San Francisco Bay Area-based Eco-Fuel Global this week signed an agreement with the Government of Rwanda to produce bio-fuels from Jatropha Curcas. The deal, estimated to be worth in excess of $250 million, would replace up to 20 percent of the Rwandan fossil fuel requirement with low emission bio-fuels.

Jatropha Curcas is a poisonous shrub whose seeds contain oil that is used to produce biodiesel fuel that is usable in a standard diesel engine.

“This marks the beginning of one of the largest sustainable biofuel projects in the world,” Mark O’Brien, CEO of Eco-Fuel Global, said in a statement. “Rwanda is leading the world in a new generation of environmentally friendly and economically responsible energy production.”

Eco-Fuel Global said some of the benefits of the project include:

• Increased fuel security and reduced price risk
• Direct employment estimated at 6,500 jobs
• Environmental benefits such as reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, soil stability and watershed protection
• Expanding U.S. exports through the use of U.S. – based biofuel refinery equipment and technology
• Food security through production of fertilizer as a by-product of the biofuel and the potential to increase agricultural yields with intercropping

The company plans to grow Jatropha Curcas on 10,000 hectares of land near Akagera National Park, which is projected to yield an estimated 20 million liters of bio-fuel annually.

The City of Houston and Reliant Energy are launching a program to bring plug-in hybrid electric vehicles to the streets of Houston, to demonstrate the important role that electric cars can play in the city’s clean energy future.

Under the program, called the “Power of the Plug-In,” 10 city-owned Toyota Prius cars will be converted to plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and 10 vehicle-charging stations will be installed to power them. The Power of the Plug-In is designed to raise consumer awareness and education about plug-in electric cars and to promote Houston and Texas as an electric vehicle center. Seven of the 10 stations will be available to the public, representing the largest public charging infrastructure in Texas, the city said.

“We’re committed to making Houston the nation’s green energy capital,” Houston Mayor Bill White said in a statement. “That commitment begins at City Hall and these clean-running electric cars and the charging stations that will be available to all Houstonians will get us farther down that road.”

The 10 Reliant-provided charging stations will be located around Houston, with public stations at City Hall, the Health Department office at 8000 Stadium Drive and at the Mayor’s Citizens Assistance Office at 9615 Rustic Wood in Kingwood. Reliant chose Campbell, Calif.-based Coulomb Technologies, Inc. to provide its ChargePoint Networked Charging Stations. Coulomb is a leader in networked electric vehicle charging infrastructure and its network will enable the city to administer consumer access to the public stations.

The 2009 Toyota Prius hybrids that will be converted are already used extensively by the city. The plug-in conversion module is the Hymotion L5 provided by A123 Systems, a leader in development of lithium-ion batteries for use in electric cars.

The converted plug-in hybrid electric vehicles can deliver up to 100 miles per gallon, helping to improve air quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Studies show plug-in hybrid electric vehicles with a 20-mile electric driving range can reduce vehicle carbon dioxide emissions by up to two thirds depending on the generation source for the vehicle’s electricity when compared with traditional gasoline-powered vehicles.

“We envision thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of electric cars on our roads in the coming years, making Houston’s air cleaner and the city greener,” Reliant Energy President Jason Few said in a statement. “Our pilot project gives both Reliant and the City of Houston the opportunity to learn more about the performance of electric vehicles and the needs of drivers while promoting consumer awareness and education about plug-in electric cars. Reliant is committed to making Houston and Texas the electric vehicle capital of the United States. We think big in Texas and we have big plans.”

Electric vehicles also provide long-term affordability, city officials said. While electric cars generally cost more to purchase, largely due to the high cost of lithium-ion batteries, the vehicles do not require typical engine maintenance, such as oil changes. Electric vehicles are also less expensive to operate because electricity costs less on a per-mile basis than gasoline.

Last week, Reliant and Nissan announced they have reached an agreement to work together to make Houston a launch city for the broader use of electric vehicles by the American public, businesses and public organizations.

