The clock has just struck midnight on New Year’s Eve, 2020, and your rooftop cocktail party is in full swing. An urban garden, with potted evergreens and fruit trees, carpets the top of your downtown apartment building. The structure itself is vintage – a 1960’s brownstone that’s been retrofitted, by city-wide mandate. It operates on the new multi-source national electrical grid, which is supplied by wind, solar, geothermal power, as well as fossil fuels whose emissions are trapped underground.

Rooftop Garden (Photo: Adpower99/Dreamstime.)

In your apartment, appliances and plumbing fixtures are energy- and water-efficient – something you were able to afford with the help of government incentives that started in 2010.

As the New Year turns, friends sip mojitos with mint freshly cut from your herb garden, nibbling locally made goat cheese, accented by your own roof-grown tomatoes and cukes. A rainwater-collection system irrigates your vegetable garden, and the rooftop’s community compost fertilizes it. Solar-heated water percolates through your plumbing, and a mobile rooftop solar system heats and cools your home. Several stories below, in the building’s underground parking lot, the family car is getting its nightly re-charge.

It’s a smart, self-contained life, one that consumes no more than it requires, and produces some of its own food and energy on-site. And believe it or not, you are paying less for utilities, transportation – for life, in general – than you did a decade ago. That’s because U.S. policy-makers and legislators pushed so hard ten years before to put the country on an aggressive path toward a sustainable, renewable-energy future.

Imagine if they hadn’t pushed through the Energy and Power Bill in 2010, or the emissions Cap and Trade plan or later, the Carbon Tax bill… Imagine if progressive, quickly instituted policies and incentives hadn’t reassured manufacturers and factory owners that it was a good idea to retool and hire and train all those “green-economy” workers. …

This is the future we could see, the best case scenario we might see, if the White House and U.S. Congress and the rest of us act aggressively – now – to grow a green economy and reduce carbon emissions.

Is it Possible?

Most conservative think-tanks and government agencies foresee a longer-term conversion to green energy. According to one DOE report, the fastest we could move would be to attain 20 percent wind by 2030, while still relying on fossil fuels for up to 78 percent of  our overall power as late as 2035.

There are quicker conversion scenarios offered by groups ranging from the Union of Concerned Scientists to the American Wind Energy Association , from the Worldwatch Institute and the Renewable Energy and a Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP) to former Vice President Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection/Repower America plan.

The latter suggests the U.S. could be at 100 percent renewable in 10 years,  but that roadmap doesn’t give a breakdown on which types of energy would provide what percentage of our overall electricity needs.And Gore’s and similar plans have been criticized as requiring the economy to travel at a warp speed not possible on this planet. They’ve also been challenged as risky, because they’d be based totally on today’s technologies, when solar and geothermal and biofuels are rapidly improving and coming down in price. Of course this could help us get there more quickly, but it also warns against locking in commitments.

In fact, if there’s one thing all parties agree upon, it’s that there is no single, truly reliable breakdown for a ten-year scenario that predicts specifics for how the energy pie would be divided in 10 years; 20 percent solar? 30 percent wind? 40 percent conventional fossil fuels like natural gas? Where does nuclear power fit?
No one has a crystal ball.

According to Mark Z. Jacobson, a Stanford University civil engineering professor and co-author of a recent report in Scientific American – “Evaluating the Feasibility of a Large Scale Wind, Water and Sun Energy Infrastructure” - in theory, the United States shouldn’t have a problem converting all “new production of electricity to renewable by 2020. The issue is, what’s ‘new’? It’s not going to be a high percent of the total. Each year you can replace a certain percent, but a (pre-existing) power plant can last 40 years.”

However, Jacobson adds,  ”It’s certainly feasible in ten years - if everybody put their minds to it – to say  all new power has to be renewable. We could be at 50 percent wind, 40 percent solar and 10 percent everything else, including geothermal, hydro-electric, even some tidal wave power.”

But converting our total energy production to renewables in 10 years is not a likely scenario, he says, because that would require the U.S. government to “take away all the subsidies from fossil fuels and shift them over to renewables” – unlikely, even with a progressive President and Congress.

“These coal plants that are grandfathered in, the way to make those go out of business is to change the subsidies, change the laws, but we’ll have a battle! Getting rid of the old stuff is easier said than done. We have all these people working in the industry and they are going to complain that we’re costing the country jobs, putting their companies out of business. And we’d need a job training program to shift them into other industries.”

