tagged w/ Clean Energy
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This post is part of a blogging series by economics students at the Presidio Graduate School’s MBA program. You can follow along here.
By Joey Christiano
Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing is a mechanism that allows renewable energy, water conservation, and energy efficiency projects to be financed at reasonable rates. PACE works by attaching a senior lien to the property, not the installed equipment. The lien is usually repaid over the life of the installed equipment, anywhere from 5 – 20 years. Using a senior property lien has many benefits:
The senior position of the lien allows lenders to offer low interest rates because the property is collateral, not the installed equipment.
Adoption of energy efficiency upgrades and renewable energy installations have been hampered by high up-front costs. Using PACE financing spreads the cost over the useful life of the equipment, which typically generates savings that exceed cost on an annual basis.
The lien is attached to the property, not the person. Making it easy to invest in energy efficiency or renewable energy projects even if the owner plans on selling the property.
PACE sounds great – why isn’t everyone doing it?
Residential PACE financing froze up on July 6, 2010 when the Federal Housing Finance Authority (FHFA), released guidance advising Fannie May and Freddie Mac not to work with loans that took advantage of PACE financing because of the risk associated with senior property liens. Several groups, including the State of California, are fighting to reverse the ruling. These groups are fighting for residential PACE financing because they see it as a catalyst to reducing dependence on fossil fuels, promoting renewable energy investments, and creating green jobs.
Commercial markets were not affected
While residential PACE is at a standstill, commercial PACE was not affected by the FHFA statement because the majority of commercial real estate mortgages are not owned by Fannie May or Freddie Mac. Commercial PACE has been developing slowly over the past year due to concern that a statement from a governing body could freeze commercial PACE, but since nearly a year has passed since the FHFA statement, commercial PACE markets are starting to pick up.
A report co-authored by the Clinton Climate Initiative states that several commercial PACE programs are in development, in markets such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Ann Arbor, MI, and Washington D.C. Some programs are expected to launch as early as the second quarter of 2011.
In June 2010, prior to the FHFA ruling, Pike Research estimated that the commercial PACE market could reach $2.5 billion by 2015. That estimate seems a little high, given that as of March 23, 2011 only $9.69M had been approved for commercial PACE funding according to the Clinton Climate Initiative co-authored report referenced above.
Post Source: http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/05/commercial-pace-financing-drive-25-billion-energy-efficiency-investments/This post is part of a blogging series by economics students at the Presidio Graduate... more
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Hello, I am a children’s author and Andy is an illustrator. We want to reach out to show kids (and adults too!) that there are great, clean ways to help power our world. We have created ‘The Power Families’, a series of beautifully written and illustrated picture books set on renewable energy farms and we need your help to kickstart it!Hello, I am a children’s author and Andy is an illustrator. We want to reach out... more
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REDUCING MILITARY SPENDING ALONE WILL ELIMINATE THE LONG TERM DEFICIT.
Per the MilitaryIndustrialComplex.com, you contributed to $246,876,+ billion dollars of military contracts for the year of 2010, ALONE!. You contributed to $70,601, billion dollars of military contracts in the first three months of 2011, ALONE! And this only represents contracts reported, not all of the other military spending not related to corporate contracts! Is it any wonder we're broke now?
( A great tool for counting the money being made by corporations off of your military budget money. ): http://www.militaryindustrialcomplex.com/2011-totals.asp
"if all we were to do was to bring the military budget back down to the Clinton-era level, that alone would essentially solve the long-term deficit problem. That alone.", states U. of Mass., at Amherst, professor Robert Pollin, in an interview with Paul Jay of theREALnews network.
"In the year 2000, it ( the military budget ) was 3 percent of GDP. And now it's 4.8 percent." " If we say the problem, again, the long-term problem, is that we project out a deficit at 5 percent of GDP, and we need to get it in the range of 2 to 3 percent, at least you could pull half of that out of the military budget, and you'd still be way beyond where the military budget was at the end of the Clinton administration.
JAY: And still be the country that spends more on weapons [crosstalk]
POLLIN: Than all the other countries of the world, yes.
JAY: --rest of the world put together, yeah."