The companies said they will advocate for policies that make it easy for consumers to make the switch from gasoline to electric-powered vehicles and will work together to establish the infrastructure of charging stations needed to support a critical mass of electric vehicles.

Most commodities come with a clear price attached to a distinct amount. A bag of potatoes, a can of beans, a jar of peanut butter….the cost of these is stamped on a sign at the grocery and an individual label breaks down the nutritional details.

Zerofootprint's Talking Plug

Electricity is sold with a price tag also, a price per kilowatt. Every month, customers pay a provider based on how many kilowatts their household has used. But there’s no label breakdown.

We don’t know how much electricity was expended to power the HVAC or dishwasher or fridge or computer. It’s a mystery what caused that spike in our bill. Our worst power phantoms are hiding.

Could the problem be those old incandescent light bulbs?

We don’t know. We’re in the dark.

“The way we use electricity is quite antiquated and quite dumb,” said Zerofootprint founder and CEO Dr. Ron Dembo, in a news conference Monday to introduce his group’s solution, the Talking Plug ™.

If we knew more — like how much, when and on what we were spending our electricity dollars, we’d be wiser consumers, he said. We could shift electricity use to off-peak hours making utilities happier  –  reducing our bills and our carbon pollution.

The TalkingPlug™ can be the starting point for all that because it takes energy monitoring to the micro level. It exposes errant appliances and runaway energy hogs in the home, but unlike similar, competitor devices that merely signal high or low energy use, it sends a stream of information to a software program (Zerofootprint’s web-based VELO software) so residents can monitor or re-tailor their energy use, and turn things on and off remotely via the Internet.

Set top box not needed today? Turn it off from your office or laptop computer.

“It’s win, win, win,” said Dembo, whose  Toronto-based carbon management company launched in 2005.

The TalkingPlug, he explained, is not just another cool gadget, but a foot in the door toward a new way of thinking about electricity. By putting more transparency into electricity consumption, Dembo proposed that it could lead to a paradigm shift that’s needed to fight climate change.

“It’s about changing culture more than anything,” he said. And changing the culture is necessary. Right now, green buildings are producing wonderfully new efficient buildings, he noted, “But if you leave the electricity on it doesn’t make any difference.”

His theory: You’ve got to develop precise measurements so people can compare their usage. “In short, it’s understood that if you want to change culture you compare things. These products allow you to compare very easily,” he said. This will take environmental consciousness to a new level, he predicts.

As the information bubbles up, and becomes accessible, there could be many applications, Dembo said, such as these:

• 

  A computer screen would register energy use using the TalkingPlug (Photo: Zerofootprint.)

  A school could track its precise energy consumption using TalkingPlug technology, and it could be made public with a meter over the door showing if current energy use was in the red, orange or green zone. Such a device could inform the public and exert pressure on schools — or businesses — to watch their watts.

• Appliance companies could track how their products worked in the home, and aggregate that information and use it for marketing. They could prove their claims of lower energy use, and do research.

• Utilities and residents could make deals to idle, by remote, certain appliances at certain times, resulting in a rebate for the user and a reduction of peak demand for the utility. (Utilities are built for peak demand to avoid blackouts, Dembo explained, but “it’s only a few minutes a year that we hit full peak.” So at the commercial level a lot of electricity is generated to be on “stand by” that is not needed, and never used.)

All these are all potential applications for the TalkingPlug technology, Dembo said, adding that this new technology will be compatible with Smart Meters that are being installed by some utilities to get a better handle on how energy is used in a given home. But they won’t require rewiring or any retrofitting of appliances.

The SmartPlug and Smart Meter technologies could work “in tandem,” Dembo said. “I see this as a rapidly convergent market.”

Right now, the TalkingPlug is being custom produced, and each one costs about $50. But that will come down to somewhere in the $30s after the first of the year, and drop further as it’s adopted and can take advantage of economies of scale, Dembo said.

ZeroFootprint operates a for-profit software and carbon management programs aimed at helping companies reduce their carbon footprint through better risk management and new technologies. The organization also operates a non-profit foundation with a mission of reducing carbon pollution.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

The world is running out of oil faster than the “official” report from the International Energy Agency suggests, according to an exclusive news report in the UK’s Guardian.

