Energy & Fuel

From a design award-winner to a model that uses the updraft on a roof, small residential wind turbines are getting smarter and sexier.

"Rows of tall turbines have already remade the landscape on wheat farms and ridgelines on private land around the region. But so far there have been no wind farms built on public land in the Northwest. That's about to change."

"The Michigan Legislature may soon create a fund to loan schools money to build windmills, solar panels or other sources of alternative energy."

"Nearly 200 million acres of public lands, mostly in the West, could become prime generators of emissions-free electricity by extracting steam heat from the earth's core to drive electric turbines."

"The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Thursday approved a funding plan for a major transmission project expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and deliver about 1,200 megawatts of Quebec power to New England."

The Cape Wind project to build a wind farm in Nantucket Sound won approval of a key permit from Massachusetts.

"A measure requiring utilities to generate a certain amount of electricity from renewable sources, such as wind and solar, overcame a legislative hurdle in the U.S. Senate on Thursday."

Gasoline prices are creeping back upward, but more American drivers are expected to hit the roads this Memorial Day than last year.

"For the first time, the government will enact a national limitation on car emissions, President Barack Obama announced" Monday.

"Solar panels and wind turbines get most of the buzz, but it's far easier and cheaper to save energy than it is to make more of it."