Once we recognize that our military currently functions as a money making business for already rich corporations, creating foreign threats to our nation in order to justify military action and supporting budgets; which in turn feed the industrial war machine, we can intelligently pare it down to a level only necessary to TRULY insure our national security.
"people say, well, you can't do that, because we'd lose jobs if we cut the military. But that's also false, because the military per dollar of expenditure creates far fewer jobs than, for example, putting the money in education or putting the money in clean energy. We create more jobs. If we moved it out of the public military and just incentivized private green investors, we would create about 50 percent more jobs."
CONCLUSION? Reduce military spending and create more jobs! Just the facts, if you please!
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=6649
And here is a terrific tool for keeping track of it yourself:
2010 Military-Industrial Complex Totals
Total Contracts Recorded: 3,834
Total Contracts Dollar Value: $246,876,980,742
A visual representation of Defense Spending growth and decrease by month throughout 2010.
Total Contracts Recorded by Month:
January: 168
February: 171
March: 330
April: 374
May: 272
June: 330
July: 306
August: 327
September: 704
October: 273
November: 224
December: 355
Total Contracts Dollar Value by Month:
January: $8,107,922,646
February: $11,540,170,777
March: $13,677,787,653
April: $20,284,801,491
May: $25,567,713,470
June: $22,596,147,257
July: $19,415,424,453
August: $16,792,242,962
September: $46,498,184,935
October: $9,565,043,473
November: $28,206,122,771
December: $24,625,418,854
http://www.militaryindustrialcomplex.com/2011-totals.aspREDUCING MILITARY SPENDING ALONE WILL ELIMINATE THE LONG TERM DEFICIT.
Per the... more
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TELL OBAMA NUCLEAR AND GAS FRACKING IS NOT CLEAN ENERGY !!!
This letter from the Whitehouse, in response to my letter about clean and sustainable energy, reveals that even in the Japanese disaster cloud of radioactivity, now distributed worldwide, Obama considers nuclear energy to be clean!
Combined with the "massive Fracking Blowout spill in PA.", posted herein, how can anyone justify that fracking gas and nuclear energy can ever be clean? Nuclear accidents and incidents pollute FOREVER! Even now, sealed recontainment plans are being devised to resecure the Chernobyl reactor. Does anyone remember how many years ago that occurred?
Please remind Obama that nuclear, fracted gas and coal are not clean energies. And, you might indicate that if an effort equalling half of that made to prepare for war were put forth, we could be energy independent in a couple of years. It only took a couple of years to develop the atom bomb, it can't possibly take longer to perfect solar and wind power if government would commit to it.
THE WHITEHOUSE
April 22, 2011
Dear Friend:
Thank you for writing. I appreciate hearing from you, and I share the vision of millions of Americans who want to secure our Nation's energy future. We must seize this important opportunity to create new jobs and industries, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and protect the public health and our environment. My Administration's energy plan relies on harnessing the resources we have available, embracing a diverse energy portfolio, and becoming a global leader in developing new sources of clean energy.
I understand the impact gas prices have on families and businesses across our country, and that is why I am committed to developing our capacity for domestic energy production. My Administration is working to expand responsible oil and gas development in the United States, ensuring this is done safely and responsibly. This includes a focus on natural gas, while also building production capacity for biofuels.
In addition to increased domestic energy production, my plan calls for a reduction in demand of foreign oil. Since transportation is responsible for 70 percent of our petroleum consumption, one of the quickest and easiest ways to reduce our dependence on foreign oil is to make transportation more efficient. That is why my Administration established groundbreaking national fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks, which will reduce consumption by 1.8 billion barrels of oil and save consumers thousands of dollars. We are also making investments in electric vehicles and the advanced batteries that power them to ensure high-quality, fuel-efficient cars and trucks are built right here in America.
To secure our Nation's energy future, we also need to increase production of clean energy. I have set a goal that by 2035, 80 percent of our electricity will come from clean energy, including renewable sources like wind and solar power, nuclear energy, efficient natural gas, and clean coal. This goal is not about picking one energy source over another, but rather leveraging a broad range of sources and providing industry the flexibility to decide how best to increase their clean energy share. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act also included over $90 billion in clean energy investments.
