massachusetts

Governor Deval Patrick’s administration and other key players have advanced a plan to allow two major utilities to merge on the condition that the resulting utility agree to buy part of Cape Wind’s output.[read more]

Recently, Massachusetts’s landmark energy efficiency law, the Green Communities Act of 2008, has come under criticism for raising energy costs and harming state businesses at the expense of its utility companies. Governor Deval Patrick, though, reminded the people during his State of the Commonwealth speech that one of the nation’s...[read more]

RGGI (pronounced “Reggie”), the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, has capped carbon dioxide emissions in ten northeastern U.S. states. Well, it isn’t much of a cap, given how loose it really is. Still, the latest analysis that tries to follow the money points to $1.6 billion in economic benefits for the economies in these ten states....[read more]

In case you hadn’t noticed, the clean energy community in Massachusetts is having a great week. The Bay State is widely recognized as a national clean energy leader and three items this week underscore why that is. While each of these got some news here and there, it’s worth pulling all three together to demonstrate the state’s envious position in clean energy.[read more]

Anyone following the budget crises facing state governments can tell you that the policies and actions taken in state capitols can make indelible impacts on local governments. Local governments often rely on state funds, and in many cases take cues from the states when considering policies and programs. Recognizing that the economic and...[read more]

In a two-to-one vote the New Hampshire Senate approved a bill designed to maintain the state's involvement in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). After the state's House of Representatives approved legislation in March that would remove New Hampshire from the ten state cap-and-trade program, the Senate chose to amend New...[read more]

The Martha’s Vineyard Times: A panel of judges sitting in the federal First Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court ruling that gasoline prices on Martha’s Vineyard have not been illegally inflated by a conspiracy among retailers, according to a report by “The Docket,” the news blog of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. The decision...[read more]

The race to get America’s first offshore wind farm up and running continues, with Massachusetts beginning to cement its leading position. The state’s Cape Wind project received a partial green light yesterday for its 15-year power purchase agreement with National Grid, although one of the two proposed contracts was rejected by the...[read more]

Now I know that the Cape Wind off-shore project is going to have a very tough time getting completed. Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, and a company that has been paying for a major advertising campaign touting its efforts to to "green" its operations has filed a motion to intervene in Massachusetts review of the contract...[read more]

A few weeks ago I ran into David Weinberg, President of Apogee Solar, a solar energy developer in Connecticut and Massachusetts. I was intrigued by his company’s business pitch: to provide solar installations at no up-front cost to customers and then enter a long-term agreement to sell power to the customer at a heavily discounted price...[read more]

This post comes from one of our 11 industry insiders, that will all start writing in May, stay tuned! Jesse Gossett is a partner at Emergent Energy Group. So there’s this lawsuit that just popped up where a Canadian energy company is suing the Massachusetts governments over a law that requires utilities to purchase their...[read more]

Late last year I participated in a webcast with MIT Professor Henry Jacoby. The subject was the cost of action on climate change – or more specifically the cost of cap-and-trade. Professor Jacoby leads the The MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. From the perspective of the program, the question is no longer...[read more]

Massachusetts has elected a Republican to the Senate seat once held by "Liberal Lion" Ted Kennedy.  And thus, the whole political world appears to have flipped upside down. For the climate agenda, at least, Scott Brown's election to the Senate means it's time to consider a Plan B, according to a thoughtful post from Adam Werbach...[read more]

Middelgrunden offshore wind farm near Copenhagen, Denmark (photo: Wikimedia) Cape Wind officials praised Massachusetts Congressman Ed Markey for his letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar sent earlier this week, calling for him to move quickly to issue the final federal permit for Cape Wind before the U.N. Climate Change Conference in...[read more]

This recent mandate from the Massachusetts' state Department of Energy Resources (DOER) on biofuels might be music to the ears of waste fats and oils suppliers but definitely constricts the development of non-food based biofuel feedstock such as algae, switchgrass, camelina, jatropha and other non-food oils sources. According to a...[read more]