Wind energy could provide 20 percent of the electricity for the eastern half of the United States by 2024, but only if the nation makes a significant financial investment, according to new government report.

About $90 billion would be required to install a network of land- and sea-based wind turbines and about 22,000 miles of new power lines, according to the study published by U.S. Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

The report said that the government would have to provide a significant portion of that investment through programs such as loan guarantees.
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A “plucky little” country is how the late Princess Diana once described Israel to Shimon Peres. About the size of New Jersey, Israel has a disproportionate number of clean tech companies and investment in clean technology compared to its size.

And now U.S. businessman and investor David Anthony from 21Ventures (at left) is about to reveal his trade secrets and insider information about clean tech investing in Israel.

If you are itching to become a clean tech entrepreneur in Israel, this is must-read information. If you’d like to know more about what makes the industry tick, read on.

Unlike Silicon Valley and the high-tech industry, the clean tech market today has no center of excellence, Anthony tells Green Prophet. In the last 50 years of venture capital investing there has been a saying, “Never fly over your company,” meaning one shouldn’t invest in a company that isn’t within a 60 mile radius of the office.

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This article by Susan Kraemer, appearing courtesy of Celsias, was originally posted on CleanTechnica.

An amazingly high percentage of people who live down the Mid-Atlantic Seaboard from New York to Virginia want wind turbines off their coast.

Even if they can be seen from the shoreline, 67 percent support off-shore wind power, according to a new  poll of coastal residents of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia .

If the turbines are out of sight, the level of support goes up to an astounding 82 percent.

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Coal is dirty. Nuclear is dangerous. Wind and solar are intermittent. Trash is a constant, which brings us to landfill gas.

People throw things away. They recycle, sure, but consider all the waste in the world the next time you unpack your groceries. Product packaging alone can fill your trash can after one trip to the supermarket.

Garbage goes into landfills, where it decomposes,  and creates methane, a gas much more potent than the whipping boy, carbon dioxide. For years, landfills have gotten rid of this gas, which builds up inside, by flaring it off. Burning it, wasting it.

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I recently had the chance to speak with Catherine Potter, Manager of Consumer Content at Positive Energy.

Matthew Benson:  What is Positive Energy?

Catherine Potter:  Every energy utility faces a fundamental challenge of balancing supply with demand.  They can add more capacity or they can reduce demand to make the math work.  We help utilities reduce demand in the residential sector, by providing tools and ideas that encourage and enable consumers to reduce energy use.  In this way, utilities can look at us as an efficiency power plant.

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Hold on to your hat. It’s getting breezy out there.

Seems everywhere you go on the Internet, they’re remembering a great year for wind in 2008 and predicting a decent one in 2009. What? In this economy? Yes.

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