A 21st-century energy policy is an investment in our economy, national security, health, and environment. I encourage you to read more about my Administration's blueprint for a secure energy future here: www.WhiteHouse.gov/issues/blueprint-secure-energy-future. For more information on government grants, please visit e-center.doe.gov.
Thank you, again, for writing.
Sincerely,
Barack ObamaTELL OBAMA NUCLEAR AND GAS FRACKING IS NOT CLEAN ENERGY !!!
This letter from the... more
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In 2008, Courtney Hight fell in love with Barack Obama’s message of hope and change, especially his stalwart support of renewable and alternative energy. She worked long hours as the youth vote director for his campaign in Florida.
But lately the young activist has started to feel that President Obama isn’t quite the man she fell for. During his energy security speech at Georgetown University in March, when he said oil drilling and clean coal would help power America’s energy future, Hight said she accepted what friends told her for weeks: Obama changed.
On Friday, Hight and 10,000 other young clean-energy advocates will open the third Power Shift conference at the Washington Convention Center in the District. The three-day climate summit takes place every other year.
But instead of endorsing the president’s energy policy, as in 2009, they plan to lambaste it, saying that Obama is siding with what they consider to be the dark side — big oil and coal-fired power plants. Organizers are planning a demonstration Monday with 5,000 participants outside the White House.
“When I looked at that energy security speech, it seemed like something BP wrote,” said Hight, 31, of Scottsdale, Ariz., who is co-director of Power Shift 2011. “We want to make sure the president is seeing that we’re done with this. We need them to draw a line in the sand. We need him to stand up to the polluters.”
Considering the political environment in Washington, where congressional Republicans are fighting Obama’s every step, some say Power Shift’s demands are unrealistic.
And Obama’s energy security speech wasn’t devoid of messages that Power Shift’s organizers favor. He said he wanted to cut America’s oil dependence by a third in the next decade, put a million more electric vehicles on the roads by 2015 and help Americans upgrade their homes and businesses with energy-efficient building materials that could save them tens of billions of dollars a year.
But when Obama said his administration has approved 39 new shallow-water drilling permits and an additional seven deepwater permits in recent weeks, following the disastrous Deepwater Horizon oil spill last year in the Gulf of Mexico, it was akin to dragging his fingernails across a blackboard for his base of young environmental voters.
cont.In 2008, Courtney Hight fell in love with Barack Obama’s message of hope and... more
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Many people learned from all the press coverage the Koch's have received lately that much of their income comes from the core oil/energy part of their business... so it was easy to connect the dots between their well financed "climate change denial" front groups and think tanks and the money they poured into GOP coffers. Many even "signed a pledge" to help them neuter EPA rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
The LA Times recently exposed the sheer extent of their buying power.
"Nine of the 12 new Republicans on the panel (House Energy and Commerce Committee) signed a pledge distributed by a Koch-founded advocacy group — Americans for Prosperity — to oppose the Obama administration's proposal to regulate greenhouse gases. Of the six GOP freshman lawmakers on the panel, five benefited from the group's separate advertising and grass-roots activity during the 2010 campaign."
Many are quick to blame "cap & trade" on the "Obama administration", but the history behind early pollution legislation should clear up some misconceptions about when "cap & trade" was started.
"President George H.W. Bush — with broad bipartisan support in both houses of Congress — signed into law sweeping amendments to the Clean Air Act requiring the E.P.A. to take aggressive steps to identify and curb major sources of hazardous air pollution, including emissions from power plants."
And then we get to George Bush in 2000.
"During Mr. Bush’s first term, legislation was developed to create a ****cap-and-trade program**** for mercury, similar to the program that had successfully reduced acid rain pollution in the 1990s."
(1990's - Clinton and his (shutdown the government) GOP controlled Congress)
Bush - Cap & Trade? Who knew?
I know Bush went too easy on the gas drillers (hydraulic fracturing- using a Halliburton patent) in his Clean Water Act in 2005, but the EPA still had some regulatory powers left.
The way the right leaning media is ranting about Cap & Trade you'd think it was ALL Obama's fault.....but if you read the article you'll see that this battle was ongoing for decades and that the EPA was following court orders to do their job.