Whistleblowers, one inside the agency and one who has left the agency, say that the IEA has been downplaying the coming shortage of oil for fear of triggering a panic.

Further, the whistleblower still employed by the IEA (described as a “senior official” who wished to remain anonymous), says that the agency’s reluctance to come clean about oil supplies has been the result of pressure from the United States.

These allegations raise questions about the IEA’s prediction that oil production could be raised from its current level of 83 million barrels a day to 105 million barrels a day to meet increasing demand expected as the world comes out of the recession.

Looked at another way, the leaks from inside the IEA, which released its 2009 World Energy Outlook this week, give credence to critics who have been saying the world is close to or past the point of “peak” oil production.

The Guardian quoted the insider source as saying:

“Many inside the organisation believe that maintaining oil supplies at even 90m to 95m barrels a day would be impossible but there are fears that panic could spread on the financial markets if the figures were brought down further. And the Americans fear the end of oil supremacy because it would threaten their power over access to oil resources,” he added.

Said the Guardians’ second source:

“We have [already] entered the ‘peak oil’ zone. I think that the situation is really bad.”

The IEA report is not stripped of bad news, however. A look at the Executive Summary shows the IEA projects that:

• Oil demand will grow from 85 million barrels a day in 2008 to 105 million barrels per day in 2030 with the transportation sector accounting for 97 percent of the increase in oil use.
• Falling investment in oil and gas energy will have “far-reaching and depending on how governments respond, potentially serious consequences for energy security, climate change and energy poverty. …Any prolonged downturn in investment threatens to constrain capacity growth in the medium term, particularly for long lead-time projects, eventually risking a shortfall in supply.”

The IEA report further warns that it is important that world leaders develop a treaty at Copenhagen to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (though it talks in terms of holding the planet to 450 ppm of carbon in the atmosphere  instead of the emerging consensus for 350 ppm).

“Energy needs to be used more efficiently and the carbon content of the energy we consume must be reduced…” yet in 2030, the report predicts, fossil fuels, with the exception of coal, will remain the dominant energy sources.

For a larger discussion on peak oil, a look at the bell curves and some postulations about life on planet Earth in the post-fossil fuel era see Matt Savinar’s blog Life After the Oil Crash.

Officials gathered in a tiny corner of Utah yesterday to celebrate a new age of energy production that will carry the power of the wind to where it is needed most, in this case, to population centers in California.

Wind tubines outside Milford, Utah (Photo: First Wind)

The occasion was the opening of the “Milford Wind Corridor Project,” which is expected to generate enough electricity to power about 45,000 Southern California homes.

The project by First Wind, an independent power company based in Boston, is the largest renewable energy facility in Utah and comprises 97 giant wind turbines. This first phase of the project cost nearly $86 million (including “indirect” spending on wages and taxes) and created 250 development and construction jobs, according to a spokesman for the company.

Those attending the ribbon-cutting outside Milford, included Utah Lt. Governor Greg Bell and officials with the federal Bureau of Land Management, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), the cities of Burbank and Pasadena and the Southern California Public Power Authority (SCPPA).

“This development primes Utah’s economic engine, while also protecting our environment,” said Bell. “We’re pleased this project is online and look forward to the next phases of the project getting underway.”

“Not only is this First Wind’s largest project to date, but it is the largest wind farm in Utah and one of the largest in the West. We’re looking forward to expanding it in the months and years to come,” said Paul Gaynor, CEO of First Wind. “This project is a great example of the kind of development that helps create jobs and helps stimulate the economy.”

The details of the project:

• The 97 wind turbines include 58 2.5-MW wind turbines and 39 1.5-MW turbines. Components of the large turbines are made in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The smaller wind turbines, made by General Electric, are made outside the US.

• It was financed with the help of the Royal Bank of Scotland, which helped arrange a package of financing through   many other foreign banks.

• Compared with traditional electricity generation by oil- or coal-powered plants, the Milford project will save 210,000 tons of carbon dioxide in a year, the equivalent of taking 37,000 cars off the road.

