Energy and Climate Change

How a smarter grid works as an enabling engine
for our economy, our environment and our future.

NorthWestern Energy and the Montana Community Development Corporation (MCDC) are partnering with eight Montana sawmills and public and private landowners to help develop community-based biomass power in Montana. The partnership will create a coordinated business plan to enable the production of wood-fueled power in the state.

Three trillion cubic feet of methane leak into the air every year, with Russia and the United States the leading sources, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s official estimate. (This amount has the warming power of emissions from over half the coal plants in the United States.) And government scientists and industry officials caution that the real figure is almost certainly higher.

Teams from across the USA, Canada and Europe are competing to design and build the most attractive and efficient solar home.

The Zero Energy Idea House, built to demonstrate how a home can produce almost as much energy as it consumes, will be open to the public from 10/15/09 to 11/15/09.

Another plus: wood-burning boilers can churn out a steady supply of electricity. Solar power is only made when the sun shines, and windmills turn only when the wind blows.

In Rock Port, Mo., spinning turbines already are producing more than 100 percent of the town’s annual energy requirements.

Proposed Station Would Connect Separate Grids, Enabling Electricity Generated in Remote Sites to Reach a Wider Market

The bills, long sought by California’s renewable energy industry and among hundreds signed by the governor late Sunday night, could radically change the relationship between businesses and homeowners and their local utility company, making them paid producers and suppliers of electricity.

"One of the biggest challenges facing our industry is the development of cost effective technology that will allow us to capture carbon from the operation of power plants around the world," said Klappa. "Today, with the success we’re reporting from the research here at Pleasant Prairie, the solution is one step closer to reality."