But is it technically possible to have all new energy be renewable by 2020?

Yes,  says the professor, adding that we might already be at 25 percent renewable for new power now.

“Right now, wind is the second largest source of all new energy, after natural gas, and if we slowly get rid of the ‘old’ power, how fast that could occur depends on”  introducing things like new laws and incentives, aggressive policies that don’t change with each election, as well as shifting subsidies to green power interests and ridding the powers-that-be of outmoded mindsets.

Jacobson concludes:  ”The scenario of 100 percent conversion to renewables in 10 years is very slim. A 90 percent conversion – maybe a little less slim. … That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. All forces should be aligned to do these things. But given there are so many confliciting interests – there are lobbyists, naysayers, competing financial interests, the economic cycles, the political cycles – so many potential roadblocks. … You can’t just shut down the existing plants and have new generation on-line in 10 years. You could imagine the law suits. The goal is there, but if you think about it as retiring existing things as they go down, there’s probably less of a fight on that front.”

And, as the civil engineer points out, ” electric power is not the only thing you’re trying to change. You’re trying to change the entire infrastructure, so you want to go down the path of least resistance. It’s better to get 25 percent across the board – for everything, for other sectors, and not just (go for) 100 percent for electric power. Those other sectors include industrial, transportation, energy efficiency” for our built-environment.

As for which type of renewable energy will create the largest chunk of power in America, no one can say. So let’s take a look at the three main ones  consistently mentioned by renewable-energy proponents. First up, wind power.

Got a refrigerator that’s not so chillin’ anymore? A washer that’s approaching its last spin? When that appliance goes kaput, or maybe beforehand, you’ll want to check out your state’s federally funded appliance rebate program.

Energy Star Front Load Washer by Whirlpool

That’s right, you may be able to get a federal kickback, courtesy of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, just for replacing that old appliance with a new Energy Star one. But you’ll have to check your state’s guidelines.

Under the $300 million U.S. Department of Energy appliance rebate program, each state was allowed to design its own plan. So you’d be eligible to get a rebate on a variety of home appliances in Illinois starting right away because the first phase of the rebate plan begins this month. But if you live in New York, you’ll have to wait until February. And if you live in Texas, you’re looking at April before you can heave off that rattly dishwasher for a shiny new one. Several other states also are starting the program in April, to coincide with Earth Day festivities.

Each state also has developed its own list of eligible items. In Texas, a wide range of appliances, from an array of hot water heaters and heat pumps to refrigerators and freezers are expected to qualify for rebates. But in California, only three items made the list. Refrigerators, clothes washers and room air conditioners will qualify for rebates in California, where the program is set to begin in March.

Many of the states will be requiring that old appliances be recycled, or will be offering additional money for those that are recycled. Still, the program has raised questions about whether it will mimic the Cash for Clunkers experiment of last summer, which was criticized for encouraging people to buy new automobiles, in some cases for only modest efficiency gains. Clunkers did require that new cars meet certain mileage minimums, but they weren’t as high as the market could have provided.

The trade-off, junking a car (the Clunkers vehicles had to be crushed) to obtain a higher mileage vehicle, didn’t make sense to those who ascribe to the green principle of using something until it wears out.

The appliance program will require that all new purchases be Energy Star-qualified. These models are 20 percent or more efficient than the norm, depending on the class of item being purchased.

Appliances do matter. The DOE estimates that more than 70% of the energy used in our homes is for appliances, refrigeration, space heating, cooling, and water heating. Which means that the other 30 percent is comprised of the energy used to heat the house and run electronics.

As for the dollar amount of those rebates, that too will vary, depending upon the item and the state plan.

A sampling:

• The proposed rebate for clothes washers in California is $100, which is in addition to state rebates that can run as high as $250 (offered by LA Department of Water and Power for a select list of efficient washers). So that $1,000 front-loading energy and water efficient washer could come down to $650, a sweet deal. Find other California energy incentives at the website Flex Your Power.
• Texas residents can look forward to a federal rebate of up to $225 to 255 for a clothes washer with proof that the old one has been recycled; but they’ll come up empty if they’re looking for an extra kick from the state, which doesn’t currently offer a rebate for clothes washers. See all the planned Texas appliance rebates here.
• Florida will be offering rebates on six major appliances, with rebate amounts set at 20 percent of the purchase price before taxes, with a cap of $1,500. See the state’s Energy and Climate website for details.

