Kingsport Times News

By Corey Shoun
Published: December 22, 2008

 

Johnson City is in the midst of a study to determine if wind power is a feasible local energy source. On Buffalo Mountain, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy will be testing “available” wind for most of the next year. “Buffalo Mountain came to mind after a similar study in Jonesborough that didn’t pan out,” Johnson City Public Works Director Phil Pindzola said. “We just want to see if there is enough wind generation up there to create a revenue stream that would justify placement of wind turbines.”

The Boston Herald

By Nick d’Arbeloff and Hemant Taneja

Published: December 22, 2008

 

A key issue facing the nation, and one that must be addressed by Steven Chu, President-elect Obama's pick for secretary of energy, is how best to transform the nation's energy infrastructure, catalyze the clean-energy economy, and reach Obama's stated goal of creating 2.5 million green jobs.

CBS News

Published: December 21, 2008

 

President-elect Obama is 30 days from office. For a window on his future, turn west for a moment to a chief executive who is already up to his neck in the nation's troubles. This month, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger warned of financial Armageddon, as California faced a potential $40 billion deficit that threatened jobs, roads, schools and public safety. At the same time, he's pushing some of the world's toughest environmental laws to make California a leader on climate change.

The Leaf-Chronicle

By Mark Hicks

Published: December 21, 2008

 

When the $1.2 billion Hemlock Semiconductor plant was announced Dec. 15, local, state and federal officials praised each other for a job well done, and rightly so. But a legion of behind-the-scenes people helped get the deal together. Locally, the Regional Planning Commission played a role in getting vital information to various people and departments, as did the county's Building Codes Department.

The Tennessean
Published: December 21, 2008

 

Other states must be looking at Tennessee in amazement. In one of the bleakest economic years in recent memory, this state has landed a $1 billion Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga and a $1 billion semiconductor plant in Clarksville. To be sure, the state sweetened the pot with attractive incentives, but those investments look very wise in establishing job magnets at a time most of the nation is seeing jobs being lost at alarming rates.

The Tennessean

By Gov. Phil Bredesen

Published: December 21, 2008

 

Last Monday, it was my privilege to join the CEOs of Hemlock Semiconductor and Dow Corning in Clarksville to announce Hemlock's decision to invest $1.2 billion in a new facility in Tennessee for the manufacture of polycrystalline silicon, a primary component in the construction of solar panels and other electronic devices.

The Tennessean

By Stephanie A. Burns, Ph.D.

Published: December 21, 2008

 

Last week, I had the pleasure to be with Gov. Phil Bredesen and Sen. Bob Corker and a host of local, state and federal officials and community leaders to herald a new industry for Clarksville: solar silicon manufacturing. Everyone at Dow Corning and Hemlock Semiconductor enjoyed a warm Tennessee welcome.

The Tennessean

By Mayor John E. Piper

Published: December 21, 2008

 

This past week the seeds of a global revolution were planted in our city. Those seeds came in the form of the announcement by Hemlock Semiconductor Corporation (HSC) that it will make an initial investment of more than $1.2 billion to develop a facility in Clarksville. HSC, a subsidiary of Dow Corning, is the world leader in sustainable polycrystalline silicon materials and technology, which is core, among other things, to providing green energy solutions to the world.

The Leaf-Chronicle

Published: December 21, 2008

 

At a meeting of the Governor's Energy Policy Task Force last week, Gov. Phil Bredesen asked his panel of 17 advisers to step up strategies for attracting clean energy jobs — green-collar jobs — to Tennessee. Clarksville is leading the way in that regard. Hemlock Semiconductor Corp., primarily owned by Dow Corning Corp., starts construction next year on a $1.2 billion Commerce Park plant that will manufacture solar technology components. Operations here are expected to start in late 2012.

The Leaf-Chronicle

By James Chavez
Published: December 21, 2008

 

Clarksville and Montgomery County have just received one of the greatest community gifts that could ever be hoped for, with the announcement of a Dow Corning Corporation and Hemlock Semiconductor LLC (HSC) facility. Investments beginning at $1.2 billion, and likely much larger, don't happen every day. In fact, they typically only happen once-in-a-lifetime.

