Alternative Energy

BrightSource Energy Inc. of Oakland scored another big deal Wednesday in California, announcing a 20-year contract to supply Southern California Edison with enough solar energy from remote desert generating plants to power 845,000 homes. The agreement for 1,300 megawatts of renewable energy is believed to be the biggest-ever contract for so-called solar-thermal power, which uses heat from the sun to create steam to spin electric turbines. The deal calls for seven plants to be built in far-flung areas of southeastern California over the next seven years.

One of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's recently departed advisors has secured a job handling renewable energy business for an international law firm. The mayor's former deputy chief of staff, Dan Grunfeld, 49, is taking a position with the law firm of Kaye Scholer and will work in its Los Angeles office representing clients in such fields as green technology, alternative energy and compliance with environmental laws. Villaraigosa has promised to make Los Angeles "the greenest big city in America" by pushing the Department of Water and Power toward more solar, wind and geothermal energy.

America's headlong rush to tap its enormous coal reserves for electricity has slowed abruptly, with more than 50 proposed coal-fired power plants in 20 states canceled or delayed in 2007 because of concerns about climate change, construction costs and transportation problems. Coal, touted as cheap and plentiful, has been a cornerstone of President Bush's plans to meet America's energy needs with dozens of new power plants.

Washington politics has played a key role in both the nation's rush toward coal-fired energy and the current pullbacks and delays. During his 2000 run for the White House, George W. Bush promised to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant, curbing emissions that contribute to climate change. But he reversed course shortly after taking office in 2001, saying that Vice President Dick Cheney's energy policy task force had advised against it.

Global warming and rocketing oil prices are making nuclear power fashionable, drawing a once-demonized industry out of the shadows of the Chernobyl disaster as a potential model of clean energy. Britain is the latest nation to announce support for the construction of new nuclear power plants. Nuclear plants produces about 20% of Britain's electricity, but all but one are expected to close by 2023.

High energy prices are fueling a sleek new kind of solar technology that could someday set skyscrapers and high-rise apartment windows quietly buzzing with renewable power. The emerging technology uses so-called thin films mounted on glass windows and other surfaces to harness the sun's rays. It's more attractive and cheaper than the bulkier conventional solar cells made from polycrystalline silicon. Plus, the silicon supply has tightened and prices have risen as solar energy has taken off.

An Airbus A380, the world's largest airliner, became the first commercial jet aircraft to use alternative fuel Friday, marking a milestone on the road to biofuels. The double-decker A380 needed no modification to use the gas-to-liquid, or GTL, fuel, which was designed to be mixed with regular jet fuel so the airplane "does not know the difference," Airbus said.

The line of towering wind turbines stands motionless on the ridgeline above Interstate 70 in central Kansas, Y-shaped silhouettes amid the swirling snow. Despite the weather, dozens of technicians are working to get the 10-mile-long Smoky Hills Wind Farm ready to begin producing electricity. Jason Martinson, who is supervising the 56-turbine operation for Enel North America Inc.

Ben LeBeau pulled up to the Conserv Fuel station in Brentwood on a recent Friday and started filling the tank of his black Chevy Tahoe with a liquid rarely found in California -- E85, an alternative fuel made of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. The station is near his office, and he's been a regular there for more than a month. LeBeau's Chevy, a so-called flexible-fuel vehicle, can run on gasoline, E85 or any combination of the two -- and that's one reason he bought it.

On a wind-swept base near the Missouri River, the Air Force has launched an ambitious plan to wean itself from foreign oil by turning to an unlikely energy source: coal. At its Malmstrom base in central Montana, the Air Force wants to build the first piece of what it hopes will be a nationwide network of facilities to convert domestic coal into cleaner-burning synthetic fuel. Air Force officials said the plants could help neutralize a national security threat by tapping into the country's abundant coal reserves.