Government

Rachel Cernansly of Planet Green reports-

For all its weaknesses and criticisms, DOE is doing some great stuff to encourage a clean energy future.

WASHINGTON — Google and a New York financial firm have each agreed to invest heavily in a proposed $5 billion transmission backbone for future offshore wind farms along the Atlantic Seaboard that could ultimately transform the region’s electrical map.

The White House is going solar after all - a home improvement that carries modest energy benefits but much larger symbolic importance.

It isn't the first time the White House has used solar energy. President Jimmy Carter put 32 solar panels on the roof in the late 1970s, but President Ronald Reagan removed them in 1986. Two grass-roots campaigns have recently been lobbying President Obama to restore them as a sign of his commitment to renewable energy.

New research confirms the existence of a huge plume of dispersed oil deep in the Gulf of Mexico and suggests that it has not broken down rapidly, raising the possibility that it might pose a threat to wildlife for months or even years.

HONOLULU — The federal government has turned to a 130-year-old Hawaii sugar grower for help in powering the Navy and weaning the nation off a heavy reliance on fossil fuels.

It will spend at least $10 million over the next five years to fund research and development at Maui cane fields for crops capable of fueling Navy fighter jets and ships.

WEST BRANCH -- Dan Stevenson stood in the back of the cottage where Iowa native and future President Herbert Hoover was born in August 1874.

He explained to visitors how Hoover's father, Jesse Hoover, built the two-room cottage in 1871 for him, his wife, Hulda, and their oldest child, Theodore.

It is a job that Stevenson, an eighth-grade American history teacher at West Liberty Middle School, said appealed to his love of history.