In 1941, Vermont was at the forefront of the wind energy movement. That's when the U.S. Department of Energy built a 1.25-megawatt turbine on Grandpa's Knob in Rutland County. The electricity generating facility, meant to secure local power in case Germans attacked the country's infrastructure, was the largest in the country. But now, Vermont has only a single wind project considered to be of moderate size by U.S. standards — the 11 Searsburg turbines, built in 1996 and generating about 6 megawatts of electricity. "Vermont is five years behind the rest of the country," said Jeff Wennberg, the public relations manager for Vermont Community Wind Farm.

Link to full article

Minutes after voting to shut down Vermont Yankee, state Senate leaders summoned reporters to talk about “where we go from here.” The lawmakers’ answer: windmills, solar panels and methane-fueled “cow power.” “We have an economic boom coming as a nation and as a planet, as we get off our addiction to oil and move to renewable [energy] technology,” said Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin (D-Windham).

Link to full article

Voters turned out in record numbers Tuesday to endorse a proposed wind energy project on Lowell Mountain by an overwhelming margin, 342-114. The project won 75 percent of the vote, an outcome that surprised almost no one. Green Mountain Power Corp., the developer, campaigned hard for a "yes" vote, knocking on doors, registering voters, holding living room meetings. Many residents had praised the project's renewable energy benefits, as well as the utility's pledge to pay the town a minimum of $400,000 -- and perhaps as much as $535,000 -- a year during the wind farm's life.

Link to full article

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) today announced the launch of an innovative biomass energy project at Vermont Technical College. A wood pellet boiler will serve both as a practical heating source for a building on the college campus and as an invaluable hands-on learning tool for students interested in the growing field of renewable energy jobs. Sanders, chairman of the Senate Green Jobs and the New Economy Subcommittee, secured $184,995 in federal funding for the project through the U.S. Department of Energy.  Vermont Technical College will provide an additional $55,865.

Link to full article

Last week Vermont Works for Women and J.A. Morrissey completed the first phase of efficiency improvements on 60 of 336 units at Burlington’s Northgate Apartments, an affordable rental community located on the banks of Lake Champlain. The housing complex serves families across a range of incomes from below 30 percent of median up to 95 percent of median income. “This is the way to go — creating opportunities for women and others to get out there and learn these skills, work and earn a living, and cut costs and energy consumption at the same time.” Judy Reynolds, construction crew member, Vermont Works for Women.

Link to full article

Rep. Patricia O'Donnell is moving forward with a joint resolution asking the Legislature to consider a new nuclear plant in Vermont. The legislative measure, released to the public Tuesday, calls for the financing and construction of a second nuclear facility in Vernon adjacent to the current Vermont Yankee plant. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission originally approved the Vernon site for two plants prior to the building of the present-day reactor, and supporters say it is an ideal location to build a modern and compact facility to replace the power of Vermont Yankee.

Link to full article

Vermont's three largest electric utilities have reached a series of agreements for purchasing power, including from a new wind-power project in New Hampshire. Central Vermont Public Service Corp. and Green Mountain Power Corp. will buy slightly more than half the power output from the Granite Reliable Power wind project in Coos County, N.H. They and Vermont Elecrtic Cooperative Inc. also will be buying power from brokerages set up by financial firms, including Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch.

Link to full article

When it comes to energy, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Every bit of energy we use has some environmental cost. But you can find energy that comes almost free at the Town of Bennington's water filtration plant, a few miles east of downtown on Route 9 in Woodford. On Jan. 20 the hum of an electric generator joined the louder mechanical hums and liquid swishes at the plant as Michael Maloney of the engineering firm Soar Technologies in the state of Washington fine-tuned the town's new hydropower turbine.

Link to full article

A new group calling itself "Energize Vermont" has pledged to get communities more involved in utility permitting and to fight to keep wind turbines off Vermont's ridgelines. "What brought this on was a concern by a large number of people that various types of alternative energy, in this case what we call 'big wind,' (were) coming in and trying to establish themselves without any criteria about how these towers should be sited," president John Liccardi of Castleton said Tuesday.

Link to full article

U.S. Sen. Bernard Sanders announced he has secured funding to assist in paying for energy-efficient and money-saving solar water systems at several housing complexes around the state, including Brattleboro’s Westgate Housing Community. "At a time when we are spending $350 billion a year importing oil from Saudi Arabia and other countries, it is important that the United States move away from foreign oil to energy independence," said Sanders. "Programs like this are a major step forward."

Link to full article

The Green Mountain Race Track could become home to the largest solar project in the Northeast and details should be released next week, according to a principal of the company that owns the site. Chic Paustian, an officer of Green Mountain Energy Park, LLC, said Friday that representatives from EOS Ventures, a Hancock, Mass.-based company, will give a presentation Thursday to the Selectboard at the Town Office on Center Street at 7:30 p.m., describing a 2.2 megawatt solar facility they intend to build.

Link to full article

Green Mountain Power today announced results of a customer survey indicating strong support for wind power among Vermont business leaders. The telephone survey took place this fall among GMP’s largest commercial customers. Fifty-four of 85 customers contacted completed the survey. The survey sought customers’ feedback on a variety of issues including Vermont’s current energy picture, energy challenges facing the state in the next few years, the business and economic climate, Vermont Yankee and wind and solar power.

Link to full article

A $4.8 million economic stimulus grant awarded Wednesday to the Central Vermont Community Action Council will train about 2,400 Vermonters under a green jobs program backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. The Vermont grant -- one of 25 announced by the U.S. Department of Labor -- was among the largest awarded under the $100 million Energy Training Partnership program.

Link to full article

Vermont could see a boost in the number of farms producing electricity from methane gas, after the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it would work to bring more manure digesters to large and small dairy farms across the country. During last month's climate talks in Copenhagen, the USDA signed an agreement with the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions produced on the nation's dairy farms by 25 percent before the year 2020.

Link to full article

A million-dollar project in Brattleboro has received a $360,000 loan from the Vermont Economic Development Authority for financing business ventures. Carbon Harvest Energy LLC, of Burlington, received a direct loan to partially fund the first two phases of its plan to acquire, restore and upgrade the existing gas-to-energy plant at the local landfill.

Link to full article