• The project is the first wind energy facility permitted under the Bureau of Land Management’s “Wind Energy Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement” for Western States. Selma Sierra, Utah state director for the BLM lauded it as an example of how quickly and efficiently the US can produce “positive, clean, renewable energy” when federal and state agencies partner with private industry.

• The project broke ground in Nov. 2008, bringing its first phase to fruition in just under a year

• The project helps fulfill a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) that First Wind completed in 2007 with Southern Califronai Public Power AUthroity (SCPPA) on behalf of the LA Department of Water and Power (LADWP) and the cities of Burbank and Pasadena.

“This is another significant source of renewable energy that will help us meet Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s and the City of LA’s goal to achieve 20 percent renewables by 2010, reduce our carbon footprint, fight global warming, and foster cleaner air,” said LADWP General Manager S. David Freeman.

First Wind also is working on a project in Maine, and announced earlier this month that it has contracted with Harvard University to be a buyer of that wind. Harvard expects the wind farm to supply at least 10 percent of its power needs at its Cambridge and Allston campuses. The wind project, called the Stetson II, is near Danforth, Maine.

Back in California, the SCPPA will soon be gathering more wind from another source, a Cannon Power Group wind farm in Washington state.

Cannon, a veteran in the wind energy field with installations around the world, announced today that it has received $19.4 million in federal renewable energy grants from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to start construction of a 400 megawatt wind farm in Washington state. The power from the Windy Point/Windy Flats project will be used by California cities.

This new project is expected to take 18 months and employ more than 300 people in construction and permanent jobs, providing a “much needed financial cushion for many area families,” noted Gary Hardke, president and managing director of Cannon, which is based in San Diego.
The project is expected to produce enough electricity to supply more than 250,000 households.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Today, environmentalists, climate change activists and Americans who want legislation to control carbon pollution were cheered to see climate action take another step forward.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed the Clean Energy Jobs for American Power Act, meaning the full Senate will now get to debate the bill which aims to put America on a clean energy path. (Other Senate committees will add components before a complete bill is assembled.)

This isn’t quite like being a gladiator pushed into the Coliseum to meet the lions. But the hotly fought bill is expected to get full scrutiny, and climate change deniers were gathering stones within minutes of the bill’s committee unusual passage.

Typically bills in committee are voted upon by all members. In this case, though, Republicans had boycotted the hearings this week, saying they wanted another analysis of the bill’s effects by the Environmental Protection Agency. Democrats felt the bill had been vetted enough, and one EPA official testified that the requested additional analysis would have delayed the process by another five weeks, effectively killing action on the bill for 2009.

Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) appealed to Republicans to participate in the process, reaching out to ranking minority member Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.). Inhofe, who has famously denied that globally warming exists, rebuffed the invites, saying that the bill is too costly.

Other Democrats also called on Republicans to get involved and debate the merits of  the legislation in committee.

“The party of no has now devolved into the party of no show and I hope they will reconsider their strategy,” noted Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) on Wednesday.

Finally, Boxer broke the boycott, calling for a vote on Thursday, and passing what’s known as the Kerry-Boxer climate action bill on a vote of 10-1 with all those in favor being Democrats. The seven Republican committee members declined to register a yea or a nay.

Afterward, Inhofe accused Boxer of violating rules that require two minority party members to be part of the vote; but Boxer told Politico that the rules also allow for passage with a simple majority. (See Inhofe’s complaints on this YouTube video of an interview with Fox News.)

The bill calls for a reduction in greenhouse gases of 83 percent by 2050, a level that scientists around the world agree should help steer the planet clear of disaster.

Now if the climate bill can just steer its way through the U.S. Senate.

• (While environmentalists are happy with this progress, some experts consider it faint effort in the face of a large foe, with the bills in both the US House and Senate containing far too many concessions to entrenched industries and polluters. For this  analysis from the peanut gallery see the Institute for Policy Studies.)

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

The Roscoe, Texas, project became the world's largest wind farm.