Whether you lean right or left....if you have children yet or not, there are things in the article that should greatly concern you.
"a comprehensive 1998 report by the E.P.A. conclusively linking mercury emissions from power plants to cognitive harm in developing fetuses"
Mercury in the air, Mercury in the preservative found in childhood vaccinations (Thiomersal) that's been linked to Autism....the scientific evidence is real. Let's not allow our legislators to put the profits of industry before the health of our children.
Support the EPA in doing their job.
Delay in Coal Pollution Rules Took Toll in Lives
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/delay-in-coal-pollution-rules-took-toll-in-lives/Many people learned from all the press coverage the Koch's have received lately... more
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George Monbiot
Most of the countries that might abandon nuclear power are likely to replace it not with renewables but with fossil fuel, and that this is a major change for the worse. Mark Lynas has shown how phasing out planned nuclear programmes in a number of countries as a result of the Fukushima disaster could add another degree to global warming. Chris Goodall estimates that if the planned construction of new nuclear power stations in the UK stalls in response to the crisis, the result will be an increase of 9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide for every year we delay.
Replacing current nuclear generation when the power stations reach the end of their lives is a tough decision. So is not replacing it. Not replacing it is a decision to do one of two things:
A. To switch to coal or gas, which means greatly increasing the rate of industrial deaths and injuries, levels of pollution and the impacts of climate change.
B. To add even more weight to the burden that must be carried by renewables.
Response A is far more likely, and appears to be taking place already: for example in Germany.
Like most environmentalists, I want renewables to replace fossil fuel, but I realise we make the task even harder if they are also to replace nuclear power...Nor is the Fukushima crisis anything other than horrible: dangerous, traumatic and disruptive. I’m urging perspective, not complacency.
Here is a list of what I believe are the double-standards that some of us who have opposed nuclear power (I include myself in this) have used when arguing against it.
1.Deaths and Injuries.
We rightly lament the horrible consequences of industrial exposure to radiation. Two workers at Fukushima have so far received radiation burns and 17 have been exposed to levels of radiation considered unsafe. This is and should be a cause for serious concern. It is also worth remembering that no one has yet received a dose of radiation that is known to be lethal as a result of the Fukushima disaster. But if we are concerned about industrial injuries, why do we say nothing about the deaths and injuries in the industry most likely to replace nuclear power?
In China alone, the government estimates that 2,433 people died in coal mining accidents last year. That’s not injuries or exposures. It’s deaths. Human rights activists believe that official figures might have been underestimated by a factor of four.
What this means is that, in the normal course of operations, at least 6 people are killed in Chinese coal mines every day. Even if you accept the official figure, Chinese coal mining alone kills as many people every week as the worst nuclear power accident in history – the Chernobyl explosion – has done in 25 years.
And this is to say nothing of the far larger number of injuries that coal mining inflicts, in particular the hideous lung diseases which plague so many miners and cause long, lingering and terrible deaths.
2.The Science.
We emphasise, when debating climate change, the importance of the scientific consensus, and reliance on solid, peer-reviewed studies. As soon as we start discussing the dangers of low-level radiation, we abandon that and endorse the pseudo-scientific gibberish of a motley collection of cranks and quacks, who appear to have begun with the assumption that it must be killing thousands of people every year, and retrofitted the evidence to match it.
Such people exist in every field, especially those that are politically contentious. We should, by now, have learnt to be wary of them. But it seems that the temptation, for people hoping to make the case against nuclear power, is overwhelming.
3.Radioactive Pollution
If low-level radiation really was the problem that some environmentalists say it is, the focus of their campaign should be coal plants, not nuclear power. As Scientific American notes:
“the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy.”
This is because coal contains trace amounts of uranium and thorium, which are concentrated in the ash. Not only does this expose people living around coal plants to higher doses of radiation than people living around nuclear plants receive; but the regulations for disposing of fly ash are far weaker than the regulations for disposing of low-level nuclear waste. You may remember the controversy about RWE npower’s plan to dump the fly ash from Didcot power station into a lake between the villages of Radley and Abingdon.