Many of the programs will run for a pre-set period of time, sometimes just two weeks, to avoid the disappointment that attended the Cash for Clunkers program, which ran out of funds after just a couple weeks.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

The Department of Energy announced $10 million has been awarded to 16 cities for 40 new Solar America Cities Special Projects. The funds, made through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will enable the cities to increase solar energy use in their communities through innovative programs and policies that the government believes can be replicated across the nation.

The cities chosen for these awards came from the group of 25 large U.S. cities that are part of the DOE’s Solar America Cities program, which recognizes the participating cities as partners highly committed to solar technology adoption at the local level. Those cities already have been given millions of dollars in funds and technical assistance to accelerate solar adoption.

To this point, the cities have used the funding to develop solar financing models, improve solar permitting processes, and create training courses for solar installers, among other uses. The DOE said this new award will enable the cities to scale up their most promising projects and concepts to overcome key barriers to urban solar energy use. The DOE plans to share the lessons learned and best practices from these projects with local governments throughout the nation through a substantial outreach effort planned to launch in early 2010.

The DOE has selected the following Solar America Cities Special Projects:

Austin, TX

• Solar Curriculum Development and School Demonstration Projects

Berkeley, CA

• Smart Solar Regional Expansion and Solar Map Enhancements

Boston, MA

• Solar Evacuation Route

Madison, WI

• MadiSUN Community Solar Financing
• Target Marketing Solar to Businesses
• Solar Business Center

Milwaukee, WI

• Solar Hot Water Business Council
• Solar Water Heating Demonstration Projects and Best Practices Manual
• Property Assessed Clean Energy Financing
• Solar School Swap

Minneapolis – Saint Paul, MN

• Solar for District Heating and Cooling

New Orleans, LA

• Third Party Solar Tax Credit Implementation
• Sustainable Energy Financing District Implementation

New York City, NY

• Smart Solar City Data Acquisition System
• Community Solar Financing
• Smart Solar Virtual Community

Portland, OR

• Solar Now! Regional Outreach Campaign
• Neighborhood-Based Volume Solar Purchasing
• Residential Solar Power Purchase Agreement Model for Utility-Bill Financing
• Neighborhood-Scale Distributed Energy Systems

Salt Lake City, UT

• Solar Rebate Program Expansion and Third Party PPA Legal Analysis
• Financing Options for Mid to Large Scale Solar Systems

San Diego, CA

• Solar Financing Options for Multifamily Affordable Housing
• Solar-Powered Fire Shelter Integration into Disaster Response Planning

San Francisco, CA

• Debt-Financed Solar Water Heating Retrofits for Affordable Housing
• San Francisco Sustainable Financing Program (SF²)
• Commercial Solar Power Purchase Agreement Model
• Solar Financing for Public Schools

San José, CA

• Property Assessed Solar Financing through Joint Powers Authority
• Solar Loans for City Staff
• Qualified Energy Conservation Bond Financing for Revolving Solar Loan Fund
• Streamlined Regional Solar Permitting Process
• Solar Train the Trainer Internship Program
• Solar Career Training for At-Risk Youth
• Green Vision Education and Demonstration Center

Santa Rosa, CA

• Clean Energy Advocate

Seattle, WA

• Community Solar Financing through Municipal Utility

Tucson, AZ

• Creative Financing for Municipal Solar Installations
• Solar One Stop Shop
• Solar Integration into Green Building Codes and Infrastructure Planning

Geothermal and solar energy projects will be getting a financial boost from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.

President Obama announced that more than $467 million will be devoted to speeding the development of these technologies, which will support green jobs and provide low-carbon energy for decades.

“We have a choice. We can remain the world’s leading importer of oil, or we can become the world’s leading exporter of clean energy,” said President Obama in an Energy Department news release on Wednesday. “We can hand over the jobs of the future to our competitors, or we can confront what they have already recognized as the great opportunity of our time: the nation that leads the world in creating new sources of clean energy will be the nation that leads the 21st century global economy. That’s the nation I want America to be.”

Added Energy Secretary Steven Chu:  “These technologies represent two pieces of a broad energy portfolio that will help us aggressively fight climate change and renew our position as a global leader in clean energy jobs.”