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

The US wind industry will finish 2009 ahead of projections for wind installations, though the numbers will still fall behind the industry’s record-breaking year in 2008.

“It’s not a bad year given the financial crisis,” said Liz Salerno, director of industry data and analysis at the American Wind Energy Association, in a news conference this week.

The US is expected to have installed about 7,000 new megawatts of wind energy in 2009, falling short of  the 8,500 megawatts of 2008, but ahead of analysts’ predictions for the year and ahead of 2007’s installations.

With 31,000 megawatts of wind power online, the US currently leads the world in wind energy development, ahead of China, which is fast developing wind power, and traditional leader Germany.

The AWEA attributes the strong showing in 2009 to grant money provided by the US government, which allowed wind entrepreneurs and developers to show lenders they had seed money for projects. That helped companies secure credit, which was difficult in the wake of the financial fallout of late 2008, Salerno said.

“We know things were tough, and it was very difficult to get a deal done earlier in this year. But what we’re hearing from our wind community is that things are slowly being unlocked.”

Some private capital has helped fund projects as well, and utilities, which are able to access lower cost money, also continue to move into the wind market, she said.

Companies developing installations include large and small firms, including General Electric, Vestas, Siemens, Suzlon, Gamesa, Clipper, Mitsubishi, Acciona and Repower.

To keep wind aloft, advocates say a consistent and dependable national policy will be needed; keeping projects in the pipeline will require continued federal incentives, either as grants or production tax credits.

Click to enlarge

The AWEA also wants Congress to pass a strong Renewable Electricity Standard (RES), a measure that would require states to produce/obtain a certain percentage of their energy from renewable sources such as wind, solar or geothermal power.

A strong RES, combined with continued investment incentives, would send a signal to developers and the world that the US was committed to wind power and would buoy developers on the wind generation side, as well as the manufacturing sector related to wind, Salerno explained.

US wind parts manufacturers have experienced a slowdown with the 2009 global recession, she said.

“We can’t ignore the fact that we are competing with other countries for these manufacturing facilities and for these jobs…We have to step up and show that the US is a good place to do business compared to other countries.”

Congress also needs to invest in new transmission lines to get wind from outlying areas to population centers. Coupled with a strong RES, that would demonstrate the public commitment that the wind business has been seeking for years.

“Having a stable market in place,” she said, “will be the foundation for growing wind.”

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Roof-mounted solar panels on Hall's Warehouse in South Plainfield New Jersey. (Photo: Business Wire)

By Melissa Segrest
Green Right Now

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.

Even with the aching economy, venture capital is flowing to clean technologies at a rate rivaling biotech and software investments. The Federal government is pushing for smarter, sustainable and alternative forms of power, transportation and energy efficiency.

Around the world – in Europe, India, Japan and, especially, China – clean technology is a growing job market.

Unlike the high-tech bubble in California, these industries are spread out. Along with the financial analysts and system designers, there are jobs for laborers with new skills – biofuel boiler operators, insulation workers for green buildings or solar energy system installers.

Those are some details from a recently released study of jobs in clean technology industries. Clean Edge, a research and publishing company focused on the clean-tech sector since 2000, looked for the first time at the various jobs associated with these fields, as well as the top areas in the country where the jobs are emerging.

“This is a dispersed revolution, not concentrated in one place, like Silicon Valley during the dot.com boom,” said Ron Pernick, an author of the report and co-founder/managing director of Clean Edge.  “It’s in dozens of nodes and places all over the globe. And it’s not just one type of profession, but with all levels of education” and a significant range of jobs.

Wind power has more than 400,000 direct and indirect jobs around the globe.

Clean energy jobs are growing faster than other job sectors, according to Pew research cited in the report. In the solar photo-voltaic field alone, there are more than 200,000 jobs (direct and indirect) worldwide. The wind power area, Clean Edge reports, has more than 400,000 direct and indirect jobs around the globe.

What is clean tech? Companies that in some way use or produce renewable materials and energy sources, reduce use of natural resources (or improve efficiency), and limit or stop pollution and toxic waste, the report said.

