Renewable Energy Touted at Nevada Policy 'Summit'

By CRISTINA SILVA

LAS VEGAS -- Some supporters wore green hard hats and waved signs Tuesday equating clean energy and green jobs as industry leaders, policy experts, investors and public officials began a national "summit" meeting in Las Vegas. 

About 40 people rallied outside the event at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, before John Podesta, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for American Progress, urged event organizers to focus on untapped economic potential.

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NV Energy, union pact doesn’t end flap over pensions

By ANTHONY RAMIREZ

For months, the union representing utility linemen and others at NV Energy has been savaging management for what it said was an attempt to gut pension benefits for future retirees. “Shame on NV Energy” is the slogan of the union campaign.\

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Report released ahead of summit touts Nevada’s energy potential

By Kyle Hansen

As energy officials prepare to convene in Las Vegas next week for the third National Clean Energy Summit, a new report says Nevada is in a good position to benefit from clean energy development.
The report says Nevada is the No. 5 state with “high market potential for future energy efficiency development.”

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Report: Nevada should be hub for clean-energy innovation

By ANTHONY RAMIREZ

In 19th-century America, the government awarded land grants to start what would become the transcontinental railroad and establish universities such as Rutgers and Michigan State.
Now, Brookings Mountain West, a research group, is calling for a similarly ambitious effort based on the model of land grants to shift the nation from fossil fuel to cleaner energy.

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NV Energy to begin installing electronic meters

By DYLAN SCOTT

NV Energy plans to swap out all of its mechanical meters throughout the state with electronic meters as part of the company’s initiative to become more environmentally friendly, a spokesman announced at Tuesday’s Paradise town board meeting.
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NLV Council fighting for monument threatened by power lines

By ERIN DOSTAL

NV Energy has drawn a lot of heat in North Las Vegas after proposing a 260-foot swath of land rich with fossils be used for transmission lines to connect green energy plants across the state.
The North Las Vegas City Council unanimously approved a proposal Wednesday night that will allow Acting City Attorney Nicholas Vaskov and Acting City Manager Maryann Ustick to intervene before the Public Utilities Commission, which will either approve or reject NV Energy’s plan.
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Greenpeace Wants Facebook center off Coal Fuel

Greenpeace said about 500,000 Facebook users have urged the world's largest online social network to abandon plans to buy electricity from a coal-based energy company for its new data center in the U.S.

Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo sent a letter Wednesday to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg warning that the company risked its reputation and financial health if it ignored the environmental impacts of its actions.

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Thinking Big - And Smart

A nonpartisan think tank Wednesday outlined an ambitious plan to boost renewable energy development in America and placed Nevada and the West in the center of it.
The Brookings Institution proposes the federal government create and fund up to half a dozen “energy innovation centers” in the West to study solar, wind, geothermal, biofuels and nuclear energy. The centers would be a place for universities, government agencies, federally funded laboratories, military bases, utilities and companies to work together on ideas and new technology. Nevada, for example, would see UNLV involved in a center for solar development and UNR involved in a center for geothermal power.
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How the Stimulus Is Changing America

By MICHAEL GRUNWALD

Working Together

The West, particularly Nevada, would seem to be the perfect place to focus the nation’s renewable energy effort given the wide open spaces and abundance of solar, wind and geothermal resources. But one of the difficulties developers have run into is that much of the land is federally owned and energy plants can pose a problem.
Although developments are typically planned for sites overseen by the Bureau of Land Management, energy projects can cause problems for another federal landowner — the military. Wind turbines, for example, can create problems for radar, affecting military training.

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