San Francisco residents may soon be able to buy a 100 percent green power plan, for about $9 a month more on average, under a public power program approved by the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.
Tags: · green power, green power plans, renewables, San Francisco
Andrew Winston
A cover story in the NY Times today declares, “Cost of Green Power Makes Projects Tougher Sell.” Apparently wind turbines are not flying off the shelves as fast as a couple of years ago (when oil hit $145/barrel in mid-2008, it was a pretty good boost to the renewables industry).
While China and other countries ceaselessly invest in renewables, we continually see these kinds of ebbs and flows in our commitment depending on the politics of the moment. In the inexorable march toward a clean energy grid and economy, these slow-downs do take the wind out of your sails (pun intended).
Tags: · Andrew Winston, cost of renewable energy, green power, grid, OtherVoicesBlog, Renewable Energy, renewables, utilities, Wind energy
A group of environmentalists who wanted solar panels installed on the White House were able to meet with administration staffers today, but they did not get a commitment for a solar array at the first family’s residence.
The team representing people who’d signed a “Put Solar On The White House” petition included students from Unity College in Maine which has been using a solar array installed on the White House during the Carter Administration. The panels Jimmy Carter had installed were dismantled, and ultimately relocated to Unity College, during the Reagan Administration. The Put Solar On It group carried a remnant of that array to the White House to help make their point that President Obama could again light the way.
Tags: · 350.org, Bill McKibben, green power, President Carter, President Obama, President Reagan, Put Solar On It, Put Solar on The White House, renwewable energy, residential solar, solar array, solar panels, Solar Power, Unity College, White House
Coal-fired power plant (Photo: Braen Gunem/Dreamstime.)
Sitting in a heap atop the list of climate offenders is coal. Coal-burning power plants are the single biggest source of carbon emissions worldwide and their smokestacks spew sulfur and nitrogen dioxide, as well, contributing to the stew of greenhouse gases that are heating the Earth’s atmosphere.
Despite the growth of renewable energy sources, coal remains the single largest provider of energy for America, at 45 percent. And its toxic footprint doesn’t end with air pollution. The industry’s waste, leftover ash, is laced with metal oxides.
Tags: · Carbon Emissions, clothes dryers, coal, coal electricity, coal industry, coal pollution, coal production, coal-fired electricity, coal-fired power, DOE, energy savings, Energy Star appliances, EPA, green power, home energy savings, hot water heaters, refrigerators
By Ashley Phillips
Green Right Now
Four-time heavy weight boxing champion Evander Holyfield is ready for another fight. Except 
this time, he is fighting for the planet. Known as the Real Deal in the sports world, Holyfield will also be going by a new nickname, Lean Green Fighting Machine. Friday morning, Holyfield announced that in partnership with Global-NES-Georgia, Inc., he plans to build a 40 acre solar energy farm on his estate in Georgia.
Tags: · Evander Holyfield, Georgia, Global-NES-Georgia Inc., green power, Real Deal, solar farm, Solar Power
From Green Right Now Reports
Four major corporations were named “Green Power Partners of the Year” this past week by the US EPA:
Deutsche Bank AG — In 2009, the company made an annual purchase of 160 million kilowatt-hours of wind-derived renewable energy certificates (RECs), which represents 100 percent of the electricity needs for its U.S. operations. Worldwide, Deutsche Bank bought 515 million-kilowatt hours of green power.
Tags: · biomass power, Deutsche Bank, EPA, green power, Green Power Partners of the Year, green power purchasing, Intel Corporation, Kohl's, Mohawk, RECs, renewable energy credits, Wind Power
By Ashley Phillips
Green Right Now
Restaurants looking to green their operations by generating some of their own electrical power are finding it easier as vendor companies try to fill in the gaps.
Owl Power Company, for instance, has developed a way for restaurants to more conveniently use vegetable oil as fuel. Owl’s Vegawatt is a combined heating and power system that runs on vegetable oil and can be connected 
to existing heating and power systems to be used as supplemental green energy.
Tags: · Biofuel, green power, Owl Power Company, restaurants, Vegawatt, vegetable oil recycling
By John DeFore
The Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, a sixty-plus-year-old lab complex near Chicago, needs an enormous amount of juice to run all its number-crunching computers. But its ratio of computing power to electrical usage just made a leap, thanks to the Blue Gene/P, a supercomputer designed for the Department by IBM.
Tags: · Argonne National Laboratory, Blue Gene/P, green power, IBM, supercomputer
Barbara Kessler
Andrew Winston
Danielle Nierenberg
Anthony Swift