4.Mining Impact
Anti-nuclear campaigners emphasise the damage and pollution inflicted by uranium mines. They are right to do so. Some of these mines are hideous, and they are one of the many reasons why we should urgently develop new reactor technologies which sharply reduce the need for fresh supplies. But the impacts of coal mining are massively greater. There are hundreds of times more coal mines than uranium mines, including opencast sites, and a lot of them of them are many times bigger and more destructive than the largest uranium operations. This doesn’t make uranium mining right, but it makes the likely switch to coal even more wrong.
5.Costs
One of the most frequent arguments against nuclear power is that it costs too much. Many environmentalists claim that, when all the hidden costs, especially the massive decommissioning liabilities, are taken into account, electricity from atomic plants could cost as much as 5p per kilowatt hour or even more. The highest figure I have come across was the top end of the range of estimates produced by the New Economics Foundation – 8.3p. If this is correct – and I should emphasise that it’s an extreme outlier – it suggests that nuclear is an extravagant means of generating low-carbon electricity.
So why do the same people support a feed-in tariff scheme under which we pay 41p per kilowatt hour for rooftop solar electricity?
6.Research
Last week I argued about these issues with Caroline Lucas(one of my heroes, and the best thing to have happened to Parliament). When I raised the issue of the feed-in tariff, she pointed out that the difference between subsidising nuclear power and subsidising solar power is that nuclear is a mature technology and solar is not. In that case, I asked, would she support research into thorium reactors, which could provide a much safer and cheaper means of producing nuclear power? No, she told me, because thorium reactors are not a proven technology.
7.Timing
Anti-nuclear campaigners point out that it takes ten years or so to build a new nuclear power station, and we haven’t got that long, if we are serious about preventing climate breakdown. But the same problem affects every significant move to decarbonise the energy supply. By the time it has gone through the planning process, a major new grid connection to support an offshore wind farm will take roughly as long to develop as a new nuclear power station. The same goes for the pumped storage facilities required to support a largely renewable power system and for the carbon capture and storage required to reduce the impacts of fossil fuels. As for growing trees …
My point is that we have to take responsibility for every component of our energy supply and the consequences it carries; not just the section of it that’s produced by nuclear reactors. And we should apply the same standards to all generating technologies. Otherwise, in the name of reducing risks to people and the planet, we will unwittingly increase them.
http://www.monbiot.com/2011/03/31/seven-double-standards/
see also http://www.monbiot.com/2011/04/04/evidence-meltdown/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/21/pro-nuclear-japan-fukushimaGeorge Monbiot
Most of the countries that might abandon nuclear power are likely to... more
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by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
This week, the House voted to shut down the carbon regulation program at the Environmental Protection Agency, but the Senate rejected four different measures that would have stopped or delayed EPA action. The EPA, as mandated by the Supreme Court, has been moving forward with regulations that would require carbon polluters to apply for EPA permits and to use the best available method to start limiting carbon emissions.
The Office of Management and Budget has promised that if Congress does vote to end the regulation program, “senior advisors would recommend that [the president] veto the bill,” as I report at The American Prospect. But as David Roberts points out at Grist, that does not mean President Obama would follow that course. Roberts writes:
I don’t see a promise there. I see wiggle room where his advisers can “recommend” a veto and he can ignore their recommendations. And of course this leaves aside whether Obama would veto a spending or appropriations bill with an EPA-blocking rider.
Making a better choice
The legislators who are supporting the anti-EPA bill often argue that the power to deal with this issue should rest with them, not the executive branch. But they also argue against the EPA’s regulations on the grounds that they’ll cost American companies money, leading to higher costs for consumers and fewer jobs.
It’s true: Dealing with carbon is expensive. Right now, Americans simply aren’t paying for the damage being done to the atmosphere, and many of us don’t seem to care.
In Orion Magazine, Kathryn Miles writes about this problem in a review of Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril, a new collection of essays on the problem of climate change:
As editors Kathleen Dean Moore and Michael P. Nelson argue in their introduction, neither scientific data nor externally imposed regulation will change hearts and minds — let alone our behavior. “What is missing,” they contend, “is the moral imperative, the conviction that assuring our own comfort at terrible cost to the future is not worthy of us as moral beings.” And so, rather than focus on atmospheric theory and tipping-point statistics, Moral Ground seeks to inspire action through a recognition of our species’ commitment to ethical behavior.
