EnvironmentLA - The City's official site for information about projects and programs that are making Los Angeles more sustainable and environmentally friendly.
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power - LADWP offers environmental Green LA programs, including Trees for a Green LA, Energy Efficiency for a Green LA, Solar Energy for a Green LA, Electric Vehicles for a Green LA, Green Power for a Green LA, Recycling for a Green LA and Educational Services for a Green LA.
Green LA Action Plan - The City's official plan to improve energy conservation, transition to renewable power sources, and change the ways citizens commute to work and school.
US Green Building Council-LA - A resource for agencies, municipalities, professionals and companies interested in sustainable, green buildings.
[caption id="attachment_5941" align="alignright" width="263" caption="Roof-mounted solar panels on Hall's Warehouse in South Plainfield New Jersey. (Photo: Business Wire)"][/caption]
The latest generation of workers in clean technology jobs aren’t all engineers, tech experts and scientists. They aren’t all in Silicon Valley – some are from Detroit or Gary, Ind.
They may come from community colleges or be fresh out of high school.
If you’ve ever thought about going solar to take a bite out of your utility bills, you may want to take another look: A perfect storm of events, policies and programs currently makes solar more affordable than ever.
The problem: He who hesitates may miss the best deals.
“People say, ‘It’s too [...]
We’re used to windy debates in Washington. Now the debates about wind have blown in gale force.
It’s been a while coming. At first, wind power seemed hard to argue against. It is emissions-free, technologically proven, shovel-ready, local and works well on the gusty plains of the US – with one key roadblock, there are some kinks to work out in getting it from there to here on the unprepared national grid system. The plan for many was straightforward: Fix the grid, keep building turbines, replace fossil-fuel dependent energy with renewal wind, and keep adding to an already robust wind sector job force of some 80,000.
[caption id="attachment_4901" align="alignleft" width="214" caption="Texas wind turbines (Photo: Texas State Energy Conservation Office.)"][/caption]
Looking to improve the cost efficiency and aesthetics of solar power, a New Jersey company, EarthSure, has decided that solar panels should be buried in the earth.
No they’re not trying to win the “renewal energy miscalculation” award, they have developed a way to funnel solar light to the buried panels, which would gather solar power from the transported light (like solar tubes). The new operation would be unseen, and would not require that rooftops be converted into glassy conversation pieces.
Homeowner’s associations listen up:
“No unsightly above-ground solar panels need to be used anymore. This is an enhancement not only in economics and in the green movement, but a great technological improvement in the area of design and construction as well,” the company reports in a news release.
Talk about a hot and windy debate as Washington grapples with the first big bill to try to power up a new clean energy economy. Studies and accusations are whipping around like wind propellers as the contituencies of fossil fuels and new energy square off.
While this seems like a flurry of much ado — is it possible that the American Clean Energy and Security Act wouldn’t pass? That the fossils would win?
Still, there’s much at stake. As we know from last year’s blockbuster stimulus bill, no one really reads all the copy, so there could be a lot of caveats, crumbs and sneaky insertions embedded into the 1,000-plus page act, also known as the Waxman-Markey bill.
Public support for wind energy is strong and crosses party lines, according to a poll being released today by the American Wind Energy Association at the opening of WINDPOWER 2009, an industry conference being held this week in Chicago.
The poll shows that 75 percent of American voters support a Renewable Energy Standard (RES) that would require utilities to generate at least 25 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources by 2025.
The support was bipartisan with 86 percent of Democrats favoring the RES, 62 percent of Republicans favoring it, and 71 percent of Independents.
One degree Fahrenheit.On average, that’s how much the Earth’s temperature has increased over the past century, according to a report by the EPA. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted that during the 21st century the global temperature will increase by 2-6° C.
Renewable energy companies are no doubt pleased that the proposed economic stimulus plan being considered by Congress could double the nation’s clean energy capacity — enough to power six million American homes.
The White House agenda calls for even more progress: The administration wants incentives to increase private sector spending in renewable energy; a cap-and-trade system that would make heavy industries like coal-burning power plants pay for carbon pollution and a declared goal that America reduce greenhouse gases 80 percent by 2050.
It’s shaping up to be a perfect storm for companies that can figure out how to generate renewable energy, including solar thermal companies which intend to compete with wind and direct solar as large-scale energy providers, despite the cool economy.
The first commercial air test flights using biofuels took to the sky earlier this month: First Air New Zealand, then Continental Airlines in Houston gave us a glimpse of a greener way to fly. Next up: Japanese Airline, JAL has announced a demonstration flight using a Boeing 747-300 powered by biofuel set for Jan. 30 in Tokyo.
Jennifer Holmgren is General Manager of Renewable Energy & Chemicals for Honeywell’s UOP, a refining technology developer which partnered with Continental on its landmark project. One week later, she was a keynote speaker at Petrotech 2009, an international oil and gas conference hosted by the Indian government, on the topic of emerging technologies (the conference ends Thursday).
And the greenest state could soon be… No, not California. Not Washington, or Oregon, or Colorado.
It’s Hawaii!
Or at least it could be. Maybe. The islanders have plantation-sized plans for moving off fossil fuels and into clean energy. Their goal: Meet 70 percent of Hawaii’s energy needs with clean energy sources like solar and wind power by 2030. That’s a bigger reach than any other state have taken, or feels able to take.
Across the country, 24 states have set firm goals for adding renewable power to their energy portfolio. Another four states have non-binding goals for their Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), as they’re called.
Most of these look to increase the amount of renewable energy to 10 to 30 percent of the total used by the state by 2015 or 2020.
By Nima Kapadia
Jobs in renewable energy are increasing worldwide and causing the coal industry to distribute pink slips, according to a Worldwatch Institute study.
The report, written by Worldwatch senior researcher Michael Renner, estimates that 2.3 million people are working in renewable energy jobs – either directly or indirectly. From that number:
By Tom Kessler
Colorado developers have announced what they say is the country’s largest net-zero energy, master-planned community in Arvada, Colo., a suburb of Denver. Geos Neighborhood, which will begin infrastructure construction this fall, will feature 250 residences and can generate enough renewable energy to supply 100 percent of the annual energy needs of the entire [...]
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