geothermal | ModeShift

Wind Chill: Young and Old Greens At Odds Over Clean Energy Projects

by Keith SchneiderAugust 4, 2010September 9, 20100

Gabrielle Gurley, a writer for Commonwealth, the magazine of the think tank MassINC, has a rigorously balanced assessment in the most recent issue of the simmering dispute in American environmentalism about big clean energy projects. All across the country, including Massachusetts, where Gurley bases her reporting, grassroots environmentalists are fighting to block clean energy installations. In the battle between principle and pragmatism, the efforts by older green activists is producing a generational schism in the …

Diving Deep for Geothermal Energy Finds Acceptance and Political Heat on Surface

by Keith SchneiderMarch 30, 2010September 9, 20104

One of the potential success stories of clean energy development on private and federal lands in the West involves NV Energy, which announced in February that it will purchase 32 megawatts of renewable energy from a planned Central Nevada geothermal plant. The Ram Power Corporation is developing the Clayton Valley Geothermal Project, which is scheduled to begin construction in 2012.Â It is one of five geothermal leases that Ram Power has acquired from the Bureau …

Grassroots Resistance to Clean Energy Projects

by Keith SchneiderMarch 23, 2010September 9, 20101

A few months ago I became a communications adviser working several hours per week with Traverse City Light & Power, a small municipal utility in my home region that has proposed to acquire 30 percent of its power by 2020 from local renewable resources. In pursuit of that goal TCL&P has purchased 10 mw of wind power from a windfarm in McBain, Michigan 50 miles south. It also purchased 2 mw of landfill gas generation …