San Francisco is looking to become the United States' "Berlin of solar power" in terms of installed solar capacity - and is backing up that goal with a solar rebate program that's the nation's highest local solar subsidy.

Although Post Carbon Cities recommends that local governments should lay the groundwork for their planning with an explicit recognition of the challenges of peak oil and climate change, that's not always a politically easy thing to do. But that shouldn't stop towns, cities, and regions from starting to make policy decisions that will take advantage of the sun's energy.

It may be June, but Vermont's Governor and legislature are planning for the potential emergency when high fuel prices and low temperatures coincide this coming winter. The Governor has created the Vermont Fuel and Food Partnership and established a Cabinet-level task force. The state legislature has called an emergency home heating meeting of the Joint Fiscal Committee, all in recognition that plans need to be made for the state's needs sooner rather than later.

The cities of Richmond and La Quinta, California are seeing the construction of solar-powered affordable rental communities. One is certified LEED gold; both add significantly to the amount of solar power installed and affordable housing available in each city.

New Zealand, which gets about 75% of its energy from hydroelectric sources, is facing the prospect of shortages due to two years of drought. The backup is fossil-fuel based. Seeking to avoid rolling power cuts, the electric industry and the government are promoting conservation measures.

Solar is quickly emerging as a major alternative energy source -- and its success in less-than-balmy places like northern Europe shows that cities just about anywhere can benefit. Despite recent uncertainties in energy legislation at both state and national levels, there's a lot that local governments can do right now to shift community energy dependence towards this most clean and local of energy sources.

It's not about virtual energy, it's about real energy. And it will save you travel energy: the Virtual Energy Forum is a two day online-only event focused on how leading companies can adopt better energy management practices to cut cost, while at the same time adopting clean energy alternatives -- presenting alternative energy technologies, policies, and best practices in a live, interactive environment.

It's impossible to understate how crucial cheap oil has become to our way of life. It's shaped how we get our food, what we buy, where we live, how we work, and the way we play. Cheap oil opened up the world to millions of travellers via discount airlines, allowed thousands to buy their first homes in sprawling suburbs, and enabled consumers to get their hands on ever cheaper goods, shipped just in time, from around the globe. Now economists say all of that is at risk.

Recognized as the energy industry’s premier event, the annual WEEC is one the key opportunities of the year for end-users and decision-makers from business, industry, and government to learn about the newest technologies, hear industry’s leading experts, and network. This year’s event will cover energy efficiency, sustainable technologies, distributed generation, HVAC, building systems, facilities management, renewable technologies, energy service, and power marketplace.

In the early years of this decade, cities in Sweden started using an ingenious locally-produced transportation fuel: biogas, created from microbially "digested" human waste. Biogas works in any car that's set up to use compressed natural gas, and is cheaper than gasoline or diesel. The problem is that car manufacturers have stopped making biogas-ready cars in favor of developing for ethanol.