The Recovery Act will support:

• $350 million for geothermal development in four areas: geothermal demonstration projects; Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) research and development; innovative exploration techniques; and a National Geothermal Data System, Resource Assessment and Classification System. These projects are designed to increase the use of geothermal heat, which, unlike wind and solar, can provide a continuous source of energy, helping electricity providers maintain their “base load,” or minimum requirments. Some of the demonstration projects will tap geothermal power from oil and natural gas fields; exploration will include projects in areas not typically associated with high geothermal potential.
• $117.6 million to “accelerate widespread commercialization of clean solar energy” by partnering with governments, universities and private sector projects to advance solar voltaic solar power and large solar concentrator capabilities.

For more information, see the U.S. Department of Energy’s Recovery And Reinvestment Act page on Funding Opportunities.

How do cars pollute? In two main ways, through inefficient mileage (guzzling a gallon of gas every eight or 10 or 14 miles) and through tailpipe emissions.

There’s the pollution associated with manufacturing, also, but to keep it simple let’s stick with emissions and mileage. Obviously, both affect the air. Think of mileage as a measure of your car’s pollution volume over time – if a gallon of gas doesn’t take you very far, you have to burn a lot more gas — and emissions as the chemistry of that pollution; if the mix is particularly noxious, your car will be a bigger offender than one with better tailpipe controls.

So if you want to buy the cleanest car you can — in the price range you need — you’ll look at both factors. Fortunately, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has already done this work, assigning a  “greenhouse gas” score to most models. Find it at the EPA’s Green Vehicles website.

The EPA’s “greenhouse gas” score considers how much a vehicle contributes to global warming via its full lifecycle emissions of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (NO2), and hydroflurocarbons (HFCs). The rating is mainly a function of a car’s gas mileage, but the analysis also looks at the fuel a car uses (gasoline, natural gas, diesel, ethanol) to factor in emissions.

Cars are given a score between 1 and 10, with 10 being the highest (the Prius solos at this rating) and 5 being not so hot (the Lincoln Town Car) and 3 (the GMC Sierra 15 gasoline model) being about as low as it goes. (The Sierra 15 jumps to a 6 on ethanol though.)

At the same site, the EPA chart also breaks out a column that considers just regulated tailpipe emissions — which doesn’t capture all the greenhouse gases and considers some outputs that aren’t greenhouse gases — giving each model an “air pollution score” as well. A diesel, say, might not score as well on this scale as it would on the greenhouse gas scale.

Interested in seeing just the EPA’s gas mileage ratings? Look to fueleconomy.gov, courtesy of the Department of Energy.

Last week the Obama administration took one of the steps environmentalists have been hoping would follow closely after Inauguration day: More or less, he told the nation’s bureaucracy to start following the law when it comes to energy efficiency.

In a memorandum to the Secretary of Energy, he directed the Department of Energy to write rules on energy usage that have been delayed in some cases since 1975.

The energy efficiency standards would apply to various household appliances, including light bulbs. In 1975’s Energy Policy and Conservation Act, Congress required the DOE to maintain guidelines for many kinds of devices, but administrations through the years have seemed to treat that as more of a suggestion than a law; the department moved so slowly that in 2005 14 states filed a lawsuit to force compliance. The parties entered into a consent decree with staggered deadlines, but some deadlines have already passed without action.

In his memo, Obama eliminates any ambiguity about his commitment by asking that “the DOE take all necessary steps, consistent with the consent decree, EPACT, and EISA, to finalize legally required efficiency standards as expeditiously as possible and consistent with all applicable judicial and statutory deadlines.” Moreover, when it comes to work that is not yet overdue, the President instructed the department not to drag their feet but to “work to complete prior to the applicable deadline those standards that will result in the greatest energy savings.”

When making this memo public, the President made remarks about how much energy such regulations would save: “We’ll save through these simple steps over the next 30 years the amount of energy produced over a two-year period by all the coal-fired power plants in America,” he has been quoted as saying.

Since then, skeptics have gone through audits of the Energy Star program by the Environmental Protection Agency and argued such claims are overstated; others feel the entire Energy Star program lacks credibility and force, particularly since it relies heavily on self-certification by appliance makers.

According to the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, the Department of Energy has until August 8 to issue federally mandated guidelines for microwave ovens, gas ovens and stoves, linear fluorescent light bulbs, beverage vending machines and other equipment that has avoided or been overlooked for stricter standards.

