California's electric utility companies are required to using renewable energy to produce 20 percent of their power by 2010 and 33 percent by 2020. A main source of renewable power will be solar energy. Many large solar energy projects are being proposed in California's desert area on federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land. BLM has received right-of-way requests encompassing more than 300,000 acres for the development of approximately … [Read more...]

Habitat for Humanity is one of those organizations that doesn't make a lot of noise, but does a lot of good. Focusing on the construction of homes for the poor, Habitat for Humanity uses volunteer labor and (usually) simple designs. The homes built by Habitat are decent but utilitarian, tending to be typical wood-frame structures, meeting but rarely exceeding code guidelines. They're hardly places in which one would expect to find abundant … [Read more...]

The California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday approved a unique reverse auction market to let renewable energy developers bid on small-scale projects under a program that would generate up to 1,000 megawatts for the state’s three big investor-owned utilities and further spur the solar industry. Think of it as the eBay approach to ramping up production of carbon-free electricity. The idea is to avoid problems with so-called … [Read more...]