“The ‘Not In My Back Yard’ folks have abused a flawed permitting process to block 381 energy projects, nearly 44% of which involve renewable energy,” said Kovacs. “They have organized local opposition, changed zoning laws, opposed permits, filed lawsuits, and bled projects dry of their financing. It’s like an anchor on economic growth and job creation.”

“Congress could improve the permitting process for energy projects by adopting the commonsense procedures used for transportation projects and shortening the statute of limitations in which project opponents can file suit,” added Kovacs, speaking on July 15.

For full story, click here.

A legal challenge to the federal approval of Cape Cod’s proposed offshore wind farm has been filed, the first of an expected flurry of lawsuits attempting to stop the construction of the 130-turbine Cape Wind project in Nantucket Sound.

Ben Kelahan, Saint Consulting’s senior vice president for energy, wrote about the Cape Wind project last January, and discussed in a podcast how Cape Wind has helped lay the groundwork for other proposed projects.

Click here for The Boston Globe’s account of the latest legal challenges facing Cape Wind.

Ben Kelahan is senior vice president for energy for The Saint Consulting Group, email kelahan@tscg.co.biz, phone 703 531-8274

Senior Vice President for Aggregates and Mining, The Saint Consulting Group

As the United States fights to free itself from the burden of foreign oil dependency, a new use for coal is being tested by the United States military.  Accelergy, a Houston based company, has developed a fuel that is liquefied clean coal. This will have a positive impact on the coal mining industry as we move forward.

Accelergy has come up with a way to convert the coal into an economical, clear, and arguably clean form of jet fuel.

According to Tim Vail, Accelergy’s CEO, the key is a process fine-tuned at ExxonMobil in the mid-1990s that turns coal or plant matter directly into a liquid. Unlike the often-criticized Fischer-Tropsch process devised in the 1920s, Accelergy’s process does not get convert coal into a synthetic gas before transforming it into a liquid. Eliminating gasification greatly reduces carbon dioxide emissions, as well as the total amount of coal (or biomass) consumed to produce liquids, he said. And it’s cost-effective.

The Chicago Green Technology Examiner has full details.

Christopher Hopkins is senior vice president for aggregates and mining for The Saint Consulting Group, email hopkins@tscg.biz, phone 615-656-3794

As Tim Dickinson writes in the blog Outside Online, “The conservationists fighting renewable-energy development need to wake up and smell the wind and solar power. Now.”

He points out that conservationists who have fought developers all their lives aren’t giving in. A manifesto from a group calling themselves People Only Wanting Energy Responsibility (POWER!) declared: “Big Solar, wind farms, hydroelectric plants, along with the necessary transmission lines are nothing less than Domestic Terrorism being perpetrated on…our Desert Southwest’s premier wildlands.”

Click here for full Outside Online post.

Ben Kelahan is senior vice president for energy for The Saint Consulting Group, email: kelahan@tscg.biz phone 703 442-8624

The US Chamber’s website Project No Project documents energy projects around the country that have faced resistance at the grassroots, among them dozens of clean and renewable energy projects.

As Keith Schneider points out, “My friends and colleagues in the environmental community and the clean energy development community tell me that almost every clean energy project of any size and scale is running headlong into civic opposition that in most cases is led by local environmental groups. The only region that appears to be ready to accept big clean energy projects is the South, where a colleague says she hasn’t picked up any signs of resistance.”

Click here for full post in Climate Change Media Partnership.

Ben Kelahan is senior vice president for energy for The Saint Consulting Group, email kelahan@tscg.biz , phone

The end may be in sight for part of the recession that has devastated sections of the mining industry over the past three years. Cemex and Vulcan Materials both recorded increased sales in April and are projected to have a further increase in May, according to Bloomberg Business Week.

The sales rise by two of the largest limestone producers in the United States was a result of increased housing starts and rail shipments of crushed stone. Production is expected to increase in the second half of 2010 as large portions of the $27 billion in stimulus funds authorized for highway and bridge repair comes on line.

This news comes on top of predictions that metals mining exploration will increase by as much as 40 percent in 2010. The increased spending in exploration is being driven by the stable price of gold and copper worldwide,  according to a Reuters report.

Click here for Bloomberg Business Week article.

Christopher Hopkins is senior vice president for aggregates and mining for The Saint Consulting Group, email: hopkins@tscg.biz, phone 615-656-3794

The agreement will allow Caithness Energy to proceed with the 845-megawatt, $2 billion Shepherds Flat wind farm near Arlington, Ore., touted as the largest wind farm project in the United States.

The Saint Report posted an article on this issue on April 16, and reporter Scott Learn writes in The Oregonian about the talks and announcement last week that the project will proceed.

Ben Kelahan is senior vice president for energy, The Saint Consulting Group, email kelahan@tscg.biz, phone (202) 210-4202   

New poll results illustrate changing attitudes towards nuclear power in the United States.

A total of 74 percent of Americans surveyed said they support nuclear energy and a similar majority of 70 percent said the U.S. should be building more nuclear power plants.  Among people residing within a 10-mile radius of a nuclear power plant, 76 percent supported new reactor construction in the survey, commissioned by the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry association.

Our 2009 Saint Index showed 60 percent of Americans would oppose a nuclear power plant in their community, a decrease of five percent from 2008 numbers. Even in that worst-case NIMBY scenario, 40 percent of Americans were just fine with a nuclear power plant in their community.

That’s not an insignificant hurdle to overcome, but support is clearly building and fear is waning.

With equal demand for energy, and energy that is cleaner and greener, it’s not a surprise that nuclear is garnering a better perception in communities.

All localities are different, however, and all politics remain local. While poll numbers indicate a trending improvement, opposition site by site can remain fierce and significant. Just ask the wind energy community that received the best numbers (82 percent community acceptance) but continues to attract local opposition to permit approvals across the country.

Ben Kelahan is senior vice president for energy, The Saint Consulting Group, email kelahan@tscg.biz, phone (202) 210-4202

Click here for an analysis of new public opinion poll results on nuclear power by William H. Miller, professor, Missouri University Research Reactor.

Click here for the Nuclear Energy Institute release

The Pentagon is threatening to scuttle what promises to be the world’s largest wind farm, in eastern Oregon, arguing that the giant turbines could interfere with an Air Force radar system. See details in this Washington Post report.

Ben Kelahan is senior vice president for energy, The Saint Consulting Group, email kelahan@tscg.biz, phone (202) 210-4202

The examples below cover most property sectors including wind energy, retail, theme parks, and urban redevelopment. They illustrate how the gathering of real-time intelligence - what we call political due diligence – and the creation of campaign strategies and tactics can mitigate objections, neutralize the opposition and rally community support.

• Saint Model Outcomes – actions speak louder than words in land use politics
• Saint Model Outcomes – help developers find and rally latent support
• Saint Model Outcome – local group is key to winning support for theme park
• Saint Model Outcome – video, local outreach win town board vote on retail move
• Saint Model Outcome – politics of planning wins referendum to protect development
• Saint Model Outcome – coal-fired power plant must respond to local concerns
• Saint Model Outcome: counter opposition to urban renewal, find your own support
• Saint Model Outcome — a wind farm case study on how to build community support

Saint University, the academic and corporate training arm for The Saint Consulting Group, offers corporate training and professional development seminars drawn from a quarter century of winning land use battles in the US, Canada and UK.  For more information about The Saint Consulting Group, visit www.tscg.biz