The ASAP (whose acronym partly defines its mission) says that “President Obama’s commitment to meet and beat the legal deadlines for new standards is a hugely important break with the past” in which federal leaders fell behind on more than 20 standards.

In a statement, it gave examples of how tightening requirements for simple appliances can save money. Strong standards for fluorescent tube light bulbs and reflector light bulbs, for instance, could save 60 billion kilowatt hours per year by 2020, enough energy to power 5 million homes for a year, according to ASAP.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Northerners dread opening up those utility bills this time of year. On the flip side, Southerners hate seeing theirs in summer. The local utility company is their arch nemesis. …Or is it?

More and more utility companies are working to help customers save money when it comes to energy — even though it’s counter-intuitive because when customers trim their energy bills, utility companies collect less money.

Setting up a less profit-bound system involves a concept called “decoupling,” in which states step in to help the power companies become agents for change. Typically, the state offers incentives to companies to help customers become more energy efficient. When electricity demand falls, the state might replace profits or extend other financial assistance to the power company, thereby “decoupling” the profits from usage.

“When the bond is broken between energy sales and profit. It’s win-win for everyone,” says Katie Romans, a Pacific Gas & Electric Company, which serves northern California, the state at the forefront of decoupling.

PG&E, which serves northern California, offers an online home energy analyzer for residents. “Customers are overwhelmed with all the green info out there,” says Romans. “They don’t know where to begin. Our online tool gives them a start.”

Customers visit the website, equipped with their most recent energy bill, and answer 14 questions about their appliances – their size, their age, etc. Based on their responses, PG&E will examine how a customer compares to similar size households in the neighborhood and offer easy and affordable steps toward reducing their energy bill.

WATCHING OUT FOR WALL WARTS IN CALIFORNIA

“Nothing too overwhelming,” says Romans. One step might be to put in CFLs (Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs) into the home’s five most used sockets. Another suggestion might be to install a programmable thermostat. “We advise that the thermostat be set at 68 degrees when you’re at home and lowered to 55 when you are away or asleep,” says Romans. “Obviously, if you are already disciplined to resetting your thermostat, you don’t need this.”

PG&E also offers on-site energy analyses for businesses and low-income residents (as well as an education area for teachers and kids called “Energenius“).

Businesses, she says, “are really taking advantage of the audits. They see they can control energy costs which helps control the bottom line.”

For both residential and business customers, says Romans, “it’s all about teaching them to make smart choices.” Simple things such as unplugging what she calls “wall warts” – shavers, electric toothbrushes, cell phone chargers, hair straighteners, coffee makers, toasters – are another easy step. The energy drain from these small appliances adds up. There are items in the home, however, that shouldn’t be unplugged, she notes, such as a plasma TV.

Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute believe they’ve made another step toward the economic viability of solar power with a coating that allows “near perfect” absorption of sunlight.

The Institute recently announced results of a project funded by the Department of Energy and the Air Force’s research department, in which researchers led by Shawn-Yu Lin developed a new anti-reflective coating for solar cells that captures 96.21% of the sunlight hitting them — a huge boost over the light-gathering abilities of uncoated silicon cells, which reflect about a third of incoming light.

That’s news of a sort that might make an engineer jump for joy. But a second aspect of the discovery, which is detailed in a paper published by the journal Optics Letters, should wow even ordinary folks who have daydreamed about solar energy: Lin’s coating might make worries over the angle of the sun a thing of the past.

While today’s solar installations must be placed in areas that get maximum direct sunlight — meaning only certain parts of your roof will work well, and that large-scale installations require electricity-consuming motors that move panels in sync with the sun’s path — the seven-layer coating Lin’s team has developed should mean panels can be positioned at any angle and absorb nearly all the light hitting them. Seven layers of silicon dioxide and titanium dioxide nanorods are stacked up in the coating, each of which gathers light from a certain angle, and working together they have the effect of “bending” sunlight toward the material below.

While the innovation only affects how much light gets to the actual energy-generating cells that are coated, not the efficiency of those cells, researchers say that the coating “can be affixed to nearly any photovoltaic materials for use in solar cells,” so that new, more efficient photovoltaics can benefit from it as well.

Lin has told reporters that, pending negotiations with manufacturers, the coating could be on the market within two or three years, and that it shouldn’t cost more than two to four percent above the cost of today’s solar cells.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media