 30 years.Several solar initiatives across the state have encouraged Hoosiers to sign up for solar installations now before the rates change at the end of the year. Because of this, solar companies are faced with a high demand without the ability to supply to all of their customers.Solarize Bloomington contracts out to the solar installation company Third Sun Solar.Organizers are currently looking for a second contractor to fulfill more installations by the end of the year.


M&Ms’s New Ad Is Selling Renewable Energy And Wind Power

Fast Company | Posted on September 14, 2017

Last year, Mars, the world’s biggest chocolate maker and the corporate home to brands like M&Ms, Twix, and Snickers, pledged $1 billion to fight climate change through investments in renewable energy, sustainable food sourcing, and more. Beyond the two wind farms it currently operates in Scotland and Texas, the company also promised to add wind and solar farms to another nine countries by 2018 and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 27% by 2025, and 67% by 2050. Now, a couple of the company’s most popular mascots are getting in on it.


Anheuser-Busch signs wind farm power deal as part of global renewable energy goal

St Louis Post Dispatch | Posted on September 14, 2017

Anheuser-Busch InBev has signed a deal to buy power produced by an Oklahoma wind farm as part of its global goal to have 100 percent of its purchased electricity come from renewable sources by 2025. A-B, its U.S. subsidiary based in St. Louis, announced a power purchase agreement with Italian renewable energy company Enel Green Power for a portion of the energy produced at Enel Green Power's Thunder Ranch wind farm located in Garfield, Kay and Noble counties in Oklahoma.Enel Green Power has been growing its footprint across the U.S. and Canada with corporations, including a recent deal with Google for wind power in Kansas, said Rafael Antonio González Sánchez, CEO of Enel Green Power North America.The Oklahoma wind farm deal will be the brewer’s first contracted utility-scale project to start operations globally. Earlier this year, the maker of Budweiser and other beers announced plans for a similar deal in Mexico for 490 gigawatt hours annually, but that wind farm deal won’t go into effect until 2019.


Milk producers’ group goes after ‘deceptive’ non-GMO labeling

edairynews | Posted on September 14, 2017

The National Milk Producers Federation’s “Peel Back the Label” campaign aims to combat “deceptive food labeling” from dairy brands like Dean Foods and Dannon — which have touted Non-GMO Project certification. NMPF President Jim Mulhern told Food Navigator that non-GMO sourcing methods are not more sustainable and that there are no safety benefits or nutritional differences from cows given conventional feed. He describes the companies as “playing upon food safety fears and misconceptions” in the report.“[M]y concern is that this kind of marketing threatens the use of technology that’s allowed farmers to use crop inputs that are much safer than what they were using 20 years ago,” Mulhern told Food Navigator. “You can reduce your fuel usage, make fewer trips to the field, do no-till farming, improve water quality and improve yield.”


Biodiversity just as powerful as climate change for healthy ecosystems

Science Daily | Posted on September 14, 2017

Biodiversity is proving to be one of humanity's best defenses against extreme weather. In past experiments, diversity has fostered healthier, more productive ecosystems, like shoreline vegetation that guards against hurricanes. However, many experts doubted whether these experiments would hold up in the real world. A study offers a decisive answer: biodiversity's power in the wild surpasses experimental predictions, in some cases topping even effects of climate.


Does it make sense to use poultry litter as fuel?

Watt Ag Net | Posted on September 11, 2017

One of the disadvantages of industrial-scale use of poultry litter as a fuel is the high cost of hauling litter off the farm, because litter is high in moisture and isn't as energy dense as coal. Excel Energy plans to buy the Fibrominn 55-megawatt poultry litter-burning power plant in Benson, Minnesota, and shut it down. The plant has been in operation for 10 years and it is still the only one of its kind in the U.S. I have lost track of the number of other similar projects that have been proposed in just about every major poultry growing area of the country that were never developed.The bottom line is that other forms of alternative energy, like wind, can generate electricity for a fraction of the cost of operating a large-scale litter-burning plant. But what about on-farm use of poultry litter as a fuel? Global Re-Fuel is a start-up company that is betting that on-farm furnaces for heating poultry houses with poultry litter will prove to be an economical alternative for growers. The 500,000-British-thermal-unit-per-hour furnace that the company has developed is being marketed for $100,000. One furnace should be able to heat two poultry houses.Burning poultry litter on-farm eliminates the hauling cost issues faced when litter is aggregated from multiple farms to serve an industrial user. Unlike industrial-scale facilities, poultry farms have had to rely on propane as the primary fuel to heat houses. Propane is not as economical a fuel as are coal and natural gas.I have covered several biomass-burning furnaces for poultry houses over the years. Furnaces have been designed to burn everything from poultry litter to hay to corn to heat poultry houses. One drawback of these systems has been that they require more attention than do propane powered systems, because feeding the fuel into the furnace requires human intervention. With propane, the grower just has to monitor the amount of fuel left in the tank and remember to order more.Biomass furnaces, including ones that burn poultry litter, are located outside the poultry house and exhaust outside the poultry house. Combustion inside the poultry house, as is the case with propane heaters, introduces carbon dioxide and water vapor into the air of the house. Research has shown that bird performance is improved when external furnaces are used because the ammonia level in the house is reduced, litter moisture is lower and ventilation rates in the house can also be reduced.


Judge: Trump Delay of Obama Coal Rule Was Illegal

US News and World Report | Posted on September 7, 2017

A federal judge in San Francisco says the Trump administration illegally delayed an Obama-era rule intended to increase royalty payments to taxpayers from companies that extract oil, gas and coal from federal land.


China targets farm waste as a 'clean' power source

Reuters | Posted on September 5, 2017

China will pay farmers to turn animal poo into fertilizer and power, the Ministry of Agriculture said on Wednesday, as Beijing cracks down on agricultural pollution that has for years leaked into rivers and lakes, angering Chinese residents. China will give farmers subsidies to build animal waste processing facilities to make fertilisers or to treat manure so it’s safe for disposal, and to install biogas plants that use methane to generate electricity, according a government plan announced on Aug. 1.The plan includes setting up recycling programs by 2020 in 200 major counties that have livestock farms. That’s less than half the 586 major counties the government says have hog and poultry farms.The agriculture ministry gave no details about the size of the subsidies, but the move could be a big step toward curbing chemical fertilizer use and cutting water pollution.


Wind Energy Is One of the Cheapest Sources of Electricity, and It's Getting Cheaper

Scientific American | Posted on August 31, 2017

A comprehensive survey of the wind industry shows wind energy is routinely purchased in bulk for just 2 cents per kilowatt-hour — and turbines are only getting cheaper, bigger, and better


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