Maria Energia's story links

Wal-Mart just announced that it's selected capitol buildings in 19 states and Puerto Rico to assist with cutting emissions and save on energy costs. The company will actually pay engineers to do the energy audits and for the capitols. Whoa.

As part of News Corp's efforts to be carbon neutral by 2010, Fox is making the two-night finale of American Idol run on renewable energy.

New hybrid vehicle registrations went up 38 percent in 2007 and are expected to keep growing this year!

Minnesota beat out 16 other states to land the International Renewable Energy Technology Institute (IRETI). IRETI will be a collaboration bewteen Minnesota, New York, Georgia and Sweden to exchange renewable energy technology.

An eight-turbine wind farm will open in Panhandle, Texas in May. But instead of referring to it as “that Panhandle wind farm,” it will be have a branded, corporate name: “The Wege Wind Energy Farm, provided by Steelcase.”

A North American organization of energy experts issued a report that found that building more green buildings is the best way to cut carbon dioxide. In fact, green buildings could cut emissions more deeply, quickly and more cheaply than any other global warming mitigation effort.

This is exciting stuff: Xcel Energy is going to test 80-ton batteries the size of two semi-trailers to capture the power generated from its wind turbines.

Saudi Arabia makes more than 10 million barrels of oil a day, but it may be turning an eye on a cleaner, brighter prospect: solar power.

A new life-cycle assessment study from the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York examined the four most common types of photovoltaic (PV) solar power cells - multicrystalline silicon, monocrystalline silicon, ribbon silicon and thin-film, if you were wondering - to find out how much energy and waste was involved in their creation.

Last week, 350 wine makers and scientists from around the globe discussed how global warming affects their wines and how they can adjust production to emit less emissions themselves.

The Midwest has the worst backlog of wind energy projects in the nation. And that's an understatement: The line of applications waiting to be processed could technically take more than 600 years.

Scientific American has a thought-provoking proposal in its January 2008 issue. The magazine proposes a massive, far-reaching plan to get solar power generating 69 percent of America’s electricity 35 percent of our total energy by 2050, thus replacing all of our foreign oil needs and slashing global warming emissions. Here are some of the highlights of that “solar grand plan.”

Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota (R) and Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico (D) have joined forces to promote a “Governors Windpower Coalition” to increase the use of wind energy across the United States.

According to the Environment News Service (ENS), the United States House of Representatives bought enough carbon credits to offset the impact of 30,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted by the Capitol's coal plant each year - a cost of nearly $90,000.

A 33-foot high wind turbine has gone up at the home of former President George Bush Sr. in Kennebunkport, Maine.