Reuters reports...

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm on Tuesday put plans for seven coal-fired plants on hold and called on the state to reduce use of fossil fuels for generating electricity to 45 percent by 2020.

Granholm, a Democrat, announced the cleaner-energy efforts during her state of the state address on Tuesday night.

According to businessgreen.com, the Maltese national utility has signed IBM to replace a quarter-million analog meters with electronic meters as part of a $100 million deal. Work will also engage advanced IT applications that will allow the utility to monitor demand more accurately and allow consumers to set the prices they're willing to pay for various household functions.

I learned about "The Age of Stupid" from the Guardian newspaper, and it's a fair bet it will hop the pond at some point. For now, it's slated for a premiere in London on March 15, followed by general UK release on the 20th. It's described as a "drama-documentary-animation," in which Pete Postlethwaite plays a man in 2055, looking back at clips from 2007 and wondering why we didn't fix the climate crisis when we had the chance.

If someone would pay me, I do believe I could make a complete living just debunking — and ridiculing — the boneheads who troll the comments sections of interactive media. This one appeared in reaction to an item by Beth Daley of the Globe about a suit filed regarding Reggie, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative:

I just got e-mail from the Prez asking me to party this weekend.

Actually, it's e-dressed to Georgie, but he really does want us to host an Economic Recovery House Meeting this weekend, to invite our friends and neighbors to watch a video and then discuss: 

Last week, the House of Representatives passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which will jumpstart our economy and put more than 3 million people back to work.

It was surprising, and pleasing, to see an ad for the smart grid during yesterday's Super Bowl. 

In case you missed it, the ad was one of two (or more; maybe I missed it) by GE's ecomagination brand. It gave a gig to Oz's scarecrow, singing an adaptation of "If I Only Had a Brain," only the "only if" applied not to the singer but to the grid itself.

I first learned about the future and promise of LEDs at a Las Vegas trade show maybe six or seven years ago. I asked how long it might be before they were ready for the marketplace, and they told me, "three to five years."

Last year, when AIA came to Boston, I stopped by the Philips Color Kinetics booth and asked the same question, among others, and the answer was, "three to five years." 

I haven't written on biomimicry since GreenBuild, I don't think, but the Guardian has a story from one of its frontiers this morning, even though the story does not use the word.

The Times has a story this morning about how various entities — California utlities, midwestern colleges, etc. — are using the competitive instinct to enlist energy savers.

Yesterday's dedication of the new wind turbine behind the McGlynn Middle School in Medford was a rousing American celebration, with lots of politicians, fanfare, and presentations by schoolchildren.