Among the 36 jobs sampled:

• A boiler operator in a biofuel/biomaterial company could receive (with some years of related experience) a median annual salary of $61,000 with either a high school or associate’s degree.
• A building maintenance engineer for a “green” building (also with mid-level experience) might be looking at a median pay level of $43,300, again with a high school or associate’s degree.
• At higher levels, in entry-level jobs that call for a bachelor’s degree, a solar energy system designer ‘s median pay is $42,600, while a smart-grid software engineer’s median  income is $65,500.

(The job/salary information was determined both by Clean Edge and PayScale, a compensation data publisher. A national median means that half of those doing each job are paid more than the median, and half are paid less.)

Even at entry level, a high school grad or someone with an associate’s degree would need to have some specialized training for the tech jobs. On Clean Edge’s job listings, “those energy efficiency jobs, and solar installation jobs, all of these jobs, at the end of the day, on the manufacturing side, on the installation jobs, they are technical jobs,” Pernick said.

While it is true the San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose metropolitan area is still number one in the study’s clean-tech job activity list Detroit/Ann Arbor, Mich. is 14^th on the list of 15.

“Detroit is a great example, and they’re having a difficult time as you know,” said Pernick. In Wixom, Mich., a former Ford plant closed in 2007 is a 320-acre facility that has been purchased by Xtreme Power (wind and solar power systems) and Clairvoyant Energy (solar panel manufacturing). They are planning to reopen the plant in 2011 and could potentially employ thousands, the report said.

In West Branch, Iowa, a hydraulic pump maker laid off 130 workers in 2003. Now wind turbines are being built by 130 employees there, and more hires are planned. In Newton, Iowa, an old Maytag plant for home appliances had laid off 1,800 people in 2007. Now, TPI Composites are making wind turbine blades there and have hired 325 people since 2008, the report says. They are aiming at 500 employees by 2020.

And it’s not just new companies on the clean-tech bandwagon: Big firms such as Siemens have 5,500 working in their wind-business division, and BP has more than 2,200 solar employees.

Of all the clean-tech businesses in the world, four are in the U.S., three are in China and three in the European Union, the report said.. The largest is Vestas Wind Systems in Denmark, with 21,100 employees.

Pressure for more efficient sources of industry coincides with large numbers of retiring employees. The result, according to Pernick, can be found in the example of California’s Pacific Gas & Electric. PG&E “is a company reinventing itself. . . . They need to build out their energy intelligence and clean energy integration because of other forces. But as they’re facing a huge shift in their existing labor pool, they are going to hire people trained in those new arenas.”

But will Americans who don’t like the idea of public funding for new ventures object to stimulus money for clean tech businesses?

“The government has a history of highly subsidized and deregulated energy sources. Coal, nuclear, oil – they’re all highly subsidy-dependent and regulatory dependent. Time has changed, they don’t create a lot of jobs in those industries (non-renewable), they are not providing energy independence,” Pernick said.

That said, Clean Edge’s report offers five models for publicly financing clean-tech jobs.  Some have interesting precedents in American history. The Green Bank (officially the Clean Energy Development Administration) proposal is moving through the U.S. House and Senate and receiving bipartisan support. The bank could fund lots of renewable energy, energy efficiency and pollution reducing businesses and leverage lots of private investment as well. In the 19^th century, the report says, the government supported private enterprise – the building out of America’s railroads.

Another blast from the past for clean tech support could be a form of “Victory Bonds,” similar to the War Bonds sold to support World War II efforts, the study said. The World Bank and a Scandinavian bank helped raise more than $350 million for “green bonds” in 2008.

Another public-financing idea is the production of more Federal bonds that offer bondholders a tax credit (to some extent) in lieu of interest payments. The report also speaks about Federal loan guarantees and city-administered loan funds — where homeowners could borrow money to be more energy efficient (solar energy cells on their roofs, for example), then repay the loans over a long time via property taxes or utility bills.

Clean-tech companies and financing options are spread across the country, so there will be competition. However, “there are so many players . . . you can try to put together a great package to attract a company (in New York, for example) and they just may end up in Texas or Colorado or Oregon. There’s no way to divine who’s going to get the deal.

