The Arizona Corporation Commission today approved a waiver for a western Arizona utility to receive renewable energy credits for energy generated by a Phoenix-area waste-to-energy plant.

The decision by the state agency in charge of implementing air quality policy to repeal the Clean Cars program in favor of emission standards that aren’t as stringent led to a chorus of protests from environmentalist and health advocates.

A renewable energy advocate filed the first citizen initiative of the 2012 election, proposing a dramatic expansion of Arizona’s tax incentives for solar power and a state-run exchange that would buy and sell special credits for solar power.

Arizona’s sunny, dry weather makes it the perfect location for farming algae to produce renewable fuels, an executive of a national biofuels group said Monday.

Attending a renewable-energy company’s grand opening Monday, Gov. Jan Brewer said Arizona will become the U.S. leader in solar manufacturing and technology.

Arizona, with its sunny, warm climate has been hailed as the ideal region for algae biomass production. Proponents hope that algae, which can contain up to 60 percent oil, can some day squeeze out a petroleum substitute that could be produced at a price low enough to compete with natural gas.

With its sharp talons, powerful beak and 7-foot wingspan, the golden eagle is one of Arizona’s fiercest and most imposing birds of prey. It’s no match, however, for the rotating blades of turbines in wind farms.

A walking tour of the Maricopa Solar generating facility, billed as the “world’s first commercial-scale SunCatcher plant,” is like taking a step into the future.

It’s not as striking as the movie “Avatar,” which is set at a time when Earth’s resources have been depleted, but it provides a glimpse of what is being done to deal with the depletion of nonrenewable energy sources.

To hear Kris Mayes explain it, the super-heated debate over the use of solar energy and other renewable resources to help power the state has simmered down.

A bill that critics said would threaten the future of Arizona’s fledgling solar-energy industry has died after its sponsor announced Feb. 25 that she was withdrawing it.