WILLIMANTIC–Richard Berger and Nancy Roman were on a reconnaissance mission last week for White Flower Farm, the nationally known nursery in Litchfield where they work. “We’re here because of the rising energy costs,” said Berger, White Flower’s facilities engineer. “And the rising costs to heat our greenhouses”–26 of them, about two acres worth. Berger’s tried […]
Jan Ellen Spiegel
Jan Ellen is CT Mirror's regular freelance Environment and Energy Reporter. As a freelance reporter, her stories have also appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Yale Climate Connections, and elsewhere. She is a former editor at The Hartford Courant, where she handled national politics including coverage of the controversial 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. She was an editor at the Gazette in Colorado Springs and spent more than 20 years as a TV and radio producer at CBS News and CNN in New York and in the Boston broadcast market. In 2013 she was the recipient of a Knight Journalism Fellowship at MIT on energy and climate. She graduated from the University of Michigan and attended Boston University’s graduate film program.
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Budget cuts could shut down tiny environmental watchdog
After a 40 year run, the Council on Environmental Quality–the state’s tiny environmental watchdog–could be put out of business by the governor’s budget-cutting plan and its responsibilities shifted to the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. “It’s really very disheartening,” said Barbara Wagner, the chair of the all-volunteer board that oversees the Council and its […]
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Survivor 2012, the DPUC edition
It was all done quietly. No press releases that we were aware of — the naming of the three directors of the new Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, which replaces the Department of Public Utilities Control and its five commissioners. And the winners are: Kevin M. DelGobbo, who had been the DPUC chairman, is still considered the […]
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As state pushes science, one lab struggles to survive
NEW HAVEN — Louis Magnarelli, director of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, likes to point out a 1999 photo in one of the agency’s publications. In it, a concerned Dannel P. Malloy, then the mayor of Stamford, is peering through an electron microscope at the West Nile virus, which CAES had just been able to […]
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Solar industry applauds incentives, waits for details
NEW HAVEN — The four dozen members of Connecticut’s solar industry packed in a steamy corner room at Gateway Community College had come for answers about how the massive energy legislation passed this session would affect their industry. What they got were two thick wads of printouts and nearly 90 minutes of explanation from a […]
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From DEP to DEEP: A new state department opens for business
This morning, when state employees stroll into the Italian-style brick and glazed tile 1920 building at 79 Elm Street in Hartford that once housed an insurance company, the bronze sign over the entrance will still read Department of Environmental Protection. The guard at the front desk will do his job no differently than ever, and […]
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Bad news at the beach: Pollution is up in state, nation
Not the kind of news you really want to hear going into one of the biggest beach weekends of the summer: The water at Connecticut’s ocean beaches was a lot more polluted last year than it’s been in awhile. The Natural Resources Defense Council’s annual report on the nation’s marine beaches showed there were 143 […]
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Greenhouse gas compact challenged by changing energy landscape
Supporters of the 2½-year-old Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative like to remind those who would criticize, if not outright kill, this first-in-the-nation carbon dioxide trading and reduction program of two things. First, the idea for it came from a Republican, former New York Gov. George Pataki. And second, it was modeled on a federal program to […]
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As session end draws near, massive energy bill is on the table
SB1 – the massive omnibus energy bill that establishes Connecticut’s first energy department in three decades, creates new energy programs, alters old ones, sets ambitious policy goals and overhauls parts of the energy business – is headed for a vote in the Senate as early as today, even as its final details are unresolved. “It’s […]
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Money
State panel approves Connecticut’s first wind farm
Connecticut’s first commercial wind farm is on the books: The Connecticut Siting Council in a 6-1 vote, approved the first of two related projects in Colebrook. “A great message was sent by new the new administration that Connecticut is open for wind renewable energy,” said Greg Zupkus, co-founder of BNE Energy of West Hartford, the […]
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Clean Energy Fund gets a new leader, and perhaps a new mission
It will be something of a homecoming on Tuesday at the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund when Bryan Garcia becomes its new president. But it’s looking more and more like the fund he worked at in several capacities from 2000 to 2006 is about to undergo a substantial transformation. The Fund was founded in 2000 to […]
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Hopes of reviving solar industry ride on new energy legislation
Not long ago, Connecticut’s solar energy industry was thriving, the envy of other states. Then the state’s generous incentive program ran out of money, the legislature failed to create a sustainable alternative, and the industry found itself on the ropes. “It’s not in danger of losing momentum, it’s lost it,” said Ron French president of […]
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State hopes to step up PACE on home energy efficiency
For many homeowners, efforts to save energy start and stop with the low-hanging fruit–using fluorescent lightbulbs, for example, or caulking air leaks. Now the state is looking at a way to encourage investment in more expensive, more effective measures. “You drive around, a lot of people still have old windows in their homes,” said Sen. […]
Posted inEnergy & Environment
State clean energy program ranks in national top 10
For the second year in a row, Connecticut’s Clean Energy Options program – a voluntary program under which utility customers can purchase alternative green energy – is rated among the top 10 utility-run green power programs in the U.S. That’s pretty heady company given that about 850 utilities offer such programs and many of the […]
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Environmental scorecard: Subtle changes, not all for the good
The good news and bad news are one and the same in the Council on Environmental Quality’s 39th annual report on the state of Connecticut’s environment: Very little has changed. “The days of rapid change are over,” said Karl Wagener, CEQ’s executive director. “What we see now is very subtle changes, not all good. It’s […]