Scalable video coding with adaptive modulation and coding is a promising technique to provide real-time multicast services for heterogeneous mobile devices. Nevertheless, as the rapid growth of data communication for emerging applications, energy consumption is an critical challenge of mobile devices. This paper targets the problem of resource allocation for scalable video multicast with adaptive modulation-coding schemes in next generation cellular wireless networks, with an objective to minimize the total energy consumption of all mobile devices for reception. We show the NP-hardness of the target problem and propose a 2-approximation algorithm. Extensive simulations are conducted to compare the proposed algorithm with a brute-force optimal algorithm and a conventional approach, which provides some useful insights into power-aware scalable video multicast in 4G wireless systems.