Coal’s power surge. The rising cost of natural gas generates a move by utilities to build the state's first coal-fired power plants since 1982. [News Source]

DEP concerned about dangers of backyard production. Biofuel is less toxic and more environmentally friendly than regular diesel fuel, but it is also a combustible liquid that needs to comply to regulations regarding its production, distribution and sale, according to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. [News Source]

Race is on to bring electric sports cars to market. Silicon Valley thinks it can do what Detroit could not -- create a thriving business selling electric cars. [News Source]

Ulster County aims for eco-friendly construction. Future Ulster County government building projects and major renovations may prove a little more friendly to the Earth as well as the pocket. [News Source]

ASU out to tame hot nights. A group of scientists at Arizona State University, under the National Center of Excellence for SMART Innovations, is researching new materials and new technologies that could take the urban heat island and limit its most negative effects. [News Source]

Questions for the state about Glades Power Park. If Florida Power and Light gets final approval soon for its natural-gas plant in western Palm Beach County, more than 50 percent of the utility's power will come from gas. [News Source]

Global warming solution not a generational issue. Denise Sheehan's slide show about global warming doesn't have the cinematic luster of Al Gore's. But it may have as much, or more, to do with moving the country toward a solution to the global warming crisis. [News Source]

The biggest costs of growth: oil and gas. The best way to face the future is to focus on decreasing our needs for resources, not to increase them through further growth. [News Source]

Should state haul big oil and auto giants to court? A former member of Schwarzennegger's cabinet now argues in a book that the world's oil and automobile industries are perpetrating frauds similar to the tobacco industry. [News Source]

$1,000,000,000,000: the cost of capping greenhouse gas emissions. The costs of curbing greenhouse gases has been estimated at $1 trillion. But that is less than the cost of the adverse impacts of climate change. [News Source]

U.S. on track with greenhouse goals, but too easy? Washington is sticking to goals for curbing greenhouse gases under a yardstick shunned by most of its allies as too easy. [News Source]