Choices
In some cases, making ethical environmental choices does mean paying more, at least temporarily, for clean energy, for products that create carbon pollution, for gas and oil. But there are also ways to fight climate change while saving money.
Composting, for example, costs nothing and produces something of value. In New York, the Lower East Side Ecology Center collects food scraps, composts them, and sells the finished product at the Union Square Farmer’s Market. As Kara Cusolito writes at Campus Progress, “Composted food scraps—whether from food prep or leftovers — turn back into the rich, fluffy soil that farmers and gardeners need to grow more food.” Farmers, for instance, can stop buying fertilizer if they start composting. Cusolito quotes one farmer who puts the choice in perspective: “Saying plants can’t grow well if they’re not conventionally fertilized is like saying people can’t be as happy if they’re not on drugs.”
The price of solar energy
Clean energy isn’t free of negative consequences, though, and clean energy advocates increasingly are butting heads with environmentalists who want to minimize the impact of new energy sources.
As dependence on natural gas, which counts as clean when compared with coal, grows in this country, worries about the threat of gas drilling to water sources is rising. At Earth Island Journal, Richard Ward of the UN Foundation, which supports natural gas as a clean energy source, and Jennifer Krill, executive director of Earthworks, lay out the cases for and against natural gas. Krill argues:
If the natural gas industry wants to be “clean,” it should embrace policies that mean no pollution of groundwater, drinking water, or surface waters; stringent controls on air pollution, including greenhouse gas emissions; protection for no-go zones, like drinking watersheds and sacred and wild lands; and respect for landowner rights, including the right to say no to drilling on their property.
But Krill notes the gas industry hasn’t show much interest in pursuing those compromises. And out west, some conservationists are objecting to the influx of solar panels on fragile desert lands. One group, Solar Done Right, for instance, “doesn’t disagree that much more solar energy is needed in order to decrease fossil fuel consumption and reduce heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions, but they do disagree with developing solar facilities the way utilities build massive coal- or gas-fired power plants,” reports David O. Williams for The Colorado Independent. Instead, the group argues that solar energy can thrive in the “built environment,” on rooftops and on sites that are not environmentally vulnerable.
No matter what we do, there will be some costs to getting off of carbon, both for the economy and for the environment. But if the world does not decrease its carbon emissions, the costs will be much higher.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
This week, the House voted to shut down... more
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President Barack Obama announced a fresh commitment from five major companies, including FedEx (FDX.N) and United Parcel Service (UPS.N), to reduce oil consumption by upgrading their fleets. The effort is part of Obama's newly announced goal of reducing U.S. imports of foreign oil by one-third by 2025.
"Fleets, which are typically centrally managed and comprised of a large number of vehicles, offer significant opportunities to reduce fuel use and carbon pollution," the White House statement said.
The two transport companies along with AT&T (T.N), PepsiCo (PEP.N) and Verizon (VZ.N) are charter members of a National Clean Fleets Partnership group that aims to reduce use of diesel fuel and gasoline in their companies' cars and trucks by using electric vehicles and alternative fuels.
The five companies are pledging to reduce their collective petroleum consumption by more than 7 million gallons a year by deploying 20,000 hybrid and other types of vehicles that run on biofuels, electric power and other advanced technologies, the White House said in a statement. The companies represent five of the United States' largest national fleets with more than 275,000 vehicles owned and operated between them, it said.
http://www.whatisworking.com/2011/04/fedex-ups-fleet-upgrades-support-obama.htmlPresident Barack Obama announced a fresh commitment from five major companies,... more
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bambuu
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Humankind has the technology, resources and capabilities to adapt to and help avert serious climate change and the crunch of a dwindling energy economy, if only the political will can be mustered -- and it's not just idealistic progressives who are saying so anymore.
In a recent report, the British non-profit Institute for Policy Research & Development (IPRD) claimed that, with targeted investments by world governments, solar power could become humanity's main source of portable energy in 25 years or less.
The catch: "Spending priorities" must change -- something that seems remarkably difficult even in the U.S., ostensibly one of the world's most advanced democracies.
