The economic stimulus package for next year is coming -- $500 billion? $700 billion? $850 billion, it's hard to keep track -- and it's not just the size that's increasing, but its emphasis. While there's much talk about "shovel-ready" roads and bridges that wouldn't have to wait for lengthy environmental and other reviews, there are other projects with implications for the energy industry.

There appears to be a battle brewing among the majority Democrats in the House over how much of this package should be diverted to smart grid and other infrastructure that might benefit renewable energy. And one wonders how long this argument might last.

"If we're going to call it a stimulus package, it has to be stimulating and has to be stimulating now. I think there are members of our caucus who are trying to create a Christmas tree out of this," conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition leader Rep. Baron P. Hill (Ind.), told the Washington Post.

Maybe so, but momentum is moving in the other direction and a new president and Congress of the same party are ready to flex some muscles during an economic downturn -- a dangerous combination or a chance for a "paradigm shift," depending on your point of view.

Either way, it's a great and potentially frustrating time to be in the energy business, one in which the indusry will be difficult to forget or ignore. And perhaps, for those of us in energy media, this is yet another way to "extend Christmas" well into 2009.

Everybody in the electric industry knows about transmission constraints and how painfully slow and difficult siting new projects can be. So one idea that has been bubbling for a few years - federal si...
[Read More]

No matter what one thinks about President-elect Obama's energy and climate policies, they certainly don't seem to be promises safely ignored, like, perhaps, whatever he may have said about flag-burnin...
[Read More]

Amid all the hoopla of this week's election, several ballot initiatives for renewable energy were considered in a few states, with mixed results. Or so it would appear. Most were defeated due to...
[Read More]

Well, Hurricane Ike didn't destroy the Gulf Coast refineries, oil dipped below the magic $100 threshhold, today's headlines are preoccupied with another collapse of an historic Wall Street firm, and t...
[Read More]

Word comes out of Texas this week that the state's Public Utility Commission has given preliminary approval to a $4.9 billion plan to build transmission lines that could move up to 18,000 megawatts of...
[Read More]

We're all familiar with the dire warnings about the shortage of homegrown engineering talent in the United States and how our country is falling further and further behind Asia in producing the knowle...
[Read More]

Some rather startling news from across the pond broke late last week when BP announced it could be shopping it wind and solar businesses, which it estimated could fetch about $7 billion. The company h...
[Read More]

Another year. Another record. The hits just keep on comin' for the U.S. wind industry, with 2007 in the books as the third consecutive year in which installed capacity broke the previous year's mark....
[Read More]