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Wind, solar, geothermal and biomass satisfied just 4% of our overall energy consumption in 2007, according to the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration. By far the biggest chunk of that sliver is thanks to ethanol from corn, which is of dubious environmental and economic benefit. So what's the problem? The problem, in a word, is money. Even though the fuel is free, the technology and infrastructure needed to gather the energy, or harness it, or transform it, or transport it adds up to something more expensive than burning coal, natural gas, uranium or gasoline. Wind Wind ... technology...

Minnesota should get out of the business of subsidizing the state's ethanol industry, the Legislative Auditor's office said today. In a report on the sometimes-controversial program that pays producers of corn-based ethanol, the office found that the subsidy program fails to maximize the energy and environmental benefits of the fuel. The money, $93 million paid to producers over the past five years, could be better spent on other programs that do a better job of reaching those goals, it concluded. Plus, at a time of crushing state budget deficits, the $44 million expected to be spent on the program through...

MMA Renewable Ventures and SunPower Corp. finish construction of the 14-megawatt Nellis Air Force Base project. by: Jennifer Kho Bullet ArrowDecember 17, 2007 The U.S. Air Force said Monday that the largest solar-electric system in North America, a 14-megawatt installation at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, is up and running. The project is expected to generate more than 30 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, supplying approximately 25 percent of the electricity used at the base. That's far more electricity than is being churned out by the largest corporate installation so far, a 1.6-megawatt photovoltaic project that Google installed earlier...

Greg Langmo likes to say he was just a "fat, dumb and happy turkey farmer" until the summer of 1998. That's when he walked into a meeting of the Meeker County Board and got blindsided by a courthouseful of riled-up residents. The mounds of manure he and other turkey growers were stockpiling on their farms to sell as fertilizer had become a nuisance, seemingly overnight. "They said, 'It smells, it creates runoff, it collects flies,' " said Langmo, 48, who raises about a million turkeys a year on his farms near Litchfield. "The commissioners told me to solve the problem...