Starting with the assumption that hydrocarbon energy markets are dying and renewable energy tech is the inevitable future, the group calculated how much electricity humans consume today and how much growing populations are projected to consume by 2030.
What they found is that in 19 years from now, humanity will be consuming 724 exajoules (EJ) of energy annually. Today, that figure is about 39 percent less.
Figuring in the efficiency of today's solar and wind power tech, they were able to model what it would take to rapidly replace the current petroleum power infrastructure with renewables.
"We find that we can replace the entire existing energy infrastructure with renewables in 25 years or less," they wrote, "so long as [energy return on energy invested] of the mixed renewable power infrastructure is maintained at 20 [percent] or higher, by using merely 1% of the present fossil fuel capacity and a reinvestment of 10% of the renewable capacity per year."
IPRD researchers also claimed that "an annual contribution equal to 2% of the present energy fossil fuel capacity" would allow the mixed-tech energy infrastructure to grow along currently forecasted routes -- quite the opposite of the fearmongering so often broadcast by the more traditional energy industry.
This would ultimately allow a distributed, peer-based clean energy infrastructure to scale outwards, providing enough electricity for every person on the planet to live at "high human development requirements."
But it's not all sunshine and good news from the IPRD.
"As optimistic as our findings seem, it would be misleading if we didn’t mention some of the potential roadblocks," they cautioned. "We observe four potential obstacles to this transition. Firstly, we note that world governments do not seem sufficiently motivated to support a timely overhaul of the global fossilfuel based economy nor the creation of one that will be cleaner and more secure. In particular, the U.S. government projects that renewables will only account for 14% of the world’s total energy mix in 2035, with a minimum of 75% coming from fossil-fuels.
"We submit that sufficient political will and determination can overcome this resistance, just as in earlier eras when the stakes were set high enough—e.g., retooling the American automobile infrastructure for World War II armaments and racing to land a human on the moon."
Whether or not the American people are up to that challenge, however, is another question entirely.
The full IPRD study was available online (PDF).Humankind has the technology, resources and capabilities to adapt to and help avert... more
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Humans can generate Energy with bikes. I’ve been on one of them at Bonnaroo. Engineers can create designs like this where Humans can create energy while working out! OR even have this be a job! I’d apply! :) Bike for pay! whoo! :) #gogreen #getoffthegrid
We need to move away from Nuclear energy, oil, coal, petroleum, plastic, etc and move into a Greener future. Solar, Wind, Tide, Hemp, and even Human energy. We can do it Planet Earth. Let’s come together! Let’s do it!
Sincerely, A Compassionate Citizen of Planet Earth.
~Yvonne GougeletHumans can generate Energy with bikes. I’ve been on one of them at Bonnaroo.... more
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As the Mercedes F-Cell World Drive heads around the globe on its 125 day world trip to advocate for Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technology, Eco-Trek presented by German actress and presenter Anita Antonj will bring you the most innovative green ideas, initiatives and projects from the cities, towns and villages we pass though each week. This leg of the tour brings us from Paris, France to Barcelona, Spain where we discover some of the many ways Spain is keeping its cities green. Join us on this week's episode of Eco-Trek as we discover:
*Beach Garbage Hotel- Madrid A brand new hotel has opened in Madrid's city center made entirely of waste. The walls of the Beach Garbage Hotel, the brainchild of German artist Ha Schult, are made of materials found in landfills, the beaches and even flea markets.
*Sun Power - Spain is paving the way towards solar sustainability and its solar power development has been heralded. The Forum's photovoltaic pergola is one of the most popular symbols of Barcelona's new urban architecture, but more than that, it is an emblem of the city's commitment to renewable energies and sustainability. Interview with Eco-Architect Enric Ruiz Geli about how he incorporates green engineering into his modern buildings such as the Media-TIC building in Barcelona, an information and communication technology hub designed to incubate, generate, exhibit and invite new ideas and developments.
*Robotic Fish - Spain unleashes schools of Oceanic Pollution-Sniffing Robo Fish, to swim in the sea and monitor the level of pollutants coming from its busiest port.
