February 20, 2012

MOEX Offshore Agrees to $90 Million Partial Settlement of Liability in Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

February 20, 2012 No Comments

WASHINGTON – MOEX Offshore 2007 LLC has agreed to settle its liability in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in a settlement with the United States valued at $90 million, announced the Department of Justice, the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today. Approximately $45 million of the $90 million settlement is going directly to the Gulf in the form of penalties or expedited environmental projects.
According to the terms of the settlement, MOEX will pay $70 million in civil penalties to resolve alleged violations of the Clean Water Act resulting from the spill and agreed to spend $20 million to facilitate land acquisition projects in several Gulf states that will preserve and protect in perpetuity habitat and resources important to water quality and other environmental features of the Gulf of Mexico region. At the time of the spill, MOEX was a minority investor in the lease for the Macondo well. It no longer owns any share of the lease.
The terms of today’s settlement do not affect the potential liability of – or recoveries from – other parties involved in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

The Green Energy Sector Now Employs Over 1 Million In the EU, Says A Report From the European Commission

February 20, 2012 No Comments

By: Mindy Laughton
According to recently-released figures from the European Commission, over 1.14 million people were employed in the green energy sector in 2010 – a number that reflects an impressive 25 percent increase from the previous year. The report furthermore that revenue in the sector grew 15 percent during that same time, and now stands at 127 billion Euro ($166 billion) annually.
The largest industry cited in the report was the solid biomass power sector, which employed 273,000 workers in 2010. That was followed by the solar voltaic sector, which employed 268,110 people, and then the wind power industry, which claimed 253,145 jobs.
From a national perspective, Germany led the way with 361,360 jobs, spurred in large part by a tremendous domestic growth in solar photovoltaic. France was second with 174,735 green energy workers, and Italy, Spain, and Sweden comprised the rest of the top five. The United Kingdom fell to ninth on the list.

National Lab ‘Flips Switch’ on East Coast’s Largest Solar Array

February 20, 2012 No Comments

The Energy Department’s Brookhaven National Laboratory “flipped the switch” on the largest solar photovoltaic array in the eastern United States. The 164,312 solar panels hosted

DOE Offered $12 Million to Spur Solar Energy Innovation

February 20, 2012 No Comments

DOE announced on February 8, 2012 of a funding opportunity for more than $12 million in funding to speed solar energy innovation from the lab

Wind Energy Grows by 21% Regardless Of Economic Turmoil

February 20, 2012 No Comments

Brussels, 7 February 2012. The Global Wind Energy Council annual market statistics published today show that the wind industry installed just over 41,000 MW of new clean, reliable wind power in 2011, bringing the total installed capacity globally to more than 238,000 MW at the end of last year. This represents an increase of 21%, with an increase in the size of the annual global market of just over 6%. Today, about 75 countries worldwide have commercial wind power installations, with 22 of them already passing the 1 GW level.
“Despite the state of the global economy, wind power continues to be the renewable generation technology of choice”, said Steve Sawyer, GWEC Secretary General. “2011 was a tough year, as will be 2012, but the long term fundamentals of the industry remain very sound. For the second year running, the majority of new installations were outside the OECD, and new markets in Latin America, Africa and Asia are driving market growth.”