“The good news is they (cities) have a chance to get it, and the bad is that there’s a lot of competition,” Pernick said.

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

Tomorrow’s leaders are already working towards a cleaner future — that could be as bright as the sun.

The Solar Decathlon, an international competition hosted by the US Department of Energy (DOE), is showcasing solar-powered home designs created by students from around the world.

Students selected to participate were given two years to design and build the prototype solar homes, which must be carbon neutral and completely powered by the sun. The projects, many costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, are on display at the National Mall in Washington through Sunday (Oct. 18).

Two thousand students came together to form 20 teams, which are competing to win prizes in several categories, such as best architecture or engineering or “comfort zone”.

The Solar Decathlon Proposal Review Committee, which is made up of engineers, scientist, and other experts from the DOE and its National Renewable Energy Laboratory, selected the teams that they thought had the ability to meet the strict structural and safety requirements. Once selected, each team was given $100,000 to get started. Projects often require more, so individual teams then raise any additional funds.

“The U.S. Department of Energy supports the Solar Decathlon to encourage young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. DOE also supports the event to help move solar energy technologies to the market place faster. The Solar Decathlon helps accelerate the research and development of energy-efficiency and energy production technologies,” said John Horst, spokesperson for the Department of Energy.

The Solar Village

The 800-square-feet homes must be completely powered by the sun. They are meant to be prototype zero-energy, zero-carbon homes. The hope is that this competition stimulates research that will reduce the cost of solar-powered homes and the advancement of solar technology. While the Solar Decathlon aims to find ways to save money with solar technology, design and comfort are important as well.

The student teams represent universities from across North America, and two from Europe:

Reflective Louvers

• Cornell University
• Iowa State University
• Penn State
• Rice University
• Team Alberta (University of Calgary, SAIT Polytechnic, Alberta College of Art + Design, Mount Royal College)
• Team Boston (Boston Architectural College, Tufts University)
• Team California (Santa Clara University, California College of the Arts)
• Team Germany (Technische Universität Darmstadt)
• Team Missouri (Missouri University of Science and Technology, University of Missouri)
• Team Ontario/BC (University of Waterloo, Ryerson University, Simon Fraser University)
• Team Spain (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid)
• The Ohio State University
• The University of Arizona
• Universidad de Puerto Rico
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• University of Kentucky
• University of Louisiana at Lafayette
• University of Minnesota
• University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
• Virginia Tech
  

  A student built solar home

There are a total of 10 contests throughout the competition, which began Oct. 8.

• Architecture: Architectural elements, holistic design, and inspiration are evaluated when looking at a house’s design. Market Viability: Houses are marketed to an audience of the team’s choice. Points are given based on a realistic approach to affordability, livability, ease of building, and marketability.
• Engineering: Houses are assessed based on reliability, innovation, efficiency, and functionality in engineering excellence.
• Lighting Design: Houses must include functional, energy-efficient, and aesthetically pleasing lighting systems. The judges score on the following categories: electric lighting quality, day lighting quality, ease of operation, flexibility, energy efficiency, and building integration.
• Communications: Teams are scored based on their verbal, written, and photographic communication of their houses. Messages must be consistent, effective, and able to engage a wide audience.
• Comfort Zone: In order to score points in this contest, houses must maintain a certain temperature and humidity inside during the competition.
• Hot Water: This contest displays how solar hot water systems are able to supply enough hot water daily.
• Appliances: House appliances must run like those of the average US home while using less energy. Throughout the contest, the houses must keep refrigerator and freezer temperatures within the typical range, wash and dry laundry, as well as run the dishwasher.
• Home Entertainment: This contest exhibits the houses’ ability to go beyond basic functions, like powering modern electronics and conveniences.
• Net Metering: The newest contest, measures how much energy the houses produce and consume throughout the competition, and rewards teams for producing more energy than they consume.

“Certainly it’s also important to raise awareness among the general public about renewable energy and energy efficiency and what technologies are available — that is, commercial off-the-shelf materials and supplies – today that can be used to help reduce energy use,” said Horst.

