(Photo by Sharon Drummond via Creative Commons) On the Great Plains, the gusts ahead of a strong cold front can deliver thunder, lightning, hail and downpours. Also: A surge in electricity from wind farms big enough to make the power grid go haywire if it caught utilities off guard. Utilities call it a “ramp event” [...]
A forest in north-central Minnesota. (Photo by Faruk Ates via Creative Commons) As a Midwest biomass group promotes a goal of drawing 10 percent of the region’s heating energy from wood fuels by 2025, more questions are sure to arise about whether that amount of fuel could be harvested sustainably. Heating the Midwest, which announced [...]
The smokestack at the #4 unit of the Boswell Energy Center near Grand Rapids, Minnesota is seen in this December 2006 photo. (Photo by Than Tibbetts via Creative Commons) In January, northern Minnesota electric utility Minnesota Power announced a new direction forward for its generation portfolio. The company’s “Energy Forward” plan calls for adding wind [...]
An infrared scanner used in home energy audits. (Photo by Green Energy Futures via Creative Commons) A new report suggests that Wisconsin’s energy efficiency incentives are back on track following an administrative shake-up two years ago that brought major changes to the program. An independent evaluation released last week says Focus on Energy achieved greater [...]
A biomass power plant in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. (Photo by PSNH via Creative Commons) After reporting last week on a Midwest biomass group’s proposal to boost wood-fueled heating in the region, reader John Gunn tweeted to tell us “forest biomass GHG emissions are much more complicated than your article indicates.” He’s right, so we thought [...]
(Photo via USDA) Wood fuel represents just a sliver of the Midwest’s heating market. By BTUs, solid biomass supplied 3 percent of the region’s heat in 2010, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The rest came primarily from non-renewable, fossil fuels — mostly natural gas. A biomass advocacy group called Heating the Midwest thinks [...]
Fog enshrouds the Oak Creek Power Plant in Wisconsin in this 2010 photo. (Photo by jonnyfixedgear via Creative Commons) A new report warns that Wisconsin’s economic competitiveness could be at risk if the state doesn’t diversify its electricity sources. The Badger State is already burdened by the second highest electricity prices in the Midwest, with [...]
(Photo by archerwl via Creative Commons) After 18 months of courtship and competition, Iowa officials announced Tuesday that Facebook has selected a Des Moines suburb as the site for its next data center. The social media giant plans to break ground this summer in Altoona, Iowa, on a $300 million data center that could be [...]
