Energy

The Missouri General Assembly passed a law last year prohibiting cities and municipalities from adopting any policies that remove access to a utility service based on the type of energy it provides.

By focusing on six core climate-related issues, the Climate Protection and Resiliency Plan aims to make Kansas City carbon neutral by 2040. However, energy companies say the plan limits consumer choice.

A recent feasibility study found that if crews cleared trees and other environmental features, the site could produce 500 megawatts, enough to power about one-third of the city’s homes.

Johnson County commissioners rejected solar farm rules from the planning commission that had been criticized as some of the most restrictive in the country. The new regulations open the door to a large project planned for Johnson and part of Douglas County.

The wind energy industry is now facing a new challenge: what to do with old wind turbine blades when it’s time to replace them. The answer is found at a recycling plant in a historic Mississippi River town 90 miles north of St. Louis.

The measure is in response to a long fight over the Grain Belt Express, a planned transmission line that will cut across a 200-mile stretch of northern Missouri. The changes, however, will not affect that project.

The proposed transmission line would carry clean energy from Kansas to Indiana, but to do that, it needs easements on landowners’ property across eight counties in northern Missouri.

Although energy efficiency measures are shown to lower utility bills, it's the upfront costs that play more into whether a consumer will invest in renewable energy. “We care about society," one Missouri researcher says, "but we care more about our own selves.”

An energy company is interested in building a huge array of solar panels in western Johnson County and eastern Douglas County. But regulations passed last year by the Johnson County Commission have been criticized as being so unfriendly that they would discourage solar development entirely.

The Johnson County Planning Commission on Tuesday approved a set of regulations governing utility-scale solar farms. Supporters of a proposed solar farm project outside Gardner say the new regulations are too restrictive, while opponents of the project are angry any allowances have been given at all.

About 35 miles southeast of Kansas City, the town of Pleasant Hill has become one of the smallest in Missouri to offer an electric vehicle charging location to the public.

Your natural gas bill will increase this winter as supply issues drive up market prices.