The Solar Decathlon encourages students to find practical solutions to a global problem. Their research is expected to be influential in the marketplace and bridge the worlds of science and business, showing that they have both dollar and environmental value.

The need for alternative energy is no longer an issue for the future. According to the US Department of Energy, the United States consumes about 100 quads of energy per year, with 22% of that coming from the residential sector. The cost of that energy is almost $1 million per minute, and the US consumes one-fourth of the world’s energy resources, but only contains 5% of the world’s population.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Plastic Package Inc., which manufactures 100-percent post consumer recycled plastic containers, said it will installing the largest cylindrical thin film solar system west of New Jersey to power its operations.

The project will use solar technology from Solyndra.

The Sacramento, Calif., company said it will use solar technology from Solyndra for the project. That Bay Area company recently was funded by a $535 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy. Plastic Package officials said the installation will be done by Premier Power Renewable Energy of El Dorado Hills.

The new 208 kilowatt system being installed on the roof will initially handle all of Plastic Package’s peak demand and assist its local power provider, Sacramento Municipal Utility District to reduce its summer peak loads during the hottest part of the day.

The company noted that with solar, the production peaks simultaneously with energy demand. As the sun heats up into midday, power demand increases. With the sun higher in the sky the output from the rooftop solar system is increased.

Solyndra can boost production even further by adding a white membrane roof. Solyndra has devised the cylindrical modules that enable its solar panels to capture sunlight over a 360-degree photovoltaic surface.

“If you build a better solar panel, the world will beat a path to your door,” US Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in a statement. “Building a better solar panel is what Solyndra has done. Compared to traditional solar panels, these innovative thin-film systems produce more energy for less money and less hassle.”

That approach appealed to Jim Kaye, Plastic Package Inc.’s chairman, and Jennifer Kaye, the company president. The Kayes said they spent the last couple of years researching solar technologies and investigating solar integrators that could provide them with a packaged solution that would help them to offset their increasing electrical consumption as their business grew.

“The plastics business is not normally thought of as a green business”, Jim Kaye said in a statement, “but we are making major strides in that direction by using recycled soda bottles as well as bio-based materials in our products. Now that we’ve added solar, we want to let the community and our clients know, so they can feel comfortable that when they use our packaging, they are part of the sustainable process.”

Farm Power, a Washington-based renewable energy company, and Washington utility company Puget Sound Energy (PSE) are giving new meaning to making something new out of something old. Farm Power says it has developed a “manure digester” –  a system that turns cow manure into electricity — in Skagit County, Wash.

The manure digester captures the methane biogas from the waste, and holds it in an air tight tank, which then heats the manure to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The harvested methane becomes an alternative fuel and is sold to PSE. The leftover processed manure is then taken to other farms and used as an organic fertilizer.

This process prevents methane from being released into the atmosphere. Not only is there a reduction in greenhouse gases, Farm Power says the manure digester limits nitrate runoff, a problem common with dairy farm waste.

“Our environment, and our tradition of family farming in the Skagit Valley, both demand new ways of solving old problems,” said Kevin Maas, cofounder of Farm Power, in a statement. “Our Rexville dairy digester is the result of many state, community and business leaders coming together to help turn our vision of a renewable energy facility into a new source of opportunities for Skagit County farmers.”

To help make the process more affordable, Farm Power has developed regional digesters that multiple farms can access. The Skagit County digester uses manure from two farms, Beaver Marsh Farms and Harmony Dairy. The energy output from the manure at these two farms is 750 kilowatts of electricity, enough to power 500 homes.

While cow manure is the main component, other agricultural waste is being used as well including: spoiled fruit, chess whey and parts from chicken processing.

PSE has a voluntary Green Power Program that allows customers to buy renewable energy equal to the amount of the electricity they use. This gives people the ability to support local renewable energy projects. PSE says 24,000 customers are currently participating in the Green Power Program.

Not only is Farm Power creating clean energy to benefit the community, it also is providing new green jobs to benefit the local economy.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media