Alternative Energy

The Obama administration put the brakes on a push to expand oil and gas drilling off America's coasts Tuesday and promised to speed development of offshore wind farms. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced he will extend public comments for six months on a last-minute proposal by the Bush administration to open swaths of the California, Alaska, Atlantic and Gulf coasts for drilling.

A rush to stake claims for renewable energy projects in the California desert has triggered a federal investigation and prompted calls for reforms to prevent public lands from being exposed to private profiteering and environmental degradation. Officials said last week that the inspector general's office of the Department of the Interior was investigating Tempe, Ariz.-based First Solar Inc.'s recent acquisition of Hayward, Calif.

After more than 20 years farming onions, Steve Gill still breaks out in tears at his processing facility. Only now he's crying all the way to the bank. He recently began using juice from his pungent crop to create energy to run his refrigerators and lighting. That's slicing $700,000 annually off the electric bill at his 14-acre plant in Oxnard. He's also saving $400,000 a year on disposal costs. And he has secured more than $3 million in government and power company incentives to do it.

At the State Capitol, boosting the use of solar power, wind generators and other renewable energy sources is seen as a boon for both the environment and the economy in electricity-hungry California. But with two weeks left in the legislative session, Democrats are hustling to fulfill a commitment they made to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to pass a law to require all utilities to get a third of their power from "green" sources by 2020. Meeting that pledge isn't easy, and a fight is brewing about just how fast the state can go green and how to accomplish it. The dispute centers on the utilities' slow pace in meeting the existing goal of 20% for 2010 -- spelled out by a law passed in 2006 -- and on how to craft a longer-range plan that hits Schwarzenegger's more ambitious target.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa drew cheers from environmentalists just over two months ago when he issued a new political promise: eliminating coal from the Department of Water and Power's fuel mix by 2020. Instead of waiting a decade to see if that promise comes true, a Sacramento-based advocacy group decided to stage a publicity campaign thanking the mayor. It bought advertising space on city bus kiosks showing a smiling picture of Villaraigosa and the word "Successful."

After vowing to veto this year's biggest environmental bill, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to issue an executive order by midweek that would require all electric utilities to generate a third of their power from renewable resources, such as wind and solar power, by 2020. The order presumably would set no limit on how much of the green power could be imported from other states. Environmentalists, who have been told about the governor's still-evolving plans, said Schwarzenegger also was considering directing the California Air Resources Board to look at broadening the state's definition of renewable energy sources to include large hydroelectric dams and nuclear energy plants.

Across the desert flatlands of southeastern California, dozens of companies have flooded federal offices with applications to place solar mirrors on more than a million acres of public land. But just as some of those projects appear headed toward fruition, environmental hurdles threaten to jeopardize efforts to further tap the region's renewable energy potential. The development of solar-power facilities in the desert has been a top priority of the Obama administration as it seeks to ease the nation's dependence on fossil fuels and curb global warming.

In an effort to tap one of the high desert's most abundant resources, Palmdale is allowing large shopping centers and business parks to install small wind turbines in their parking lots to save on electricity costs. Civic leaders in the Antelope Valley have taken a variety of steps in recent years to harness and adapt to the region's vast supplies of sun and wind. In Lancaster, hundreds of acres of desert landscape will be used for a huge bed of solar-thermal panels. Both Palmdale and Lancaster have taken steps to ban new lawns to help conserve water.

The potential for profit is blowing in the wind, and Green Wave Energy Corp. plans to catch it. Among its secret weapons: an 11-foot-tall, blazingly white, nearly indestructible prototype generator that produces as much as 11 kilowatts of electricity using gusts of wind. The fiberglass contraption could make homespun, do-it-yourself wind power a reality, Chief Executive Mark Holmes said.

A passenger jet powered in part by vegetable oil successfully completed a two-hour flight Tuesday to test a biofuel that could lower airplane emissions and cut costs, Air New Zealand said. One engine of a Boeing 747-400 airplane was powered by a 50-50 blend of oil from jatropha plants and standard A1 jet fuel. Biofuels were once regarded as impractical for aviation because most freeze at the low temperatures encountered at cruising altitudes, but jatropha has an even lower freezing point than jet fuel.