Join us next week as Eco-Trek brings you more great green news stories from the path of the Mercedes F-Cell World Drive as the tour leaves Europe and continues on to the US from Miami, Florida.
To view more Eco-Trek episodes and further info on The Mercedes F-Cell World Drive log on to http://www.youtube.com/ecotrek2011As the Mercedes F-Cell World Drive heads around the globe on its 125 day world trip to... more
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As the Mercedes F-Cell World Drive heads around the globe on its 125 day world trip– Eco-Trek will bring you the most innovative green ideas, initiatives and projects from the cities, towns and villages we pass though each week. The purpose of the tour is to promote the building of the global infrastructure needed to make this emission free technology available to customers for everyday use around the world. This leg of the tour brings us from Stuttgart Germany to Paris France where we discover some of the many ways Paris keeps its city green. Join us on this weeks episode of Eco-Trek as we:
-Join The Mercedes F-Cell World Drive on the road through Paris
-Investigate the spectacular living wall on the Musée du Quai Branly with landscape designer Patrick Blanc
-Take a look at Paris’s FedEx bike powered fleet
-Visit French eco-artist Mathilde Roussel-Giraudy in her Paris studio
Be sure to be on the look out for next weeks episode of Eco-Trek as we joins the Mercedes F-Cell World Drive for the third leg of there historic trip around world from Paris to Spain.As the Mercedes F-Cell World Drive heads around the globe on its 125 day world... more
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The Mercedes-Benz F-CELL World Drive 2011, a tour of 3 Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-CELL around the world is well under way. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was at hand in Stuttgart for the start of the tour. The purpose of the tour is to promote the building of the global infrastructure needed to make this emission free technology available to customers for everyday use around the world. Here is a first impression from the road - Stuttgart - Paris.The Mercedes-Benz F-CELL World Drive 2011, a tour of 3 Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-CELL... more
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In Britain, the go-ahead has been given to heat a public swimming pool with heat generated by a nearby crematorium. The scheme is the first of its kind in Britain, although the practice in not new to Europe.
The project will be located in the town of Redditch in Worcestershire. The local council maintains that by using heat from gases produced by the crematorium to heat the pool at the Abbey Lesisure Centre, £14,000 a year will be saved.In Britain, the go-ahead has been given to heat a public swimming pool with heat... more
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Will Facebook announce a major clean energy switch on or before Earth Day, April 22?
Now that would really be something positive for the super-fast growing social network to offer the world for Earth Day.
GreenBiz is reporting that Greenpeace is stepping up its long-running campaign to attempt to get Facebook, the world’s largest online social network, to do exactly that.Will Facebook announce a major clean energy switch on or before Earth Day, April 22?... more
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Super Bowl 2011 (or Super Bowl XLV) stands to be the greenest yet, and not just because it involves the Green Bay Packers.
How could a huge event such as this be in the least bit environmentally friendly? The amount of power needed to run the annual event is mind boggling. It has been estimated by Just Energy, that the Super Bowl uses enough electricity to power 1,500 homes for a year.
This year the game itself is being played at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. It will have 1,000 WiFi access points around the stadium, 3,500 46-inch high definition screens, and the massive 152-by-72-foot (46 by 22 m) HD jumbotron, or rather “Jerry-tron“ as it is referred to. This is the largest in the world (pictured above).
However, this year a deal for renewable energy certificates (RECs) has been struck between Just Energy, the NFL (National Football League), and the North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee.Super Bowl 2011 (or Super Bowl XLV) stands to be the greenest yet, and not just... more
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During his State of the Union address, President Obama set a new goal: by 2035, 80 percent of America’s electricity will come from clean energy sources. The President is looking for innovations and investment in renewables, clean coal, nuclear and natural gas.During his State of the Union address, President Obama set a new goal: by 2035, 80... more
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UN Chief Ban Ki–moon is shifting his focus from international climate change negotiations to clean technologies and sustainable development.
Ban isn’t wavering in his commitment to helping the international community find solutions to climate change. Rather, he believes that clean energy technology and energy efficiency could well do more in the short term to reduce emissions. Further, their uptake could become a key factor in an eventual global deal that the UN still sees as necessary.UN Chief Ban Ki–moon is shifting his focus from international climate change... more
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