The Leaf-Chronicle

By Jimmy Settle

Published: December 21, 2008

 

A deeply troubling year has taken a sharp turn for the better this Sunday before Christmas — at least in Clarksville. Already Tennessee's fastest-growing large city, Clarksville could be redefined beginning in 2009. Not only will this continue to be the proud home of the 101st Airborne Division and Fort Campbell, and a key urban gateway to scenic Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area, but Clarksville-Montgomery County will also begin to acquire the new distinction of being a U.S. hub for the alternative energy movement, which is widely considered the most promising piece of the modern-era economy.

The Leaf-Chronicle

By Jimmy Settle

Published: December 21, 2008

 

Clarksville has felt some of the sting of a challenged U.S. economy in recent months. But last week, spirits soared. Word began to circulate last weekend that the community had, in fact, attracted one of the biggest manufacturing investments in Tennessee history. Hemlock Semiconductor Corp. of Michigan is going to build a $1.2 billion polycrystalline silicon manufacturing plant in northeast Montgomery County.

The Tennessean

By G. Chambers Williams III

Published: December 20, 2008

 

What makes a German automaker and a Michigan-based solar energy company interested in spending, collectively, more than $2 billion expanding major operations into Tennessee? Beyond the millions of dollars in incentives, state officials said the key to landing two major projects in the past six months has been the result of a years-long effort to position the state among businesses as having an inventory of TVA-powered industrial sites, combined with an available work force and a company-friendly climate.

Newsweek

By Sharon Begley

Published: December 20, 2008

 

Duke Energy Corp. is not the world's greenest utility, and CEO Jim Rogers is no green saint. The company was sued by Environmental Defense, the research and advocacy group, when it balked at installing modern air-pollution controls on old coal-fired power plants that it was renovating; the Supreme Court handed it a 9-0 loss in 2007. Duke is the country's third-largest emitter of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, and is building two new power plants that will burn coal, the worst CO2 fuel. But if Barack Obama wants to spend $15 billion a year over the next decade to develop and deploy renewable energy, and to get the country on track to cut greenhouse emissions 80 percent by 2050, Rogers, with his sooty record—but belief in renewable energy and the need to cut CO2—is just the kind of powerful ally he'll need.

The Wall Street Journal

By Christopher Conkey

Published: December 20, 2008

 

A leading House Democrat wants to change a longstanding federal practice that favors highway construction over mass transit and rail networks, an indication of how the incoming Obama administration may shake up U.S. transportation policy. Rep. James Oberstar, a Minnesota Democrat who is chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, is proposing a shift toward more spending on transit projects in the economic-stimulus plan emerging from Congress and President-elect Barack Obama.

The Houston Chronicle

By David Ivanovich

Published: December 20, 2008

 

Many environmentalists are downright giddy. The election of Barack Obama, and his selection of what the League of Conservation Voters’ Gene Karpinski calls the “dream green team” to fashion energy and environmental policy, heralds a dramatic shift from the energy priorities of the last eight years, on issues ranging from offshore drilling to climate change.

The Jackson Clarion-Ledger

By Jeff Ayres

Published: December 19, 2008

 

Mississippi Power says it hopes to be operating within the next decade what it describes as a trail-blazing, clean-coal power plant that will pump millions of dollars into Kemper County and ultimately lower customers' bills. The company is planning to build the $2.2 billion facility, which includes a mine, in the southern part of the county.

The Boston Globe

By Erin Ailworth

Published: December 19, 2008

 

A regional effort by 10 states, including Massachusetts, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from area power plants could actually add to the pollution problem elsewhere, according to a new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Cambridge nonprofit. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, is a multistate coalition stretching from Maine to Maryland that requires 233 local power plants to purchase an allowance for every ton of carbon dioxide they emit. The coalition auctioned off allowances for the first time in September, and is expected to release the results of a second auction today.

The Associated Press

By David Eggert

Published: December 19, 2008

 

The Michigan Legislature early Friday approved big tax credits designed to make Michigan the center of U.S. efforts to develop high-tech batteries for electric and hybrid vehicles. A bill approved 31-3 in the Senate and 94-0 in the House would provide tax credits worth up to $335 million from 2011 to 2016.

Memphis Business Journal

By Toby Sells

Published: December 19, 2008

 

John Ross has been told the carbon in most of his 7,000-acre forest in Hardin County could bring $1.5 million over 14 years on a carbon trading exchange. The trouble is, any real exchange does not yet exist. Long before the words “cap and trade system” became somewhat household terms, a market has slowly been building around the idea that pollution emitters could give landowners money for the work their trees do.